The waiter came back with Brit’s arugula salad and Daisy’s pita sandwich.
Daisy pointed at Brit’s smaller plate. “Is that all you’re eating?”
“I’m on a diet.”
“You don’t need to diet. You’re gorgeous. I would love to have an hourglass figure like yours.”
Brit blushed, but she waved her hand dismissively. “And I would love to be bite size like you. Probably should’ve skipped the candied walnuts, but I couldn’t resist.” Brit shoveled a bite of greens into her mouth before she circled back. “But you changed the subject. What were you saying?”
Daisy put her sandwich down, and a drip of olive oil slid down her wrist like a tear. Brit watched it as long as she could before she handed Daisy a napkin.
“Is everything OK, Daisy?”
Daisy took the napkin and dabbed her lips instead of her arm. “You’ve been so nice to me, Brit. I want to be completely honest with you.”
Brit held her breath. “You can be honest with me. What’s wrong?”
Daisy reached for her phone on the table and noticed the oil on her arm. She licked it up, and Brit’s mouth dropped open. It was a good thing Daisy was so cute and sweet.
Brit watched Daisy’s thumb ring and braided bracelets move as she flipped through whatever she was trying to find on the phone. Or maybe she was stalling.
Turning the screen around, Daisy held out the phone to Brit. The Facebook Messenger interface displayed on the screen with a dark brown face and bright white teeth grinning back at Brit.
“Isaiah’s been sending me messages,” admitted Daisy.
Brit took the phone and moved it closer to her face to get a better look. “It’s a nice picture of him. I like that lighting. What has he been saying?”
Daisy leaned her elbows on the table and futzed with the ties of one of her bracelets with her fingers, the nails of which were painted dark blue.
“You can read it. There’s nothing private there.”
It was mostly small talk, asking how Daisy’s day was and commenting on the weather. The first message was from the day after they had rescued Brit. Isaiah asked about how Brit was doing and said he had a nice night despite it all. No red flags, but something still nagged at Brit’s subconscious. Brit had big plans for Daisy, and unfortunately, this nice-ish liquor salesman was not part of them.
“So your secret is you’re talking to Isaiah?”
“I’m so sorry, Brit. I know you two aren’t that friendly towards each other.”
“But it seems like you guys are. Friends, I mean.”
Daisy stared blankly at Brit.
“There’s no reason you can’t be friends. Just try not to lead him on if that’s not how you feel.”
“Right,” Daisy said slowly. She freed a grape tomato from the edge of her sandwich and flicked it onto her plate. “That makes sense.”
“Isaiah seems like a friendly guy in general, but Vincent seemed really into you yesterday.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely. Maybe it’s too soon to get into anything relationship-wise with him, but I’d love to hear you perform together. What do you think about opening for him this week?”
Daisy’s features burst into a grin that overtook her whole face. “I would love to perform on your stage. I’d open up for anyone to play there. Literally anyone.”
Daisy had begun diddling with her bracelet again, and Brit laid her hand on Daisy’s wrist to calm the nervous girl’s jitters. “Daisy, I wouldn’t let you open for just anyone. Believe me on that. You’re going to be huge someday. The Asian hip-hop Alannis. But you know, currently relevant.”
Daisy’s smile filled Brit with so much satisfaction that she didn’t need to finish her lame salad. Now to make sure Vincent was on the same page and get a hold of Mike to book her officially.
CHAPTER TEN
BRIT DIDN’T WASTE ANY time. She went from lunch to the club and marched into Mike’s office. Cord was at his computer.
“I need to talk to Mike.”
“He’s not here.”
“Thanks for that. Are you going to apply for a position at the genius bar in the Apple store next?”
“They couldn’t afford me.” One side of his mouth turned up, and his blue eyes pinned Brit against the back wall with their intensity.
She recovered and caught her breath, but she had to avert her own brown eyes. Had his eyes always been that blue? There wasn’t any way he could’ve heard her say the same thing to Daisy the day before.
“Speaking of that, shouldn’t you have your own office by now?”
“I do, at home.”
“Sure, but here?”
“What do you need Mike for? Maybe I can help you with something.”
Brit pulled a chair in front of the desk, and the metal leg resisted and dragged across the carpet as she went, making her pursuit more awkward than she would’ve preferred.
“I like your skirt.”
“Thank you.” Brit smoothed the over-sized cotton ruffles down the length of her black gingham skirt so that they lay flat as she eased herself into the chair. It was over-the-top and ridiculous and over five-hundred dollars, but she had had to have it.
Cord mimed adjusting glasses on his face and leaned forward with his hands folded. “So, Ms. Byers, what can I help you with?”
“Is that supposed to be your Mike impression?”
Cord’s smile widened, and three creases formed below each of his eyes. “Dead on, right?”
“Sure, Cord.” Brit fought a smile herself and lost, her blush from earlier not fully faded yet. She crossed her legs and pretended not to notice when Cord glanced down at her now exposed knee. “Anyway, I want to book Daisy as an opener for Vincent’s show on Thursday.”
“It’s Tuesday. That’s two days away. And Vincent is already the opener for some big DJ who’s headlining.”
