by L. Philips
He smiles at me, his patented arrogant but lopsided grin, and that’s all the welcome I need. I slide the glass door shut behind me and move toward one of the empty chairs. It’s then that I see over the railing, down the eight stories to the dead stop of hard concrete, and I step back with a gasp.
“You okay?” Travis asks, his left brow arching to a point.
I don’t want to tell Travis about the dream, which I had again last night, or that sometimes balconies like this one inspire a fear in me that is so deep and intense that I’m nearly strangled by it. So I nod, gesturing vaguely to the city below us. “Didn’t realize we were so high up.”
I take a seat, careful not to look over the edge, and look at Travis instead. I’ve learned that he doesn’t smoke, which surprised the hell out of me, considering his look and his gravelly voice, but he’s dead against it. “I’ll kill myself in other ways,” he says, usually while lifting a glass of Jack and grinning his grin.
“You’ve been doing a great job,” he starts. “Always in tune. And do you have any idea how hard it is to find a roadie who doesn’t break shit? God, you’d think guitars were disposable.”
“Thanks,” I say. “You have some really nice instruments. Wouldn’t want to mess them up.”
Travis nods in the direction of my guitar. “What’s that?”
I look down at my instrument. It is, by all accounts, a student model, an instrument meant to learn on. It’s not exceptionally good quality, it doesn’t even have a good sound, particularly. But it was my dad’s first guitar. The one he bought from a pawnshop for twenty-five dollars in the early nineties, when he was fifteen. That’s when Dad started; I do know that much about him. He was fifteen. Fifteen years later he was gone, and no one in the music industry could stop talking about what might have been from this guy who played guitar as if he had been born with it in his hands.
“It’s Dad’s,” is all I say, because the brand doesn’t matter.
Travis reaches out. “You mind?”
I don’t. I hand the guitar over. If nothing else over the last few days, I’ve learned that Travis Blake has absolute reverence for instruments, and for the people who play them.
Travis looks it up and down, peering into the sound hole and knocking on the body twice. He runs his hands over the neck, over the fret board, gentle but sure, and I fight a little shiver. I have to think he touches his lovers like that.
I haven’t yet seen Travis with anyone, and I can’t tell if he’s gay or not. Usually I can tell right away, but his sexuality is so strong, it jams my radar. He seems to flirt with everyone, or at least has the habit of making everyone in the room feel like they’ve got a chance of getting in his pants, even if there’s no prayer. I’ve felt it more than a few times, even though he hasn’t done any more than wink at me from across the room, or thank me for handing him a different guitar between songs. I have gotten a sense that there might be some history with Brendon, but I also feel like his arguments with Vanessa have a particularly “former lovers” edge to them.
“Mick Grisheimer’s guitar,” Travis muses.
“His first,” I say, and can’t help but feel some sentimentality as Travis lightly strums a chord. Seeing one of my idols with my dad’s guitar is almost too much.
“Will you play for me?” he asks, handing it back.
“Okay,” I say, though I can feel my fingers already shaking a little from nervousness. I’ve played for a lot of people, but none of them have been Travis Blake. “Want ‘Blue and Black’? Or how about ‘Skyline’?” I jerk my head toward the city lights. “Seems appropriate.”
Travis shakes his head. “I love Mick, but I want to hear your stuff, Nate.”
Nate. My name in that rough voice of his is a whole other kind of music. Then I start to comprehend what he’s said. “Wait. My stuff?”
“Yeah. You write, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I answer, though it feels kind of like lying. “I do. It’s just that my music never really comes out like I want it to.”
“Play it anyway.”
I blink at him, a hundred excuses forming on my lips, and he must see them all waiting to be said, because he repeats himself.
“Play it anyway.”
“Okay, but just . . . I don’t sing, okay? I’m not a good singer. My voice never comes out like I want it to, either.”
“Stop stalling and play, Grisheimer.”
For some reason, his no-bullshit attitude actually makes me less nervous, and so I chuckle a little, lift the guitar, and start to play.
