I look to Caleb, because I have already forgotten.
“The Long Way DownandMidnight Blue.Two of Cas’s biggest hits,” Caleb says.
“And the same song from the trophy. Baylor wrote those, too?”
“That’s a given, though,” I argue, “Baylor writes everything I have a major hit with, more or less.”
They talk and I roam. I’m in no mood to hear about some stalker. Instead, I let an idea form in the back of my head.
The wooing of Baylor Mann may have started at home, and now, it needs to move to his brothers.
Chapter 18 – Baylor
Everything Has Changed – Taylor Swift
“That’sgood.”Casnods,sinking back into the couch in his trailer on set.
I scribble a last note and then catch his gaze, eyes dropping to the exposed skin on his stomach when he stretches.
“Maybe. But, if you think so, then we are going to have an album soon.”
“The studio liked the first two songs,” Cas says as he untangles himself and moves over to the small kitchen area. He bangs a cabinet or two making coffee, and I just watch. Cas doing random domestic shit is entertaining because often he frowns, with a dedicated crease to his brow as simple tasks take his concentration. Life not on the road must be very different from life on a bus.
Nix saunters in, her knock so perfunctory it follows behind her.
“You are due to makeup in half-an-hour,” she warns, shooing Cas back to me and taking over the coffee-making.
“Did you just walk in here? You could have walked in on something, you know.”
Nix gives him a look. “Not really. I just adhere to the old adage, if the trailer’s a rocking don’t come a knocking. And since the rocking ended about an hour ago, I thought I would be safe.” She winks at me, but I feel my face flush anyway.
This is my first day on the set when Cas is filming. I’ve been here other days when we have been working out songs between Cas’s tech calls and other movie things I don’t understand.
We sit around and shoot the shit, Cas devouring a snack and coffee. These long days on set exhaust him. He’s come home tired and hungry but pleased. I have at least been picking him up at the end of the day, leaving Caleb and Nix to spend some time together. The whole way home he will lay in an exhausted heap, somehow contorting himself into the passenger side of my truck. He will share his thoughts on the scene and how the day went and his feelings.
Yesterday, I had caught a wistful glance out the window at a Dutch Bro.’s coffee, and I remembered what he said about the difficulty he had in just getting groceries. I guess that goes for something as routine as grabbing something in a drive-thru as well. So, I gave him my cap, and he kept his contorted posture in the passenger seat. No one noticed a thing or gave us a second look, even with the wait in line, and we drove home sipping iced coffee while a contented little smile played on his lips.
Just for doing randomly normal shit. It almost sets the bar too low for trying to please a superstar.
Cas craves the normal bits of life. And picking him up from the set has become my favorite time of the day. Now that filming has started in earnest, we can use the down time on set to work on songs, Cas still being partly in character, too, which helps.
I could abandon all my other duties at Bear Valley to drive Cas and work with him all day in Denver. I haven’t, of course, instead taking Jack’s advice and finding someone else to help with the things I have always insisted on doing but don’t really need to.
Nix tells him it is time to go, and I get a lingering kiss and I watch his ass walk out the door.
As soon as they leave, I focus back on the music. Seeing the sets and being around the world I am supposed to write for is getting the creative juices flowing. We have made good headway on this album, even more than I would have thought, and getting to see the look and feel of the film itself is especially helpful.
Earlier, we had looked through some dailies footage of prior shoots, and that had given us the last few lines on another song that I am cleaning up.
A knock comes again at the door, sharp and quick, followed again by Nix.
“You doing okay in here?” she asks, plopping down next to me with a soda.
“All good. Is he out of makeup?”
Nix laughs. “Got caught up in your writing, did you? He’s on set, has been for a bit.”
I raise an eyebrow. “How’s it. . .how’s it going, Nix? The acting? I mean, I sawSNL, and those videos he’s done, but this is different.”
