He laughed once. “Mean question.”

  “Honest question.”

  “I was fifteen,” he said. “It was about a girl who could outshoot me in the arcade. I loved her and hated losing to her, so I wrote a song about both. It was terrible.”

  “I want to hear it someday.”

  “You won’t.” He pointed at her. “Your turn. What’s the first campaign you ever wrote?”

  She wiped her mouth with her napkin. “The first campaign I wrote that mattered was for a food pantry. I made a poster that did not use a single sad face. Just a list. Tuesdays: beans. Wednesdays: tuna. Thursdays: apples. Donations doubled in two weeks.”

  “Of course they did.” He felt something ease in his chest. “You make people useful to themselves.”

  “That is the nicest thing anyone has said to me.”

  “It was only true.”

  They cleared the plates together. He washed. She dried. Habit formed faster than he expected when both people leaned in. After the last glass hit the rack, she nodded toward the entry. “Now?”

  “Now.”

  They walked out and stood over the phones. Notifications stacked. He didn’t open any of them. He glanced at the photo she had scheduled. Four hands on a guitar top. No faces. All-purpose. Her caption read exactly as it had on her screen.

  He put the phone back down. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For letting the work speak first.”

  She slid her palm into his. The contact sat calmly and completely. “You did that. I just held the camera and pointed at the right photo.”

  He tugged her closer and lowered his mouth to hers. No hurry. No apology. Just the kind of kiss that said the day had been heavy, and they were still here.

  When they pulled apart, he rested his forehead against hers. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

  “I am too.” She smiled, small and sure.

  He laughed, the good kind that lived low. He set a hand on her back and guided her toward the hallway. “You were right. Let's go relax.”

  They left the phones where they sat. In the living room entryway, a guitar leaned against the couch, because one always did. He picked it up and played the verse from earlier, softer now, stripped to what mattered.

  She curled her feet beneath her and listened like the song was a promise she chose to believe one word at a time.

  He kept playing until the house knew her name.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Her laptop chimed before she reached the barn. The air was warm already this morning, but it felt fresh and alive. She was ready for the day.

  She opened her laptop on the bar and read the subject line twice.

  RE: Notice. Proposal to Discuss Parameters.

  Tony slid onto the next stool, coffee in each hand. “That from Summit?”

  She nodded and tapped to open the message. “Their counsel wants to ‘de-escalate’ and schedule a call in the next hour.” She skimmed. “They’ll pause promotional assets that mention the band by name. The album files won't be pulled. A limited joint statement is wanted to stabilize investor chatter."

  “Leeway,” Tony said. “But not enough.”

  “Not enough.” She hit reply and typed, We’re available at ten. Send a link. Then she forwarded the thread to Grant and added, Listening only. I’ll lead.

  Tony lifted his mug. “You want the guys in on this?”

  “Not yet. We keep the noise low like we promised.” She looked toward the studio door. “Let them work.”

  At exactly ten, a conference bridge tone clipped through her earbuds. Tony put his in and opened his notebook.

  “Thank you for joining,” Summit’s counsel said. Cool, practiced. “Our goal is a standstill. We’re prepared to refrain from further public comment if you’ll do the same.”

  Carlene glanced at Tony. “We haven’t commented today. We won’t, as long as you correct two statements from yesterday.”

  A pause. “Which statements?”

  “The suggestion of contractual violation and the implication of improper influence.” She kept her voice even. “You don’t have proof of either.”

  “We have concerns.”

  “You have a narrative,” she said. “Different thing. You can retract without eating glass. Use neutral language: We’re reviewing the timeline with the band. We regret any confusion.”

  Counsel cleared her throat. “We can soften the phrasing.” Papers rustled. “In return, you’ll commit to a joint statement that neither party will disparage the other and that both are exploring options for release.”

  “Exploring options, fine,” Carlene said. “No release date, no cover art, and no implication of a tour.”

  “We need the tour language for our retail partners.” The lawyer’s voice tightened. “Soft holds. It signals activity.”

  Tony wrote No tour in big block letters and underlined it twice.

  “No.” Carlene didn’t fill the silence. “We won’t advertise a plan that doesn’t exist.”

  Counsel tried another angle. “Then a window: The band anticipates live appearances in the coming year.”

  “Too vague for you, too dangerous for us,” Carlene said. “You want a window, make it platform-agnostic. The band will announce show dates on their own channels.”

  Tony kept his eyes on the notes, but she saw the corner of his mouth lift.

  “Let’s discuss the album,” counsel said. “We intend to proceed. We’re willing to offer a points adjustment on domestic streaming to reflect your reduced touring support.”

  Carlene didn’t let the word willing flatter her. “Domestic and international. And we need approval over the bio copy that appears on storefronts.”

  “That’s marketing’s domain.”

  “Then pull them in. We won’t accept copy that undermines our position or paints us as uncooperative.”

  Another pause. “We could agree to share copy for review with a two-hour turnaround. No veto, but we’ll make reasonable edits.”

  “Change review to approval, and you have a deal on that piece.” She glanced at Tony. He held up two fingers. “And add a commitment to remove yesterday’s headlines from your owned pages by the end of the day.”