I’m not lying; my voice isn’t great. It’s passable, but it’s nothing people would want to listen to for a whole concert. I choose one of my folkier tunes, a simplistic melody that doesn’t tax my voice or put it into a range that makes it crack. It’s a newer song too. One I’d written the day after . . . well, the day after I met Richard Cameron Pierce Jr. at the Crown.
My nerves disappear completely as I play and my fingers go into autopilot. I concentrate on the words, on making my voice convey them. In the back of my mind there are other things at play too. I hear the cars below, the occasional shouts from pedestrians, the breeze whistling in my ear, the coolness of it on the back of my neck. And when I’m done, I realize I’ve had my eyes closed. Travis is staring at me, his face unreadable. A whole minute goes by before he speaks.
“I thought you said your voice wasn’t good. Sounds good enough to me.”
“Thank you,” I say, and I hold myself back from asking him for other opinions, the ones more important to me. Like, but how is my playing? My songwriting? How do I make it better?
“It’s a good melody. Simple, but I think simple is sometimes best, yanno?” he says, and I know exactly what he’s saying, so I nod. He continues, his voice dipping down into the lower octave, where it’s especially erotic. “The best songs in the world are the ones you can harmonize with easily.”
I nod again, and I think that’s all I’m going to do for the rest of my life. I’m going to nod along while Travis Blake waxes on about music, songwriting, and teaches me everything he knows. I will sit here silent and absorb everything.
“Can I ask . . . ?” he starts.
“Anything.”
“Who did you write this about?”
I set the guitar flat on my lap and lean back in my chair. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Travis holds up a finger and stands. He disappears inside, a brief explosion of conversation wafts out while the door is open, then silence again when he shuts it behind him I close my eyes to avoid looking out over the balcony and it’s only then that I realize my fingers are still shaking slightly. I hadn’t noticed it while I was playing, but I’m not surprised that now the moment’s passed, nerves are taking over again. There’s another burst of sound, laughing and snippets of conversation, and then it’s quiet again and Travis is handing me another glass of whiskey.
“Okay. Shoot.”
I take a deep breath and an even deeper pull from the whiskey glass and spit out the words. I can’t believe I’m telling Travis Blake I wrote a song about Cameron Pierce.
Travis raises both brows, shocked, but recovers quickly. He sits back with a chuckle, information absorbed, processing. “The young Pierce, heir to the recording industry throne,” he says. “No shit.”
“No shit,” I say.
Travis laughs again. “I’ve seen him, you know? Just in passing. He was there when I went in to tell his father I wasn’t taking their offer.”
It’s my turn to be shocked. “You turned down an offer from Paradise?”
I’d read that Liquid had major-label offers, but I never thought one of them might be Paradise. Liquid was far too high quality, far too original, far too talented for Paradise Entertainment’s tastes.
“Yeah. Old Richard nearly shit himself when I said no. He was pissed, I think.
Offered us more money.”
“He would,” I mutter into my glass. “That’s all they understand. Money.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when music becomes a corporation, man. Well, you know. Your dad and all.” Travis lets his words dissipate before continuing, and I’m grateful for it. “So how on earth did you get mixed up with Cameron?”
“It’s stupid. I didn’t recognize him.” I fill him in on the weird night, and on the reason why I needed to be his roadie and get away from the insanity.
I see the exact moment when it all comes together in his head. His eyes light up with humor. “No fucking way. What are the odds? Don’t be too hard on yourself, man. I wouldn’t have recognized him either. Other than the fact that there aren’t many better-looking people on the planet. His sister’s one of them.”
I look down at my current outfit, which consists of red skinny jeans, a tight-fitting, short-sleeved button-down with a funky, retro-looking print, and a few dozen leather bracelets. “You’d think I would have noticed the similarities. I’m not exactly out of touch with the fashion world.”
