“Belinda,” Salem corrects him sharply.
Quincy rolls his eyes. “Right. Belinda. Probably best for everyone she’s out of the picture now, terrible shame how ugly it got.” He stands. The meeting is over the way storms end—fast and leaving the air different. At the door, he glances at me. “Knox. You’re the one who hates loose ends. Tie them.” He leaves.
I sit there for a beat with the coffee smell and the laminate schedule and the wordsradio singleechoing like a drip.
Houston breaks first. “We can get him a single. We don’t feed it to him half-raw.”
“Agreed.”
Salem rubs his jaw. “He’s right about the file. Troy isn’t going to remember what he said when, and he’ll act like we made it up. We need dates.”
“I’ll make a folder,” I say, even though the act of naming it tightens something at the base of my neck. “Screenshots, logs, summaries. No color commentary. Just facts.”
“Good.” Houston nods. “We’ll keep the file and pray we never need it.”
I set rules about our boundaries with Lou and Troy, because we don’t need overlap between the situations. They nod along.
But then Salem holds up a hand. “I reserve the right to be annoying while following all rules.”
“You reserve the right to go for a ride,” I adjust him. “If you need to move, take the bike. No drinking. Helmet on.”
He smirks. “You love me.”
“I want the record done. Can’t do that if you’re dead.”
He stands, stretches, and pockets his key card. “Then I’m going for a ride now. I’ll be back before dinner.” He heads out.
Houston watches me and doesn’t comment. He pours water, sets a glass by my hand, then goes to the window with his own glass and his own thoughts. I used to tease him about being a water boy in a past life, but it’s just how he expresses love. Caretaking. And according to him, no one drinks enough water.
I open a folder and name itTroy, even though every piece of me hates giving it space. I set it to private with shared access for the three of us and Quincy. I add the two drunk voicemails from last month, the ones where he said he hated me. I transcribe the part that saysYou owe me!and leave the rest as audio.
The day runs long. We hit Sagebrush and break for late lunch. Stress climbs. Residency. Single. File. Eyes on us that aren’t music eyes. I keep my face flat and my hands moving because I don’t know another way.
Back upstairs, dinner is room service and a pile of napkins that look like we had a meeting with a sandwich. Houston nurses tea, feet up, ponytail still damp from a quick shower. Lou sits at the table with her laptop open to a comp and a legal pad with agrid she drew herself. Pencil behind her ear. Locket catching the lamp. She looks up when I hover like I’m trying to decide if I belong.
She’s going over some of the lyrics for a new song for her motifs.
“Radio single.” I hate the way the phrase tastes, needing to hear how this fits the ask. So commercial.
“It’s not a single,” Houston says. “It’s a foundation. The single can come from the next one. But this chorus needs to be right so the rest stops wobbling.”
He’s right. I hate that I need him to say it so I can stop hearing Quincy’s clock. “Okay. We finish this and sleep.”
Lou taps the pencil on the paper and then flips the pencil and tucks it back behind her ear. She doesn’t know how the small motion resets me. She doesn’t need to know.
“Bridge?” she asks.
“Tomorrow. We’re past the line where good becomes noise.”
She nods. “One more pass on the third line. The light line.”
We walk the sounds, not the words. We test vowels. We move work forward so the K pops later and the breath has somewhere to land. She hears the change before I do and adjusts her mouth to fit. Her ear for structure isn’t a stunt. It’s a muscle no one trained, and she still grew.
“You hear shape. You don’t force it.”
“It’s fonts,” she says, shrugging. “You can’t make an O do what an N does. You let it be round.”
Houston grins from the couch and picks up the guitar, and plays the chords soft enough not to take over. He switches the inversion without my asking. It fixes the way the third line sits. Lou turns her head, surprised, then pleased. We all feel the click, the small internal yes that means we can stop for the night and not hate ourselves.
