He blows out a breath. “Niles is flying out this evening to meet us in Tulsa. Wants to do some fancy dinner when we sign.”
“Niles wants you to signtonight?” I hoist Layla higher in my arms and sit at the kitchen table.
Frank nods and claps his hands. “It’s what you guys always wanted. He’s promised full marketing support and a healthy budget to promote our fall dates.”
“Have you read the contract?” I ask our manager, annoyed he’s not asking more questions.
“Niles emailed it to me, but I haven’t had a chance to go through everything yet.”
I turn to the guys. “You can’t be serious about signing this without getting a lawyer to review it first.”
Cooper’s nostrils flare. “Shut up, girl. You don’t know shit. I’ve been busting my ass for years for this chance, and you wanna nitpick details?”
Jace reaches across Derek and shoves Cooper. “You shut the fuck up or I’m gonna give you a black eye to match your bottom lip.”
Shane wraps his arms around Jace. “Calm down, bro.”
Frank scowls at me before he turns to the guys. “Enough of this. You can’t walk in there tonight bitching and moaning aboutthis deal. Either we get on board or cancel. We’ll read it after we grab lunch. I’ll email everyone copies.”
I’m too anxious to eat, too perplexed why Jace’s band doesn’t see the problem with this scenario.
Even though Oklahoma City isn’t far from Tulsa, an overturned eighteen-wheeler on the highway turns an hour-and-a-half drive into three hours. The band is supposed to do some promotional event in Tulsa, but it gets canceled because of the weather. We stop for gas, which takes forever because the entire state of Oklahoma decides they need to refill their tanks before the storm gets worse.
By the time Frank emails the contracts, it’s late afternoon. And when he said he’d send it to everyone, he doesn’t mean me, but Jace forwards me a copy.
He and I hole up in the back of the bus and go through the contract, but after twenty minutes, he groans. “I’ve never felt this dumb before. I don’t understand half of what this says. What does ‘notwithstanding’ mean?”
“Despite or regardless of.” I pull off my glasses and rub my eyes, which strain from trying to read the tiny print. “Jace, this is a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree contract. Niles wants a percentage of all of your revenue. Every single part. Your merch sales, your VIP ticket sales, any revenue from your website.” I haven’t gotten that far, but I’ve read enough to understand the broad strokes.
“We don’t sell anything on our website.”
“Maybe you should. I think your fans would buy stuff there, except you’ll need to figure out how to do fulfillment. But here’s the point. Niles wants a piece of it. Fifteen percent. It says right here.” I point out the clause.
As he scans it, he asks, “How do you know what a three-sixty deal is?”
“When you started talking about signing with Bandit, I researched it.”
He smiles at me, and my heart pangs in my chest. I want to tell him I love him so badly. That I lied when I told him I’d be happier as a librarian than here with him. That I’ll stay if he promises to keep some space between him and Marlowe. That losing him and Layla feels like someone’s carving out my heart.
But I can read the room. On the cusp of one of the biggest decisions in Jace’s life isn’t the time for my confessions.
He runs his hands through his shaggy hair. “I’ll never finish reviewing this in time. It’s a hundred pages long.”
When we pull up to the restaurant an hour later, we’ve only gotten a third of the way through it, and I have a laundry list of reasons Jace shouldn’t sign. We’re standing at the edge of the kitchen, about to join his band, when I grab his arm. “Don’t do it. Or find a way to put it off. Niles might be disappointed, but he can’t be mad at you. Requiring you to read this in an afternoon and come to a decision is insane, not to mention illegal. The contract even says at the top that you should get legal representation to review it.”
He scrubs his face. “Fuck. I hate this.”
As I talk to Jace, I glare at Cooper, who’s giving me the stink-eye from the lounge. “Whatever happens, don’t let your friends bully you.” I’m not sure if Jace is going to sign or not, and it won’t be easy to resist with his bandmates and manager all breathing down his neck. But this has to be his decision, not mine.
I think it’s a lousy contract, but if Jace passes on it and gets kicked off the tour, then what? Will he hate me forever for blowing this opportunity?
I take the baby and follow him to the front of the bus where the band is getting ready to go to the restaurant. We park along the far end of a strip mall. It’s raining and dark because anotherfront has blown through, so I can’t see anything out of the windows.
“We’ll be back,” Frank says as he pulls on a windbreaker.
I turn to look at Jace’s band, not able to hold my tongue anymore. “Don’t do this. Did any of you read that contract? Niles will own your asses for the rest of eternity. At least get an attorney to negotiate the deal.”
Cooper rolls his eyes and heads out into the rain. Derek shrugs and follows him. Shane scratches the back of his head. “At least we’ll be on tour. That’s not so bad.”
