Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 100441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Say yes.
I let out a loud breath. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Ryder’s face lights up.
“Yeah. Okay.” A lump gets stuck in my throat, and I wince as I swallow. Nerves settle in my gut.
“Are you all right?” Ryder asks. “You look like you might throw up, and then that’ll be two celebrities you’ve vomited all over in one week.”
I rub my stomach. “Maybe let’s not talk about puke.”
“Do you always get this nervous when it comes to music?”
“Yes,” I blurt.
“Hmm. I’m beginning to see where your problem might be.”
“It’s not … I don’t know. I don’t think it’s nerves exactly. More like, I know if I fuck it up, that I’ll fuck it up. And then I’ll be a fuckup.”
“Which will make you a fuckup? Is that the point you’re trying to make? I might’ve missed it.”
“Exactly. Sorry I didn’t make that part clear.”
Ryder grins. Damn him.
“What I mean is, I don’t think performing has ever been my issue. That’s not what I’m nervous about. It’s the stuff that comes with what happens afterward.”
“The pressure to get a record deal?”
“The right record deal.”
“We can work on that.”
He moves into Kaylee’s room and grabs a … baby monitor?
“I know she’s too old for it now, but this house is so big I’ll never hear her if she needs me. Come with me.”
Each footstep between her room and the studio seems to get me nowhere, until it takes an entire year to walk that single hallway between the messy quarters of the house and the fancy part.
I belong in the messy part.
Instead of stopping in Ryder’s office, he opens the door to the sound room.
He has a small setup, which he’d need being a one-man producer and sound engineer. But if listening to Cash’s new song showed me anything, it’s that Ryder doesn’t need anyone else in here with him.
“Have you ever been in a studio before?”
“Only the ones on campus at Montebello. That’s where all my current demos are from. But a professional one? Once. When I was, like, ten. My dad bought me and my siblings an hour so we could lay down a track together and be like him.”
“Oh, your dad’s an artist?” Ryder asks.
I avert my gaze and stare into the intimidating studio. “Was. And not a very good one. He didn’t get far even though he tried. He desperately tried.”
“What does he do now?”
I frown. “He, uh, died. On tour. He was playing guitar for some B-list band. He might not have made it huge, but he lived like he had. Mom begged him to give up that lifestyle, but it killed him before he did.”
This used to hurt to talk about but not anymore. I carry a lot of reservations around because of it, but I’m no longer angry.
“It’s a more common thing than people make it out to be in this industry,” Ryder says. “It’s why when Eleven was together, we had people whose job it was to make sure we didn’t do that shit. Liver failure or overdose?”
“Heart attack, actually. From all the coke. I always remembered him being cool as fuck because he was a rock star. Never mind that we had no money and were living off food stamps. We still saw him as a role model. Someone who worked hard because he was always gone. I wanted to be exactly like him growing up, and then after getting accepted into Montebello and having my heart set on there, Mom sat me down and told me the truth. About everything. How he struggled with drugs and depression. How the industry chewed him up and spat him back out. How each time he came home a different person with a different image until she didn’t know who she was married to anymore.”
“The rock star life definitely isn’t family-friendly.”
“Anyway, she doesn’t want me to end up just like him. It’s why I want to be careful going into this. It’s why I rarely drink and don’t party. I just want to make music and try not to lose myself along the way.”
Ryder nods slowly. “Is that also the reason why you refuse to conform to what labels want?”
May as well lay it all out there now. “My dad was told so many times that he’d get a record deal if he changed his image, his sound, his everything, and he was so desperate to hit it big that he did it. And then he still couldn’t get signed. He ended up playing for a lot of biggish names, but always in the background as a backup singer or guitarist.”
“I know the empty promises well. And everything makes a whole lot more sense to me now.”
I crack a smile. “You thought I was pigheaded and stubborn because I’m super pretentious, am I right?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Can’t blame you. I am those things, but only because I have reason to be. I love music, but I also resent it. I’m a complicated guy.”