“Oh, fuck.” Without explaining his response, Declan took the envelope from the woman and cursed at least a half dozen more times before she made it all the way out of the room. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
“Wanna tell us what that envelope did to you to make you hate it so much, dude?” Ed asked.
Declan looked at me, terrified. “I already gave up.” Then he looked at Ed. “I can’t do it—what you and Trevor set up for me. I can’t do it because I already gave up.”
I took the envelope from him and pulled out a four or five-page document. As soon as I saw the letterhead, I understood why he was so freaked out. Another reason he was so freaked out.
I sat down and started skimming. “Let me read it before you panic.”
“Too late for that,” Ed mumbled.
I wasn’t an attorney, but I’d seen enough contracts to know this one had been slapped together. There were a bunch of typos and a few sentences that started but never went anywhere, as if someone had been a lot too hurried with their cutting and pasting. Evidently, Declan’s manager had done the same thing Emilia had—instead of using a master template, he’d written it up from scratch, copying legal-sounding bits from one and trying to force them into coherency for another.
After about five minutes, I understood enough to give Declan some good news. And some not-so-good news. “This gives Self Defense three months to be offered a recording contract.” And they would be on tour the whole time. “If the band hasn’t been signed by the end of that period, you agree to have Doug manage your solo career for a period of one year.”
“Fuck.” Declan leaned against Trevor’s bed and covered his face with his hand. “I’m sorry, man.”
“The good news is there are no mentions of your music, so you can do whatever you want with it. And Doug doesn’t get anything from any deal he doesn’t negotiate.”
He dropped his hands to look at me. “Really?”
“That’s great,” Ed said. “So, you can release it however you want to.”
I nodded. “Whatever money you earn from it is one hundred percent yours. He doesn’t get a dime.”
“Yeah, but if Self Defense doesn’t get signed…”
“If Self Defense doesn’t get signed, you’re screwed.”
“Fuck.”
“But— Now, remember, I’m not a pro, so you should get someone who is to look at it again.” God, I hoped I was right, though. “But the way it reads to me, Self Defense is an entity in and of itself. Nowhere in here does it say Self Defense is Declan, Pete, Sam, and Trevor.”
Declan nodded. “Probably because I told him we’d have to find another bassist. Three months isn’t enough time for Trevor to get better and rejoin the band.”
“Well, then, Trevor gave you a giant loophole to get out of the contract.” After reminding them not to get their hopes up too much because there was a distinct possibility I was wrong, I explained. “By not mentioning the band members by name, Doug unintentionally determined that, as long as a band called ‘Self Defense’ signs with a recording label, it doesn’t matter who the band members are.”
Ed came closer and looked at the contract over my shoulder. “So, Self Defense could be made up of the four Ninja Turtles, and it would work?”
“If they were good enough to be signed by a label.”
“You’d be off the hook, Declan.”
Declan didn’t look nearly as pleased as Ed did. “What are the chances I can pull off something in three months that we haven’t been able to make happen in three years?”
I cocked my head and looked at him. “I know you’re exhausted and overwhelmed right now, and that’s clouding your thinking. But after a good night’s sleep, I hope you remember telling me that the only way to turn yet into never is by giving up.”
He bent down in front of me and took the contract out of my hand. “My mind is clear enough to know what those three months are going to look like.” Instead of looking at it, or even ripping it up, he set it down on a side table, never letting his gaze leave mine.
“I’m going to be gone for three months, Sara. Minimum.” He pushed his hair off his forehead. “Any free time I have will be taken up by finding my replacement and trying to get Defense signed. And if I can’t, who knows what Doug has planned or how long I’ll be gone.”
My throat went dry. I had a few more months of school to finish before graduation, so going with him was impossible.
“Maybe after I finish school—”
“Do you really want to put your life on hold for a whole year? Follow me around while I’m miserable and being forced to do everything I hate about this business?” He shook his head. “I don’t want that for you.”
When the first tear slid down my cheek, Ed coughed and said he needed to use the bathroom. The door clicked closed ten seconds later.
“We don’t have to make any decisions right now,” he said softly. “We’ll both be swamped, so three months will probably feel like nothing. But whether or not I pull this off, you need to live your life. Don’t wait to see what happens to me. Okay?”
I couldn’t bring myself to nod, but I understood. Neither of us knew if he’d be free in three months or fifteen. I’d been ignoring life for too long already. If I didn’t start moving, I might wake up one morning and realize I’d wasted most of it.
“I’m going to use every minute of every day to make this happen.” He lifted my chin and kissed me lightly. My lips trembled until he pressed his lips against mine. I threw my arms around his neck and squeezed, breaking the kiss to cry into his chest.
“I won’t give up. On it or on us. You hear me?”
“Yeah,” a low, scratchy voice behind us said. “I hear you, man.”
We both turned to see Trevor. He still looked like shit, but at least his eyes were open.
“Trevor!”
I let go of Declan, so he could go to his friend. He didn’t let go of me, though. Instead, he pulled me along as if letting me go now would be letting me go forever.
“You’re awake,” Declan said in wonder.
