Page 79 of Just Business

"I love you, Penny Miller. Don’t forget that."

I force a smile. "I love you, too. I'm gonna miss you so much, though."

"Oh, baby, I’ll miss you more than you can imagine, but I'll be back before you know it. I told you I’m gonna figure this out." He pulls me to him again, speaking into my hair. "I need to get going, or this pilot’s gonna leave without me."

Right on cue, the pilot steps out, motioning to his wrist to signal that it’s time to go.

I raise up on my tiptoes to kiss him one last time, but he deepens the kiss, not giving a damn that we have an audience.

"I gotta go," he whispers against my mouth, his eyes full of tenderness. "But I’m coming back. I promise."

Tears threaten again, but I blink them back, forcing a smile. "I trust you. Now go get on that plane and hurry back to me."

Austin leans back, looking at me like he’s memorizing every inch of my face.

“That river of yours will bring me back home.”

Tyler is perched on one of the barstools at my kitchen island, drumming his fingers against the countertop when I push open the door to my condo in Nashville. The second I step inside, he doesn’t waste a breath.

“I’ve been thinking about your contract,” he says, getting straight to the point. “I think I know how we can fulfill it.”

I drop everything to the floor with a thud and look at him. “Go on.”

“I honestly don’t know why I didn’t think of this already. What do you think about a live album? Your last concert is at Red Rocks. It’s perfect for a live recording.”

Exhaling hard, I walk over and sink onto the stool beside him, dropping my head into my hands.Of course.I can’t believe neither of us thought about this. Artists do it all the time. The obvious solution was practically staring me in the face.

I scrub my hands up and down my face and turn. “This is genius. What do ya think Doug will say? Seems like he just wants to make things hard on me.”

Tyler shakes his head rocking it from side to side. “Eh—I don’t know about that. He’s just a hard ass. All we can do is pitch it to him and see what he says,” Tyler replies, his leg bouncing.

He goes to his messenger bag, retrieving a notebook, and we dive into the details. This is what I love. The creative process. The music. Laying out the bones of an album, shaping something real from an idea.

After about an hour, we’ve nailed down every song we want for the setlist and we even have a name for the album in mind:To Hell and Back. It couldn’t be more fitting. This tour was hell on earth at times, but I made it. I fought my way through, and came out on the other side. Still standing. Still here.

The whole time we work, my eyes drift to my phone, checking for messages from Penny. I try to be subtle about it, but Tyler notices—because, of course he does. With a knowing chuckle, he shakes his head.

“You’ve really got it bad, don’t you?”

“She’s it for me, Ty. As soon as this is over I’m going back to her. I’ll put this place on the market.” I look around at my condo. “And when she’s ready, I’m marrying her.”

Ty lets out a low whistle. “Damn. Guess we better make this pitch good then, huh. You gonna tell her?” He nods his head toward my phone.

I weigh the pros and cons of telling her now. If Doug shuts this down, I’m stuck recording another album under their terms, and God knows what that’ll look like. Telling her now would get her hopes up, only for them to come crashing down if things don’t work out with the negotiations.

“I think I’ll wait until I know something certain.”

Ty nods. “He probably won’t agree at first. You know that, right? You’ll have to prove to him that you’ve got your shit together and that this album will make them a hefty sum of money.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes. I don’t care what hoops I have to jump through, I’m getting this done. I want out of this contract and I wanna be with Penny.” I glance down at my phone one more time, exhaling. “So let’s do it right. He won’t have a reason to say no.”

* * *

Tyler and I get to my label’s office early the next morning. The meeting’s set for nine, but in Tyler’s mind, on time is late and early is on time. So here we are, waiting in his SUV at 8:15, a comfortable silence between us as we finish up our sausage biscuits we grabbed on the way.

At 8:30 on the dot, we head into the shiny mirrored door of the office. I remember early on in my career being impressed by it all. Walking through those doors for the first time was a dream come true, with no clue where it would lead me in life.

Kate is already waiting in the lobby, her fingers flying over her laptop keyboard, never in an idle moment. She’s as polished as ever, dressed in a sleek black business suit paired with red-soled stilettos that she could probably run a marathon in. Kate is unruffled and composed 99 percent of the time, her appearance reflecting that. When she looks up, she stands to greet us with a firm handshake.

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