When I finished, O’Dea was sitting on the chair, his elbows braced on his knees. He was staring at the floor, like he was lost in thought. Then he looked up at me and my breath caught at the million heartbreaking emotions roiling in his gaze.
And then they were gone, as if they’d never been there.
“That’s all I have so far,” I whispered, so confused by him. “No more songs.”
His expression was unreadable. “Your visitor’s visa is about to run out.”
Bewildered by the response, I could only nod.
“You’ve no money.”
I tensed.
“You’ve run away from your identity, from your life in the band, in the US. You’ve no family to speak of, and you abandoned your friends.”
The man was the soul of sensitivity. “Your point?”
“My point is that you don’t have many options. I think you were living in some naive fantasy that you could keep running from your problems and live a relatively peaceful life as a homeless person. Somehow, miraculously, you survived unscathed for five months. But last night you were given a giant fucking look at the reality and dangers of homelessness. I wish it hadn’t happened that way, but there was never any other way it was going to end. And it has ended, am I right?”
“So, do you get, like, a bonus at the end of every day if you say a hundred patronizing things in a twenty-four-hour period or something?”
He ignored me. “You can’t go back to sleeping rough.”
“I think I got that, thanks.” I waved my cast at him.
“So . . . it’s either call your old manager, your band—”
“Not an option,” I snapped.
O’Dea smirked. “Then I’m all you’ve got. And I’m no fucking Mother Teresa. I’m in the business of making money, Miss Finch. You’ve already proven you’re good at making it. And from what I heard today and have heard you playing when you busk, I think the world hasn’t even seen a fraction of what you can do.”
There was really nothing to do but glare and hope that he withered under it.
“I’ll let you stay here in this flat free of charge, give you a weekly stipend for clothes, groceries, a new guitar. You can heal up here. But all of it in exchange for a record contract. A one-album deal, that’s all I ask. When you’re healed up, you’ll be straight into the studio to record.”
The thought made my stomach pitch. “I don’t want to be famous again.”
“Tough shit. There is no being famous again. You are famous. And you’ve got more talent in your pinkie finger than most do in their entire being. And that talent deserves more of a platform than standing on a street busking. It’s a goddamned insult to all those people out there trying to make the big time. I don’t care what it is you’re running from. I care that you sort yourself out and make some music again. Music that matters. Music that will heal you.”
I bristled. “I’ve made music that matters. I’ve got the fan mail to prove it.”
“Your music in Tellurian did its job. It was catchy, appealing, and teenagers related. But your voice is meant for something else. The songs you just sang to me . . . those are songs that will really make people feel. It’s vulnerable and brutally honest and that’s the stuff that resonates with people. People want songs that make them feel good, but they also just want songs that me them feel, even if it breaks their fucking heart. You’ve been through a lot, Skylar. Even if I couldn’t read a newspaper, I’d know that by listening to those songs you sang.
“Two years ago, you were a leader on social media and the lead singer of a pop-rock band that teens and college freshman loved. I’m not asking you to go back to that. I’m asking you to become an artist in your own right. If you don’t want the social media exposure, we’ll have someone else run that stuff for you. And we’ll do what we can to minimize the tabloid exposure. It will be hard at first considering your disappearance, but once it dies down, we can make it so you’re not hounded. It is possible.”
“It doesn’t matter whether they hound me or not. I hate the fame. I hate the touring. I hate it all.”
“No.” His expression hardened. “You don’t. Something awful happened to you. It messed you up good but if you don’t get smart, you’re going to ruin your life over it. Do you think you’re the only person in the world who has ever lost someone they loved? Get a grip. It’s time to move on. Someone who spends her days singing in the street doesn’t ‘hate all of it.’”
“Well,” I sputtered, unable to argue with that. So I lied. “I’m still locked into a contract.”
A glimmer of triumph lightened his countenance. “I’ve already checked into Tellurian. You told the band you were quitting before you left. Your old contract had come to an end so the band replaced you with a new lead singer and they signed a new contract. Your old label has no legal hold over you and definitely not as a solo artist.”
That the band had replaced me was not news to me. I’d seen it on the cover of a tabloid I couldn’t avoid when I first started traveling across Europe. Still, O’Dea didn’t know that, and he’d dropped the news with all the sensitivity of a joke during a death sentence. The girl they’d replaced me with, Macy, looked somewhat like me, my once-rainbow hair and all.
“If it makes you feel better, their sales aren’t as high as they were when they had you,” O’Dea offered.
Disgusted, I replied, “No, that doesn’t make me feel better.”
He grew quiet. It didn’t last. His impatience took over whatever decency he had. “So . . . what’s it going to be? On the streets with no guitar and no way of making money? Or access your own money to get home and let them all know where you are?”
“You would really kick me out on the streets right now?”
“I’m a businessman, Skylar. Not a philanthropist.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He shrugged.
I bit my lip to stop myself from calling him every ugly name I could think of. I choked out, “Can I think about it? Give me the night to think about it.”
O’Dea nodded. “Think on this too. If you sign that contract, you’ll be signing an addendum that states that in order to fully fulfill your obligations within the contract, you agree to consult with a nutritionist to get your weight back up to where it needs to be, to a thorough health check, and to seeing a therapist once a week.”
My lips parted at the audacity of his demands. “Are you kidding me?”
Exasperation colored his reply. “No one decides to go hungry and sleep on the streets, running away from their life because they’re mentally well, Skylar. You need to speak to someone and you need to sort out your shit. If only so we can balance out the album. We want songs that make people feel. We don’t want an entire album that makes them want to kill themselves.”
I really, really hated him. “I’m not seeing a therapist.”
“There’s no shame in seeing a therapist.”
“Then you go see one.”
“I don’t need a therapist.”
“Oh, I beg to differ. You’re a control freak. You’re awful.”
“I want you to be physically and mentally healthy. How does that make me awful?” He strode toward me and I leaned back into the couch away from him. But all he did was pick up his jacket and shrug into it. “You might not realize it, but the songs you’re writing are an attempt to heal. I merely want to speed up that process.”
I didn’t know how to respond without involving violence.
“You have tonight.”
I watched him walk away, my brain whirring. “Wait!” I called out.
He stopped and looked back over his shoulder at me.
“If I’m going to think about this, I want no bullshit between us. You say I wouldn’t have to deal with the tabloid stuff, that you’ll try to minimize it?”
“Of course.”
“You’re lying.”
“I am?”