“Obviously. But I’m not doing it alone, so. Hope you like vodka.”
“Sure. And pickles. And bread. But I’m not drinking it straight.”
“You’ll learn. Keep it in the freezer, it goes down smooth.”
“Noted. Do you mind if I ask if you’re an alcoholic?” I looked him straight in the eye. “Betty Ford stints in your past? AA meetings? Totally not judging. Just figured I should know these things.”
“Alcoholism was never my problem.”
“Great. Me either.” Good to know. Moving on. “Do you smoke?”
“Cigarettes? No. Why?”
“I quit when I was nineteen, and I don’t intend to backslide. So I have this thing about not providing nicotine products for my employers, and trying not to be around it.”
“Sounds like a good policy.”
“I also don’t provide illicit drugs or prostitutes for my employers, just so you know. And I’m totally not sorry about it. But I’m not adverse to providing you with weed or anything else legal that floats your boat, within reason. Including indulging sugar cravings, caffeine or whatever other hankerings you have. Your good mood is my good workday.”
“That’s very proactive of you.”
“You learn as you go.”
His eyes gleamed a little, maybe with amusement. Maybe it was just the sun shining through the window that made them look like melting honey. “I think I’m good, but I’ll let you know.”
“Great.” I looked away. Stop staring at his eyes. “Now, can I be nosy and ask you what you’re working on right now?”
“Sure.” He tapped one of the three open laptops on his desk idly, waking it from sleep. I couldn’t see much on the screen but a bunch of files. “I’m pretty much just getting set up for the Players’ album. I’ve been getting organized this last week. I’ll start writing a bit this week with the band in mind. Just letting things flow. Getting kinda warmed up. While they get comfortable in the studio and hopefully start writing, too.”
“Hopefully?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes them a few days, at least, to get used to everything in there, get used to each other, socialize, procrastinate, whatever. Before they get down to work.”
“Ah. I see. Well, if you ever need me to run a recon mission and check up on them, or snoop on Ash via his wife to make sure he’s working when he’s supposed to be, I’m willing. Cracking the whip on rock stars sounds like an incredible perk of this job to me.”
He smiled a little. Yup, definitely amused. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“So how did you end up on this project? Xander?”
That was maybe a sneaky question, since I’d heard that Summer wanted to work with Cary, badly, and had convinced the rest of the band to get onboard with the idea. I knew Xander had posed the idea to Cary. But I wanted to get his take on it.
“Xander asked me if I’d consider producing the album. Summer really wanted me to work with them, I guess.” He paused. “Do you know Summer?”
“Yeah. I’ve met everyone in the band.”
“Right. So, I guess it was her idea and she convinced Xander to ask me. Brody approached me about it, formally, but Xander wanted to make sure I was really into it. And that our personal shit wouldn’t get in the way.”
“In what way?”
“Well, he knows I can be pretty intense on a project. Plus, things haven’t been all that… smooth… between us this last year.”
I considered that. “I guess the fact that he hooked up with your eighteen-year-old sister might make things a bit… rocky?”
“It might.”
“I’m not surprised. I’d probably be pissed if Xander hooked up with my teenage sister. I mean, if I had one.”
“Yeah. Well, she’s nineteen now and they’ve lasted almost a year. Seem to be in love, from what they tell me. I guess I’m stuck with it.”
“For what it’s worth, he treats her like gold whenever I see them together.”
He considered that. Maybe it was occurring to him for the first time that I actually saw Xander with his sister out in the world. “How often is that?”
“Few times a month, at least. They hang with Ash and Danica a lot, and me and Danica are pretty much a package deal, so… I’ve gotten to know Courteney and Xander. They seem really good together.”
“If that changes… think you might let me know?”
“Sure. But I don’t think you need to worry. He’s very considerate, gentlemanly, when he’s with her. Tender, even. Different than he is when she’s not there. She brings out his soft, gentle side.”
“Didn’t really know he had one.”
“Come on. Sure you did.”
“Not really.”
“Huh. Well, it’s there. And your sister is basking in it.”
“I guess that’s good to hear.”
“I’ll keep an eye on them for you, though. I’ll let you know if there’s ever a time when he needs a stern talking to. I’ll even lure him in here for you and lock the soundproof door so you can give him shit.”
“I knew there was a reason I hired you.”
I smiled and sipped my coffee. “So… Brody came knocking and worked out a deal between you and the Players?”
“More or less. Trey Jones, over at Brick House Records, was involved, too. That’s the record company.”
“Right.”
“There were a lot of moving parts. Negotiations. Lawyers to consult and paperwork to look over, all that bullshit. Would be nice if me and Xander could just shake hands and be on our way, but it doesn’t really work that way anymore. Everything has to be approved from up on high. Trey owns Brick House, but he’s got all these executive minions who want to put in their two cents. And I have a lawyer who acts kind of like a manager for me, negotiates my deals for me. Am I boring you yet?”
