Page 28 of What Happened Last Night

Some of them were in the music business. Will got calls from producers, agents, and record company executives, all in L.A. But he also got calls from people who had nothing to do with music at all. When I searched the names of people trying to meet with him, I found marketing executives, top executives at credit card and car companies, a rep from a company that made basketballs and other sporting equipment, and people at various levels at Google. That was just in one week.

I summarized these requests and passed them on to him. Will was impassive about all of it, giving me polite replies in return. Call and set something up for tomorrow afternoon. Tell him I’m available next week if he’s in town. Or he’d say No reply, and I’d see that it was a request from a huge Hollywood producer, and Will was just ignoring it.

This was my boss’s world, or part of it. I didn’t know exactly what these people wanted from him, and since Will didn’t offer, I didn’t ask. When he accepted appointments, he sometimes held them over a dinner out and sometimes specified that the meeting should be in his office. No matter how powerful the person he met with was, Will never wore a suit to these meetings.

No one seemed to take it personally. They kept coming back. Even the Hollywood producer called back a few weeks later, trying again.

Work was a whirlwind as the next Road Kings tour ramped up. Will finalized the venues and the tickets sold out in days. We organized hotels and a private plane to take everyone to the first gig, then home from the last one, with buses transporting everyone between. We organized shirt sales—properly, for once—and marketing.

We dropped by the studio, though we did it less as the tour approached. The band was rehearsing and getting serious about it, which meant they didn’t want to be disturbed. Will explained that after a tour finished, they were rowdy and lazy, like I’d seen. But as the next tour loomed, the Road Kings would get disciplined. The music meant more than anything to them. They’d leave off the jokes and pranks while they sharpened up. Then they’d tour, and then get rowdy and lazy again.

I heard them rehearse exactly once, when we dropped in while it was happening. The band was in the rehearsal space, working through a song I recognized as “All the Way Down,” one of the tracks on the latest album. They were playing with the intro, reworking it, arguing, then reworking it again. They didn’t pay attention as Will and I sat in the control room with Roy, the engineer. It was so fascinating I could have watched them all day.

I didn’t screen another phone call from Lizbeth Snopes. I had no idea why.

The days flew by. I worked a lot, and I loved every minute of it. It was a whirl of excitement, along with a healthy dose of stress and nerves. I jumped out of bed in the mornings, ready to go. I had never been challenged like this before. I hadn’t forgotten Will’s offer to come shopping at an estate sale with me, but the truth was, I hadn’t gone to one. I spent my Sundays napping, answering work emails, and preparing for the week to come.

Will had no problem with nerves. He never got stressed, even when things threatened to go haywire. He never shouted or was short with me. We were about to send a rock band on tour for thousands of paying fans to see, and even after I’d gotten emails from him at three in the morning, he still looked handsome and well rested the next day. His wardrobe was impeccable and he never missed a spot shaving. I paid such close attention that I would know.

Today he was meeting with a woman who worked in marketing for a soft drink company. They were in his office while I sat at my desk. She’d flown from Atlanta just to see Will.

The meeting lasted forty-five minutes, and then the woman left Will’s office, walking past me without a glance as if I was a piece of furniture. She pulled out her phone and called someone as she started down the hall.

“It went fine,” she said to whoever was on the other end. “Very promising. Side note, I’m going to ask him for a drink. He’s not bad. Cute, actually. Maybe I can get him into bed and snag him. I’ve always planned to marry rich.” She laughed as the elevator doors closed behind her.

I was on my feet before I could think. Suddenly I knew the full meaning of the phrase seeing red, because I could not have told you what anything looked like in that moment. I blazed into Will’s office, surprising him.

“What did she want?” I asked.

Will was sitting behind his desk, the chair pushed back, one foot crossed over the other knee. He’d found a rubber stress ball in his desk drawer and was tossing it in the air, then catching it. His eyebrows rose at my outburst. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“That woman.” I pointed out the door. I knew the woman’s name—I’d booked the meeting—but it had fled my brain in anger. “What did she want?”

Will’s brow creased briefly, then he tossed the ball again. “What they all want,” he replied. “Money.”

“What does that mean?”

Will kept his gaze on the ball as he thought over what to say. “Some of the people I meet want me to invest,” he explained. “Some of them are trying to hire me—which would make them money, because if I worked for their company, I would increase their profits. Some of them propose business partnerships that would—you guessed it—make them money. This particular woman wanted us to advertise her product at Road Kings shows. Which would make her company money. Money is what everyone wants.”

“Don’t do business with her,” I said. “Don’t take more meetings with her. Don’t go for a drink with her. If she calls again, I’m going to tell her you’re dead.”

Will caught the ball from his latest toss and looked at me with his quiet breed of curiosity. His dark chinos fit his flexed legs perfectly, and I tried not to look at the spot where his shirt was tucked behind his belt buckle low on his flat stomach. My throat went dry.

“What did she do?” Will asked.

I hesitated. I’d never lost my temper in front of him before. I rarely lost my temper at all. That woman had just made me so mad.

“Luna?” Will asked.

“She said something…disrespectful,” I managed. “About you.”

“Really?” Will’s voice was calm. “Do I want to know what it is?”

Wait. What if he wanted to go for a drink with her? What if he wanted to date her and marry her? Presumably, Will would want to marry someone eventually. It was none of my business. “Forget it,” I said.

“No chance,” my boss replied. His fingers squeezed the ball, and I tried not to look at his hands. “Also, I’m confused, because you said I’m having a drink with her, which I’m not.”

“Not yet. But she’s planning to ask you.”

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