Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
I head for my room to throw on some clothes before I hit the omelet place.
“Operation Potty was a success,” Beatrice calls a few minutes later as I’m emerging from my room, fully dressed. “The patient would definitely like that breakfast sandwich. And a cappuccino if you can carry it.”
“No problem,” I assure her. “I’ll be right back.”
Downstairs, one of the other doormen I don’t recognize is on duty, but I nod to him anyway. He smiles warmly, seeming to confirm that today is going to be a good day. Outside, the morning is cool, with a hint of autumn in the air. I pull in a deep breath, letting it refresh my humidity-weary lungs.
It’s been a long, hot, confusing summer.
But it seems like things are finally turning around.
Chapter Fifteen
BEATRICE
Four days later…
The control room at Checkers’ studio feels creepy this afternoon, the silence so complete, it’s unsettling.
This room was engineered to devour sound. It doesn’t just muffle noise; it swallows it whole, leaving nothing behind, not so much as the ghost of a memory of an echo. After five months of the Scottish wind rattling my cottage windows and the ocean churning outside my door, the dead acoustic quiet is like a hand pressed gently, but firmly, over my face.
I’m not a fan of hands pressed over my face.
Even gentle ones.
“Relax, it’s going to be fine,” I mutter, rolling my shoulders as I pace the length of the soundboard and back.
Through the glass, the live room sits empty, nothing but a single stool and a mic stand in the center. The soundboard is the star of this studio, a thousand faders and knobs and color-coded channels that look like the cockpit of a spaceship.
It’s always felt like a little too much, but especially so today.
Checkers is not going to be happy about going back to basics with the first half of the album. He isn’t a fan of stripping things down. He jokes that he likes his mixes like he likes his women—smart, complicated, and offensively hot.
But that’s not my sound anymore. I’m not sure it ever was, but it certainly isn’t now. Scotland didn’t just refine my work as an artist; it solidified my sense of who I am as a person. It would be insane to release a first solo album that wasn’t true to that. Not to mention setting my career up to fail long-term. Why get listeners hooked on a vibe when I’m not going to keep making music like that?
I can’t, and I won’t.
Surely, if I can make that clear to Checkers, he’ll see that I’m right, and that a revamp of the earlier songs is the only way forward.
I flip open my notes, but the words swim in the dim light, and I already have my arguments memorized, anyway. I could present a Ted talk on why the Swamp Witch sound I nailed in Scotland is the only way to go. I’m as ready for this discussion as I’m ever going to be.
But Checkers is stuck in traffic, leaving me nothing to do but pace.
And stress about this meeting.
And stress about the gaps in the care schedule for Clover that we haven’t filled for next week, when Nix and Blue are out of town. And stress about Blue, and how close I came to dragging him into my bed again last night.
But I can’t do that again. I. Can. Not.
“You really can’t,” I mutter aloud.
If I keep repeating the words, over and over, maybe the stubbornly horny part of me will get the message.
Though at this point, I’m not sure.
Logically, I know that “friends with benefits” isn’t a good idea for us right now. Blue made that obvious the morning of the surprise call from my parents, when he rocked me back and forth in his arms with such gentle, unselfish care. I could feel the love rolling off of him in waves, leaving no doubt that he’s having “more than friends” feelings.
It would be cruel to encourage those feelings when I’m not sure I can handle romance right now, not on top of everything else. I need to concentrate on launching a high-stakes album and becoming a mother. Even one of those things would be enough to fill a plate, and I’m doing both.
It’s a lot.
So much that sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, already halfway through a panic attack over something I’ve forgotten to put on my list for the album launch or the birth plan. I’m pretty sure adding “being a good girlfriend” to my list of daily duties would break me.
Which sucks!
Why couldn’t Blue have caught feels seven months ago? Eight months ago? A year ago, when we first sang karaoke together and looking into his eyes felt like magic?
I would have sworn he felt the magic, too, but every time I tried to close the “just friends” distance between us, he pushed me away. He pushed and pushed until the night he stopped just long enough to help me make Bean. But as soon as he knew about the pregnancy, he couldn’t start pushing again fast enough.