“I know, but what difference does it make if we start the show a half hour earlier and let Daisy do a few songs?”
Cord hesitated, apparently not wanting to stomp on Brit’s idea outright. “Well, for one, the tickets and all the posters say an eight o’clock start time, not 7:30.”
“Doors are at seven though. People will be here.”
“I don’t think I can even get all the contracts and payments set up in two days.”
“I could help you.”
Cord flashed his eyes up at her again, and Brit steadied herself. “You could?” he asked. “I mean, I know you’re more than capable, but you’re not too busy?”
Anticipating what he was going to say, Brit fired back with, “Busy doing what? Shopping? It’s not like I have a job.”
He put up his hands in defense. “I wasn’t going to say that. You have more going on than shopping.”
She was tempted to ask him to elaborate, but she decided to wallow in the flattery instead. “Do you have anything going on right now while you’re breaking into Mike’s computer? We have to get moving if we’re going to make my match happen.”
Cord’s look was more accusatory now than supportive.
“My music match,” she clarified.
“I’m going on record saying that I’m still not on board with them as a couple, but I get the appeal of them as partners musically.”
“OK, but why do you say that? They seem like a great couple to me.”
Cord leaned back in the chair and this time folded his hands in his lap, breaking out of his Mike routine. “I haven’t spent a lot of time with him, but to me, he seemed like the guy who would do anything to get ahead.”
“He was raised in the church, for Chri—crying out loud.”
“I don’t want to make any assumptions. That’s just the impression that I get.”
“She’s been getting messages from the vodka rep.”
“He has a name.” But his face was more amused than accusatory.
Brit rolled her eyes. “Isaiah.”
“Now that is a good couple.”
; “He’s a salesman. Salesmen are sleazy. She should be with another musician. It’s better for her career.”
“You know why he has that job, right?”
“Is it not because he’s sleazy?”
Cord gave her a look.
“I was kidding. Sort of.”
“He’s paying his way through medical school. He takes classes during the day and then visits bars all afternoon and night.”
Brit felt a pang of guilt, but this didn’t change anything. Right? Right.
“Where do we start?” Brit scooted the chair closer to the desk and situated herself next to Cord.
Cord clicked through a few folders in a complicated folder structure until he landed on one with the heading “Bookings.” Inside were a few spreadsheets and some PDF forms.
“This seems primitive. I thought we had a fancy program to do all this.”
“We do have a scheduling program that holds all the contracts and stuff like that, but I find them easier to get to on the drive.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible. You clicked through like ten different folders to find this one.”
“You’ll get it right away.” Cord pointed to the screen with his finger instead of the mouse pointer. “You have to fill out this form first.” He pointed to the next file. “Then, you have to send this form to the artist’s manager. Faxing, believe it or not, is usually fastest. People are bad at checking email, and regular mail. Well, we don’t use it that often. Occasionally, if the artist is international, we’ll send it priority mail with proof of delivery and all that. Of course, then we have a couple extra steps with customs. Am I boring you?”
Brit’s eyes were glazing over, but not because Cord was boring her. On the contrary, his confident and patient voice was lulling her into a comfortable state. If he could teach her every aspect of the job, she might be more willing to take any job that her father would offer her on the payroll.
She shook her head. “You’re not. It’s just a lot to take in. I haven’t had to learn anything since that one year of business school I did four years ago.”
Cord leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. This motion sent a pleasing whiff of manly deodorant scent to Brit’s nose, and she inhaled so that she could commit his scent to memory. There was something about men’s fragrance. It drove her crazy every time. He smelled good, but in a subtle sense that left her wanting more, not in an overpowering first date sense. Ugh, like Pip.
“Would you consider going back to school?” he asked.
“Not if I can avoid it. Listen, I like learning and everything, but I did not like the homework. I have better things to do after I get out of class than do more work. Give me a three-hour class, I don’t care. Just don’t send me home with work when all I’m going to want to do is sleep and binge the latest Netflix series.”
Cord laughed at this, and Brit was pleased to see his eye creases return. “You don’t seem like the binging type. You seem like someone who’d prefer to go out every night.”
“That’s mostly by necessity because I don’t like cooking. So instead, I meet a friend for dinner and see where the night takes me.”
“You don’t like cooking, or you don’t know how?”
Brit took a moment to think about what the last thing she cooked was. It was with Crazy—the guy she dated for a very short time. He said he had a housewife fantasy, and she tried one time to make that happen for him. After all, he had role played her naughty suburban teacher fantasy, so she was happy to oblige.
“The last time I cooked was for an ex-boyfriend.” The word “boyfriend” was a bit of an exaggeration, but she figured Cord would close himself off or give her a lecture if she told him it was Crazy. “It...didn’t go well.”
“OK, now you need to tell me more details about that.”
“You know Julia Child, right? Well, I picked up her cookbook because I was trying to be all domestic. I put on this cute apron and pretty much nothing else, and I put my hair in a bun.” Brit paused her story when Cord averted his eyes, and she realized what she had said. “I have no idea why I told you what I was wearing. That’s not relevant to the story.”
