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I met his eyes as coolly as I could. Here began the great deception I had to lead my bandmates in: that I didn’t care. “We don’t have vetoes.”
He looked at me with disgust, and then glanced at everyone else in the room. They were letting Reed fight for them – in general, they agreed with whatever he said. “Fine, a vote. Hands who doesn’t want to drop Luna from the tour.”
All hands in the room, besides mine, went up.
My heart pounded as anger and adrenaline flooded my body. I wrestled it down.Just be indifferent. Just be calm. Act like this isn’t eating you up inside.“It’s too late. It’s already done.”
Reed rounded on me. “What the fuck, Sylvester? Who made you in charge?”
“The record company did when they listened to my decision and acted on it.” I shrugged again, even though I was seeing red every time I blinked, and there was a lump in my throat threatening to choke me.
He shook his head and walked over to the other side of the room. His voice was ominous, regretful. “We made a mistake allowing you to be our point of contact.”
I followed him over to the sink, turning off the tap when he went to refill his water. His eyes flashed with anger as he set his bottle down on the side.
I took a step closer to him. “Who got us this record deal, huh? Who invited the agents to watch us play, who networked with them afterwards while you guys downed pints and made stupid jokes in the corner?”
To my surprise, he didn’t back down. “Oh, so the extrovert is king. No matter who formed the band, invited you in, co-wrote all the songs...”
I interrupted him, giving up my attempt at intimidation, walking off towards the door and addressing the room. “It’s done, guys. Even if I wanted to undo it, there’s no going back now. They’ve replaced the support on the tour already.”
Pete piped up amongst the tension. “She’s not just your girlfriend. She’s our friend.”
Well, I could correct him on that count, too. “Ex-girlfriend.”
Reed was back in the fight again. “Seriously? You broke up with Luna?”
I nodded somewhat stiffly. “It was for the best.” My voice came out more quietly than I anticipated. At least the low volume hid the slight waver on the wordbest.
Yeah,she had good reason to despise me.
I glanced around. I was in the elevator on the way to my office. Apparently, I’d been so trapped in recollection that I’d drifted automatically out of the car, in through reception, and into the elevator. I hope no one assumed I was on drugs.
I strode into my office, the previous anger somewhat dimmed by my remembrance of why exactly I deserved Luna’s wrath. The top floor ofBrock Entertainmentwas octagonal in shape and looked out over the city in all directions. I sometimes felt like I worked in the beacon room of an impossibly large lighthouse. Of course, I’d designed the building as a monument to my own vanity. It was good to acknowledge one’s own flaws, so that no one else could mock them and pierce your skin.
I sat down heavily at my desk, sending useless papers flying. The floor was littered with them. I kept a messy office, and everyone who might enter was under strict instructions to leave it that way. I felt more comforted when my office was a mess. The only time I’d let the cleaner do more than an arbitrary mop and vacuum, I’d spent a week messing things back up again until I was comfortable enough to work there.
I thrived in chaos. So why was I so unsettled by this thing with Luna and Apollo?
If Luna couldn’t – or wouldn’t – break her contract with Apollo, I supposed that was fair enough. She had a good point about her career and reputation. I may not like what she’d grown up into – a money-chasing morally bankrupt ghostwriter for the rich and famous – but I could respect that she’d built a career out of nothing, at least.
She’d said nothing about taking on additional clients, though. If I wanted to keep a close eye on Apollo, the best thing I could do would be to keep my enemies close. And that involved keeping my common connection – Luna – close, too. Though she despised me, and with good right, I’d make her an offer she couldn’t refuse. If she was as money-motivated as she’d said, she’d accept. Then, I’d figure out how to best utilize that thread binding me and Apollo together to my best advantage.
I drafted an email, offering a large sum of money to work on my own memoir concurrently with Apollo’s. Then I upped the sum. And again. I didn’t know how much Apollo was paying her, but I wanted to make sure it was a decent offer.
Send.
The email whooshed off into the ether, or wherever emails whooshed off to.
Though the memory I’d unearthed had been painful – and there were more like that in the memory banks from around that time – I was feeling decidedly nostalgic. That combined with my guitar renaissance the other day had me inspired. I knew how to pass the afternoon’s anxiety: I’d spend it looking up my oldNeedleheadbandmates and seeing what they were up to these days.
The lead guitarist, Reed Stokes, had been the one I’d had the bitterest split with. He, in fact, had penned his own memoir about the whole thing. Unlike Apollo’s piece of work, his was unfortunately true. Every shitty thing I’d done that he described had been carried out by me – as part of my cunning plan to burn all of my bridges before inheriting one-fifth of Emory Brock’s fortune.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want them coming after me for money or anything. I had heaps of the stuff, I could give it out like candy. But I sensed – correctly, as it turned out – that I was about to inherit a heap of Emory Brock’s enemies, too, including the press, as well as a few new ones of my own to boot.
I’d been a protector all my life, it was just how I was.
I hadn’t wanted anyone coming after those I held dearest to me. And so, I had let them go, the only way I knew they wouldn’t come back from: by being totally and entirely horrific to them.
