Page 90 of My Song for You
Sunlight streamed through the bedroom window. I had an hour and a half before the meeting with Remar, but before that, I wanted to discuss my idea for winning Callie over with Nolan. He’d been right when he’d said it had to be something big. Tired and clichéd wouldn’t win me any awards beyond the not-so-coveted participation ribbon.
I closed my eyes, only intending to rest them for a minute or two. It wasn’t until my phone pinged several times and then played Nolan’s song that I opened them. I glanced at the alarm clock, and it was like I’d been poked with a burning branding iron. I flew out of bed.Fuck!
The meeting was scheduled to start in five minutes.Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck.
Nolan had left several texts. The basic gist wasWhere the hell are you?andYou better be walking your fucking ass through the door any second now.I assumed he wasn’t talking about my apartment door.
Traffic bad. Will get there as soon as I can.
Now I just had to hope I didn’t actually get stuck in traffic.
Despite what I had told Nolan, traffic wasn’t an issue. I showed up only fifteen minutes late. And yes, I was lucky no cops were trying to get in their month-end ticket quota.
I’m in the parking lot,I typed, then raced to the main entrance.
The elevator wasn’t interested in doing me any favors. I arrived at the reception area five minutes later. The receptionist, a young woman with a short skirt and long legs, led me to the conference room. “Would you like some coffee?”
Fuck yeah!“Yes, please.” In my sleep-deprived state, my voice sounded like I was aiming to seduce her out of her panties. I cleared my throat. “Black, no sugar. Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” She blushed and quickly darted away.
I opened the conference room door and entered. Everyone else was already here, even Mason, who was notorious for being late. Remar sat at the head of the long polished table, like he was royalty and we were just the peasants. Everything about this room made me think of royalty—the expensive decor, the exotic plants, the framed platinum albums on the walls from the kings and queens of music. The only thing missing was his throne. But maybe he just saved that for his office.
“Glad you could find time in your busy schedule to join us, Mr. Leigh,” Remar said, raising a gray eyebrow. Everything about this man smelled of money, including his black suit from a designer whose name I probably couldn’t even pronounce. “Given this meeting was partly due to your dalliances that resulted in a child, I would’ve thought you could have at least been here on time.”
“Sorry. Bad traffic.”
Nolan shrugged an apology to me. He hadn’t known about this any more than I had. We’d assumed the meeting was about the upcoming promo blitz. I should’ve known better. Our publicist and the marketing department were taking care of those details. Remar wouldn’t have called us in for something as mundane as that.
I sat in the empty seat next to Mason. Even our drummer looked less than thrilled to be here. Remar had that effect on people. He could drain the life from you faster than a vampire could drain blood from his victim. But the man was a freaking genius when it came to running the highly successful record label, so everyone put up with it.
“Now that everyone is here,” Remar said, “I wanted to share the great news with you.”
Under any other circumstance, Mason would’ve made some sort of wisecrack. This time he wisely held back. His fingers twitched on his lap, eager to do a drum roll for Remar’s announcement. He wisely held back on that too. Remar wouldn’t have found it as amusing as the rest of us.
Remar’s gaze scraped over each of us, gauging our reaction. “Endless Motion will be commencing the extensive US leg of their world tour April fifteenth. They’ve asked for Pushing Limits to open for them.”
No. Fucking. Way.Endless Motion was currently the biggest-selling rock band in the world. Opening for them was huge. Our audiences were similar, if not the same, which was a definite bonus. There was nothing worse than opening for a band whose music was such an opposite fit that fans actually threw objects, including chairs, at the stage while you performed.
“Depending on how things go, you could also be joining them for a large portion of their world tour. The early reviews of your album have been very positive, and we want to hit hard while we can. We’ve lined up Björn Ekstrom to direct the video for your first single. We were extremely lucky to get him on such short notice. He heard ‘Tangled’ and was so impressed, he insisted on directing the music video.”
The conference room door opened and the receptionist entered with what I hoped was my coffee in an oversized mug. At this point, I definitely needed it. Behind her, a skinny bald-headed man with a red goatee stepped into the room. He could’ve easily been one of the band (minus the skinny part), with his military boots, jeans, and T-shirt. A complete contrast to Remar.
“And there he is,” Remar said, beaming at the man. “We were just talking about you, Björn.”
We all stood and shook hands with the director.
“Ah, so you’re Jared Leigh,” Björn said, after I introduced myself. “Cute kid.”
“Thanks.” I could feel the weight of Remar’s glare directed at me. With the way he was reacting to the news that I was a father, you’d have thought Logan’s existence meant the band was facing a dramatic drop in sales compared to the first album.
Once the introductions were over, we sat at the table again, with Björn at the opposite end to Remar. His gaze appraisingly swept over us. “This video will be hot, no?” he asked in a watered-down Swedish accent.
Mason and I exchanged looks. His lips stretched into a wide grin, his teeth super-white against his light brown skin. You didn’t have to spend a year on the road with Mason to know what he was thinking. He was that transparent when it came to women and sex.
“If we get to make out with a lot of hot babes,” he said, “then I wholeheartedly agree with you. This video will be epically hot.”
Aaron and I burst out laughing. “Isn’t it usually the lead singer who gets to score with the hot babes in videos?” Aaron pointed out. Kirk chuckled.
