Love Will

by Lori L. Otto

  And I can’t wait to spend my whole life with you.

  It’s not that I don’t feel that way, but I can’t tell her that. The statement’s too committal for the early stages of whatever we are.

  I guess I have a few verses and choruses to figure it out.

  “Here goes.”

  I clear my throat, and then begin:

  Serving only myself, out of control,

  Shackled by guilt with no chance of parole.

  Every night a new face; next morning I’m done.

  To forget my mistakes, I repeat, then I run.

  I do it to silence; I do it to calm.

  I do it to hinder the ticking time bomb.

  I do it for pleasure; I do it for pain.

  I do it to placate the voice in my brain.

  I’ve been wild in my youth, sloughing the blame,

  Thinking anyone like me would act just the same.

  A little boy caught in a turbulent past;

  The wayward man I’ve become knew this life wouldn’t last.

  I do it to silence; I do it to calm.

  I do it to hinder the ticking time bomb.

  I do it for pleasure; I do it for pain.

  I do it to placate the voice in my brain.

  The diversions were brief; conversations were few.

  The words all meant nothing until I met you.

  And now at midnight, just as the fire burns low,

  I study your face; only one I must know.

  Shea, all I see is that settling down with you

  Is the farthest thing from settling I could do.

  I sleep soundly, in peace, and when morning breaks

  I stand steadfast beside you. There are no more mistakes.

  I have no want to run from this man anymore

  ‘Cause there’s now someone else for him to live for.

  I did it to silence; I did it to calm.

  I did it to hinder the ticking time bomb.

  “And then it just repeats that a few times,” I say to her indifferently, still watching my hand as I strum the strings the same way I had been the entire song. Honestly, I think I’d freak her out if I told her the actual lyrics anyway.

  All of a sudden, I’m scared to see her reaction. I stop playing to hear the dead silence. Can she detect the pounding of my heart like I can?

  Finally, the legs of her chair are scraping against the hardwood floor. By the time I look up, she’s in front of me on her knees, pulling my face to hers for a kiss. I can barely join in, my relieved smile getting in the way.

  As she backs away, her eyes are wet with tears again. “Shea, don’t–”

  “Will?” I nod, acknowledging her. “I’m falling. I’m falling fast, and I’m falling hard.” Neither of us blink for what feels like an eternity. Her chest rises and falls in sync with mine.

  I put my hand behind her neck and kiss her once more before responding. “I am, too.”

  Chapter 16

  In the afternoon, the guys and I take Shea out to a local bar so they can get to know her a little better before her flight. She’s held her own against everyone remarkably well, not that I thought she wouldn’t. I can tell Tavo has a huge crush on her. As harmless as he is, I let him flirt with her relentlessly. She seems to think it’s cute, and the rest of us are incredibly amused by it all. He really is the world’s worst flirt.

  “You gonna tell us what your meeting was about, or what?” Peron finally asks.

  “I never even asked!” Shea says, covering her mouth.

  “It’s okay.” I put my hand on hers from across the table, admittedly happy she never asked last night after the day she’d had. I would have felt weird talking about my good news after she’d just spent the day closing her restaurant, saying goodbye to her staff, and packing up all of her things. “Really.” I look over at Ben, who knows more about it than anyone.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Nothing’s final,” I start. “There’s a pending contract that I need a lawyer to look over, but the deal basically is that they want me to write for the studio… not necessarily for Damon.”

  “What?” he asks.

  I run my hand along my jawline a few times, nervous about the conversation. “Yeah, well, first of all, some of this will involve Peron… the songs we’ve already written together, they want to license them from us with better royalties.”

  “Did you know about this?” Damon asks Ben. Our manager nods his head.

  “Listen, Damon, before you get too worked up. It makes sense. They like my lyrics and our music, but they pointed out that I don’t have a huge range of topics right now… and it’s true, I don’t. They don’t want you singing about the same damn thing, track after track. Right? That’s boring.”

  “Horizon’s mine,” he says.

  “Absolutely. Horizon is yours. No one’s taking that one from you. They’re still putting it on your album. We’re still recording it this week.”

  “Okay,” he says, putting his hand over his heart.

  “How much do they want for our songs?”

  I look around the table uncomfortably, not wanting to discuss dollar amounts in front of the rest of the band. “We’ll talk about that later. And everything’s negotiable… but it’s fair, I think.”

  “We should get a lawyer,” he suggests.

  “I’m going to ask my brother to have his take a look.”

  “But then they want you to continue to write for the label?” Shea asks.

  “Yeah,” I tell her, smiling.

  “What would they do with the songs?”

  “They match them up with one of their artists. It could be anyone. I met some people last night. They were all really enthusiastic to work with me. They love Horizon. They love you, Damon.”

  “How would you get paid?” Tavo asks.

  “Lump sum, plus royalties.”

  “I’ve never heard of that.”

  “It’s rare, apparently,” I explain.

  “So we can’t write together anymore?” Peron asks.

