Side Trip(49)

“One more thing.” Chase digs out a spiral-bound notebook from a drawer and slaps it on his desk. Dylan stares at the blue notebook covered with Route 66 stickers and flames lick his limbs. He hasn’t seen that notebook in eons. He hasn’t wanted to see it.

“Where’d you get that?” He stashed the notebook in the back of a filing cabinet drawer in his office. Out of sight, out of mind. For a reason.

“Felicia found it.” Chase’s assistant. “Says it was misfiled. She thought you might have lost it.”

Wrong. He buried it. He’s about to lose it. Big-time. Anger flashes through him, hot and wild.

“I’ll take that,” he orders, hovering on the edge between sanity and insanity.

Chase jerks it out of reach. “Not a chance. That Grammy you’ve been pining for? It’s in here.”

Doubtful. Those writings were scribbles to pass away time in hotel rooms on the road when sleep eluded him. It was an attempt to pick apart his growing feelings for Joy. Feelings he never asked for. They sure as hell aren’t Grammy-level material.

“I’m not recording those songs. They aren’t that good and you know damn well I’m not a recording artist.”

“Trust me, they’re good. And I never said you have to sing them.”

Dylan’s face hardens. “I’m not selling them.”

“Never said that either. Find someone else to sing. You keep the rights but produce the album.”

“Is this a bait and switch?”

“What do you mean?”

He roughly gestures at the notebook in Chase’s hand. “You renege on New York if I don’t produce those songs?”

Chase looks crushed. “I might play hardball, but I’m not that much of a dick.”

Hands on waist, Dylan prowls the office. He cannot and will not produce those songs. He can’t do that to Joy. He won’t exploit what they had. That’s what putting his feelings out there for the listening public’s pleasure would be. A betrayal of their deal.

Chase flips through the notebook. “What is this to you?” His gaze skims a page, flips to another, roaming over disjointed, unfinished lyrics. He flips more pages, landing on the song.

Dylan sees Chase’s eyes widen when he reads the title. He watches Chase skim the verses and the chorus, and how the realization of what the song is about settles in, especially after the conversation they just had. He’s made the connection.

Chase’s gaze snaps to Dylan. “This song is about her, Joy.”

Dylan presses his mouth tight, shakes his head hard. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Chase abruptly stands. “Don’t lie to me,” he says, coming around his desk to stand before Dylan. “Better yet, stop lying to yourself. I think you love her. Isn’t that what this means?” He fans the paper, lands on the last page, and holds it up for Dylan to see. The note he’d written about Joy, a reminder to himself, a promise they’d made, not that he’d ever forget. It’s seared in his mind. He’d written it while standing in the baggage checkin line at JFK, moments after he parted ways with Joy.

He swallows roughly and looks away.

“Who is she?” Chase asks.

Dylan shakes his head again. “Can’t say.” He’d break their deal.

“Then let me piece it together for you,” Chase says, tapping the corner of the notebook on Dylan’s sternum.

Dylan rubs his chest and scowls. This ought to be interesting.

“Your car dies, you hitch a ride with some girl, you drive cross-country, fall in love, but for whatever reason, you leave her.”

“I didn’t leave her.”

“She left you?”

He shakes his head.

“Then what happened?”

Their deal happened, the second one they made at the end of their trip. But that isn’t what he tells Chase.

“Jack.” The name slips out, surprising them both.

“Your dad? What does this have to do with him?” Chase asks at the same moment Dylan can tell the meaning dawns on him. “You’re not him.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Dylan says, snagging the notebook. “But this industry isn’t conducive to long-term relationships, and I like my freedom.”

“That’s a load of crap.” Chase stares him down for a stretch of time, then shakes his head, disappointed. “Get some sleep. You’re not thinking straight.”

“You don’t need to ask me twice,” Dylan says, already on his way out.

“The songs?” Chase gestures at the notebook.

“I’ll think about it.” He slams the door.





CHAPTER 18





BEFORE


Dylan

Somewhere BFE (Joy’s idea) to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to somewhere one hour northeast of Oklahoma City (Dylan’s idea)

Joy showered at the campground facilities and Dylan waited, and waited. Words pinged his brain. They had been all day, and finally, as he’d taken his own shower, they coupled into lines of lyrics.

Now, as he leaned against Joy’s Bug waiting for her to do whatever it was that she did to look starchy perfect, he jotted the verse into his notebook before something distracted him and smoked the words from memory.