Page 237 of End Game

That gets me.

More than the rest of it somehow.

I straighten. “Yeah.”

“I've listened to more of your stuff since Denver.”

“You have?”

“Yes, Dex.”

“Sorry. That's just extremely fucking weird to hear.”

“Get over it.”

“I'll put it on my calendar.”

“The track is mostly there, but I'm not happy with the bridge, and the second verse is trying too hard.”

I blink. “Trying too hard how?”

Austin laughs softly. “There he is.”

“What?”

“That right there. That's why I'm calling you.”

Something hot moves through my chest.

Not performance adrenaline.

Different.

He continues.

“Come out a couple days early. I've got the studio booked before everybody else comes in. You, me, couple of the guys. I want another songwriter in the room before twelve singers start having opinions.”

Holy shit.

Austin Fletcher wants me in a writing room.

Not opening for him because his original opener got sick.

Not joining some giant charity chorus because I happened to know somebody.

He wants my brain there.

My songwriting.

The thing I've been doing in bedrooms and rehearsal spaces and behind the bar for years because songs show up and apparently need somewhere to live.

At some point I apparently multiclassed from bartender-bard into actual songwriter and nobody informed me.

“Dex?”

“Yeah.”

“You still there?”