Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Stone
Twenty minutes.
I was not nervous.
Bullshit, I was as nervous as the night I played my first stadium show. Tens of thousands of people.
In twenty minutes, I just had two to face.
While they weren’t the most important people I’d ever met, that distinction would always belong to Payden’s parents.
They were a close second, since they held the power to ensure that I could contribute to the household and spoil my boy, which he more than deserved.
Yard to play in.
Special play space.
A wall we could fill with photographs of our life together, the way he had at the home he’d grown up in.
An office where he could let his creativity flow. After seeing the pictures of him holding the stories he used to create, I felt like he should have a space where he could let that side shine through.
In short, I was thinking about the house we talked about, close enough to his parents for random barbeques and board games.
Several of the pictures on the wall have been of them playing together, or Payden playing with his cousins.
Card games were easier to carry when you were on the road, so the guys and I always kept several around.
I hadn’t seen any on Payden’s shelves, which we’d have to remedy.
I wondered if he’d never gotten any because he hadn’t had anyone to play with?
We’d have to fix that too.
Research the right club to join, with a littles room and lots of friends my boy could have playdates with.
Just thinking about him being lonely and longing, waiting for some piece of shit pretend Daddy to disappoint him over and over again, left me seeing red.
If I ever met the son of a bitch who had abandoned him at the depot, he and I were finding a private alley, and he wasn’t walking out.
Fifteen minutes.
Fuck.
The butterflies in my belly had morphed into four-inch grasshoppers hyped up on sugar and caffeine.
My surprise for Payden was laid out in pieces on the coffee table.
Everything was waiting to be assembled. I’d washed my hands four times, and there was still a purple streak on my wrist from where the marker had slipped.
And a faded aqua dot on the tip of one finger.
These markers had staying power, that was for damned sure.
Straightening everything into perfect piles gave me something to do with my fingers. There would never be a more important job interview in my life.
Ten minutes.
At this point, I was positive that a herd of rampaging wildebeests was stomping the fuck out of those grasshoppers.
I’m talking about total carnage. Utter and complete decimation.
I needed to sit down before I started assembling ingredients for another batch of cookies.
I’d already made two dozen chocolate cookies with mini peanut butter cups one of regular chocolate chips while I was waiting for the glitter glue to dry on Payden’s surprise.
My ass wasn’t in the chair for two minutes before I was up and pacing again.
Fuck it, I pulled a roll of ground beef from the freezer and set it out to thaw before rummaging through the cabinets until I’d found all the ingredients I'd need to make spaghetti and meatballs. We had bread, so I’d be able to make garlic toast too and a small salad to go with it since we had everything for one.
Shit, shit, fuck, one minute.
I dropped into the chair, woke up the screen, and hit the button to join the Zoom call.
“Stone,” Easton said by way of greeting. “Thanks for agreeing to talk to us. Shadow has a lot of impressive things to say after he heard you play the other night.”
“Um, thank you,” I managed. “I’m still thrown by you wanting to talk more after I turned down your last offer.”
“That offer was to tour with a new band,” Easton said.
“But at Masterson, family comes first, so I get why you said no. After seeing your post on social media talking about the places you’d reached out to for work, I started thinking about how you might fit into the new management model we launched last year.
When we created the band Imminent Danger. ”
“I’m afraid I’m a bit out of touch with the scene.”
“No worries, you’ll catch up,” Shadow said.
“One of the things we did when we created Imminent was pair each band member with a mentor to help get them stage ready, but also to make sure they had someone they could talk to about how crazy things get when a band’s music takes off.”
“Wish my bandmates and I had someone like that when we were coming up,” I admitted.
“I know a lot of guys who feel the same way,” Shadow said.
“Which is why we are doing this. After I got your take on the guitarist at the club the other night, the one who kept staring at his hands, I realized that you heard what I did. The promise he has, the potential to be phenomenal once he gets out of his own way. He’s the first one we want you to work with. ”
“I’m listening,” I said, and listen I did, as Easton and Shadow outlined their plans.
They’d signed Death’s Doorstep, the goth metal band from the club.
I’d be working with their guitarist too.
The only thing that had been lacking in their set was guitar solos.
The one they’d ended the show with had been the only one in their song set.
The guy had hella talent but, for whatever reason, wasn’t showcasing it.
My job was to get to the heart of why and help bring it out of him.
Hell yeah.
Nothing was better than watching another musician's face light up when they hit on something truly inspired. I couldn’t wait to get started.
We ended the meeting well over two hours later, after a visit from a Masterson courier with a contract and fucking bonus check for signing on that had knocked me on my ass.
I’d read it over and signed it right there in front of the video screen before giving it back to the courier, making everything official.
These guys had one pace, warp speed. Good thing I was used to that side of the industry.
It was June and the fall festival season would be underway soon, including some of the biggest events of the year.
They wanted to get Death's Doorstep into as many of them as they could. Fans lost their ever-loving minds over badass guitar solos and even recorded that shit. My mission had a timetable and I’d get it done.
I must have thanked them four or five times before the screen went dark and stared at my copy of the contract and that bonus check for at least a half hour before I realized what time it was and got my ass in gear. I assembled Payden’s surprise next, then supper, glad I’d made dessert first.
Pretty sure that would be a theme in any home we lived in.
I loved the way he lit up the moment he laid eyes on me, squealed Daddy, and flung himself into my arms. I hoped that never changed.
We didn’t speak in those moments, we just clung to one another until he was ready to move.
I was starting to be able to tell when his day had been draining by the way he leaned against me until I supported most of his weight, like tonight, when he stayed in my arms longer than he usually did.
I kissed the top of his head before he stepped back completely.
“Supper’s ready, sweetheart,” I said, taking his hand and leading him to the kitchen, where I’d already lit a couple of candles.
I made his plate while he got settled, with chocolate milk for both of us, because for whatever reason, I’d always felt like it was the best drink to have when eating spaghetti.
“I thought we forgot the meatballs?” Payden said, eyes lighting up when I placed his plate in front of him.
“We did,” I replied. “But it turned out we had everything we needed to make our own.”
“And garlic bread!” He said when I placed a smaller plate and salad bowl beside his spaghetti.
“Yup. Can’t have spaghetti without garlic bread.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Did you have a long day?”
“Kind of,” he explained. “I covered an art showing this afternoon that turned into a whole spectacle when the artist's ex showed up and claimed he helped to fabricate some of the sculptures and deserved to be credited for them, and they got into a huge argument. Then one of them snatched a bouquet of flowers out of a vase and started beating the other with it. Petals flew all over the place. Some of the photos I got – wow, we can’t use them, of course – but during the chaos a couple of sculptures got damaged, and those pictures we are running along with an article that wound up being several hundred words longer than it was expected to be.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’ve got a relaxing evening to look forward to,” I said, knowing that if I even hinted that there was a surprise, he’d rush through his meal instead of taking his time.
The last thing I wanted was for my boy to choke or wind up with a stomachache, especially when dessert was part of his surprise.
“How did your meeting go, Daddy?” he asked. “I’ve been waiting all day to hear about it, so no fair making me wait any longer.”
“I wasn’t aware that I was being unfair to my boy by asking about his day before telling him about mine,” I teased, just to see his nose scrunch as he scowled, because now I was deliberately dragging it out.
“Da-ddy!”
Part whine, part demand, he’d put his fork down and wiggled in his seat as he stared at me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more adorable sight in my life than when he came half out of his chair, hands gripping the table, and whining.
“Please!!”