Someone was already there, an African American of maybe forty, tall, his head shaved bald. Hot. He cocked a brow at Matt.
“V, meet AZ.” Matt sighed theatrically. “This business is full of initials.”
“Pleased to meet you, V,” said AZ in a voice of pure velvet. “You’re a Hamid, aren’t you?”
He was probably a native of Chicago, or had lived here for a long time. Outside the city, Hamid meant the thing her father had invented. Inside, it meant the family, and their tentacles of interest and influence.
She nodded. Matt put her sax case down in front of her. “Guess it’s a good job I met you first, hey?” He took a seat in a well-worn leather chair and motioned to the one next to him, not so well worn. “How do you want to do this?”
She sat down. She knew exactly what she wanted to do. “If I go in there, can you play the track to me on a loop? I’ll tell you when I’ve got it.”
“I heard V last night,” Matt said to his engineer, “and if the band agrees, she’s just what the new track needs.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, V, but I have to ask you to sign a nondisclosure agreement before you hear the track. It’s not me, it’s the band.”
She understood perfectly and if he expected trouble, he wouldn’t get it from her. Bootlegging could wreck the impact the band needed from the first release of the album. The agreement was simple and it had no tricky clauses. She had no problem signing that.
She walked toward the door connecting the control booth with the studio. “This new track got a name?” V asked from the door.
“She’s So Sexy.”
V groaned, but it was their track. Matt’s laughter followed her into the studio. She found a stool and tested the keys, pulled out the bottle of water she’d grabbed from the refrigerator in her apartment, wet her throat and her lips.
He played the track. She loved it, and it took her two listens to settle down and absorb the melody and chord changes. On the fifth listen, she thought she had it. When he looped it again, she added some riffs and trills. Then just before the band broke into a new key, she played a fast scale, linking the keys and adding a melancholy note. This track was sultry, slow, the kind of power ballad that could go right into people’s hearts, but Matt was right—it needed something else. Something new, and she could do it, she had no doubt about that.
He looped it again without comment, and she did it again, leaving out some notes this time, giving the notes that remained a chance to breathe. She left that scale, and added another one later, exactly the same, where the lyrics reminded the listener that the person he was singing about had gone. Clever not to say how or when the person had gone, or the gender—it added to the universality of the song, and the atmosphere.
She decided she loved it, and would feel proud to be associated with it, if they decided to use her piece. Furthest from her mind was the thought that this could help her career, such as it was. She just wanted to add to this creation, help it to be the best it could. She’d played on songs she hadn’t loved before, but this was different. They’d used electronic elements, but very, very subtly.
Recognizing the creative trance when it fell on her, she went with it and let the song tell her what to do. At first, her noodles had been experimental, playing on her technical skills, gauging where the notes would work best. Now her soul came into play, turning the expertise into artistry. She entered the place she loved, somewhere she couldn’t push. It either came or it didn’t. Without it she could create a reasonable job and please most people. With it, she could please herself.
She couldn’t remember how many times Matt looped the track, but he let her work with it until she had what she wanted.
Quietly, she put down her sax. She was done.
He didn’t loop the track again, but played a different one. He hadn’t invited her to add to this one, and while she listened, she thought it needed nothing else. The track finished and the door between the control booth and the studio opened. A man entered, one she knew well but had never met in person.
“Matt was right,” he drawled. “A sax track was just what we needed. Your sax track. Did he get you to sign a contract?”
What they had couldn’t be deemed a contract. She shook her head, smiling. “It was just a tryout, that’s all.”
“I want it. I want you.” Jace made it sound like more than a business deal. His dark-blue gaze roamed over her, taking in every part of her jeans and sweater, making her feel naked. Vulnerable. But she was used to opening her soul in her music, or at least, she knew what it felt like.
