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“Lovely to meet you both.” I smiled and shook Steve’s hand as well.
James cleared his throat. “I hope you don’t mind, but I brought the LB team in to listen to your tracks.”
“Sure, yes, that’s fine,” I said, regarding the individuals in front of me. “So, what did you think?”
A peculiar silence fell over the room as they stared at me, and my heart dipped. They hated it.
“Natalie…the tracks are amazing,” James answered, looking seriously dumfounded.
Yes!I closed my eyes and smiled to myself.
“How on earth did you get that raw sound? And who is that amazing male vocal? I couldn’t place their voice,” Steve asked, animatedly.
“Um, that’s a friend of mine. Luke Easton.” I was hesitant to share him with the world.
Steve ran both of his hands through his hair. “Your voices together…it’s like pure magic. That duet at the end was utterly incredible.”
Suddenly, I felt a rush of guilt. In my haste to leave Fairleigh, I forgot to remove our duet from the USB. I only intended to give them my songs, which had Luke on backing vocals. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“And, we love the new name. ‘Easton Blue’ has a great ring to it,” Riley piped in.
“Sorry?” My heart quickened at the sound of our names together.
Riley handed back the USB. “We saw it written on here and figured it was the name of your duo.”
My eyelids fluttered. “Oh, I hadn’t really thought about it,” I mumbled, but I did love the sound of it.
“Well, we think it’s brilliant, but of course, that’s totally up to you.” He smiled, warmly.
James brought his hands together. “So, we have spoken about your offer, and we would like to counter it.”
I turned to him with an impressed smirk. “Oh, okay. Go ahead.”
He took a deep breath and placed his hands on his hips. “We would like to discuss the prospect of you becoming a partner in the business? A silent partner if you wish, but we would love to have your expertise and experience on our team.”
My mouth parted and curled into a smile. I couldn’t believe my luck. “That sounds…perfect actually.”
James beamed excitedly. “Well, let’s get our lawyers to talk whilst we all go out and celebrate.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” I said, grinning back.
Jenny let out a squeal and the other two hugged.
James stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Natalie, we have been on verge of closing our doors for years now. An opportunity like this is…life changing for us. Thank you.”
His eyes gleamed as he pulled me into a hug, and I knew then that I had made the right decision.
* * *
We worked tirelessly on fine-tuning my official relationship with Little Bird Records over the next few days. The capital raised from my next album, would be pumped back into the business to build up their lesser known artists. It would give them opportunities to tour, have more studio time, write music, and I could support them along the way. All the things I wished I had as a young artist.
They offered me my own office, but I told them I would work predominantly from home, wherever that may be, and come back in when required. I also offered to mentor artists that were based in rural towns, because I knew how difficult it could be to leave them.
Jenny jumped at the chance to increase her hours and became my personal assistant, as well as James’. Her first job was to order me a new mobile phone that offered the best coverage. I still wasn’t convinced that anyone could reach me in Fairleigh, and advised that email—albeit slow—would be the best way to contact me.
Riley was a wealth of knowledge. He knew what was going on everywhere. We discussed the upcoming Australian Country Music Awards and realised it would be the perfect opportunity to showcase one of my new songs. He spoke with the organisers and they were beyond keen to get me on board. They asked if I could announce the main award and perform a new number. Steve suggested the duet, but I was wary.
I needed to speak to Luke and confess I accidentally outed our song. Even though they loved it and thought it would be a hit, didn’t mean Luke would want any part of it. And I definitely wasn’t doing it without him.
