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Funny how life turns out sometimes.
Echo looked shell-shocked.
“It’s time, Echo. You can do this.” I spoke quietly and wasn’t sure she heard me.
I propped up my phone and hit Record as she started to play. And then I joined in. When Zach slipped the glass slide onto his finger and made his guitar sing, we became the perfect trifecta. And it was a trifecta that lasted until nearly midnight.
By then, we’d gone over four or five songs so many times, I lost count. We laid down vocal tracks, we thickened them up with harmony, with intricate guitar runs, and that extra something no one has a name for. I added bass, while Zach added percussion and some fiddle. I suppose magic is the closest you could come to describing what happened. We knew we had something special, and maybe we were scared to vocalize that.
No one said anything for a long time. We just sat there, absorbing what had just happened.
“Wow.” Zach laid down his guitar and shook his head. He looked like he was about to lose his mind. He turned to Echo. “I had no idea. I thought…Jesus, I thought you had to be good. I mean, Christ, your dad is Axel fucking Mansfield. But this is a whole level of extra I didn’t see coming.” His jerked his head my way. “We need to get this out. This right here is gold.”
“What?” Echo’s face was pale, and she jumped up from her stool. The old Gibson nearly fell to the ground, but she managed to keep hold of it. “Uh-uh. Nope. Not gonna happen.”
“What the fuck?” Zach exploded and got to his feet. “We just spent hours recording.”
“I didn’t tell you to record anything,” she snapped back.
“What did you think the mics were for?”
“I don’t…” She looked at me with something closing in on panic. “I can’t…”
“Come on, Echo. What the hell?” Zach’s voice rose, and with it, so did my anger.
“Back off, Gilbraid.”
“Are you kidding me? You of all people know what it is we just did. This is once-in-a-lifetime shit. I’m talking Grammy. I’m talking Billboard number one across all platforms.”
“Doesn’t mean you own it.” I got up. “Doesn’t mean you get a say.”
He swore and glared at me. Zach’s temper was legendary. And the thing was? So was mine. I felt the beast stirring. The one that’d wanted to smash his fist into Gilbraid’s face the moment he’d walked through the door the day before.
“I just spent twelve hours of my time with you two. I better have a freaking say.”
I took a step forward, hands fisted, but Echo stopped me in my tracks. “I’m not doing this with either one of you. Just stop.”
In my mind, my fist connected with his nose and smashed it flat, but in reality, I took a mental step back and exhaled. “Time for bed, Gilbraid. We’ll talk in the morning.”
The expression on his face was ugly, and I knew he wanted to go at least one round. On one hand, I thought it might be good to get things squared up between us. Once and for all. But not in the studio, and sure as hell not with Echo about to lose her mind.
After a few moments, he shook his head, kept his mouth shut, and left.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked, afraid to get too close to her in case she bolted. Echo stared across the room at me, her expression unreadable. Her shoulders were hunched, and she kept running her hands down the front of her jeans.
“I just thought…” she began, before swearing and turning away from me. She slowly shook her head, and I barely heard her. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I walked to her and stopped a few inches away. “What are you scared of, Echo?” Because one thing was clear. She was afraid of something.
“I’m not ready for anyone…I didn’t think that anyone would hear me. I thought we were just…” She whirled around. “I don’t know what I thought. I don’t know why I feel the way I do. I just…I’m scared. This is so…so…”
“Hey. I get it. Writing and recording your thoughts and words is about as personal as it gets. It’s like baring your soul to the world. It can be tough.” I waited a few seconds. “It can also be liberating. Think of it as free therapy.”
“Nothing is ever free, Boyd. There’s always a cost.”
I studied her for a few moments and then closed the distance between us. I slid my hands to either side of her face and forced her to look up at me. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, and I can’t help with whatever demons you’re grappling with. The only thing I can tell you is that you’ll have to figure out if the cost is worth it.”
“I’m scared,” she whispered. “And confused. And a whole bunch of things I don’t have names for.” She ran her tongue over her bottom lip, and it took everything in me not to kiss her. To open up hungrily and take all of her in. “It’s like for the past few months, I’ve been living in someone else’s skin. Like it doesn’t fit.” She looked up at me. “But I want it to fit. I want it to fit so badly. I just don’t know if I’m strong enough.”
