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I’d thoughtthat when Jason walked into the mediation room, the world would stop spinning and everything would go all slow motion like it did in the movies when an epic showdown arrived.
But it felt surprisingly normal. For as much as Jason had put me through, he was the same handsome dude with hooded eyes and coy Cupid’s bow that showed his annoyingly straight, square teeth. He was lucky to still have them after years of using hard stuff. I had to admit, he looked good, and even though I was happy to scare the shit out of him today, I didn’t want him dead.
At least not right now.
I nodded my hello. He nodded one back, rubbed his hands together, and offered a brief, tight smile. My own lips didn’t care much for whatever etiquette he thought we were to follow. In fact, even though it felt normal to see him, what wasn’t normal was how angry I started to feel. How angry I let myself feel.
I’d always discarded my feelings, opting to be the bigger man. But now, they seemed to bubble under pressure in my veins. I got hot, and my skin prickled as he stood there next to a lawyer in a suit from Walmart, thinking he could actually beat me. It was now that I realized I’d brought this on myself.
If you let a kid win for too long, they grew overconfident. That was the problem here. Jason Fry thought he was better, bigger, and smarter than he actually was because for such a long time, everyone had let him win. His parents let him win. His sister. Me. A million fucking shady girls backstage and in his nasty studio apartment let him win. His pretty face and tortured soul act had been too much for any of us to deny him and say no.
But the crack of doom had arrived. Judgment day was here. He was about to have his baptism of fucking fire. He was about to become a man today and figure out what it was like for the rest of us.
Fortunately, we weren’t left to stare at each other for long.
Jacinta gestured to the chairs. “All right. Let’s all sit and get started. Thanks for joining us today, Mr. Fry and Mr. Beckett. We do hope this mediation proves fruitful on every account. Keeping costs down, our schedules less tight and, of course, this dispute out of the public eye. This is of the utmost importance to my client, Mr. Jackson.”
Jay’s eyes shifted from Jacinta to me but then quickly back again before I turned my gaze from peripheral vision to direct contact with him. Good. Squirm, little boy.
Beckett nodded. Jay did, too.
Jacinta pushed a manila folder over to the other side of the table, making a sound like sandpaper as it slid over. “Gentlemen, I only blocked a half hour out for this meeting.”
Beckett’s eyes narrowed. “That would be the shortest mediation in the history of time. Hope there’s an offer in this folder.”
Damn, Maeve was right, she was a megalodon. About to swallow these two whole. “In that dossier is a collection of receipts, emails, and transcribed correspondence as evidence that Mr. Fry was not, in fact, an equal band member with Mr. Jackson but rather an employee. As such, he has no right whatsoever to the music you claim he shared copyright to.”
You could have heard a pick hit a pile of pillows. In one fell swoop, Jacinta did the most insane mic drop ever while Hunter sat relaxed, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed, a smug smile on his face.
Jason swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Beckett reached out slowly for the folder and pulled it toward him. The sandpaper sound seemed even louder to me now. In fact, everything got loud and dramatic. The clock clicked in my ears. A horn blew outside. There was noise everywhere, filling this epic moment.
Mr. Beckett slid the folder toward him with the kind of fingers one might use to approach a ticking time bomb. He didn’t open it. Just tapped it. Then, he spoke to Hunter as if Hunter was his assistant. He’d had Hunter’s number, known he was an obvious junior. He delivered his message as though Hunter had fucked up and Jacinta didn’t know it.
“Now, Mr. Rodrigues, if you had evidence that would lead to arbitration, you know you should have presented this to me before the meeting. A half an hour is hardly enough…”
Jacinta cut him off. “We won’t move to arbitration if Mr. Fry drops the case.”
Jason shook his head and finally spoke. The deep, baritone timbre, rich and too good to have been wasted to drugs. “Hang on. I don’t think I understand what’s going on here. Someone explain this in plain English.”
Hunter started to speak, but I put a hand out.
“What this means, Mister Fry, is that as you were a paid backup instrumentalist, as in I booked all the gigs, managed all the timings… As in you weren’t a participating songwriter in a single bar of music, not lyrically or otherwise, you don’t get to stake a claim just because you were there. Being present doesn’t give you a cut. Just because you show up to the game doesn’t mean you win.”
Jason’s eyebrows furrowed.
I narrowed mine in return. “Not anymore.”
Hunter laid his hand on my arm as if to stop me from going off. And I wanted to. But the truth was, this shit was getting me dizzy, so I would have stopped anyway.
Jacinta took over again. “You have,” she looked at her watch, “Twenty-two minutes to make up your minds. Otherwise, we’ll move to arbitration.” She stared Jason right in the eyes and didn’t blink. “In plain English, that means we will move on a countersuit. This means, Mr. Fry, that not only will you not win this case, you’ll be sued for using the songs that are rightfully Mr. Jackson’s. Whatever you’ve been paid by your current production company will belong to Mr. Jackson.”
Jason’s eyes shot over to me, wide and scared. It was the exact expression that often changed my mind about the tough love I should have given him but hadn’t in the past.
I gave him my final words. “I don’t want your money. All I want is my reputation and you out of the pictu…”
And then, as if a fade-out transition, Jason’s expression faded with each blink of my eyes until the whole room disappeared entirely.
