“A person,” I say.
“She’s staying with you, I understand.” Not a question. Quincy always knows what’s going on, even if we never tell him. “Fine. Keep it boring in public. I’ll get her a stylist, so she’s more suitable for your image.”
“She’s not a prop,” Houston says slowly.
“She’s got a brain? That’s good to hear. She’ll appreciate my work.” Quincy turns his notebook, uncaps a thin pen, and draws a rectangle. “Album. We need a visual story that doesn’t looklike you’re apologizing for stealing your brother’s girlfriend.” He looks up at me. “Ideas?”
“I want her to lead the visuals.” I clear my throat. “Art director for the album and tour branding.”
Quincy’s eyebrows move a millimeter. “Your new girlfriend’s the art director. That’s bold.”
“She’s a designer. Good. Fast. She sees clean. And she’s not my girlfriend.” I keep going before Salem can poke. “She’s from here. She’s already sketching. We can pay market and put a firewall in place so it’s not a handout. I want her in the room when we decide covers, posters, the lot.”
Quincy considers the pen like it’s a vote. “Deliverables?”
“Album cover system with variants. Two single covers. Tour key art. Venue packages—marquee, screens, posters, laminates. Merch routed through the same grid. A simple microsite to house the era. She’ll set a type system that won’t age like milk.”
Houston nods. “She already has a Sagebrush silhouette that reads from ten feet.”
“Show me when it’s done.” Quincy points the pen at me. “Money?”
“Fair rate with a kill fee and usage spelled out.”
He stands. “Noses clean. Record done. Visuals that don’t apologize. Keep Troy out of the goddamned studio. That boy’s a menace.” He gives us the long-suffering look that only a man who has dragged bands across decades can carry. “I’m too old for a bender detour.”
“We’ll keep him out.”
“Good. I’ll be in my bunker turning down clever ideas from clever people who have never made anything in their lives.” He starts for the door, pauses, and looks back at me. “Knox.”
“Yeah.”
“Leadership is a lonely trick. Don’t let it make you stupid with that girl.”
“I’ll try not to.” No promises.
“Try harder.” He leaves us to the quiet that comes after a marching order.
“We’ve done worse,” Houston says when Salem mutters something about four weeks.
“We’ve done dumber,” I say. “Don’t make me list them.”
I snap a photo of the whiteboard, block a calendar on my phone, and text the engineer we trust. Then I email Quincy the gear addendum and a budget skeleton for visuals. When I hit send, I loop Lou in.
I find her at the suite table with a sketchpad and her laptop, hair up, locket catching light, eyes on a vector she’s pushing into a shape I don’t recognize. She looks up when I sit, cautious for one second, then ready.
“Manager meeting went as expected. Four weeks. Album at Sagebrush. Keep our noses clean.”
She huffs. “Define clean.”
“Not giving strangers free content,” I explain. “No public fights. No headline photos. Deliver music so good the rumor mill gets bored.”
“Ambitious. Doable. Didn’t you guys writeBlack Whiskeyin three weeks?”
I laugh clean and sharp. “Yeah. How’d you know that? No one ever brings up that album.”
There’s color in her cheeks when she answers. “It’s my favorite. Since I was a kid.”
Fuck me. I was in my thirties when we wrote that album.
