* * *
Colette: I do. And I hear you. But I want to stay. I want the memories, even if they make me melancholy later.
* * *
Theodora: All right, then, my brave, beautiful unicorn. Go frolic and have fun. I’ll be sending good vibes.
* * *
Colette: Appreciated. And sorry again for forgetting to call. I promise I’ll return to being a thoughtful friend very soon.
* * *
Theodora: No worries. Seriously. Cutter and I were in our own little world for most of the night anyway. We’re obnoxious that way.
* * *
Colette: You’re newlyweds. It’s normal. And perfect. Enjoy every second of it, and I’ll talk to you in a few days.
* * *
Theodora: Sounds good. Hang in there, lovely. My fingers will stay double-crossed for you.
Chapter Fifteen
Zack
Two days later
* * *
The chirp of my cell wakes me before dawn. My eyes creak open to see it’s five after six, and I stifle a groan as I reach for the phone and hit the silent button, not wanting to wake Colette if the noise hasn’t already.
I glance over and find her eyes still closed, and then I squint at the screen.
Chip.
At the butt crack of dawn.
This is either really great news or awful news. Either way, I’m likely to be on the phone for longer than a minute or two.
Guiding the covers off my legs, I swing my feet to the floor and pad out the bedroom door and down the hall before hitting “accept call” and lifting the phone to my ear.
“What’s up?” I whisper, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice. Chip is getting behind my solo career in a way no one else was prepared to do. He saw the potential in “that quiet, redheaded bass player,” when most of the managers I approached thought it would be madness for me to leave Lips on Fire.
“Hey, man, did I wake you?” he asks, then pushes on before I can answer. “Sorry to cut into your beauty sleep. I just wanted to be sure I caught you before you headed into the studio again today.”
“Yeah, sure, no worries. What’s up?” I scrub a hand down my face and blink the sleep from my eyes, hoping I’m awake enough to assimilate feedback.
“So, here’s the thing—I’ve been up all night with my team and a couple of people I trust from the industry. We’ve been going over all the new stuff, brainstorming rewrites, riffing on promo ideas, pitches, things we could do to strap this to a narrative and sell the hell out of it.” Chips sounds wired, making me wonder what he’s been using to stay up all night.
Hopefully, he’s just been hitting the coffee hard, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were something else. Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll is still a thing, though most of us know the dangers of drug abuse in a way they didn’t in the sixties and seventies.
“But no matter how we flip the script or twist the puzzle pieces…” He exhales into the phone, making me pull it away from my ear with a wince. “We just don’t see these songs working for the album. They’re great songs, don’t get me wrong, they’re just not solo career-launching material.”
“Why’s that?” My chest tries to lock up, but I force myself to keep taking long, easy breaths.
This isn’t the time to get angry or defensive; it’s time to listen to Chip’s concerns with a clear head and do whatever it takes to change his mind. Because these songs do belong on the album, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep them in contention for our final meeting with the record company. They’re exactly the kind of music I want to be making right now—emotional, raw, and honest in a way few of the songs I helped write for the band ever were.
“Well, like I said, I’ve been up all night, and I’m pretty fried, so I’ll give it to you straight,” Chip says. “They’re just too girly, man. Too much emotion and not nearly enough edge. We want tough, sexy, edgy music from you, even on the ballads. We need catchy, radio-friendly songs that are going to fit into the Top 40 rotation. You know most stations play six songs over and over again these days. We need to make sure your song is one of them, and that’s not going to happen with music that sounds so different from everything that’s hot right now.”
Pacing down the hall, I frown as I take that in, trying to see his side. I know he wants me to succeed—my success adds to his success, and he’s already invested a lot of time in this project. But no matter how I turn it over in my head, I can’t see how copying what’s “hot” right now is a solid strategy, even if I were capable of churning out formulaic pop on demand.
“But that doesn’t mean the work you’ve done so far is a waste of time,” Chip rushes in, apparently even more incapable of tolerating a thoughtful silence than usual. “I sent the entire package over to Kathy in LA last night, and she’s already texted this morning. She wants to license everything for an angsty, girl-power band they’re launching next spring.”
“The songs are written from a man’s point of view,” I say, frown digging deeper into my forehead. “My point of view.”
“Yeah, but that’s not a big deal,” Chip says breezily. “They’ll just swap out the pronouns and change a few words here and there. Easy breezy. Kathy says your songs are exactly the kind of deep, layered stuff she’s been looking for, and she’ll owe us a big one for sparing her the trouble of listening to anymore shitty demos.” He laughs low in his throat. “Poor thing. I don’t envy her that job. There’s so much shit out there right now. It’s a hard time for good music.”
Which is exactly why I shouldn’t be catering to current Top 40 trends. But first things first. “I’m not selling the songs. That’s not going to happen. They’re mine, and they’re important to me.”
“I know, I know,” Chip says in a soothing tone I don’t find soothing. At all. “I get it. I do. They’re close to your heart right now, but by the time they hit the airwaves in a year, they won’t be. And Kathy assures me the band is going to be launched hard and launched well. These girls are going to be stars, and their music is going to sell like crazy. You’ll be rolling in royalties for years, brother, making bank for music it only took you a few days to write while raking it in for your solo stuff at the same time. If that’s not winning big, I don’t know what is.”
“They didn’t take me a few days to write.” I stop at the window at the end of the hall, watching the sunrise turn the sky pink and yellow, wishing my inner world was as peaceful as the scene outside. But the thought of losing the “Colette songs,” as I can’t help but think of them, makes me physically ill. “Technically, yes, I wrote them in a few days,” I continue, “but that wouldn’t have been possible without a decade of working hard at my craft. And on myself.”