“She’s a natural with kids,” Landon commented, sipping his drink. He was squinting, his cheeks drawn up under his sunglasses. He wasn’t smiling, and Ash wasn’t sure if it was the drink he disapproved of or the company. Until Landon added, “You ain’t so bad yourself.”
Asher’s brows lifted. He hadn’t expected a compliment—especially one that casual—to exit Landon’s mouth. The guy was serious all the time.
“Yeah. Takes practice.” Practice that wasn’t easy to get with Jordan fighting him every step of the way. His lawyer wanted to draw up papers, but before Asher dropped those in her lap, he wanted to see if they could work out things amicably. Maybe with Emily involved, they’d be able to.
“Takes being there.”
Oh, here we go.
“Yeah.” Asher drank his whiskey and waited for a lecture. A lecture he wasn’t going to sit here and take. He didn’t owe Mr. Millionaire Ad Exec any explanation for—
“How’s the album going?”
Stunned again, he blinked over at Landon, who had stopped watching the water to look in Asher’s direction, brows up.
“It’s…uh…it’s fine. It’s good. It’s going.”
Landon chuckled. “Fine, good, and going. Sounds like my last campaign. Fucking Cheese Bitz redesign. Almost killed me.” He held up his hand and pointed out a shallow mark. “See that scar? Got that in the pitch meeting.”
In spite of himself, Asher laughed. Maybe he’d had this guy wrong. Landon, though the oldest and the most buttoned-up Downey, was still a Downey. And if he was ten percent of who Evan was, Ash should expect to like him.
“Creative process is a wily beast,” Landon said, lifting his drink again.
“I’ll drink to that,” Asher said, then did.
“Sometimes the ideas flow smoothly and other times you can’t figure out how to put one thought after the next.”
“Or one note after the next,” Asher said. “I have one song that’s working, but the band and I are butting heads on the rest. I don’t know. Maybe we’re sick of each other. We’ve been together a lot of years. Except for Broderick.”
“The new guy,” Landon said with a nod. He must not have missed Asher’s shocked expression. “I know my Knight Time. ‘Ballin’ by Summer’ is my favorite song.”
“Unchained” he would have expected. It was his biggest, most popular song. But “Ballin’ by Summer” was a song off their third album and hadn’t gotten any radio play.
“You’re blowing the idea of you being a stiff suit out of the water,” Ash admitted with a shake of his head.
“Yeah, well, you blew the one of you being a shallow dick out of the water, too.” It was a compliment and Asher took it as one.
“Thanks.”
Landon sat up in his chair. “Gloria tell you she’s a foster kid?”
That was a segue if he’d ever heard one.
“Sure.” In so many words. “I don’t think it’s a secret.”
“It’s not,” Landon stated simply. “Her mom was a drug addict. Heroin, mostly. Gloria was taken out of the house when she was sixteen. She never graduated high school.”
Asher shifted in his chair. He’d known about the high school thing because he’d asked. She’d attained a GED and then taken some business classes in college, only to become an agent and excel, first working for someone else, then for herself. But then, Gloria was a badass, so it didn’t surprise Asher that she excelled even with a stacked deck.
“She told Kimber to break things off with me when Kimber was pregnant.”
It was such a personal statement that Asher felt a sharp prick of shock at the confession. “Bet she’s not your favorite person.”
Landon shook his head. “Wrong. She’s pretty close to the top of my list.”
She was at the very top of Asher’s. Though right now, Hawk was vying for space and winning. Frankly, he’d like them both at the top. He could handle them both.
“I’m trying to figure out how to ask you your intentions without sounding like her father,” Landon admitted with a quirk of his lips.
“Too late.”
“She’s Kimber’s best friend, so I look out for her.”
Damn. Asher liked that. Liked that Gloria had people who were looking out for her. A thought sparked and before he could decide if he was being opportunistic or just smart, he said, “There’s a music agent nosing around her lately. He’s interested in a partnership with her back in Chicago.”
Landon grunted, brows lifting. He hadn’t known.
Asher debated asking, then figured what the hell and asked anyway. “Think she’ll move back?”
“Have you given her a reason not to?” Landon let the question hang, sipping his whiskey.
“A few.” They hadn’t breached that topic specifically. He was planning on returning to LA, so it wasn’t like he could ask Gloria to hang out here waiting for him when he came back every so often.
“Maybe give her a few more.” Landon finished his drink and rested the glass on the deck.
Asher did the same, then stood up and looked over the railing. Gloria was holding on to the straps of Hawk’s life jacket, letting him kick and splash but not letting him go too far. He liked the look of her with his son way too much.
She tilted her head back and blew him a kiss.
“That’s what I like!” he called down to her.
“Yeah? Come and get it.”