Travis chuckles. “Yeah, I like your style, man, even if it’s not my thing.” Travis takes a drink, then circles back around to the music. “So you wrote this tune about Cameron Pierce, heir to the very company that signed your dad years ago, even though you hate his guts? If you can write like that about a guy you hate, I’m almost scared to think what you could write for a guy you love.”
I shrug. “Maybe one day I’ll find out. I don’t have any experience with it yet.”
Travis pulls back the V of his thin white shirt, enough for me to see the tattoo of a girl’s name over his heart: Lindsay. He smooths the sleeve down. “Overrated, man.”
“Really?”
Travis laughs, gravel coated in honey and whiskey. “Nah. Not at all. Best thing ever. Hardest thing too, when it doesn’t work.” He absently scratches at the tattoo, like it’s an itch he can’t shake but has gotten used to.
“So Lindsay . . .”
“Another story for another time, when I’ve had just about the whole bottle.”
I laugh. “No, it’s just . . . to be honest, I thought maybe you were into guys.”
“Not saying I’m not.” Travis winks at me, and I feel a sharp blush creep up my neck.
He grins at my discomfort, then reaches over to tap the guitar on my lap. “Let me get mine. Let’s play. Maybe we can tackle one of your dad’s tunes.”
He stands when I agree, and makes toward the door, but I reach out and grab his arm. “Can I ask? You didn’t really say anything about the song itself.”
“Sorry, dude. Got sidetracked with you being smitten with a Pierce. The song is good, man. Great, even. But it’s not your sound yet, yanno? It’s not quite you yet. I get what you’re going for.” He glances at me or, rather, my outfit. “I know your type. I know what you listen to. But it’s not you, not completely. Not deep down. And yeah, your voice is better than I thought it would be, since you sold yourself so short, but . . . I think maybe if you didn’t have to limit yourself to your own voice, your melodies wouldn’t be quite so limited either. So that’s what I think, if you really wanted my honest opinion. I don’t know if you did or not, but that’s what you get with me. Honesty. I don’t sugarcoat.”
“No. Thank you. That’s exactly the kind of thing I needed to hear.”
“Yeah. Think about it. Let’s play. Maybe we can find your sound as we roam around Cali.” He grins, all cocky yet somehow sweet, and goes inside to get his guitar.
We spend the next three hours playing, until nearly four in the morning, and we don’t find my sound that night, but I do learn more in those hours than I have in years. I learn that I’m at the guitar’s mercy, not the other way around, and most importantly, I learn that I have to get out of my own head to create the music I want to create. It’s there in my brain, I’m just standing in the way of it getting out. And at the end, when we finally decide we need sleep, Travis says he’ll lend me Brendon, to see what a limitless voice could do for my writing.
I crawl into bed (Vic’s already snoring on the other side of it, and probably has been for hours), smiling, excited to work with Brendon. But then, as I shut my eyes, I hear words in my head, and a voice I’d recognized instantly as a singer’s voice, joking with me about slow dancing to Metallica.
Chapter Eight
Cameron
I walk into the conference room, feeling like I’ve just gotten an invitation from a crazy old rich man who’s going to have me compete in a haunted house for his inheritance. It’s a strange mix of people who greet me as I enter: Parker (Father’s assistant and now mine), a producer who has cranked out most of our biggest hits in the last five years, our best marketing director, our best sound mixer, and two guys I vaguely recognize as studio musicians. And the crazy old rich man? That would be my twin, Tess, who is sitting at the head of the table, leather-covered legal pad and professional-looking documents spread out before her.
“What is this about?” I ask, eyebrow arched.
She smiles coolly. “Mr. Pierce, if you would take a seat, I’d like to get the meeting started.”
Unnerved by the sudden role reversal, and totally off my game, I do as I’m told.
“Now, as I was saying, this will have to be done completely in secret, and it has to be done quickly. We need to get this off the ground before my father returns.”
One of the studio musicians (drummer, he’s a drummer) leans forward. “We can cut something as short as a demo in less than a week, Ms. Pierce, if the songs are ready to go.”