“Nope.” He really wasn’t. I was actually excited by how interesting this all was. How did I even get in here? I was still kind of in awe about it. “This is all really interesting. Seriously. If I ever annoy you with too many questions, please just tell me to get lost because you have work to do. I have a feeling I’m gonna have a lot of questions. I mean, if that’s okay with you.”
“Sure. Ask whatever you want,” he said, but I could sense some hesitation there. Maybe he was worried I’d go too far, get too personal with the inquiry.
“Thanks. I’ve never had a job in the music biz,” I said, trying to reassure him that I was interested in his work, not the gossip surrounding his past. “But right about now, I’m thinking maybe I should’ve.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you’re here now.”
“Right. Maybe I’ll touch base with that studio manager of yours over at Little Black Hole. Get myself set up here. Take a peek at your workflow if you have time to kind of explain the basics to me. If you think that’s appropriate.”
“Sure. We can do that this afternoon.”
“Anything specific you need to get done today? You want me to check in later, make sure you complete your task or anything like that?”
“Pressure,” he mused. “I like it. Actually, I should finish listening to Summer’s vortex playlist today. I keep putting it off because something else comes up. It’s this thing the Players do—”
“Oh, I know all about the vortex playlist thing. I have my own.”
He blinked at me. “Really?”
“I mean… I’ve been working on it for a while. Okay, almost a year,” I confessed. “I think it’s almost done, though.”
His mouth twitched a little in amusement. “Well, I can send the band’s playlists to you, if you want to hear them.”
“I’d love that. I’ve heard Ash’s. Danica made one, too. But I haven’t heard the others.”
“I’ll send them your way.” He turned his attention to his laptop.
“Can I hear yours?” I asked him.
He stopped what he was doing, and I wondered if I’d overstep
ped a line there.
Oops?
His eyes locked with mine. “I didn’t make one.”
“You should,” I said. Because obviously, he should.
“I’m not in the band.”
“Neither am I.”
He studied me for a lingering moment. Then he said, “I want to hear yours,” in that bossy way of his.
“Is that a requirement of my employment?”
“It is now,” he said, deadpan, going back to his laptop.
I turned to mine. Without looking at him, I said, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
He said nothing.
When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I glanced over. He was looking at me.
“Deal,” he said.
“And you better not take a year to put it together.”
“Of course not,” he said mildly. “Only a weirdo would do that.”
The rest of the workday was pretty damn ordinary. I reached out to Cary’s studio manager, Merritt, over at Little Black Hole and she hooked me up with an official LBH email address. Then I spent most of the day getting organized, figuring out Cary’s systems, or in some case, lack of systems, for everything.
For someone who said he’d spent the last week getting organized, I could barely make heads or tails of his workflow.
His house looked neatfreakish, but his office area was another story. His email and his desktop were a mess. His phone, from what he told me, seemed to be a dark hole where correspondence went to die. And I had no idea how he navigated the filing system on his laptops and in his cloud, because it was a fucking labyrinth of files and folders with no naming convention and very little discernible rhyme or reason.
Maybe I could improve that for him.
At lunch I headed out to the poolhouse to make the same lunch I ate pretty much every day of my life, just like I told him: sandwich with chips and Coke. It was my indulgence. I took it outside and ate by the pool, while Cary ate whatever he ate in his studio kitchen, standing, while talking on the phone to someone about a microphone that wasn’t working or something. I found him like that when I came back into the studio after my break.
I worked the whole day in the control room/office, and most of the day, Cary sat a few feet away from me. He had his headphones on a lot, and he didn’t really share with me whatever he was doing, moment-to-moment. Not that I expected him to.
I didn’t pry. I had enough to try to bite off and chew just getting the lay of the land. And whenever I asked questions, he answered them patiently.
When it was nearing five o’clock, I looked up from my laptop. He hadn’t asked me to stay late today, so my workday was almost done.
I decided to broach the subject, quickly and directly, before taking off.
“Hey Cary, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” He glanced over, pushing off his headphones, but like his head was still deep in whatever he was doing on his laptop.
I took a breath and plunged.
“What is it like being agoraphobic?”
He seemed to bring me into focus, forgetting whatever he’d been doing on his computer. But he didn’t answer me.
“I looked it up a bit,” I added quickly, “because I’d really like to understand. I don’t mean to pry.”
He sat back in his chair a bit. “Who said I was agoraphobic?”
Well. That was one way to shut the conversation down.
He probably knew I wasn’t about to answer that. I either told him This, that, and the other of your friends said it, or I read it online, or Nobody, I just assumed. None of which was a great answer to that question. Not to mention that his question to answer my question neither confirmed nor denied that he was agoraphobic, so I had no idea where to take this now.
He pushed back in his rolling chair, facing me a bit. “You probably heard that I have stage fright,” he said simply, saving me from answering at all. “That’s the reason I work in the studio, as a music producer, instead of being in a band anymore.”
“Right.”
Made sense.
And it sounded a hell of a lot like some prepared line he’d delivered many times in the past as part of an official press release or something.
Maybe people believed it.
