“Yes,” Otis said. “And I think it would be great for all....” He glanced around the table, his fingers ticking up. “Seven of us.”
Tex, Trace, Otis, Luke, Bryce, Harry, Belle.
“Not eight?” Bryce asked, with a grin, and Adam’s gaze flew backto Otis.
Eight would be OJ.
Otis’s jaw tightened, and he chose not to answer.
“So Trace picked up on the fact that this charity concert will all be previous songs,” Adam said, moving things along. “I don’t know what condition the recording studio is in, but Morris assures me that it’s functional and ready to be used, and he says he thinks you guys would only have to practice a couple of times a week to have those twelve songs ready to go in two months.”
“I can have these twelve songs ready to go tonight,” Luke said. A beat of silence hit the table, and then every man there started to laugh.
Adam smiled, something he rarely did during a business meeting, but listening to the brothers fill his house with joy simply got to him.
“Great,” Adam said as they quieted. “We know you’re retired.” He shot a look over to Bryce. “But everything is more expensive these days, from the feed Bryce needs for his rescues, to gas to go pick up the horses he finds. He and Kassie are both about to have a baby, and he doesn’t want Rising Sun to suffer any more than it already has.”
“What’s the goal for the charity concert?” Trace asked.
Bryce leaned forward and looked past Harry to his uncle Trace. “I deliberately didn’t set a goal,” he said. “Because I’m not sure what’s reasonable.”
“I told him I thought we could get six figures,” Harry said.
“And all of that is going into horse rescue ranches?” Trace asked. “Or your ranch?”
Bryce swallowed, a hint of nerves in his expression. “No, I thought we could do fifty-fifty,” he said. “Rising Sun would take fifty percent of the profits, and we could collaborate on finding another ranch or horse rescue operation—or two or three—that could use the rest.”
Trace nodded, and smaller conversations broke out among men sitting next to one another. Adam simply listened, hoping his app would get all of the voices and be able to distinguish them. In the end, he finally raised his hand and said, “Let’s come back together and take a preliminary vote. Nothing has to be decided today.”
He glanced over to the clock in the kitchen. “But I do have another appointment I need to get to.”
Thankfully, no one asked him what else he had going on in his life. Surely he wasn’t meeting with another client, but they didn’t know if he had to go to the dentist, or the doctor…or coffee with Joey.
Tex had thrown his folder down long ago, and he said, “I’ll take any opportunity I can to play with my son. And this is for a good cause; I vote yes.”
“I need a new guitar,” Trace said. “But barring that, I think I can do it.”
Morris leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, his expression absolutely neutral. Adam tried to mimic him as he looked to Luke, who wore a frown.
“I was going to do winter camping with my kids this year,” he said.
“So it’s a maybe,” Tex said. “Otis?”
“I’ve already got the song half-written,” Otis said. Hepushed his folder into the middle of the table, and he clearly would not be taking it with him. “And I suppose I can talk to OJ about playing with us.”
Bryce whooped, and Harry started to laugh.
Before things could get too out of hand, Adam stood up to end the meeting. “Thank you guys for coming,” he said. “If you have any concerns or questions, feel free to text me privately. I want to make sure this is exactly what weallwant.”
He looked over to Luke, who hadn’t said yes, no, or maybe—at least not from his own mouth.
“This is a great transition,” Morris said. “It’ll teach Adam how to work with each of you individuallyandplan a concertandwork with streaming services.”
Adam had done all of that with Harry, but there were definitely more personalities here to deal with than he was used to. The men stood up, and they took their sweet cowboy time leaving his house. So much so, that by the time Adam left, he was rushing to get to Joey’s grandparents’ condo, where she lived, on time.
He pulled up and bustled down the sidewalk, his phone out, as several texts had come in since he’d left his house on the other side of town: something from a potential client that he hadn’t signed with, a couple of texts from Bryce and several from Harry—one about playing a new song with Belle, doing a solo, and then a trio with him, OJ, and Bryce.
At this point, Harry was going to be the death of Adam. He ignored all the messages and went to the ground-floor unit that Joey had specified.
