Page 46 of Hero on the Road
There was the girl I’d spent a month with. The one who could make a joke even in the most serious situations and yet keep her face straight and businesslike. The girl I’d connected to in something that was nothing like any other relationship I’d ever had.
She wasn’t gone. She hadn’t left me behind. She’d just been…
Well, not sleeping, evidently. But something.
The thing with Olivia was, if she was busy with something, I was betting it was important. She didn’t do things that didn’t matter.
My hand fisted at my side, wanting her touch, but I sat down next to Danny, across from Parker, Taylor, and Olivia. My eyes never left hers. This was it. This was the moment when we found out what our contracts would be like.
This was what we’d been working toward for years.
God, I hoped they gave us a contract together. I hoped they said they wanted us, but they wanted us together and our contracts were going to depend on that. I wanted to go back to Montana with her, find our van, and go back out on the road. I wanted Olivia at my side and no one else.
Montana had been heaven, with its long, empty roads and its wildflowers and Olivia’s laugh around every corner, and I wanted to go back there.
“Welcome home,” one of the execs suddenly said, looking from me to Olivia. “From the sounds of it, you two put on one hell of a tour out there.”
“Sounds to me like it was more than a tour,” Parker broke in, her voice steady and confident. Almost an attack. “From what I’ve read, it was a whole experience. Something to be built on. The people who saw them are already screaming for them to come back.” She looked right at the exec in question, her eyes sharp and her mouth set.
That girl. I’d known her since we were in school and I’d always thought she was quiet and reserved. Happy to just play the popular girl. I hadn’t known at the time that she was surviving things no kid should have had to survive. But it had made her into the woman she was, and that woman…
I couldn’t lie. She could be terrifying sometimes. I was glad she was on my side right now.
The exec nodded but didn’t respond to her statements. Instead, he carried on with what must have been a prepared speech. “A great tour. The people who saw you were all very impressed. And your music! Well, it left quite an impression.” Here his voice actually got excited and he smiled at us.
And I started to see how pleased they actually were.
“The amount of press you two garnered, well… Let’s just say it’s not something we expect from first-timers. The bloggers and the papers there, they loved you! Being out there on your own, taking care of business and getting personal with the fans… It was so successful that we thought about trying it with other artists, I can tell you. Of course we can’t really do that, can we? You two have already done it well enough to make it your trademark. Besides—” He shared a sneaky smile with the two other execs in the room. “—It wasn’t exactly a huge money maker.”
“I thought you put them out there for publicity, not money,” Parker snapped. “This wasn’t a money-making tour. This was a tour to see how they’d fit together.”
God, she was defensive. What was going on here?
The lead exec nodded. “True, true. And it turns out, you two are brilliant together. You’re a successful duo in the making.”
My heart shot up to the ceiling. We were a duo in the making. This was it. They were going to offer us a contract together. They were more excited than I’d ever heard execs sound, full of complements about how the tour had gone. And they were going to sign us together.
All of my dreams were about to come true.
The exec slid a stack of papers over to Danny and smiled.
Parker and Taylor didn’t get anything.
“We’re extremely excited to be offering you a contract, Connor,” he said directly to me. “We’ve seen the footage and read the reports and we think you’re going to be a big star. We have huge plans for you. Records, stadiums, signings. The publicity department is already lining up their contacts and we’ve got a recording studio with your name on it. All we need is a signature.”
Danny coughed, evidently caught off-guard by how quickly this was happening. “I’ll have to have our lawyers go through this.”
“Of course, of course,” the exec said, nodding. “We’ll give you three days.”
I stared at him, then at the papers on the table, which Danny had his hand on. I had my contract. I couldn’t believe it had happened that fast. Sure, there would be some negations, but that was my contract right there under Danny’s hand.
This was actually happening.
But only to me. The room had gone silent now, and there were no other contracts forthcoming. My eyes went to Olivia and I saw that she wasn’t looking at me anymore. She was looking down at her hands, a single tear trickling its way down her cheek.
What the hell was going on here?
“What about Olivia?” I asked sharply. My eyes went to Parker’s and then Taylor’s, and I saw twin looks of anger… but no surprise.
