“Thanks, yeah, faint praise there.”
“Well, if I’m going to represent you, we need to build on what we can.”
“So, you’re in?”
“Yes, tentatively. Now go get the next the rights to the nextGone Girlbook or whatever you’re after. That would be big.”
“I need a favor. Can you tell me who represents Chase Green, uh, Luke Brush, and River Ann Flowers?”
“What? Yeah, they’re with DAA.”
“Great, I had a little idea for them. Appreciate it.”
Goldie thought there was something she could do when it came to the country music scene and Irish Hills. She roped Tally into her plan. Fairly easily, the two of them had emails and DMs for most of the artists at North of Nash.
There was more than one way to get people talking about Irish Hills.
Goldie
2018
“I thought you were coming with me? I’d really like it if you could make the drive with me.”
Goldie was scared. She didn’t scare easily, but she was scared this time.
“Here’s the thing. You want privacy. You don’t want people to know about this. If I go, you know how that will be.”
Goldie wanted coffee. She couldn’t have coffee. She wasn’t supposed to have anything before the surgery. The lack of caffeine was making the headache of trying to understand Drake’s reasoning even more difficult than usual.
She and Drake had been together for three years. They more or less lived together, but they both had their own places. They had an escape hatch, as it were, in case. In case what? The sad fact was they had an escape hatch in case they didn’t work out.
Drake was the lead singer of Burgundy Four. The country music group was going on five years of hits, one after the other. Their biggest hit, ‘Summer Smile,’ was famously about Goldie.
Drake had worked for years to hit big. He’d been the lead singer of three bands that never went anywhere, and then finally with Burgundy Four, and a country twist, then boom.
The magic and the work he’d put in combined at the right time. He was the hottest thing going in today’s country music. He spoke with a drawl, and no one seemed to ask him about actually being from New Jersey.
That gap of time, though, meant Drake was in his forties when he hit big. They were the same age, but he was playing it younger. Way younger. Of course, he was a man, so he looked like he was in his twenties. And any mention of his age listed him in his early thirties. He was hanging on to that youth fan base as hard as he could, as tightly as he could.
Goldie was headed to the hospital for a hysterectomy. Not the chicest of surgical procedures. Everyone on her team told her to keep it quiet. Fibroids were not the disease of the week. Girlfriend in the hospital for fibroids was not a sexy story to sell to Drake’s fan base, apparently.
“You’ll be fine. This is a run-of-the-mill thing. They do it all the time.”
Goldie looked at Drake, really looked at him.
Drake was ripped. He was all sinew and muscle.
To the outside world, it appeared that Drake Denver was into hard partying. He was country music’s bad boy. He had more tattoos than she could count. He acted like Jack Daniels was in his cup on stage, but the reality was that he worked hard to look underfed. He was drinking bone broth and getting HCG injections, not heroin. All to stay young for the fans.
She could relate.
She was Drake’s dream woman; he’d said it over and over again. He’d written about it in his music. He’d swept her off her feet. When he got famous, he’d made a beeline to Goldie Hayes. And it worked. She was enamored.
He was funny, too. They laughed when they were together. And he seemed to need her in a way her other relationships hadn’t. He wanted her to listen to his music, his lyrics, and even weigh in on things like his onstage performances. He was protective of her when they were surrounded by paparazzi.
And she knew that being with him made her seem younger, cooler, hipper than she was.
When they weren’t in the public eye, they both liked reading, listening to music, and even watching Netflix. It all worked. They weren’t living together or married, but still, it felt real as anything else Goldie had been involved in.