  “We can,” I tell him. “I can basically hire you as a co-writer. It’s just an official way of saying that we’d split the royalties.”

  “I’d want a contract with you.” His demand catches me a little off-guard, but I don’t blame him.

  “Of course… but that all depends on us being together, you know? If we’re living together in Brooklyn, yeah, that’s probably the natural thing that’ll happen, right?”

  “So you don’t have to live here…” Shea says tentatively.

  “Oh, God, no.”

  “Good,” she says, looking relieved.

  “You have the potential to make a killing,” Ben says. “If someone like Ariel Naseem records one of your songs? Think of the royalties.”

  “Yeah, I know. And I met her last night, too.”

  “Get the fuck out!” Tavo says. I show him the picture on my phone, which gets passed around the table.

  “I took it for Max and Callen,” I explain as soon as Shea has it in her hands. “They worship her.”

  “You have a quota?” Damon asks.

  “Fifteen songs in twelve months.”

  “Shit, if you keep writing like you have been, you can knock that out in four months.”

  “There are bonuses for more.”

  “Of course there are,” Ben says, rolling his eyes.

  “Any reason why you wouldn’t do it?” my best friend asks.

  “If the contract isn’t sound,” I start. “And there’s this lingering thing in the back of my head that just says it’s weird to have a stranger singing about such personal things in my life, you know?”

  “You can get over that really quick.”

  I look across the table at Shea. Eventually people may come to realize songs are about her.

  Even though the label was going to send a car for Shea, I decide to take a cab with her to the airport.

  “That sounds like an amazing opportunity,” she says to me.

  �
��I guess the good thing is, nobody ever knows who writes the songs,” I think aloud. “They always assume the singer does it all, regardless… so no one would really know the music was about us. Right?”

  “Don’t worry about me, Will.” She shakes her head. “You write what your heart tells you to write. You do it so beautifully.” She tears up again, which draws my lips to hers for at least the hundredth time today. “Don’t you dare not do this because you think I can’t handle a little public scrutiny. Even if things don’t work out, I know you’d never say anything derogatory about me. It would still be dignified. I’m not worried about that.”

  “It’s a little nerve-wracking for me,” I admit. “This is how I feel. I’m just getting used to these things myself.”

  “Emotions?” she asks me, jabbing me in the side with her elbow.

  “Yeah,” I say, grinning. “Listen, do you have any plans for Christmas? Does Sarah come back to the States?”

  “No… and no.” I nod, still thinking about what I want to ask her. “Are you guys going to be on the road still, or do you get a break?”

  “We have a few days off, then some shows on the east coast right after the holidays before we start up the tour again. We’re going home for a couple of days.”

  “That’s nice,” she says. “You’ll see your brothers.”

  “And my mom,” I lament nervously, knowing that’ll be where I’m staying when I go home since someone’s leasing our apartment over the recording studio. “Would you, uh… like a place to go for Christmas?”

  “Wow,” she says, clearly not expecting the invitation.

  “I know, I know, I just wanted to put the question out there so you know you have a place. If things still feel good a month from now, you can make the decision. Or we can make it together.” I tuck my fingers behind her ear and pull her to me once more. “Shea, if I feel the same way I do then that I do now, I’d definitely love to have you in New York with me.”

  “Where would we stay?”

  I–acting on my emotions–hadn’t thought that through yet. I knew where I’d be staying. I fully intend to stay with her… but can we both stay at my mother’s home? “Good question. Yes.”

  “Yes?” she asks.

  “Yes. I’d figure it out. I have a lot of options.” I really don’t.

  “You don’t even have your apartment anymore, do you?” she asks.

  “I have a rich brother,” I say cockily, “and he wants to see me, so trust me. He’ll put us up somewhere.”

  “Hmmm…” she ponders simply.

  “If you want to come, I’ll figure it out,” I assure her.

  She takes my hand in hers. “Will, if what you write is about real life, who was Horizon about?”

  I sigh, shrugging my shoulders. “It wasn’t about anyone specific. It was kind of symbolic of my hope for meeting someone but the ending kind of…” I struggle to explain it to her well. “I didn’t believe I deserved a happy ending, so I didn’t give myself one.

  “What happened with the guy and girl, how they met, that was what I wanted at the time. That was how I saw things happening. I saw myself finding a girl who needed direction. I thought I’d be the guy to give her that. We’d like the same things. But then I’d come to realize that I really wasn’t enough for her. I would never be enough for any girl. So… that’s why she took her life.”

  Shea runs her hand up and down my arm. Like I always do when I stop and think about the song, I get the lump in my throat. The self-loathing comes back with a vengeance.

  “Will,” she says, “you don’t know how lucky I feel to be with you.”

  “I don’t guess I do,” I whisper, unable to talk in my full voice.

  “Very lucky. When you tell me about seven girls that hit on you in a night, or you go back to a hotel alone when Ariel Naseem’s body language clearly said she’d go home with you, or Damon tells me that a waitress propositions the two of you for a threesome and you turn her down–”

  “Wait a minute,” I say, making a mental note to check that picture of Ariel because I didn’t get that vibe at all, but moving on because it didn’t matter to me one way or another. “I didn’t really want to have a three-way with Damon, for the record. Or a three-way at all, in the first place, but especially with Damon, so that’s not a good example.”

