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“No one can do it the way you can,” Mr. Allen snorts. My uncle is a bit of a control freak and perfectionist. The good news is that when he’s in charge, things go off without a hitch.
“Exactly,” Jordan growls, making me snicker.
I feel a little more relaxed now that I know I’m not in trouble and they’re on my side. I don’t know what these new band members are like, but I hope we mesh well. I miss making music where I’m not pulling teeth. Maybe I need to go home soon just to jam out with my brothers-in-law and Lenny…
“Did we lose you?” Mr. Terrick teases me.
“No, I was just thinking about the ‘dream’,” I chuckle. “Finding band members that you mesh really well with and the music flows. I haven’t had that sinceThe Darkest Nights. Even my first band members were assholes.”
“Leo was one of their names, wasn’t it?” Jordan snorts. “It’s been long enough that I don’t remember. I can’t believe your dad let them live with you so long.”
Dad is still in a mental health hospital after he attacked my sister a few years ago. He snapped when he swore he saw Lenny’s dead mom. It’s hard for me to go see him, though I force myself to at least once a year.
“I still don’t really understand why Dad thought they’d make good babysitters and bandmates,” I agree.
“Control maybe,” Mr. Laurence says distastefully. “You’re an adult, you can make your own decisions. We’re just here to guide you a little, while your dad is away.”
Away.As if the man isn’t completely fractured. Sure, I’ll go with it.
“Before we conclude, I think we should extend a job to your boyfriend,” Mr. Allen says, steering the conversation back to the topic at hand. “Jordan has a diva to wrangle, and this way you have someone in your corner at all times. We aren’t micromanaging anything, and Tyler can still work his own hours the way he does his other contracts.”
Chewing on my lip, I nod slowly. This could solve a lot of things…
“Can we loop him into this meeting and call him?” I ask. As much as I want him to be with me more, this is ultimately his decision.
“Yep,” Uncle Jordan nods. “Let’s do it. I can tell you, we’re hard to refuse.”
The three men in front of me wink, making me giggle as I call Tyler.
“Lay? Are you okay?”he asks, his voice colored with amusement as he listens to my laughter.
“Yes, just some old men with jokes,” I snicker.
“That will be quite enough of that, young lady,” Mr. Laurence says, though his lips twitch. “We have been talking with Layla, and there are some changes happening in her career. They’re all good things, but we have to pull Jordan away as her manager.”
“While we absolutely are all in agreement that Layla is an adult and a big fucking girl,” Mr. Terrick says, sobering me. “We all want to make sure that she has a really solid support system in Vermont when she goes to meet her new bandmates.”
I mouth “Vermont?!” Why the fuck are they in Vermont right now when they flew in earlier this week?
“They tend to do their thing when they’re off, so they chose to go there to unwind,” Allen explains, seeing my face.
“I’m tracking this all, but what do you need from me? Is this in any way dangerous to my girl, because her past experiences with her previous bandmates were pretty awful,”Tyler states. He is a pretty gruff person, and calls a spade a spade. I don’t have to guess what he’s feeling, he tells me.
“Not at all dangerous, but we heard that you’ve been staying with her on tours more recently, and wanted to offer you a proposition,” Uncle Jordan explains. “There’s a hole now where I was, since I managed all of Layla’s website and social media accounts, would you be willing to contract with the label to take them over? It would mean that you’d be able to go anywhere she is.”
“Full security clearance,” Mr. Allen agrees. Oh that would be nice. There’s been a couple of things he couldn’t come with me due to security concerns, even as my boyfriend.
“Keep talking,”Tyler murmurs. “Social media is something that I can schedule to post if I have images and text, and her website needs some updating I noticed.”
I didn’t realize that he paid that close attention.
“She’ll have a new assistant assigned to do things like remind of her calendar obligations?—”
“Send her calendar to me as well, and I can sync it to her Apple Watch,”Tyler says nonchalantly.“Layla, you already wear it religiously, you may as well make sure it keeps you organized too.”
“Technology and I are not friends,” I sigh.
“Eh, it’s literally your one and only flaw, and it’s not even a very big one,”Tyler teases me, making me smile.