This technique might work on the women he usually encountered; he’d have to try harder with her. He wasn’t opening his soul here. Only his fly, and she recognized the tactic. So Matt hadn’t informed Jace of their relationship, only that she was a session musician he was trying out. Silently, she thanked him for that. It told her Jace was used to using his sexiness to get the advantage, which in turn, told her he knew exactly what he was doing.
“My father’s my agent.” She couldn’t think of anyone better. Everybody in the family came to him with their contracts. He supervised their music contracts, property deals and any other damn thing. He’d once found a loophole in her brother’s rental agreement that saved him a hundred dollars a week, and Darius was still paying a nominal rent for his restaurant on the Loop. “If you want a deal, give me the name of your agent and we’ll do it.” She added a hip shimmy and a knowing wink.
A raucous laugh echoed through the studio, startling her. “She got you there, sexy boy!” came the disembodied voice of AZ. She glanced at the booth, grinning.
“You do.” To do him justice, Jace didn’t seem to hold any rancor. His grin was more open, less calculated and far more attractive, to her at least. He also lost some of the Cajun drawl. “Seriously, you did add sex to that song. And you didn’t use any dirty sax clichés either. I’d really like to use it.” He glanced at the booth. “The bastard’s right about you. He said he found you in a blues club and brought you in to see how you worked with the track.” But he smiled when he said it, and if there was any real rivalry, V didn’t hear it. Fondness, rather.
He turned back to V. “I meant the other too. You’re sexy. You have that aura about you, especially when you play.” He picked up the end of her ponytail and flicked it back. “I can see this loose, clinging to the sax. I’d like you to play with us sometime. Just this track for now.” He paused, biting his lip. “I can’t promise, because the rest of the band needs to hear the track and approve, but maybe have you in the video. You up for that?”
“Maybe.” She wouldn’t tell him how much the thought excited her. If she got credit, and her father negotiated a percentage, she’d get a small amount every time someone played the video. More than anything else it would get her name out there as a session musician. She might get regular work, have a chance to go with her heart’s desire rather than the practical career she’d decided on to please her family.
“May I listen to the rest of the CD?” She wanted to know what else she’d be putting her name to. Only overt sexist or racist lyrics would make her back off. This song had none, it was a simple, beautiful lament to love, but she hadn’t really listened to Murder City Raven’s work recently. Not since Matt left.
“Sure.” Jace shrugged. “But you have to listen to it here. You can’t take a copy away.”
“Of course not.” She understood that. “I just want to hear it.”
“Add some tracks. See how it goes,” Jace suggested. “As I said, no promises, but I’m interested. But that would be unpaid unless we decide to take it. On spec, so don’t feel you have to.”
“I’d love to.” She’d heard enough of the music to know she’d like to play, even if only for her own benefit. And she hoped she’d be spending more time in this studio.
“You know who she is?” AZ said through the intercom.
Jace studied her, more warily now. “Should I?”
AZ filled in the blanks.
“She’s V Hamid. The Hamids own one of the oldest blues and jazz clubs in Chicago. At least one that’s been in the same hands. You name them, they played in that club. She’s one of the family known as the Rainbow Nation of Chicago. How many kids, V?”
“I’m one of twelve.”
AZ’s rich chuckle filled the room. “Yeah. A while back, old man Hamid invented a valve regulator doohickey. Something that helped with energy conservation in cars. All I know is that every new car has one and Hamid gets a cut on every single one. So he knows his way around contracts. He negotiated a better deal than any lawyer could have done for him. He and Mrs. Hamid started adopting. Brangelina don’t have anything on the Hamids. Where d’you come from, sugar?”
She thought she was used to explaining, but with Matt silently listening, she found it harder than she’d imagined. The others didn’t matter. Only him. “Chicago. I was born addicted and they thought I’d die. When the hospital let me go, Mom took me home. They don’t like interracial adoption, but it wasn’t as if anybody else wanted me. She took me and kept me and eventually the authorities gave in and they let them formally adopt me. That’s what they did with the others too. We were the no-hope kids, the ones nobody wanted, but we got a home with Mom and Pop.”
