We all settled in, made small talk over menus and drinks, but it didn’t take long for Nathan to steer the conversation exactly where he wanted it to go.
Darryl had barely finished his salad before Nathan leaned in, his forearms resting on the white linen tablecloth, his tone calm and conversational, but there was a charge beneath it. A focus I’d seen a hundred times in boardrooms and strategy meetings, but never quite like this.
“I want to be real with you, Darryl,” Nathan said, voice low enough to make the noise of the restaurant blur into background fuzz. “I’ve sat across from a lot of artists, in a lot of cities, with a lot of dreams. And I’ve signed some of them. Passed on others. But I’ve never heard a voice like yours.”
Darryl gave a cautious nod but said nothing.
Nathan didn’t falter. “I saw that first video. The one where you were singing while wiping down tables. What struck me wasn’t just your talent, though God knows you have that. It was the way your voice heldweight. Like it carried more thanjust lyrics. Like it came from someone who’s been through something and still stood tall after it.”
My eyes drifted to Darryl, whose expression barely shifted other than a slight twitch of his jaw.
Nathan continued. “Look, I won’t pretend I know everything about your life. I didn’t grow up in the streets of Louisiana. I didn’t have to worry about where my next meal was coming from, or how to pay rent while taking care of my siblings. But I do know what it’s like to be forced to grow up faster than you want. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love and have to pretend it didn’t rip you apart. To feel like your whole future got rewritten in a day.”
The air in the room shifted.
I felt it.
So did Darryl.
Nathan didn’t pause long enough for it to linger. “When my mom died, everything changed. And instead of dealing with it, I was handed a tie and a schedule and told to keep moving. To build. To be useful. And for a long time, that’s all I did. Work. Win. Move on. But when I took over Edge Records, I made a decision that I only wanted to work with people who had somethingrealto say. People whose music mattered. Yours does.”
My throat tightened.
I’d worked beside Nathan for years, so I knew how he pitched, how he played, how he sold a dream and made it sound like reality. But this? This didn’t feel like a pitch. It felt like a reveal.
Or was it just a new angle?
“Edge isn’t just about money and exposure,” he added. “It’s about freedom. Artistic ownership. Legacy. I want to help you tell your story the wayyouwant it told. I don’t need you to change who you are, I need you to lean into it. Because yourvoice? Your story? That’s what people connect to. That’s what people remember.”
A long silence fell over the table.
Darryl stared at him for several seconds. His posture loosened, not in surrender, but in understanding. “Alright,” he said finally, quietly. “Let’s do it.”
Nathan extended a hand, and the two of them shook. “Welcome to Edge Records.”
Just like that, it was done.
The waiter came to clear the table, and conversation shifted to talk of contracts and next steps and celebration drinks. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what Nathan had said. About his mother. About loss. About how his voice cracked just slightly when he said the word pretend.
I didn’t know that part of his story. Not really.
And I didn’t know if what he’d said tonight had come from a real place or if he was just very, very good at making people believe what they needed to hear.
Maybe both could be true.
***
ONCE DINNER WASover, we parted ways. Darryl headed back to his home and Nathan and I headed back to our hotel.
But no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t sleep.
I stared at the ceiling in my darkened suite, the city lights casting faint shadows across the walls. My thoughts ran wild, looping the same anxious reel on repeat: I was walking away from a steady paycheck, financial security. From routine. From certainty.
For what?
A dream that might not pan out?
A job that could vanish in a matter of months?