“Yeah,” Trevor grumbled. “Now, shut the hell up so I can go back to sleep.”
46
Declan
Three excruciatingly long months later…
* * *
“Get over here, my brother!” Trevor yelled from the front door of his parents’ house. He’d been staying with them for the last few months while I’d been on tour with Pete, Sam, and “Trevor #2,” as the guys kept calling Steve, the bassist we’d hired to replace our friend.
With three months of sobriety, counseling a couple of times a week, less stress, and proper medical care, Trevor had pulled through. Even with a chronic disease, he was probably the healthiest he’d been in years.
Kitty got to him before I did, jumping up and licking him on the face.
“Eww.” He pushed her away, laughing. “I hope you’re not planning to do that to me too, Dec.”
“I’ll try to control myself.” I pulled her back and told her to sit, so I could say hello. “You’re looking good.” I’d barely gotten the words out when he wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me so hard, I could’ve sworn I heard a few bones crack.
He let me go and stepped back to survey the damage he’d just caused. “Wish I could say the same thing about you.”
“Shut the fuck up. I just spent three months on the road, busting my ass to keep the guys in line, begging a label to sign the band, and then finding a new Declan to sing lead.”
“How’s he working out?”
“My replacement? He’s good. Talented. Smart.” I cocked my head to the side. “Mormon.” Finding a guy who could not only perform well, but who I knew wouldn’t fall into any of the traps that could so easily break up a band had been the part that let me sleep at night.
“You lucky son of a bitch.” He led Kitty and me inside, through the maze of rooms, and into the backyard. “Let her roam around. Dog piss is good for roses, right?”
As
soon as I’d unclipped Kitty’s leash, she was off and running across the large expanse of grass, straight for the—
“Oooh,” Trevor and I groaned simultaneously as all four of her paws hit the water.
“You should really have a gate around that pool, you know?”
“Now I do.” He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. She’s fine. And I want to hear more about what Doug’s face looked like when you fucked him.”
“Over,” I added quickly. “When I fucked him over, you pervert. And I didn’t fuck him over. He made the rules, wrote the contract. He just didn’t know I would have someone smarter than him on my side.”
He nodded. “Speaking of Sara…”
“I should get Kitty out of your mom’s pool before she comes home and kills me.” I gripped the arms of the patio chair and started to stand.
“Sit back down, you coward. The woman saved your ass. So, why haven’t you contacted her? At least to tell her the good news?”
I let out a deep breath. “It’s been months. What am I supposed to say?”
“Maybe start with ‘Thanks for saving my ass.’”
She really had. But our calls had gone from multiple times per day, to every couple of days, to almost never in the first month. For the last two months, they’d stayed at never. Voice mail messages and texts weren’t the same, especially with us having opposite schedules and barely any free time.
Eventually, I couldn’t even fake happiness or hope. So, I’d deliberately avoided calling her, thinking that, instead of spending that time depressing the fuck out of her, I could be using it to make sure three months apart didn’t turn into fifteen.
But I’d been wrong about the time passing quickly. Even with every waking hour being spoken for, months of constantly missing someone felt like an eternity.
“Then following it up with something sappy,” Trevor said. “Actually, maybe you should apologize for being such a dumb shit and then say something sappy. But you’d better hurry the fuck up. Like you said—it’s been months—and women like her won’t stick around forever, even for a face as pretty as yours.”
“All the more reason to leave her alone. If she’s already with someone else, I don’t want to screw it up for her.” The thought was on two-hour loop in my head. If she really were dating someone, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Every time I passed the end of my driveway, the fear of accidentally running into her and seeing her hand in some other guy’s set in. It was crippling.
“Declan, I love you, but you’re clueless.” Trevor sighed dramatically. “Before you met her, I doubt I would’ve needed both hands to count the times I saw you truly happy—the light-up-your-face kind of happy. I mean, you weren’t walking around all depressed or anything, but we both just kind of pretended not to know that your smile was only skin-deep.”
I nodded slowly. “I can’t just call her up after all this time and pretend I haven’t been thinking of her every day for the last three months.”
“That’s so fucking pathetic.” He chuckled. “You’re a writer. Go write a song for her and snail mail it to her. Fuck, worst case scenario, she never speaks to you again, but you still end up with a song to release that could potentially sell as well as the first one does.”
I sat back and thought about that song. With Ed and Trevor’s help, it had gone viral. Of course, a big part of that was the mystery surrounding who’d written and sung it. There were actual forums where people argued about whose voice it was. I looked at them occasionally to check, but luckily, my name almost never came up. Probably because the old lead singer of Self Defense wasn’t nearly as well known as the anonymous voice was.
We’d opted not to use any of the songs the band had ever recorded, knowing that could lead fans back to me. But I’d had a stack of stuff I’d written for myself that no one had ever heard before, and now they were selling almost as well as the song I’d written for Sara.
Even after giving a cut of the royalties to Ed and Trevor, I was making way more money than Doug had promised me. And I was writing the kind of music I wanted to without having to do any of the shit I hated. My life was almost exactly what I wanted it to be. Almost.
