Page 102 of August Lane
“They only want one thing. A live performance of their favorite song.”
He snorted. “That shitty song isn’t anyone’s favorite. Their favorite karaoke train wreck, maybe. Or their favorite alternative to the dentist’s chair.”
“Stop calling it shitty,” August snapped. He knew she’d written it. It felt like being accused of setting Luke up for failure.
“All due respect, the songisshitty. The whole album’s terrible. Except ‘If You See Me Lying.’ That one’s just boring.”
“You know that wasn’t him.”
David leaned forward. “I don’t know that at all. I know the man refuses to talk seriously about his music. If I ask who his influences are, I get canned, bullshit answers his publicity team wrote back in 2010. I know he’s so obsessed with settingyouup with a record deal that he tanked what was left of his career. Meanwhile, he’s squatting on a voice that sounds like Marvin Gaye and Hozier made a country-fried baby who can play the hell out of a guitar lick. And I don’t respect it. I can’t respect a man who was gifted with that kind of talent and buried it in auto-tune for money.”
August understood his frustration. She’d assumed for years that Luke had sold his dignity for fame. But he’d really traded it for different chains. That was why he’d looked so much happier the morning that article had been published. He’d finally unlocked those shackles. Telling the world had been the key.
No. That wasn’t the part of David’s rant that infuriated her.
“You’re nothing like Jojo said you were,” she told him quietly. “It’s disappointing.”
David didn’t speak at first. He blinked and sat up in his chair. “What did she say about me?”
“That you were serious. The real deal. She said she never met a man with an ear like yours. That you were all about the music.” She let her gaze slide over him. “I think you’re the least serious person I’ve ever met.”
“Are we on the playground now? I poke him, you knee my balls?”
“You’re the only one playing games. This is his life. Our lives. All you do is throw peanuts. Shepaysyou for that?”
“You don’t know what I’ve done for your motherandyou. I came here to offer you—”
“I don’t want it.”
He clenched his teeth. “Listen. Jojo’s record deal is with—”
“Do you know the real reason this place is empty?” She waved at the room. “Because of people like you, with the power and connections to make someone’s career with a phone call, sitting on your ass until you’re convinced to give a damn about someone. We have to prove ourselves, over and over again, before you see us. Do you know how exhausting that is? A heart can only break so many times before it quits.”
She looked at the stage, where Luke was chatting with an older man sitting in front. He was smiling. Living. She hadn’t realized how lifeless he’d been until now. “Look at that wall over there,” she said. David followed her gaze to Silas’s photo collage, filled with decades of performers at Delta Blue. “We are blues. We are rock. We are country. And all those things are us.We’vealways known that. Jojo said you knew it, too.” She shook her head. “But I don’t think so. I think everyone looks the same to you. Which makes you useless to someone like me.”
She pushed back from the table, but David grabbed her arm. “Wait.” She jerked away, and he lifted his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I uh…” He cleared his throat. “I’m an asshole who’s used to dealing with other assholes. Good people confuse me, but I’m learning. Give me five minutes.Please.”
Something about David’s tone made her curious enough to settle back into her seat. Once she did, he relaxed and attempted an appeasing smile. It made him look like a prisoner trying to convince the parole board he’d been rehabilitated.
“I used to be a lawyer. Litigator. Someone accused me of loving to argue once, and I thought it meant I should go to law school. That’show shallow my emotional well was. Someone points out a flaw, and I build a career around it instead of trying to be a better person.” His lips twitched into something more genuine. “Made me miserable. It made me drink, not that I needed much of an excuse. The only solace I had was music. I probably went to every live venue in the city at least twice before I was twenty-five.”
“The city?” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, you mean New York.”
“So, one night, I go to this dive advertising folk music, and there’s this Black woman onstage, singing ‘Folsom Prison Blues,’ and I think, what the fuck? This isn’t folk. So I ask the guy managing the place about it, and he looks at me like I’m stupid. ‘It’s just a song, man’ is what he said to me. And it made me angry.” David’s voice was tight at the memory. “I got so angry at how small this guy’s world was that I quit my job the next day and researched talent scouting.”
Silas appeared onstage and announced the next act. David waited until he was finished. “So that’s my origin story. Dave got mad. But then I lost sight of what I was so angry about, and it took some washed-up one-hit wonder to remind me.” He stared at August. “I think I get it now. Why he threw it all away for you.”
“He didn’t,” she said. “He could still—”
“He can’t. Emma’s article inspired sympathy, but no one will touch him. They’ve got no reason to. It’s you they want.”
August frowned. “What?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you. You’ve got all of Nashville wanting to sign you because they heard this.” He pulled out his phone and opened a voice note. It was a recording she’d sent Luke weeks ago, a piece of a song she’d ultimately rejected. “I got this the day the story broke with instructions to stop playing it safe. That was a reference to something I said to him, which he apparently took offense to and proved me wrong.” He put the phone down. “I like the guy. But I also hate him a little.”
“I don’t understand. It’s not a whole song. There’s no music.”
“Didn’t need it. I said your name, and people put everything aside to listen. That’s currency, August. That’s cash in hand. But it’s temporary. You have to use it now.”
