I’d been avoiding this place, secretly hoping the train station renovations would be delayed so I could stay at Tyler’s house. If I asked him, he’d let me. While Grady showed off all the modifications he completed so people like me could come here, dropped into a songwriting oasis, I had to admit he’d thought of everything. Given that he was also a very talented songwriter, his attention to detail made sense.
I eyed Grady while we took in the studio space. He was taller and leaner than Tyler. Since Tyler had gone on tour, he’d bulked up, and in places his muscles had muscles. I’d never complain.
When I first met and worked with Grady, I worried he’d be like many of the other men in the business. Instead, he was creative and driven and understanding of my songwriting quirks. I liked him—a lot—too much. Now, looking at him, he felt like a big brother. The crush that had threatened to blossom before had wilted.
“When are you back here full-time?” I asked, thinking of how close he and Maggie had been at my surprise party a few weeks ago. The way they looked at each other had caused my chest to ache.
He grabbed a handful of his almost too-long brown hair before shrugging. “Who knows? I gotta prove myself.”
“I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to work with you and not being happy to work here in this space. You’ve done an amazing job.”
“I tried to make it high level, elite. I want good people. I want this to be my job, my life, here in this town. The recording studio was already top-notch, but I needed the apartment to be the same.”
“You want this life with Maggie?” I remembered his performance at the benefit, how the song he’d written for Maggie had gone viral. Half the internet had been in love with him after that, me included. To be loved like that…
“With Maggie.” He grinned. “And hopefully, some little girls and boys who take after their mother.”
“I want this baby to be a boy. I want him to be like Tyler.”
“Really?” He frowned. “Why? Women seem to want a little mini-me running around. You’re due at the end of July, right? You don’t know what you’re having yet?”
I crossed my arms over the bump that had popped out a little over a week ago. Two hours of staring at it in the mirror hadn’t managed to make my stomach go back to reasonably flat. So, now I was slathering oil on it, praying I didn’t end up with stretch marks I’d have to explain to people. “Tyler has an envelope with the baby’s sex in it.”
“So, he knows?”
“No, I asked him not to look.”
“And he listened?” Grady raised his eyebrows.
“You know Tyler. He’s a good guy.” The best guy. “You wouldn’t look if Maggie asked, I know it.”
“It’s a bit different.”
“A baby is a baby.” I scrunched up my face.
“Yeah, but Maggie and I would be doing the whole thing together. Unless something has changed, he’s on his own once the baby is born, right?”
I gritted my teeth and recrossed my arms. My leaving sounded so cold when he put it like that. Tyler and the baby were better off. “So, is this place ready to move into? You’re right. Tyler probably needs to get his house ready for this baby. Only a couple more months.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You know, the label might owe me a favor soon. I’ll make a few calls and see if I can get you back here permanently or at least working out of New York. It’s bullshit they pushed you into L.A.” I gazed up at him. “You’d like that, right? Being back on the East Coast?”
“That’s the goal. I’d appreciate anything you can do. I don’t have that kind of clout—yet.”
“I do. I should. They owe me. They definitely owe me.” Despite the growing storm around Kenny, I hadn’t said a peep.
Grady was quiet for a minute, and then he went to the stocked bar fridge and pulled out one of my favorite sparkling waters and passed it to me.
“They owe you because of Kenny Connors?” Grady cracked his can and gulped it back.
I stiffened. Annoying, maybe even enraging, that people seemed to know what had happened. Or at least, thought they knew. Not a single person stepped in, stopped him, and people obviously knew.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I opened the can and took a sip, wandering around the room. “I just meant I’ve made them alot of money.”
While I trusted Grady, once a topic became hot, it was easy for people in dark rooms or recording studios to let something slip, a harmless tidbit. All it would take was one,Oh yeah, Mia Malone mentioned something to me about that,and the fuse would be lit.
He took the hint and tossed his empty can into the recycling bin by the door. “Did you want to move in here, or are you going to stick it out with Tyler?”
