Page 25 of A Love Song for Dreamers

Not to see if there’s a flicker behind hereyes.

“You too,Tyler.”

But as she brushes past me, I can’t help thinking Annie’s the one on the outside lookingin.

And it feelswrong.

* * *

“Congrats,”I tell Jax after Haley takes Sophie for some quiet time. The party has started to die down, and only Jax’s closer contacts and friendsremain.

I lift the glass of bourbon he pushed on me to toast him at the bar inside the house. “You have everything you could want. A beautiful family. A bourbon brand. And now a label, the great ‘fuck you’ to the studio that fucked youfirst.”

The man of the hour has stripped out of his jacket and is now wearing a black T-shirt and black pants and cowboy boots. When I first arrived, I offered to get him a hat, and he smirked while Haley laughed and murmured something that sounded like “midlifecrisis.”

“You’ve been in this business long enough to know this life doesn’t come without sacrifices.” He shakes his head. “Speaking of, how’s recording going withZeke?”

I frown. “I’m halfway through an album, but I’ve been slowingdown.”

The past few months in studio, I’ve gotten down four finished tracks. But they don’t make me happy the way music used to make mehappy.

“Come record withme.”

I swirl my drink. “I’m on a five-year contract for three albums with a studiooption.”

“Which means your ass belongs toZeke.”

“My ass belongs to noone.”

I’ve paid off my dad’s medical bills, and I’m planning to buy a place by the ocean where it’s warm. Zeke’s sending me new songs I have zero interest in recording. Plus prods about self-promotion. Like even on break, I can placate the record execs by dropping a few poolside selfies. Hashtag tortured artist or whatever the PR teamemails.

I rub my left hand over my neck, mostly to feel the mess of tingling and soreness that sets in from flexing myfingers.

Jax’s gaze narrows. “Ithurts.”

“Scar tissue’s a bitch. It doesn’t like the cold or vibration or days that end inY.”

I could write for days about the moods of a damned appendage, one that intermittently has numbness and searing pain, that makes me regret I ever took for granted a second of what I used todo.

What I’ll do againsoon.

“I head out the doors to the patio, the easy laughter of the stragglers standing in familiar groups drawing me toward them. When my gaze lands on the former pool house beyond, Istop.

My mentor pulls up at myside.

“You should’ve started this label years ago,” Isay.

Jax only shrugs. “Things happen at the right time. May not be your right time or mine, but they happen when they’re meantto.”

I crane my neck towards the gardens edging the patio. “There a Buddhist statue around here I haven’tseen?”

Jax laughs, his deep voice rumbling. “Problem with the label is I’ve got some guys booking the space, but we need new sounds. Newvoices.”

“You haven’t found anyone.” I’m surprised to hear that because I know dudes who’d fly from LA in a heartbeat to record at Jax’sstudio.

“I have one kid, but he’s got an attitude, and with all the legal and financial red tape, I haven’t had time to work with him. Sophie’s been acting out lately, and Hales is due in sixweeks.”

“Supervising a teenager can’t be that hard. I practically taughtmyself.”

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