  Counsel sighed. “We’ll need internal sign off.”

  “You asked for de-escalation,” Carlene said. “These are the things that de-escalate.”

  The line went quiet long enough for her to hear a keyboard in another room and someone whispering off mic. When the lawyer came back, her tone had shifted an inch. “We can offer the following to memorialize a temporary standstill while we negotiate: one, a mutual pause on public comment; two, a neutral update across channels; three, a copy review process for storefront bios,” she stressed the word, “and four, removal of yesterday’s language from our site by close of business.”

  “Adjust three to approval,” Carlene said. “And add five, your team stops using any stills from our livestream without written consent.” She let the request sit. “We own it. Don’t ride it.”

  “Approval is a sticking point,” counsel said. “We can’t give unilateral control to talent.”

  “Then ask Vivian if she prefers a judge making the call later,” Tony said, mild as a Sunday. “We have time.”

  A beat. “I’ll take this back to my client,” counsel said. “Can we tentatively schedule mediation for early next week?”

  Carlene watched the studio door. Music pressed faintly against the hinges. “We can calendar a hold. No admission of breach, no concession on touring.”

  “Understood.”

  “Send your draft,” Carlene said. “We’ll mark it up and get it to you within the hour.”

  They disconnected. Tony pulled off his earbuds and blew out a breath. “You’re mean in exactly the right places.”

  “I’m precise.” She typed a quick note to Grant, attached bullet points, and hit send. Then she drew a line down the center of Tony’s page and labeled the columns Give and Hold.

  “Give?” Tony asked.

  “Neutral update. Temporary pause. Mediation hold.” She wrote them down. “Hold?”

  “Tour,” he said. “Release date. Cover art. Approval on bios.”

  “And use of our footage.” She added it, then wrote points adj. domestic + international under a separate heading.

  Jami’s text popped up on her screen.

  How’s the quiet plan doing?

  She typed,

  Humming. Come out when you break.

  Then she turned the laptop so Tony could read the message drafting in her head.

  “For the joint statement,” she said. “Keep it simple.”

  He nodded. “Simple travels.”

  She wrote:

  We’re working with Summit to review next steps. We won’t answer rumors or rush decisions. When there’s real news, you’ll hear it from us first.

  Tony tapped the edge of the screen. “That last line is gold.”

  “Because it’s true.” She saved it and set the phone face down.

  Grant’s reply landed within minutes.

  Good start. Push for approval on bios; if they won’t, secure a hard edit window and a kill switch for defamatory copy. Mediation hold is fine.

  She shot back, On it and stood. “I’m going to grab a photo of the upstairs corner and send a moving-in teaser for tomorrow. Soft touch.”

  Tony laughed. “You’re still doing the job while doing the job.”

  “That’s the only way I know.” She took the old stairs two at a time and snapped two quick frames, rug, window, a single mug on the sill, then came back down and dropped them into a folder labeled Office. Start.

  The studio door opened. Jami stepped out, hair a little wild, shirt damp at the collar. He could read faces like a pro now. “What did I miss?”

  “Standstill proposal,” Tony said. “They want quiet. We traded quiet for corrections, a copy gate, and better points.”

  Jami looked to her. “Do we trust it?”

  “We don’t trust,” she said. “We verify. But it moves the heat off you for today.”

  He reached for her hand. “What do you need from me?”

  “Stay out of your phone and inside the songs.” She squeezed his fingers once. “I’ll call you in if they try to get cute.”

  He nodded. “Dinner at the table?”

  Her mouth lifted. “At least twice this week.”

  He held her gaze and grinned.

  Turning to Tony, "We need to get Quinn in. Since we're starting Hart Records, we'll need a real recording studio. I think we can do that over there..." He pointed to the area behind the existing studio. "It will make it easy. Then we'll need all the recording equipment. Do you want to handle that or should I?"

  Tony chuckled. "I'll handle it, you make music."

  Jami nodded, and her heart filled with pride. They were doing this. He winked at her, "When Quinn comes, take him upstairs and tell him what you want."

  Her smile came without effort. "I will."

  Then he went back into the studio with a look that said he had heard every word. She watched the door until it shut, then opened a new doc and titled it Joint, Clean. She placed her three-sentence statement at the top and left room for Summit’s version below.

  Her phone buzzed again. Summit’s lawyer.

  Draft incoming. We’re working on the retraction language. On bios, we can agree to a two-hour approval window during business hours, with a default to the last approved copy if we don’t respond.

  She read it twice and looked at Tony. “Half a concession.”

  “Not nothing,” he said.

  She typed,

  Accept with one addition: if you miss the window, we run with our last clean draft, not yours. And the restriction on livestream stills stands.

  Three dots. Then,

  Understood on stills. We’ll include it.

  She set the phone down and took the deepest breath she’d allowed herself all day. The plan held. Not perfect. Solid enough to build on.

  Tony capped his pen. “You ever think about doing this full-time?”

  “I am doing it full-time,” she said, and angled her head toward the studio. “Just for people I can sit across a table with.”

