Page 47 of Hero on the Road
What the hell?
“We have decided,” the exec said, “that Olivia is one very talented individual. She’s got great potential in the market and we would have loved to have signed her. But she’s a wildcard and a liability. The two of you broke contract while you were out there on the road by performing outside of your assigned schedule. You did charity shows and shows where you collected money personally, and that was expressly forbidden in the agreement we had with you. It was grounds to terminate both your contracts. But Olivia’s guilt for that is well-publicized. The reports all called her out for seeking those opportunities and dragging you into them. She stepped up and took the blame for that, as was right, and that made our decision easy. In the end, Olivia Johns needs a partner in her career, and we can’t offer that. We’ve chosen to let her find another way to the spotlight.”
Everything stopped. The sound in the room, my ability to see, my heart… It all froze in time.
They were blaming Olivia for what had happened out there.
And she was letting them. They were all letting them. Parker and Taylor both had their mouths shut like there was nothing they could do about this, while Olivia…
Olivia…
She looked up at me, her eyes clear and gray and luminous… and completely closed off.
I opened my mouth, ready to tell then the truth—about the roadie stealing the bus and them not sending us any backup and no one giving us money. And me being involved in every one of those decisions. Hell, some of that stuff had been my idea in the first place! It wasn’t Olivia’s fault and I wouldn’t sign a contract without her name on it. Hard stop.
But Olivia put a hand up, interrupting me. “I understand,” she said quietly. “Thank you for the opportunity. Connor, I know you have big dreams. I want to see you find them. Don’t let me down.”
Her eyes warmed for a moment, just a moment, and I knew.
She’d known they were going to call us out for violating the agreement.
And she’d arranged to take the fall so I didn’t lose my contract.
She got up and started toward the door, Parker and Taylor following her and talking a million miles an hour about what they were going to do next and how they were going to call Drive In and get her another meeting. And I was betting they would, too. Parker had ties to one of Drive In’s biggest stars and they’d get her on another Avery tour, if nothing else.
She’d be fine.
But she wouldn’t be with me. She was walking away from me again.
Letting me have the contract. Again.
Only I didn’t want it this way. Not even a little bit.
CHAPTER29
Olivia
Three Months Later
Isat back and stared at the paper in front of me, humming the melody I had and trying to fit the words into it. The lyrics weren’t quite what I wanted, though, and I knew it wasn’t going to work. The melody was solid.
The lyrics…
They weren’t coming as easy as they should be.
Probably because I was on deadline. I had another meeting with Drive In in a couple of days and they wanted to hear some new music. I hadn’t thought that would be a problem—writing music was what I did—but I’d sat down to write something new and found myself blank. It was like all the words had fled from my mind. All the poetry that usually lived there? Gone. Vanished in the wind.
I thought it probably had a lot to do with what I was trying not to write about. I didn’t want to write a love song, and I didn’t want to write a song about heartbreak. Friendship was off the table, as were road trips, vans, small-town happenings, and life experiences.
Also, bears. Not that I’d written songs about bears before, but these days they were definitely on the ‘do not touch’ list.
I missed Connor. I missed him like I’d lost a piece of myself and was never going to get it back. And that was partially my own fault. He’d called me several times a day for weeks, trying to get in touch with me. When that hadn’t worked, he’d started showing up at the gigs I was playing, standing in the back of the room and staring at me, waiting for me to get off stage.
I’d started sneaking out the moment I stopped playing, just to avoid him.
So he’d begun stalking Parker and Taylor. Asking about me and asking if they could get a message to me. They’d carried those messages, but it hadn’t made any difference. My path was settled, my mind made up. Atomic had declared me persona non grata, and I knew how record companies worked. Now that he was signed with them, he needed to follow their rules until he was big enough that they couldn’t make him. Until then, any step over the line would be grounds for cancellation of his contract.
And I was guessing dating the girl they’d deemed not good enough would count as stepping over the line.