Ms. Pierce. Ha. Sounds just as weird to me as Mr. Pierce, and what the hell are we talking about?
“Is this about Luke?” I ask, and earn another annoyed glance from my sister, who ignores me and speaks to the drummer.
“A week? Even for all the mixing that has to be done?”
That’s when the mixer speaks up. “It would only take me a few days,” he says. “Once the tracks are laid, I work quickly, assuming there’s not a lot of touch-up needed on the vocals.”
The producer, who goes simply by Max, chimes in. “Yes. Demos don’t usually require as much polishing; however, nowadays bonus tracks from demo sessions are very lucrative. If the record itself is a success, everyone wants the rough tracks.”
Tess nods, taking it all in. “So assuming the songs are there and the vocals aren’t awful, we’re talking a week and a half, maybe?”
Parker speaks, and I am following enough to know that he’s basically representing our human resources department. “We’ll have to hire musicians. We could probably cut it all with studio musicians, but if there are going to be live gigs, rehearsals, things of that nature, we’ll need musicians who can travel.”
“I was thinking a guitarist,” Tess says. “I mean, a full band of course for the studio, but for gigs and live sessions, just a guitarist. Portable, easy, versatile.”
Max nods vigorously. “Good thinking, Ms. Pierce. A good guitarist can stand in for a full orchestra if need be. And far better than a piano in a pinch.”
And that’s when things start to slowly slide together in my head. “Tess. What is this about?”
She merely grins. “Your demo, little brother.”
“I’m only three minutes younger,” I clarify out of habit before moving on to the subject at hand. “My demo? But I don’t have anything ready.”
“That’s what these fine people are for,” Tess says, nodding in turn to each of the people sitting with us. “Max will have direction of this project, Parker and these fine fellows”—she indicates the studio musicians—“will help hire the guitarist and arrange the music for the studio, and Craig here”—she smiles at the mixer—“will get it in tip-top shape. Am I forgetting anything?”
“Yeah,” I say, exasperated. “A songwriter.”
“T
hat’s you, Cam. Songwriting and vocals.”
“I told you, I don’t have anything ready.”
“You’d better get ready, then,” Tess says. She lifts a stack of papers and taps the edges, aligning them. I’m pretty sure they were straight enough before and this is all for effect. “You have about six weeks before Father comes home. Thanks for meeting, everyone.”
Once Tess and I are alone, I say, “I can’t do this.”
“I have never heard you use those words before, Richard Cameron Pierce, and I won’t hear them again,” Tess snaps with so much authority, I can’t help but think Father would be proud. “Take a few days off to get some lyrics worked out. I can handle our accounts until then. You’ll need about four songs polished and ready to go by next Monday.”
I stare at her, stunned. “And that’s an order, huh?”
“I own as much of Paradise Entertainment as you do at the moment, so yeah, it’s an order. Get your ass in gear, Pierce.”
With a smirk and the clicking of her heels on the floor, Tess is out the door, and I’m left alone in the conference room, pulling at my hair, too overwhelmed to move.
Nate
One of the worst feelings in the world is walking into a room and everyone in it goes quiet because they’re obviously talking about you. It’s the exact feeling I get when I step into the greenroom in the San Francisco venue one afternoon.
Everyone—Travis and the band, Victor, Martin, a random sound tech—stops talking and looks away from me, quickly. Some of them even turn off their phones and set them down.
“What?” I ask, afraid of the answer.
Vic stands up, phone in hand. He angles the screen so I can’t see it. “I don’t know how much you’ve been seeing . . .”
“Not much,” I say truthfully. I’d activated my accounts for only a few minutes the other night, then deactivated as quickly as I could. Though there were still whisperings of the mysterious Cinderfella online, there were also some stories about how I was a wakeup call for Harry Garrett, who was back to pursuing Cameron with a vengeance. As much as I was certain I couldn’t be with Cameron, the thought of him being with the incredibly sexy Harry Garrett instead made me sick to my stomach.
