Earlier that morning
The jet has WiFi.
This feels important to mention because I’ve spent the last two hours texting Delilah instead of preparing for my meeting, and that’s entirely the WiFi’s fault.
Levi:Harper keeps glaring at me.
Delilah:Maybe because you’re supposed to be working?
Levi:Working is overrated.
Delilah:Said the man on the private jet.
Levi:The private jet that’s taking me away from you. It’s basically a prison with leather seats.
Delilah:You’re ridiculous.
Levi:You like it.
Delilah:Unfortunately.
I’m grinning at my phone like an idiot when Harper clears her throat.
“We land in forty minutes,” she says, not looking up from her tablet. “The label wants you in the conference room by three. That gives you exactly enough time to check into the hotel, shower, and remember how to be a professional.”
“I’m always professional.”
“You’ve sent two dozen text messages since takeoff.”
“That’s professional. I’m maintaining important relationships.”
“You sent her a picture of the clouds shaped like a duck.”
“It was a very good duck.”
Harper sighs the sigh of someone who is dramatically underpaid. I’ve known her for years, since she came on as my assistant right when things started taking off, and she’s been managing the chaos ever since. She’s seen me at my worst: the year I toured so hard I collapsed backstage in Denver, the spiral after my second album went platinum and I realized success didn’t fix anything.
She’s earned the right to sigh at me.
“Just…please be ready,” she says. “This meeting is important. The label’s been patient, but their patience has limits.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because you’ve been dodging their calls for months.”
“I haven’t been dodging. I’ve been…taking my time.”
“Levi.”
“Fine. I’ve been dodging.”
She’s not wrong. I have been avoiding this. The label wants decisions I’m not ready to make. They want commitments that feel like chains. They want me to be the Levi Cole who sold out stadiums, not the one who’s been hiding in a beach town trying to remember who he was before any of this started.
But I’m here now. That has to count for something.
Through the window, I can see the California coastline coming into view. It’s beautiful in that aggressive LA way, sunshine and palm trees and everything just a little too bright. I used to love it here, the energy and the possibility, the feeling that anything could happen.
Now it just feels far away from the place I actually want to be.
