“What’s wrong?” he asked, immediately on high alert. She was so unflappable that this had to be something big.
“Uh… we might have a problem….” She followed him into his office and sat on the visitor’s chair. “There’s an email waiting for you. I took a look because it didn’t seem normal and….”
“Okay….” He sat down and shook his mouse, knowing that she would’ve opened his computer for him already.
The email was from Harrison Lane, a big-shot country agent who had been one of Denny’s key people for several years. He ran their small but influential country music branch.
Denny frowned as he read.
“My lifestyle choices?” he asked out loud. “How does that have anything to do with my capability to run my own record label?”
“Read on,” Melody murmured.
“’Can’t in good conscience work for a company that’—what the fuck is this shit?”
Her voice turned dry as a desert. “I think what he is trying to say is that he could ignore the sinful ways of all our queer artists, but if theowneris suddenly coming out as LGBTQ, then that’s too much for his delicate sensibilities?”
“He’s threatening to quit for what? How does he even know I’m bi? I haven’t made any announcements anywhere!” Denny felt like tearing out his hair on principle alone.
“No idea, but he does go to the Hare sometimes, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, he used to, at least.” Denny sighed. “I mean, Josiah and I don’t actually hide our feelings. It’s not like we are much for PDA at this point but you know….”
“Yeah. Okay, so the worst-case scenario?” She reached for his stack of Post-Its and grabbed a pen.
“He’ll resign and he’ll take people with him.” The problem with Harrison was that he was charismatic as fuck and knew how to talk to people.
Melody snorted loudly. “No, the worst-case scenario is that he tries to get a bigger paycheck or something. We don’t want to keep him after this shit, trust me.”
Denny raised his head enough to look at her and smiled. “I knew I hired you for a reason.”
“Yeah, yeah. Now, let’s come up with a list of people we might want to talk to before Harrison gets to them.”
Half an hour later they had decided to just address all the artists and staff after all.
“I’ll email him back that you’re out of office today, but that you’ll get back to him tomorrow morning. That’ll give us time to contact everyone. I’d also check with Josiah and the staff to see if Harrison went sniffing around there, just so we know in the future who might cause problems. I mean, if it wasn’t him but someone else from here.” Melody scrunched her nose.
“Yeah, let’s do that. I’ll go home and email everyone, ask Josiah since he hasn’t had time to leave yet. We’ll figure this out.” He got up and stretched a little. “I should’ve just stayed home.”
Melody snorted. “Yes, that’s the spirit.” Then she gave him a mock stern expression. “Go figure out what you want to say. Also maybe consult Josiah on that, because it feels like this is serious so it’s his life too. Right?”
He hadn’t thought about that yet, but it made sense. If Josiah was to be his partner in life, then he’d need to have a say with the part of their life together that would spill over to the business side of things. Besides, it wasn’t as if Denny was hands-off on the Hare, on the practical level at least. Naturally the business was Josiah’s and he handled the big stuff just like Denny did at Number Three. This sort of thing though, yeah… he needed Josiah’s input.
Josiah sat at the table, scrolling through something on his tablet when Denny walked in.
He frowned. “What’s wrong?”
Denny chuckled. “Why would something automatically be wrong?”
“I know your work ethics, Denny. Either you forgot something, which isn’t like you, or something’s wrong.”
He rolled his eyes. “Okay, I admit, somethingiswrong. You might be late for work today, so better alert the kids just in case.” When Josiah stood up straighter in clear alarm, Denny lifted his hands. “Nothing truly horrible, I promise. Just, I need your opinion on something and, you know, might take some time.”
Josiah seemed dubious. “All right.” He tapped out a message to the twins and then made eye contact with Denny. “Explain.”
Denny put his briefcase on the table and got his laptop out. “Can you make me a coffee while I find you this email?”
“Sure.” Josiah busied himself with the pods while Denny opened the email and found the draft he’d come up with Melody. Soon, Josiah put a cup of coffee in front of him and took his seat again.