It wasn’t as if her parents couldn’t have children of their own. They’d had three before they’d begun the adoptions. They’d never discriminated between their children—once they started making serious money, her mom indulged her desire for a big family. “Sometimes you can’t walk through town without bumping into a relative.” She smiled, loving the thought. Her dad had once remarked that they owned the city. The Hamids formed a solid family unit and she was more than proud to belong.
So how had Matt taken the news that she was the child of some nameless addict? She’d been lucky not to have been born with HIV, but she had been spared that. Just the heroin addiction. And as far as she knew, no brain damage.
His deep, sexy voice finally broke the silence that had fallen after her revelation. “And look how good you turned out.” He’d left the booth, and now he walked across the studio floor to take her by the waist and swing her down from her perch on the high stool. She saw no condemnation in his gaze, no doubts.
Although she knew her origins weren’t her fault, she still had a kind of residual guilt. It hadn’t helped that finally, with a little wangling, her brother Bran, who had a store in town and could work computers like nobody else she knew, discovered her mother’s identity. The poor woman had died shortly after she’d dumped her baby at the hospital. Nothing more to know. A sad victim, that was all.
Nobody else knew what they’d found out. Bran agreed to keep it secret. Once she knew, it surprised V how little difference it made to her. She felt sorry for the poor victim who’d never had a chance, but the woman who’d birthed her was a stranger. Nobody she wanted to know more about.
Now she stared at this man who behaved like a confident blue blood, and forced a bold smile. She was good at that, appearing in control when she was screaming inside, but it didn’t get any easier. Especially now, when he was paying her extravagant compliments.
“That was great. You were great. I can mix the track from what you gave me. I liked the colder, more analytical stuff to start with, merging with the soul-deep stuff at the end. You’re something else, V.”
“Aren’t I, though?” She turned the smile cheeky and pulled away from him. “Anything else I can save?” She laughed at the expression on Jace’s handsome face. “I was only kidding. The track was great without it.”
“That’s just it. It was great. I wanted knock-your-socks-off. I was thinking a single female voice, but the sax is even better.” Jace cast Matt an apologetic look. “I want this album the best. Hopefully our breakthrough.”
The awkward moment didn’t materialize, as Matt didn’t tense, didn’t take objection. “You’re pretty big already. Your first two albums sold well.”
“Not money or fame or any of that shit.” Jace waved away her protest. “That doesn’t matter. As long as we can make a living, I’m good. I don’t like to use the word ‘artistic’. More like putting out there the sounds I hear in my head. I can’t do it on my own, I know that, and our new vocalist writes.” He stopped abruptly. V could almost taste the awkward moment, so thick it filled the air completely.
Matt shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I never wrote more than ordinary stuff. It was you guys who made it great. This new material is more. Far more. It’s scary.” He tried to explain when Jace cocked a brow in query. “You’ve taken some risks here, man. Anybody would think you’d never heard of verse, chorus and middle eight.”
“That’s what we wanted.” Jace had lost all the louche Cajun now in favor of a crisp French accent and sharp-eyed attention. “When we started working together, things started happening. You know?”
From the expression on Matt’s face, he knew. V wanted to help, wanted to touch him to bring him comfort, but Matt’s relationship to the band he used to belong to wasn’t any of her business. One glorious night didn’t equal a relationship. She had no claim on him, no right to join in what was obviously an important moment for him and Jace. She moved away, using the excuse of fiddling with her saxophone to give them some space.
“I know. I have a new collaborator. AZ is fucking good. And I know my skills are better here. I can mix and stop, even auto-tune if I need to.” At Jace’s grimace, he barked a short laugh. “Yeah, that’s the difference. I want to make the best-sounding track I can. I don’t care if the original artist can sing or not, only if he or she can sell the track. I do all that. But you’re musicians. Everything in the service of the song, am I right?”
