Fuck me, why was I with him again?
Knox flips the legal pad around. Three columns:Keep, Donate, Trash. Lines under each like he’s about to turn grief into a grocery list. He meets my eyes. “You can stay with us for now. We’re here a month. Residency’s got this suite, so you have your own room. You can lock any door you sleep behind. No strings. We know you’re basically homeless right now, thanks to Troy, and since we’ve got the space, and we all get along pretty well?—”
“Pretty well?” Salem scoffs. “Do you remember last night?”
We all ignore him. I blow out a breath. “This is a lot to throw at me in two minutes, guys. I need to think.”
“Of course,” Knox says, nodding.
I set my phone face down on the bar so I don’t throw it. “I don’t do charity.”
“Good,” Salem says. “We’re not a charity.”
“What are you then?” I ask.
“Men with a presidential suite and the nerve to use it to make a bad situation less stupid.”
Houston slides a glass of water within reach. “You’re not a charity case, Lou. You’re a person we’d like to help.”
That shouldn’t land as hard as it does.
It is hard not to cringe at it, though. The idea of letting someone else take care of me in any capacity is…well, it’s weird. But I also don’t have anywhere else to go. I broke my lease in SanFrancisco when I moved in with Troy. We’ve been on the road for a couple of months. And my job is more past than present.
I look at my laptop as if it had forgotten me, and we both need to pretend that’s not true. “Thank you. All of you.”
“You didn’t cause this,” Knox says, nodding at the TV still. “It was already there. Today’s just when the light hit it.”
I breathe out. “I don’t want to be the reason you fight with him.”
Salem snorts. “We were already fighting with him. You’re the reason we did something useful between rounds.”
Houston checks the time. “We have rehearsal in an hour. Eat. Shower. Choose a room. If you want us to clear out while you get your head on, we do that.”
“I’m not going to break.”
“No one said you were,” Knox says.
The photo is still sitting in my head. The headline is nothing—lazy copy written by someone who’s never had to block death threats on a lunch break. The picture is the problem. Salem looks like he means to end a story. People like to fill in blanks with blood.
Troy has a small, but loyal fan base. If any of them get the idea to punish the girl who led to that picture, I’m screwed. I have to play this smart. “I’m going to work.”
“Good,” Knox says. “Work helps.”
They move around me without making me feel herded. It’s a neat trick. Salem kills the TV, finally, and tosses the remote on the couch like it offended him. Houston opens the balcony doora crack to let new air in. Knox circles items on his pad, then tears off the page and leaves it where I’ll see it when I’m ready.
I sit at the bar, open the laptop, and wait to see if it still knows my password. It does. My inbox loads like it’s been holding its breath and now wants to dump all of it at once. I filter for clients. Crickets.
The last handful of emails are months old and say some version ofHope you’re well—touching base—circle back next quarter. I scroll through the rejects, the near misses, thewe loved your deck but went a different directionnotes. I close the window before I drown. Or throw myself out of it.
Okay. Next.
I pull a sketchpad from the den—hotel notepads are good for grocery lists and lies, not ideas—and a pencil case that still smells like graphite and grade school. I draw a rectangle and then another inside it. Basics.
The basics turn into drawing Sagebrush from memory. The squat stucco box, peeled guitar pick decal, the cracked lot, the door with the heavy handle that tries to shake your arm off if you’re not ready for it.
I reduce it to what matters. No frills. A silhouette that reads at a glance. I writeBACK TO THE DRAWING BOARDin a condensed sans and make the baseline sit a little wrong on purpose. I place the studio’s outline underneath so the words feel anchored to an address, not a platitude. I mark up a second concept that tucksSagebrushinto the negative space ofDRAWINGlike a ghost hiding where you’d expect a vowel. It works. It’s not genius. But it looks like me.
I check my email again because muscle memory is rude. Still quiet. Why wouldn’t it be?
