Not the persona.
Me.
I set my phone on the counter, hit speaker, and wedge it between my coffee mug and my notebook while I flip to a clean page. My guitar rests against my knee.
It barely rings twice.
“LUCKY VALE.”
Banks’s voice is sharp enough to cut glass.“You’re alive.”
“I told you I was alive,” I say, flipping my pen between my fingers. “You just didn’t believe me.”
“You disappeared foreighteen hours.That’s practically a month in Lucky Time.”
“Yeah, well… I had a night.”
I don’t have to look at him to know he’s doing the dramatic blink-blink-blink of rage.
He sighs, the sound of a man flirting with a stroke.
“I’m driving up there today.”
“No, you’re not.”
I underline a lyric twice. “Go back to L.A. Talk to the lawyers. We need a clean way out of Connect Records.”
There’s a beat of horrified silence.
“…fire Jett?” It’s not even a question. It’s a funeral announcement.
“Yes.”
“Lucky, firing Jett Langford might end your career. I thought maybe negotiate a deal with the bastard.”
“Banks,” I say gently, “my career already ended. My sanity tried to tag along. I want to rebuild — slowly. On my terms. Not theirs.”
He groans like I’ve asked him to eat broken glass.
“You’re talking like a woman who found Jesus.”
“Close.” I strum a chord. “Found music.”
“Same thing in your universe.”
“Wanna hear something?” I ask before I can overthink it.
He goes quiet. “Always.”
I play the soft melody I came up with — raw, unfinished, honest in a way my old songs never were. A woman taking a break from the noise, trying to find herself again.
When I finish, Banks doesn’t speak for a full ten seconds.
Which is basically a medical emergency.
Finally:
“…Lucky… that’s a beautiful ballad. It has real potential.”
