Another tight laugh slips out. “Guess I did. Sorry.”
“Don’t need to apologize.” He leans back in the chair. “I’m not much for niceties. I come here to work. Work keeps my mind busy.”
Despite his gruffness, my lips tip up. It feels like a challenge, and I’ve never been good at turning those down. I doubt he’ll appreciate the effort. But working this closely, I’m sure I’ll crack him, eventually.
Strong, silent type or not, I’ve heard his songs. There’s a heart in there somewhere.
“Got it,” I say with a sharp dip of my chin.
He stands abruptly, bends to a mini-fridge, and holds out a water bottle. I take it and twist off the cap, but I’m not all that thirsty.
He downs half of his before asking on an exhale, “You have anything written?”
I place my bottle on the coffee table and dig my notepad out of my bag. “I’ve got ideas, but I haven’t managed to write a full song… Not for a while, at least.”
Never, really. Working the bar scene in Nashville, I performed covers. Other people’s feelings, set to other people’s music. If the audience hated it, it wasn’t on me.
I hadn’t written a full song since high school. I didn’t even try to dive back in until I’d been cast onYou’re The One. And even then, I was writing into a void. No one heard the songs.
Between dates and drama, there was nothing else to do but sit with myself. So I wrote. I figured, at the very least, I’d come out the other side a better songwriter. And maybe get a little exposure out of the show.
I didn’t expect Lucky Penny Records, a new but growing indie label, to sign me.
This’ll be my debut album, and it’s important that it’smine, which means I can’t hide behind anyone else’s words.And Boone, with his reputation for developing talent and songwriting, is exactly why the label sent me here.
The man grumbles something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like “great.”
“Let me see.” He holds out his hand, and I hesitate only a second before placing the notepad in it.
He flips through the pages one after another, too fast to possibly make out all my chicken scratch. Near the back, he stops, spending longer on whatever caught his eye.
When his gaze lifts, he looks at me.Reallylooks. Or maybe it just feels that way, like now that he’s seen my thoughts on paper, he’s got X-ray vision. I shift in my seat.
“This has potential.” He holds up my notepad, but I’m too far away to see which page he’s on.
One page. Out ofdozens.
“All this?” He fans the rest of the pages with his thumb. “It’s not enough.”
Not enough.
Not enough songs. Not enough talent. Not enough of whatever it takes to make it.
It’s the same fear that’s followed me through every dive bar, every failed audition, every time someone asked what my backup plan was.
My brows pull together, and my lips tip down. “Not enough… what exactly?”
He sighs, long and put upon, like it’s the dumbest question he’s ever heard.
Heat creeps up my neck, and that old prickly, out-of-my-depth feeling comes right along with it. I can’t help wondering if I’d be here without the show. If my talent alone isn’t enough. If Boone’s thinking it too.
He stands and motions for me to follow. “Let’s run through some vocals. Let me get a feel for your range and tone.”
He hands the notepad back to me. I wait until he turns away, boots heavy as he heads for the booth, before I look at the page he said had “potential.”
Of courseit’s the one I wrote a few nights ago.
The words had come easy that night. Easier than anything in a long time.
