Can't Look Away(56)
“Is this why you wanted to meet tonight?” Jake shook his head, exasperated. “To give me some kind of warning?”
“It’s not a warning, Danner.” Sam sighed. “We’re just looping you in.”
“Well, gee, Sammy, thanks for looping me in on your secret meetings with our manager and producer.” Jake felt the fire building inside him. “I’m only the fucking front man of this band!” He regretted the words the second they left his lips. He watched them land on Sam’s and Hale’s faces, their expressions turning shocked, then sour with disgust. “I didn’t mean—”
“Can’t believe you finally admitted it.” Hale scoffed, twisting the cap off a fresh beer. “Fifteen years we’ve been playing together and it’s always been the elephant in the room—the fact that you think you’re better than us because you have a pretty face. I just never thought we’d hear you say it out loud.”
“What? I don’t think I’m better than you, and I don’t have—” Jake took a deep breath, leveling himself. “Hale, I’m the one who writes the songs. Do you have any idea how much work that is?”
“Uh, yeah, I do, because the three of us used to write the songs together, Danner. Remember? And then you went and wrote every song in The Narrows behind our backs, and Jerry ate the album up, and now you’ve made yourself the contracted songwriter without ever actually talking to Sam or me. And in case you don’t know, this is how you operate. Jake Danner does whatever Jake Danner wants to do because it’s Jake Danner’s fucking world and we’re just lucky to be living in it!”
Hale’s words echoed around the studio. This was uncharted territory. There was a palpable shift in the air between the three of them, one that had never occurred before, not in the two decades Jake had known the Lanes and called them his family. Blood pounded in his ears.
“That’s not how it went down, and you know it, Hale.” Jake tried to sound assertive, but he felt weak. “And you guys could’ve at least asked me to be part of your conversation with Jerry and Ron.”
“Seriously?” Sam turned to him, bristling. “We discussed this with Jerry and Ron on Tuesday, when they called for a dinner meeting. Ron was in from LA. They invited you. You told them you had other plans.”
Jake closed his eyes, his mind winding back to Tuesday. Yes, Jerry had called him in the early afternoon—something about a last-minute dinner with Ron being in town. But Jake had already promised Molly they would try that hip new Indian place on Bedford with Nina and Cash, and he wasn’t going to cancel. Molly had made a reservation; they’d had the date on the calendar for weeks. He was done letting her down. So he’d told Jerry he couldn’t make it.
“Yeah. I remember now.” Jake nodded slowly, rubbing his neck again. “Look, guys, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. You could’ve told me sooner.”
“I didn’t want to bring it up before Terminal 5.”
“I see.”
“I think we should call it a night.” Sam’s voice was thin, detached. “Cool off a bit. We’ll meet later this week. In the meantime, let’s work on changing direction. Ron expects a delay, given the circumstances, but he wants to see an album by the end of February, which gives us a little over four months. Doable, yeah?” Sam’s inquiry was pointed at Jake, who nodded helplessly.
“Hale, if you want to help me write…”
“You mean, help you fix the album while you rake in the bulk of the songwriting royalties? No thanks.”
Jake shook his head. “This band was never supposed to be about money.”
“Everything is about money, Danner. Whether or not we like to admit it.” Hale gave a harsh, derisive laugh.
Jake could feel their anger—not just Hale’s but Sam’s, too. It was a heavy, unsettling presence that made him want to escape, to shrink down into nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Jake repeated as he left the studio, not sure at all that he meant it. He thought back to writing the early songs on The Narrows, the way they’d poured out of him, the most cathartic experience of his life. He’d explained this to the Lanes afterward, and at the time, they’d seemed excited, not bothered in the least. The three of them had been elated when Jerry went crazy over the tracks Jake had written and when that first batch of songs went on to help seal them a record deal. When Jake had been contracted as the writer, neither of the Lanes had objected. Of the three of them, Jake was the one with the knack for lyrics and chord progressions, while Sam nailed the arrangements and Hale killed it on the drums in a way that often shadowed the guitars. They all understood their roles; they had for years. So why was Hale fighting Jake on his now? And why hadn’t Sam jumped in to defend him?
With the demand for new music, the weight of Danner Lane rested on Jake’s shoulders, and he wasn’t even allowed to say it. Despite Hale’s claim, the Lanes weren’t aware of the time Jake put into perfecting each and every verse and chorus, the late nights he pulled reading the songs out loud to Molly, revising the melodies again and again until the words flowed flawlessly.
It was months of his hard work down the drain, and Sam and Hale didn’t care. Frustration swallowed Jake whole as he made his way back to Brooklyn underground, the L train sucking him below the East River, a giant worm tunneling through the earth. He sensed a stormy anger hovering, but felt too sad to access it. Instead, he was overcome with the terrible, lucid realization that everyone he’d ever loved had, at some point in his life, told him he was selfish. It didn’t matter that Jake tried to be a good man; clearly, he was hardwired to hurt, to disappoint, to miss the moral mark. It ran in his fucking blood.