“What about Kasen and Miles?”His name sits heavy on my tongue, and my heart beats a little faster just saying it out loud, but I try to ignore it.“Do they get a say too?”
“Oh, definitely.This process takes everyone’s opinion into consideration, but if you watch their dynamic, Miles and Kasen tend to defer to Trent and Tristan.”My dad glances back to Robbie.“Am I wrong?”
“No,” Robbie says, a slight furrow to his brow as he stares in the booth at the band still playing the song.The look of concern is such a contrast to the happy look he’s worn every other time I’ve seen him.
“Is that a problem?”I ask, not sure where his concern is coming from.
He shakes his head, and the expression clears from his face almost instantly, replaced by a wide smile.“Not at all,” he says, but there’s still a tension in his eyes that belies his statement.
I glance back at the band playing seamlessly through their song like a well-oiled machine.With a quick perusal, there are no red flags, but on closer inspection, I can see slight tension in the glances coming from Trent, Tristan, and Miles all toward Kasen as he plays bass, his head down and his body swaying to the rhythm while he plays.My gaze stays focused on him, wondering what I’m missing.My dad fiddles with something on the board—something I should probably ask him about since I have no idea what he’s doing—but I’m too intrigued by the dynamics of the band and trying to figure out what’s going on.
This is why becoming a publicist is more exciting to me than following my dad’s footsteps of being a producer.I care more about the complexities of band dynamics and the stories that surround them than the actual creativity of the music itself.
Kasen’s head stays bowed toward the floor, his fingers sliding gracefully along the strings of his bass until they finish the song.When he looks up, I don’t see anything obvious about him that screams red flags.He seems antsy and hyped up, but he also drank a Rockstar energy drink before they started playing.
My dad presses a button and talks to them about some changes he wants to try.I take the opportunity to glance back at Robbie, and that affable happiness he’s had since the moment I met him is completely gone.He doesn’t notice me watching him, and for the first time I see not only concern, but stress and worry clear as day on his face.It’s most obvious in the creases around his eyes and the slight darkness underneath as well as the downturn of his lips that looks so unnatural on his usually happy face.
Something’s not right.
Looking back into the recording booth, my gaze lands on Miles, his brown eyes locked on mine.His eyes shift behind me to where Robbie’s sitting before his gaze meets mine again, and that flurry in my belly returns full force.
His gaze is penetrating, and I can practically feel the warmth of it sliding along my skin.My breathing accelerates, and something I haven’t felt in a long time niggles at the back of my mind.
Hope.
Maybe Miles is the man I’ve been waiting for all this time.