Because I won’t admit this out loud.
But he may be right.
“Why are you two conspiring against me?”
Sean laughs, and Lou hugs my arm tighter.
“Because we care,” Sean says.
I shake my head. “Yeah? Well, you’re the worst little brother in the world.”
“I had a good role model,” he teases. Then he gives Lou a quick hug and backs up with a wave. “Travel safe, y’all. See you in Memphis.”
He disappears around the bus, and I look down at Lou in surprise.
“Sean’s coming to Memphis?”
She smiles. “Your dad, too. Hot Strings Hall is a once-in-a-lifetime event, so I got backstage passes for my friends and family.”
“But they’remyfamily.”
She leans up and kisses my cheek.
“Same difference.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
LOU
The next two weeks are a blur. Every day, Patty and I work on song after song, and the effort has me hungrier than ever to get in the studio.
“Let’s try ‘love’s first light,’” I say, crossing out his line. “It fits the rhythm better.”
“You’re right,” he says, playing around on the keyboard. “But I don’t like going from a minor chord to a diminished one here. What if we let it resolve naturally instead?”
“That’s too predictable,” I counter, leaning in. “What if we sustain it and bring in a harmony instead?”
He pauses, thinking. “Or we drop it altogether and let the silence speak.”
“Yes!”
I gently push him aside from the keyboard, and he smirks as he takes my guitar in return. His fingers find a melody to fill the space I left open, and I match him instinctively. The music grows between us, effortless and alive.
We switch often, adding to each other’s melodies and riffs, scratching out a word or note and replacing it with another. Co-writing with Patty is so much more satisfying than writing by myself because he challenges me and sharpens me, and at the same time, I knock off some of his rough edges.
He tends to go darker than I do, and I have a habit of staying lighter than I should. You’d think that means we meet in the middle, but that’s not it at all. Instead, we span the entire emotional range, writing songs with the power to drag down your soul and then elevate it in the next breath.
Whenever I’m not performing, rehearsing, or sleeping, we write. Hour after hour, day after day. And with days to spare, we have enough for an album.
I upload the file to a shared folder and look at Patty, my hand trembling. He blinks a few times—a sign of intense nerves in Patrick-ese.
“Are you ready for me to send this? Once the label has it, you’ll be Patrick O’Shannan, co-writer. Are you okay with that?”
He blinks again, then looks at me, a small smile tugging up the side of his face. He lifts his arm, scratches his head, then nods.
“I’m okay with that.”
I place my hand over his, guiding it like a mouse on my trackpad. I hover his finger over the middle of the pad and press down.
