She didn’t know how to feel about living in the apartment without Blythe – without herandColton, frankly – but there was a kneejerk feeling inside of her that the farmhouse wasn’t for her, either.
Shaking her head, she did her very best to stifle a jaw-cracking yawn as it crept up on her mid-conversation. Didn’t work.
“Are youstillnot sleeping?” Blythe demanded, switching gears immediately from excitement about the house to stern and focused on Darcy.
She didn’t know which she preferred.
“Ah, yeah, not really,” she confirmed, reluctantly, carding a hand through her hair as she jogged across the street, the same side the bistro was on.
“Maybe Emerson’s right, maybe youshouldgo to the doctor,” Blythe suggested.
Darcy shook her head, despite Blythe obviously not being able to see her. “There’s nothing physically wrong with me. And you and Emerson should stop talking about me,” she tacked on, feeling a little defensive.
When, exactly, were Blythe and Emerson getting together to discuss her, anyway?
Besides, what could a doctor do other than prescribe some sort of sleep medication? Granted, at this point, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea…
“I mean, what else could you possibly be obsessing over? The album is done. It’s in production now.”
She reached up, pressing her fingers against her eyes, as if she could rub away the exhaustion.
Technically, Blythe wasn’t totally correct.Technically, tweaks could still be made.
Which was why, technically, Darcy had been in the studio last night until four in the morning. If she wasn’t obsessing in the studio at night, she was reading and trying to distract herself from thinking about being at the studio. But it was becoming very obsessive either way.
Blythe was a very decent singer, she was anincredibleperformer, and she had confidence in spades. For Blythe, once the album was recorded, it was done. She didn’t want or feel the need to go back over it.
Emerson was more similar to Darcy in that she also stressed about the music and wanted to go over it in detail multiple times even after the “final” product was complete. But they were now also past the stage that Emerson had any critiques, either.
As far as Emerson and Blythe were concerned, their first official album with Copper Canyon was done, and now they were just waiting for its release in January. Nothing else to do.
But therewassomething they could do. Darcy was in constant communication with her producers on the album, to the point where she was sure she was driving them crazy. But even then, she couldn’t seem to make herself stop.
Even though they’d been meticulously recorded on equipment they couldn’t have even dreamed of when they’d self-producedBowling Alley Ballads, even though they’d had some of the best producers and engineers working on it, Darcy couldn’t stop.
Listening to every lyric, rolling it around in her mind. Listening to the rhythm, the melody, the pitch of every single song, obsessing over if there were any missteps.
She couldn’t hear them at this point; she thought they sounded great.
Maybe the best they’d ever sounded.
But would it beenough?
Even when she dragged herself out of the studio and back to her hotel room, she often laid awake. Thinking. Trying to predict the future. Even when she picked out the most boring novels she could find, they didn’t make her fall asleep. Instead, she’d recently read the history of the post office. Bone dry. She hadn’t fallen asleep, though.
Blythe made ahmmsound she always did right before – “You know what I’m thinking?”
“I can hazard a guess,” she muttered, dryly.
Because Blythe always took that tone when she was about to very strongly suggest Darcy do something to find a romantic partner.
Herrealanswer, currently, was that she’d fuckingloveto have someone to have sex with right now. She’d found – somewhat miraculously – that was one of the only things that shut her mind off from the dogged obsessiveness with which she’d focused on music.
And she’d only discovered that at Jake’s when she’d been working the closing shift at the bar four years ago, the first time a woman had hit on her.
Or maybe it hadn’t been the first time a woman hit on her; Darcy wasn’t really sure when she looked back in retrospect.
Her M.O. at Jake’s was to wear something low-cut and be just on the right side of bitchy to get the best tips. Typically, from men, who were the majority of the late-night clientele at the bar right off a long stretch of freeway heading down into Mississippi.
