Knox straightens like he’s in class. Salem sits up. Houston smiles, small.
“A bus I can work and sleep on. A desk that isn’t a joke. A door. A driver I trust. An assistant when I ask for one. Security that doesn’t treat me like cargo. Control over what goes out under my name. If I have to pick between your optics and my safety, I pick safety.”
“Done,” Knox says. He means it. “I’ll call counsel and start the draft. We’ll build a budget with the bus company this afternoon.”
“I also still want the option to stay put,” I say. “If I need to stay put for a few days and catch up later, no guilt.”
“The option is yours,” Salem says. “We’ll miss you. We’ll live.”
“And I want to keep the door open to not sing on a given night if my throat or my head isn’t there,” I add. “No hard feelings.”
Houston nods. “We’ll have a pad track ready for those nights and run the house mix clean.”
Feels like I negotiated myself into a different world. I breathe and let the idea land in my body. My own space, rolling with theirs. My own desk, doors, calendar. Their rooms when I want them. My rooms when I need them.
“Say yes,” Salem says, impatient in the way that’s funny now.
“Yes. With a contract. With all the lines we just said written down where the world can’t pretend we never said them.”
Houston reaches across the table and rests his hand on mine, not pinning, just there. “Thank you. For asking for what you want.”
“Thank you for answering straight.”
A knock at the door breaks the moment. Room service forgot the jam and came back with three tiny jars. It’s absurd. It helps. Things got too heavy for a moment.
The door shuts. The room steadies. I look up and find three faces watching me with their version of soft.
“What?”
“You look like home,” Salem says.
“You look like our partner,” Knox says.
“You look like yourself,” Houston says.
I don’t cry. There’s too much to do. I reach for my laptop, but Salem rests his hand there.
“What are you doing?”
He says, “There’s a stipulation I want to discuss.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He stands and takes my hand. “Up.”
I stand too. “Where are we going?”
“To my office, so we can discuss further negotiations.”
“But we were discussing things right here just fine.”
“It’s better in there. Trust me.” He walks me down the hall, his brothers behind us. Then he leads me into his bedroom.
I glance around and point to the door I thought was a closet. “In there?”
“No.” He gives me a light shove onto the bed.
I laugh, still bouncing. “What are you doing?”