And maybe I wanted to believe it was just that simple. But if the only issue he had was stage fright, he could still go down to Little Black Hole and work there, right?
Not to mention that he could still hang out in his backyard, by his beautiful pool, for some length of time on a gorgeous Saturday, with his best friend and his sister. I’d seen him come out into the yard twice now, so clearly he could leave the house. But he’d barely stayed for five minutes when he came out to say hi to Xander and Courteney.
Which made me super fucking curious what his limits were.
Definitely didn’t feel like I had the right to ask just yet, though.
Maybe he could sense the barrage of questions I was holding back, because he went on. “I prefer a controlled environment,” he said carefully. “I’m pretty obsessive about my work, and I like things a certain way. And I’m an introvert. I function at my best when I’m alone for long periods of time, or one-on-one with people. I’ve, uh, been known to go a little overboard on the perfection thing when it comes to music and producing. It’s probably related to the creative-genius spectrum or something, if I’m allowed to say that. I’m not calling myself a genius. But I’ve been told it’s something like that. Plus… my anxiety.”
“You have anxiety?” I asked gently.
“I have a predisposition for it, which probably comes from my mom.”
“Okay.” I took that in, listening and trying to absorb everything he said rather than pry. Whatever he was offering to tell me, for now, was fair enough.
But I felt the need to ask this one thing, because without knowing, it kinda made my job here awkward. And I really didn’t want to make dangerous assumptions.
“Do you ever leave your property, Cary? I’m sorry to ask you that, and you can tell me if I’m overstepping and I’ll back off. But I’ve heard that you don’t, and I’d like to know. So I can make sure I do the best job I can here. And I would never tell anyone anything about you that you don’t want me to,” I added. “Even without an NDA. Professional stuff, personal stuff, it’s protected here.”
He looked away. He ran a hand through his hair and cleared his throat quietly. He stretched out his fingers like his hand was stiff.
“I don’t leave my house much,” he admitted. Obviously, he was uncomfortable talking about it. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I haven’t left the property much in the last five years. And I can go for long stretches, weeks at a time, when I’m deep in an album, not even leaving the studio. I’m just used to it, I guess. I don’t really think about it anymore.”
“And what about before that? Before five years ago?”
The fingers of his left hand started tapping out a rhythm on the arm of his chair.
“If you don’t want to talk about this—”
“I’ve always had issues with being famous,” he said. “I’ve always had some level of fear about being onstage. When I toured with Alive, I literally had to be pushed or pulled onstage almost every show.”
“That must’ve been hard.”
His eyes met mine. “I didn’t know I had anxiety, or performance anxiety in particular, for many years. Not until a therapist told me what it was.” He said this kind of lightly, matter-of-factly. Like he knew what his issue was and he had a handle on it.
He made it all sound very normal. Very okay.
But it didn’t feel okay.
“I have the anxiety under control now.”
“Okay.”
I got the feeling there was a lot more to it than that. That he was only telling me what he wanted me to know.
But the mention of a therapist gave me hope. It meant that he was getting help. That he had support, when I’d feared that he didn’t.
He went back
to his laptop. “It’s five. You can take off. I’ll see you back here tomorrow at nine.”
“Okay. Thanks. Wow, I can’t believe it’s already five o’clock.” I started to pack up my laptop. “It’s fun working with you.”
He raised both eyebrows, like I must’ve been high or something to utter that statement. But he didn’t say anything.
“What about you?” I asked him. “How late will you work? Will you break for dinner?”
“Later. I’ll probably do some writing tonight. And maybe I’ll make my vortex playlist later. I’ll eat when I’m hungry.”
Really? He was gonna make a vortex playlist, that fast, just because I asked him to?
“Well, if you need anything, I’m like a stone’s throw away,” I said. “Literally. Don’t hesitate to ask.”
He glanced up. “Thanks for the offer. But I’m not gonna overwork you and scare you away. You’re too valuable. You already whisked that mountain of paperwork out of my face. I should give you a raise.”
I smiled. “You can just pop it into my bank account.” As I walked out of the room, I realized maybe he wasn’t kidding. I stuck my head back in. “I’m joking. Do not give me more money. You’ve paid me enough.”
“Good night, Taylor. Go use my pool. I pay the pool boy too much already.”
“There’s a pool boy?” I asked, with exaggerated interest. “Is he cute?”
“No idea,” he said, deadpan. He didn’t even look up from his laptop. “But if he is, let me know so I can fire him.”
“Will do,” I said, and headed out.
Chapter Nine
Taylor
Running Up That Hill
That evening, after I had dinner in the poolhouse, I went for a jog around the gorgeous neighborhood. Felt like I had to, to work off the strange sweats my boss was giving me.
That pool boy thing was a whole lot of flirting.
Threatening to fire the pool boy if he was cute? Didn’t that suggest that my employer was interested in me himself, and wanted to clear the field of competition?
He might as well have just asked me on a date.
Although he didn’t.
Lovely Madness: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 4) Page 14