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“The record label has literally hundreds of demo tapes to choose from,” he said right out loud. They’d chosen his.
They’d amended their contract according to his every request.
He needed to get back to Black Hill Records right now.
He went up to the counter and said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t wait. Have they started mine yet?” He looked behind the girl there, because all she did was turn around to look too.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Cancel it,” he said.
“I’m sure it won’t be long,” she said, her expression turning to slight panic.
“I don’t want a refund,” he said. “I just can’t wait.” He knocked on the counter again, this time a smile filling his face. “Sorry. Thanks!” He dashed out of the smoothie shop and down the sidewalk. He wore his nice dress boots though, and they certainly weren’t made for running.
Not only that, but mid-June heat and humidity in Nashville rivaled that of Texas, and Kyle would be dripping with sweat if he kept up this pace. He slowed to a walk, re-entered the building, and nodded to the security guard.
He got buzzed through, and on the fifteenth floor, he asked the receptionist for a bottle of water. By the time he returned to the conference room, where his contract and the black pen he’d held a half-hour ago waited, he was calm, cool, and collected.
“I apologize,” he said smoothly. Jolene looked up from her phone, but she did not jump to her feet the way he had. “I’m ready to sign now.”
She nodded to the pen. Kyle picked it up, and in one fluid motion, he flipped to the flagged pages and signed his name. He had to do it three times, as well as initial in several places, and once that was all done, he exhaled.
His next breath didn’t take nearly as much effort, almost as if a weight had been removed from him by him signing his name, and he looked over to Jolene. “Thank you,” he said. “For everything.”
She collected the contract without a word, her eyes solely on it. When she did raise them to his, she asked, “Did you get it worked out?”
“Starting to,” he said.
She smiled and patted his chest. “I knew I liked you, Kyle. See you at dinner tonight?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, watching her as she left the conference room.
His flight home wasn’t until tomorrow, and dinner wasn’t for another couple of hours. Kyle left Black Hill Records and wandered the streets of downtown Nashville for a few minutes before setting his sights back on his hotel.
Inside his room, with the door closed and locked, he dialed his daddy again. “I did it,” he said when Daddy answered. “I was standing in this smoothie shop, and I just got this feeling—they picked me out of lots of options. I can’t just ignore that. So I signed.”
“That’s great, son,” Daddy said, and he truly sounded like he meant it. “I’m glad you figured it out.”
He hadn’t, at least not all the way. Just as he’d told Jolene, he was starting to.
“Should we announce it to everyone tonight at dinner?” Daddy asked. “Your brothers and sisters have been dying to hear. The guests like big family announcements too.”
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “Dinner is fine, Daddy. Give me a couple of hours to talk to Maddy first, okay? Dinner should be fine though.” He realized he’d already said that, and he determined not to say it again.
The call ended with his father, and Kyle looked down at his phone. “One more call to make,” he said, and he honestly thought his relationship with Maddy hinged on the next several seconds. He’d know how she felt about this record deal once and for all the moment he told her he’d signed the contract.
He dialed, and her line rang.
ChapterSixteen
Maddy bent over the huge ice cream tubs, scooping rainbow sherbet, when her phone rang. It was Kyle’s ringtone, and her heart immediately shot to the back of her throat. She couldn’t get to the phone right now, as the ice cream booth had just opened, and a line stretched down the boardwalk.
She smiled and handed the customer his rainbow sherbet, then started scooping the mint chocolate chip. This family had already put in their order and paid, and as she alone worked the booth, she couldn’t stop to take phone calls.
She scooped and served. Took orders and cash. Scooped and served. Smiled and laughed with customers. She answered their questions about where they could find picnic tables and what the concert was this fine Friday evening.
Through it all, she heard Kyle’s ringtone in the back of her mind though he never called again. She’d told him her schedule, and he’d likely realized she’d just opened the ice cream booth. Once the line had died down, Maddy washed her hands, wiped up the silver counter which bore plenty of multi-colored drips of sherbet, sorbet, and ice cream, and then finally turned to her phone.