  “I think it’s a fine example… girls throw themselves at you, Will.”

  “And that’s awesome that Damon’s telling you these stories,” I say, tugging at my hair and nervously laughing.

  “We had to have something to talk about on the plane.”

  “Well, shit, he has a ton of stories about me.”

  “He’s a good friend, though,” she tells me. “He didn’t dish on you at all. He only said really good things.”

  I smile as I look at her, reminding myself to thank Damon, and likely apologize to him, too. “That’s good to hear.”

  The last few days in LA are spent in one of the studios downtown, working with two new producers who are putting the final touches on a few songs that will eventually make it onto the next album. While Damon records some background vocals along with some hired singers, I sit with the technicians and try to soak in as much as I can. It’s a husband and wife team, and they’re so in sync with each other that they sometimes don’t even need to talk to one another to communicate what’s happening.

  This leads to me asking a lot of questions.

  Fortunately, they seem to like my analytic mind and the intelligent questions I ask them, and one of them is always feeding me answers and teaching me things while the other is working with the singers in the sound booth.

  I apologize profusely when my phone rings, and go out in the hall to take the phone call from my little brother.

  “Mascottttt… what’s up?”

  “I have to do another fucking family tree.”

  “Didn’t you do one of those last year?” I ask him.

  “It was two years ago,” he says. “But yeah. It was another school, though.”

  “Right,” I say. “So…”

  “So… I’m thinking of just leaving the asshole off completely.”

  “Oh… uh… are there any grade ramifications for that?”

  “I don’t care,” he says.

  “Yes, you do care, buddy. You very much do. Jon said your grades could be better… what’s going on?” I ask him.

  “The school’s just harder than our bullshit public school was.”

  “Well, do you want to go back there?”

  “No…”

  “Good. Good answer. So you just need to work a little harder?”

  “When are you coming back?” he asks me. “I need help.”

  “Not until March, Max. You know that. You can’t wait for me… I thought Jon hired a tutor for you.”

  “I don’t like her.”

  “Get a new one.”

  “She is the new one.”

  “Oh.” I watch through the window at Damon coordinating a chorus with his backup singers. “I’ll talk to Jon when I see him next week… but back to this family tree thing. What would you do if you left him off?” I ask.

  “Just say I don’t know who my father is. There’re people like that, you know?”

  “That’s… that’s not untrue. There are people like that. You know what? When’s it due?”

  “The day after tomorrow.”

  “Don’t put him on there. Just leave it blank. Don’t say you don’t know who he is, though. I’ll send you a message to give to your teacher… I’ll tell her all she needs to know about the situation, and why we have no father. Cool?”

  “Cool.”

  “Don’t mention it to anyone else, though.”

  “‘kay.”

  “How’s everything going, aside from school?”

  “Decent.”

  “Still no alone time with Callen?”

  “No.” I laugh lightly through the phone. “It’s not funny.”

  “I know it’s not.
”

  “I’ve still probably had sex more recently than you, right?” he asks.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Mascot…”

  “You fall off the wagon?” he asks, sounding a little disappointed.

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “Oh. But everyone else would?”

  “Hey… I met a nice girl, buddy. I’ve had alone time with her… on a few occasions.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t need to mention this to anyone, either, but yeah.”

  “Was she, a, uh… groupie?”

  “No,” I answer, only a little annoyed with the question I probably should have anticipated, and will anticipate going forward. “She owned a restaurant in Minneapolis. I met her when we were stranded there. Her name is Shea. I’ll send you a picture.”

  “Wow. Okay. That’s really… cool, Will. Have you seen her since?”

  “She came out to LA last week… just that once. So not enough.”

  “Well, I hope she’s, uh… what you want,” he says.

  “Thanks.” It’s a little awkward after that, so I decide to follow up about the one chore I’d asked him to do for me. “Hey, Max, have you sent my bills yet?”

  “Oh, shit… no. Is it too late?”

  “Yeah, it’s too late to send them to LA. Do me a favor. Seal them up in a big envelope and give them to Jon to bring with him to San Diego, okay? Just make sure you seal it. I don’t need him snooping around in my shit.”

  “I’m sorry, Will. I totally forgot about them this time.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I can’t really ruin my credit any worse,” I admit to him. It’s sad, but true.

  “Sure you’re not mad?”

  “At you? I could never be mad at you. So, uh, check your email in the morning for your school project, okay? I swear I’ll go easy on the expletives.”

  “Thanks, again, Will.”

  “Anything for you. Take care.”

  I return to the studio, squeezing out as much information as possible while Damon finishes up. After that, he and I go grab a bite to eat before heading back to the house, where Ben should be waiting with the tour bus by now. I have to admit, I’m not looking forward to getting back on that smelly thing, but I am excited to start playing shows again.