Jace nodded. “I get it. I think.” His grin dissipated the mood, and she knew something had been resolved between the two. “We want to take a different direction because of what we want to say. It’s not to be different, or to have a commercial hit. Although if that came our way, we’re not going to argue with it. Just celebrate the taste of the public.”
They’d just discovered a fundamental difference, V realized. Jace wanted to create, and Matt wanted to help others with their visions. She was witnessing a turning point in a relationship she understood meant a lot to both men.
Being men, their mutual grin was the only clue that either had recognized the importance of that moment. V barely restrained an eye roll. If she’d come to an understanding with one of her girlfriends they’d probably have hugged and then cracked open a bottle to celebrate. Maybe a good chick flick might improve the celebration.
The next step would be interesting. How did she fit into this setup? Did he want to acknowledge more lay between them than just a professional relationship? V didn’t understand how much that meant to her until she realized she’d been holding her breath.
Then he slipped his arm around her waist and dropped a kiss on her forehead.
Her breath released. Jace shrugged. “Can’t blame you, man.” He turned that devastating grin on her. “It’s you I blame. You shoulda waited, cher. But how could you know I was waiting just for you?” He paused and the light in his eyes changed. Since she shared one of his passions, she realized what had happened. Jace had had an idea.
She pretended to ignore it. The moment of inspiration could be very personal to some people. The moment, so fragile, when a dream could build or shatter, or even be forgotten.
Jace reached in his jeans pocket and came out with a tattered scrap of paper and a pen, the kind banks leave out for their customers. Without another word, he turned away and scribbled something, a sentence, a few words, she didn’t know. Then he folded the paper carefully and put it back in his pocket. When he turned back, she could see his eyes remained a little distant.
He was still thinking about it. She moved closer to Matt and smiled up at him. “Want to play me some more tracks, tiger?”
Matt’s laugh would have echoed around the room had it not been so well soundproofed. “Nobody else makes a re
quest like that sound so dirty. C’mon, sit in the booth and I’ll get some coffee. Let’s leave the genius to work.”
Jace hardly heard them. He headed for an acoustic guitar that was propped in a corner of the room as they left.
*
“I’ve never heard anything quite like it before,” she said a couple of hours later. They were alone in the booth, AZ having left for the other studio when another artist arrived. Jace was still in the vacant studio, noodling and frantically scribbling notes on pieces of paper. She’d listened to the tracks several times before venturing an opinion. She could add to this.
Matt didn’t try to shrug it off. “I know what you mean. This’ll blow everything else out of the water.” He twitched one of the slides on the board. “It’s not done yet. That’ll take a couple more weeks. But everything’s laid down, the track order is sorted and the rest of the band will arrive tomorrow. They’ll have to approve your track.” He met her gaze. “Tell me for real. Do you want credit? I can get you the best session rate if you want, or you can negotiate a percentage. If you get the credit, something’s going to come your way for sure. You’ve heard it now. You know this is the nazz.”
“The nazz? Are you a Bowie fan by any chance?” She didn’t know anyone else who listened to Ziggy Stardust on a regular basis.
He gave an adorable sheepish grin. “Yeah.” He leaned forward and dropped a kiss on her lips, curving his body around her in an unconsciously protective gesture. “You too?”
“For sure. He played the sax, you know. There are some amazing solos on his albums.”
“I know. So what do you want to do? The band will need a quick answer, because they plan to release the album next month.”
When she recovered the power to breathe, she asked him to repeat. “Next month?”
“’Fraid so. With all the security leaks going on, they want to get it out fast. Anyway, they owe the record company. With my—well, when I left, they had to find a new singer, and then work him in. I left them short. Jace works best in collaboration, and it took a while for the new guy to settle in. The second album was a live one. Just as well they’d recorded some dates on the last tour I did with them. They did one side with me, one with Zazz, the new guy, but no new material, just the stuff from the first album and some covers.”
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