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“Listen, Drake,” I interrupt, with zero fucks left to give, “I quit.”
The silence is deafening as Drake processes my out-of-the-blue resignation. But I’m already getting to my feet, not interested in being in his presence a second longer than I have to.
“The fuck, are you serious?”
I start to gather up my papers, random song lyrics andnotations, but at the last minute, offer them to him. “Here. So you’re not in a lurch. They’re mostly half-written, but I’m sure you can manage.”
Which is a lie, he’s never written a damn song in his life, but the deer-in-headlights expression on his face is making me feel weird. Like guilty or… well, just guilty.
But not guilty enough to stay.
(TWO YEARS EARLIER)
“Fucking a, Colter, are you kidding me right now? Tell me I didn’t just hear what I think I heard on the radio. It’s been two years, and you know damn well I did not hand-deliver you anentire songon purpose. Your ethics are shady as fuck.” I exhale in a huff. “‘Jonesin’’? Seriously? After the way you…” I bite off the rest of that thought and take a deep breath. “My lawyers will be in touch, you plagiarizing motherfucker.” I chuck my phone across the studio, where it bounces off the sound-insulated wall and lands with a muffled thud on the thick carpet.
Forking my hands through my wavy hair, I growl in frustration before retrieving the device. My next appointment will be here any minute and I need to pull it together. I slip on my glasses and flick on the overhead lights, collecting discarded water bottles and various clutter left behind from the folk trio who stayed way past their allotted time late yesterday. They’d finally hit their stride near midnight, creatively speaking, and I wasn’t about to cut them off as the magic was hitting. Even if it means I’ll need an IV of espresso toget me through this morning’s session with a former pop princess looking to rebrand herself as a country starlet.
Besides, late nights and early mornings in my studio aren’t the problem. There’s no place I’d rather be. After cashing in my inheritance from Uncle Huckleberry, I found this decrepit factory building a few blocks off downtown Nashville for a steal and had it renovated into a state-of-the-art recording studio. I named it On the Floor Records. It’s my fucking happy place.
No, the problem is that while I stood in line at Charlotte’s Coffee Brewery too early this morning, groggy and feeling hungover (without the bonus of actually consuming alcohol recently, which is a new thing I like to callhitting my mid-thirties), I heard something familiar over the loudspeakers. Which in and of itself isn’t that unusual. Lately, it feels like, when it comes to country music, if I didn’t write it, produce it, or turn it down, I don’t know it.
But this was different. Iknewthis song in my bones because I wrote it in the privacy of my shitty studio apartment three years ago after Lorelai left town. After our one night together.Thenight. It wasn’t for airplay and it certainly wasn’t for my former partner and bandmate Drake Colter to use for his comeback.
Fucking “Jonesin’” wasmine.
Clearly when I threw down that pile of scrap lyrics and half-thought-out melodies, I’d included at least one real song. A song I never meant for anyone else to hear, let alone that fucker. I was in such a hurry to quit, I didn’t look through what I’d handed him.
I hadn’t given it a second thought until this morning.
My phone vibrates in my pocket and I tug it out right as the security doorbell buzzes. I check the camera and let in the client and her team, settling behind the booth and reading my text. I think it’s going to be Colter with some bullshit excuse, but instead it’s an unknown number with an area code I don’t recognize.
UNKNOWN: Heard the new song.
CRAIG: Who is this? Which song?
UNKNOWN: Lorelai. Sorry. New phone.
My coffee does an uncomfortable swirl in my gut. Shit. This is why… I quickly respond, my fingers flying over the keys.
CRAIG: Long time no talk. I didn’t recognize the area code.
CRAIG: Sorry.
LORELAI: That would be because I live in Michigan these days.
LORELAI: I heard Drake’s new song. *Your* new song. Why is that dickhead still taking credit for your work?
The door opens and I gesture for the clients to get set up in the studio. I press the speaker. “Be right with you guys. Go ahead and get comfortable.” Then I slump back in my chair, the momentum rolling me back a few inches, my thoughts whirling like a drunk girl at her engagement party. Lorelai knows the song is mine. She knowsthesong is mine. She’sheardthe song.
Not only that, sheremembersthat I told her I wrote all the songs.
She remembers that night and she’s heard the song and she knows I wrote it.
Well. That’s…fuck. I knew when that email showed up, informing me I was inheriting a boatload of money and all my dreams were coming true, that shit was just gonna nip me in the ass cheek one day.
My thumbs hover over a response, coming up empty, all while in front of me, the studio fills with the muffled rumblings of music waiting to be made. I decide to respond like any normal person would, who was just a really good friend and who definitely didnotstill wake up at least twice a week hard as an I beam at the memory of her coming apart on his tongue.
CRAIG: Long story short, I walked away from touring and opened my own recording studio, On the Floor Records in Nashville. Small. Indie. Probably smells too much like coffee and grilled cheese. But it’s mine.