“I have something for her, actually,” I said. “I’ve been holding on to it for a while, waiting until I could figure out how to explain it to her.”
“If it’s a dick pic, don’t send it. No explanation is good enough for sending a dick pic to a woman who doesn’t ask for it.”
Trevor’s incredible wisdom was interrupted by the fine mist of chlorinated water that rained down on us and the horror of seeing a freshly-shaken but still dripping wet Goldendoodle running straight for us.
“Oh shit!” We sprinted for the house, jumping over patio furniture and shoving each other out of the way. As soon as he slammed the door behind us, we both burst out laughing. Kitty stared at us through the glass, probably confused about why we didn’t want to play. After a few minutes, she wandered away, trotting back into the garden to go explore, and hopefully not to go swimming again.
Trevor handed me a bottle of water out of the fridge and leaned against the counter. “I’ve been thinking about my future lately.” He paused. “Kind of started seeing someone.”
“Holy shit. That’s great. When do I get to meet her?”
“Once she’s so enamored with me, a pretty boy like you won’t distract her.”
I rolled my eyes. “Tonight sounds perfect. Just let me know when and where.” I waited for him to agree before continuing. “So, you see a future with her?”
“Yeah, I think so. Her name is April, and she’s amazing. She has a real job that she has to wake up early in the morning to get to. She’s shy, and stable, and listens to the worst fucking music I’ve ever heard. But I kind of love that about her.”
Nothing he’d ever done or said had made me happier than hearing that. Being with someone like April would help keep him from backsliding.
“And I’ve also been thinking a lot about Doug.”
I grimaced. “You poor thing.”
“I want to do what he does, Dec. But better. I want to help little shitheads like we used to be get what they’ve always dreamed of.”
“You mean become a manager? That’s fucking brilliant.” I smacked him on the arm. “Why didn’t you think of that sooner? It’s perfect for you.” He could use his firsthand knowledge of the industry to help musicians do it the right way. “Those little shitheads better appreciate how lucky they are. On day one, the first thing you should tell them is what you said to me once.” I cleared my throat. “And I quote, badly, ‘Until you quit trying, every moment you have is a moment you can get the thing you want most.’”
“I said that?” He rubbed his chin. “I’m so damn smart. There’s just one problem with it.”
“What?”
“How sad it is that you remember me saying it, but you haven’t been living it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Stop being such an idiot and go get the woman you love.”
47
Sara
I hadn’t gotten anything in the mail other than bills and junk since I’d had a Peruvian pen pal in the fifth grade. So, when the two most important letters I’d probably ever get in my entire life arrived in the same month, I considered looking up the Vatican’s official rules about declaring something a miracle. Because this had to be close.
Since I’d already told all my friends about my acceptance letter to law school this fall, only one of the over-read letters was shoved into the absolute bottom of my bag when I rang the doorbell.
Emilia and Rob’s new house was the kind of place that people from the other side of the world come to San Francisco to see. The blue and white Victorian had bay windows, brick stairs, and ribbon-like detailing around each window and the roof.
Emilia looked flushed but happy when she answered the door. “Thank God you’re here. I spent the last three days unpacking and cleaning to get ready for this damn party. Now, my body hurts so
badly I think I should start saying my final goodbyes.”
“You can’t die! You just signed a thirty-year loan on this sucker. Just be glad someone was smart enough to come up with the idea of housewarming gifts.”
“As always, you’re right. I give thanks for that and for my wine rack, which has never been so beautifully filled as it is right now.” She gave me a quick hug and led me inside. “But please tell me you didn’t bring Chardonnay. I swear, every single one of Rob’s friends brought us a bottle, and I can’t stand the stuff.”
“Good thing your friends know that about you.” When I took out the bottle of pinot noir I’d brought, I pushed all my other crap deeper into my bag to make sure the envelope didn’t fall out. “Although, truth be told, I’m fairly sure there are only about ten bottles of Chardonnay in existence, and since no one actually likes it, they just keep getting shuffled from housewarming party to housewarming party.”
I’d been to the house only a couple days ago to help Emilia get settled, so the downstairs tour she gave me was really just an excuse to step away from playing hostess to Rob’s work friends. After I said hello to Andi and Hayden, I gave Rob an especially tight squeeze with his hello hug. His firm’s recommendation, along with whatever strings he’d had to pull, were the reasons I’d gotten into Berkeley’s law school with such short notice.
The bright silver lining of everything that had gone wrong three months ago was that Emilia, Andi, and I were closer than ever. After I started virtual assisting again, I finally had enough money to afford my own teensy, tiny apartment and the time to meet my friends regularly. And even though Carissa had gone back to Texas right after graduation, we talked on the phone about once a week. She’d been almost as excited as I was when I told her about Berkeley Law.
“Enough people-ing. I’m dying to share my wisdom about whatever you need help with.” Emilia was obviously as anxious as I was to discuss what I’d texted her and Andi about earlier—something important I needed their advice for.
Immaterial Defense: Once and Forever #4 Page 30