  He smiled at that, small and satisfied. “Then let’s finish the doc before they change their mood.”

  They worked, trimming anything that sounded like spin, swapping out corporate verbs for plain ones, and locking the few sentences that mattered into place. When they were done, she sent the file to Grant and set a timer for the bios window they had forced.

  On the dot of six, her scheduled post went live. She didn’t open the app. She closed the laptop and stood, feeling the barn tuck itself around the day.

  Jami’s voice rose on the other side of the wall, warm and certain, a melody finding its home. She let herself listen for a full verse, then turned to Tony.

  “We hold the line,” she said.

  “We hold the line,” he echoed, and went to check the mics for the morning.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The red light came on, and the barn settled. He held the opening chord until his hands stopped buzzing, then counted himself in with a nod. Sean fell under him with easy harmony. Axel tapped the rim and slid into the pocket like he had been waiting there all morning.

  They reached the bridge that had bucked him earlier, and he aimed at the truth again, not the trick. The melody caught. He rode it through, landed clean on the last word, and let the chord die on its own.

  Maddyn nodded. “Keep that. Don’t touch a thing.”

  “Copy.” He set the guitar on his thigh and breathed once. “Again for safety.”

  They did it again. And again. By the third pass, his shoulders had lowered to where they belonged.

  Tony saved the song and angled the screen. “We’re good here.”

  Jami looked through the glass. Carlene sat at the bar, earbuds in, one hand on a legal pad, the other on her trackpad. Tony had called her precise. He had not been wrong. She never wasted a word or a move.

  Axel stood and stretched. “Ten-minute break?”

  “Take it,” Jami said.

  He stepped out of the live room and crossed to the bar. She took out one earbud and lifted her chin in greeting.

  “How’d it go?” she asked.

  “Better than I deserve.” He tapped the pad with his knuckle. “You win your round?”

  “Half a round.” She turned the screen toward him. “Standstill draft came through. They softened yesterday’s language and agreed to remove it from their site. We wrangled the bios into an approval window with a default to our last clean copy if they miss it. No tour mentions. No dates. No art.”

  He read the paragraph twice. The words weren’t an apology, but they also weren’t a knife. His jaw eased. “You did that.”

  “Tony did half,” she said. “Grant did the legal spine. I kept the verbs short.”

  He grinned. “That’s you doing most of it.”

  She didn’t argue. She slid a mug toward him. “Drink. You sounded tight on the first pass of the bridge.”

  “I hate that you can hear that.”

  “I love that I can hear that.” She took a sip of her own coffee and checked a timer on her phone. “Two hours for bios starts now.”

  He folded his arms on the bar and leaned in. “So we hold. They edit. We approve. No noise.”

  “That’s the plan.” She reached for his forearm and drew her thumb across the tendons once. “Go make the songs that make this worth it.”

  He caught her hand before she pulled away and pressed his mouth to her palm. “Dinner at the table tonight.”

  “Already on my list.” She slid her palm free with one last swipe like she wasn’t quite ready to stop touching him. “Go.”

  He turned to walk away, stopped, and moved back to her. "Think about this full-time. Hart Records can pay you. You will be our full-time PR person. Tony is our manager. Together, we'll get all of our wants and needs, and you and I won't have to face weeks apart. Don't answer now, just think about it."

  He turned and left her sitting there with that. She couldn't see him, but he grinned all the way back to the studio.

  Back in the live room, Sean tuned, eyes on him. “How’s the diplomacy?”

  “Not a war today.” Jami slung on his guitar. “We got what we needed most.”

  “Which is?”

  “Room.” He stepped to the mic. “Count us.”

  They worked the afternoon in pieces. Sean found a counter line that folded under the chorus without crowding it. Axel carved a drum part that breathed. Maddyn tested harmonies, soft then stronger, until the lift felt like something you could stand on. Between takes, the barn sounded like pencils scratching and cords shifting and the small yeses he lived for.

  Tony stood two hours later. “Update.”

  Jami rested the guitar on a stand, and they all left the studio to stretch and see what was happening in the real world. Carlene joined them from across the room, laptop under her arm.

  Carlene pointed to two separate screens. “Summit removed the old headlines. They posted a neutral note and scheduled a joint statement for later today. No dates. No art. They used our language.”

  Carlene tapped a finger against her trackpad. “And their international team signed off on the points adjustment in concept. Numbers to follow.”

  Jami read the note again, then looked at her. “You kept them off us without lighting another fire.”

  “That was the assignment.” She angled her head at the studio. “Do you want to keep cutting or take a minute to breathe?”

  “I breathe there.” He jerked a thumb at the mic. “But I want one thing first.”

  She waited.

  He set his hand on the small of her back and guided her to the window between rooms. “Listen from here.”

  “Bossy.”

  “Only with the important things.”

  She smiled without showing teeth. “Fine. Play.”

  They went back in. Sean met his eyes and nodded once. Axel lifted a stick. They took “Keys” from top to tail, no stops, no fixes. He sang it the way he had sung it in the house last night, soft in the living room light, not trying to impress anyone, least of all himself. When the last note faded, he looked up at the glass.