Cord recovered quickly. “I thought maybe you set the fire alarm off and had to run outside half-naked.”
“No, but that would’ve been funny. It was more similar to Bridget Jones when she made blue soup.”
Cord stared at her blankly.
“Right, dated reference. I caught it on TV over the weekend, which is why it was on the top of my mind. I thought lobster was a good idea. Not only that, I thought live lobster was a good idea. Long story short, I got the little guy back to my apartment, and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t cook him. So I named him Shawty Snappers, and he kept me company while I tried to make the recipe with whatever I had around. Let’s just say it didn’t work as well with ground turkey.”
Cord was wide mouthed in astonishment, not sure whether to laugh or not. “I can’t even imagine a recipe where you could substitute ground turkey for lobster.”
“No, boiling ground turkey doesn’t work as well.”
“I would think not.”
“Other than that, I’ll microwave takeout leftovers, but that’s about it.”
“I want to cook something with you sometime. It sounds like an adventure.”
Brit’s breath hitched, but she tried to hide her excitement as her heart beat faster. “Yeah, totally, Cord, come over any time and watch me make pets instead of food.” She said it with obvious sarcasm, but she was hoping he was serious about the idea anyway. “So what if the artist doesn’t have a manager? Daisy doesn’t.”
“You can fax the form to her.”
Brit shot him a look, and Cord shrugged innocently. “If she doesn’t have a manager, she’s not going to have a fax machine. I’ll meet up with her tomorrow and have her sign whatever she needs to sign. What’s the next step? Do we get to use the scheduling program yet?”
“Not yet. First, we get to do my favorite part—fill out the tax forms. Oooooh.” He clicked on another folder and brought up the forms that showed a breakdown of where all the money was coming from and going and everything else band related.
“You nerd,” teased Brit. She pushed his shoulder and was reminded of the solid arm underneath his dress shirt.
“Hey, it’s nerds like me who help the cool guys like your dad get and keep their money.”
“Well, then I guess I should be thanking you for this skirt I bought last week.”
“You’re welcome. Money well spent. It is a nice skirt. I haven’t seen anything like that before.”
Brit lay her hands on her bare knees to provide minimal modesty since they were so close. “I like to stand out.”
“You do. In a good way,” he added quickly. He looked at her and then at the screen, but he didn’t click anything.
Brit made a move for the mouse, leaning over Cord in the process. “This section we fill out?” She made a dotted box around the first section of the form that disappeared when she clicked off of it. “And then Daisy fills out the rest? I don’t know how good she is with numbers and stuff. Will you be around tomorrow if we have questions?”
“Yes, you can call me with any questions you have.”
Brit noted the fact he said that she should call him, not Daisy. It had been a little test since Brit remembered that Daisy had shown some mild interest in Cord at the club the other night. But with Vincent in the picture, and even Isaiah, she was certain Cord was pretty far from her mind. And now, she was oddly happy to learn that Daisy wasn’t on his mind either. What was her problem? It’s not like she was jealous of Daisy and Cord. She just didn’t think they made as much sense together as some of Daisy’s other options. One, in particular.
“Then finally...” Cord hovered his hand over the mouse until Brit slid her hand away. “...we get to go to your favorite part and book it using our fancy software.”
“Ooooh, ahhh.”
Cord nav
igated to the program, but then removed his hand from the mouse again. “I should let you drive actually. You were the one who was so excited about this. I’ll tell you where to go.”
He walked Brit through the steps to add Daisy’s performance to the schedule. It took some finagling since Vincent was set up as the opener and DJ Knight was set up as the headliner, but Brit committed it to memory so that she could take matters into her own hands next time she had people she wanted to set up. Musically, of course.
An hour, or maybe two, had passed before Brit remembered how hungry she was. She had barely eaten anything at lunch with Daisy. At her realization, her stomach rumbled.
“Hungry?”
“I guess so. Time flies when you’re filling out ten million arbitrary forms. Wanna grab a bite?” She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to say yes or not. No, she knew she wanted him to say yes, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to eat in front of him yet. Guys say they want a girl who can eat, but they don’t want a girl to look like she can eat. It was an eternal paradox that Brit hadn’t figured out not to care about yet. And why did she care at all? It was Cord, her future brother-in-law. They’d been to Thanksgiving together last year. They had sat next to each other on the couch, clutching their bellies with glazed eyes as a random hockey game played on the TV.
“I’d love to, but I have to get some more work done. Another time?”
“Oh sure, whatever works. I’m sorry you had to help me with this instead of actually doing your own work though. I feel bad.”
“Don’t. My brain needed a break.”
Brit stood and smoothed her skirt again, making sure Cord had a nice, unwrinkled view as she walked out the door. At least now, she could shove all the chicken fried rice and egg rolls in her face her little heart desired. Win, win.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SATISFIED WITH A GOOD day’s work, Brit only had one more thing to do before she met with Daisy. As she went out to her car to drive and find some takeout, she dialed her sister’s number.
Brit with the Pink Hair (The Rockin' Austen Series, #1) Page 6