“That.”She leaned in, voice low.“Keep the second verse.Do not tidy the crack on ‘open.’It sounds like a person.”
“Done.”
Tony flipped switches.“Give me one more chorus, just vocals, backed off the mic a hair.I want options.”
Jami did it, then let the guitar dangle while the track rolled.When the save icon stopped spinning, he set the instrument down and splayed his fingers to work out the ache.
Axel checked his watch.“Food?”
Jami looked toward the bar.“Twenty minutes.Let me mark one thing in the back room.”
Sean groaned.“The tape measure again.”
“Vision requires inches.”Jami grinned and headed to the empty space behind the existing studio.The cement floor showed old paint scars and years of stories.He pulled the measure from the shelf and extended it along the wall where the new control room might live one day soon.Not promises.Just lines.
Tony’s footsteps joined him.“You really want the glass here?”
“Here.”Jami pointed to the corner facing the main room.“I want to see them and still hear the truth.If we’re building our own thing, we build it with eyes.”
Tony scribbled a note.“Quinn will be here in an hour.We can phase it in if we have to.”
“We will.”Jami rewound the tape measure and hooked it to his belt.“I don’t want this to swallow the music.The music leads.”
“That’s built into your bones.”Tony tucked his notebook away.“Food?”
“Food.”
They regrouped at the bar.Clamshells from the Sandbar smelled like good choices had already been made.Jami and Carlene took the end of the counter.He slid her the container with her name scrawled on the lid.
“Jace wroteBosson mine,” she said.
“He wasn’t wrong.”
She opened it and speared a bite.“How’s your head?”
“Quieter.”He chewed and swallowed.“Yours?”
“Stacked.”She held up two fingers close together.“Less than it was.”
His phone buzzed on the wood.He didn’t look.She noticed.Her eyes warmed an inch.
Tony settled near them with his box.“Grant says their retraction language is acceptable if they post it on all owned platforms and push it to partners.”
“When?”Jami asked.
“Before close,” Tony said.“We’ll watch.”
“Do not let me watch,” Jami said to Carlene.
“I won’t.”She snapped the lid back on her empty box and wiped her fingers.“After this, I want one studio shot for tomorrow morning.No faces.Mics and coffee.That’s it.”
“You have it.”
They finished and cleared the bar the way they had cleared the kitchen last night, without a plan, without bumping, like they had done it a dozen times.It felt like rhythm, not routine.
Back in the studio, the afternoon shifted into building blocks.A new idea came out of nowhere when Axel flipped his sticks, changing the feel.Sean chased him.Jami followed, then led.The song that wasn’t a song yet started whispering its name, and they pretended not to hear it, like you do with something shy.
Between takes, he caught sight of Carlene on the stairs to the loft, phone at her ear, voice low.She listened more than she spoke.He liked that about her.She did not fill a space to prove she owned it.
