Chapter 22
Bailey
I woke up early the next morning, jittery with anticipation. I soon became jittery from coffee, but I couldn’t hold still. I was thrilled to be going on a plane with Darren.
Darren was less enthusiastic at first. The best flight I could book for us left at 4:02 Friday morning. So, we had to wake up at 1:30 to catch a bus to Atlanta to get us at our airport terminal before 4:02. He hated waking up if it was still dark outside. He slept on the bus and at every convenient stop until we got onto our plane.
Once we got on, it became a claustrophobic nightmare. Darren and I were squeezed into a row with a rather portly gentleman that took up more than his share of the space. Neither Darren nor I were able to nap at all on the flight as a result of the tight quarters and the two loud babies behind us.
During our time in the air, songs began to come to mind. While I was literally soaring through the clouds, my heart and my brain began to concoct some interesting rhythms and lyrics.
For most of the flight, the most physical contact Darren had made with me was having his arm drape onto mine unintentionally or accidentally bumping my foot. Then, as our plane crossed into Tennessee, his hand began to slowly drift from his seat over into mine. His hand was on my thigh, lightly brushing it with his fingers. We didn’t look directly at each other, but we were staring through the corners of our eyes.
Once our hands finally met and clasped together, I felt warm. Another song began its conception in my head the longer my fingers stayed laced with his. We leaned our heads together, laying on each other, never looking directly into each other’s eyes.
When we landed, we were among the unlucky in the back that would have to wait for our turn for some time. It was 6:01, and there was nearly no light in the sky.
Darren kissed me on the cheek. Our eyes finally met; his were swollen and exhausted, as mine likely were.
“Welcome to Memphis,” I said to Darren.
“Good to be here.” He nodded.
“What’s the first thing you want to do, Mr. Holt?”
He chuckled, unable to keep his eyes open all the way. “Sleep.”
I took his hand that I was holding and kissed it.
“Sorry,” he said. “I wish I could be more awake.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m tired too,” I replied. “We’ll sleep a while, then we can go out into the world. I know of a great bed-and-breakfast we can stay at that has all my shit in it. It’s got free Wi-Fi and cable.”
“What’s the Wi-Fi password?” he asked.
“Guitarchick32.”
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Time for us to get the fuck off this plane already,” I said while glancing at the standstill line of passengers waiting to disembark.
“Time for me to a breakfast burrito or something,” he mumbled as he tried closing his eyes again.
“It’s time for me to make a decision about my music career,” I added. “I need to meet up with Leah as soon as possible. She’ll probably be at the studio this morning. Maybe I’ll go while you sleep. I can take care of business before you’re awake, so we can go and have fun.”
“No!” he whined. “I want to see where you work. Come on, let me sleep until like nine or ten, and then, we’ll go to the studio together.”
“Deal,” I agreed. “Now, remember. I don’t live in a big, fancy house like you, so don’t judge the place too harshly.”
“As long as your place has a really comfortable bed in it, it’ll be the greatest place in all of Memphis,” he said.
Once we finally got off of the plane and were reunited with our checked luggage, we found a cab and rode straight to my apartment.
I’d secretly been stressing about the idea of letting Darren into my apartment. I was incredibly self-conscious about it and was afraid that he’d somehow be turned off by my setup or my general living arrangement.
Yet, after I unlocked the front door to my place and let him in, he indeed went straight to my bedroom to deposit our luggage and fall right into my bed and pass out.
I watched him sleeping on my bed. It was something that I’d often imagined, but never believed I would see. I wanted to join him in bed and sleep beside him, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
As tired as my body was, my mind was racing enough to keep me wired. I was on autopilot, unable to end my indecisiveness and start down a path. Leah had been getting contacted by many interested parties wondering about my prospects. I hadn’t even checked my email or social media pages since my dad’s funeral.
I wanted to believe that if I asked the producers to hold off or if I told them no, maybe they would still offer something in the future. I’d found throughout the years that if you told someone no, they usually tried harder. The offer as it stood, along with my doubts, made me lean towards declining the offer.
I also wanted to believe that if I did sign with them, and wasn’t satisfied with them or simply wanted a change, there would be no hard feelings and a separation wouldn’t mean the end of the world.
I wanted to believe in a lot of things. One thing I knew for sure was that Darren Holt looked like an angel when he slept.
I split the difference and woke him up at 9:30. He immediately smiled when he saw me. I waved.
“Hey,” he said.
“Good morning.”
“We heading off to the studio?”
“Don’t we need to eat breakfast first?” I said.
“I guess so,” he said groggily. “I want to grab a shower before we head out, too.”
“Then, you get a move on, mister,” I said slapping his chest.
“Can’t,” he said smiling. “This bed is too fucking comfy.”
“I’m glad you like it.” I giggled.
“That was the best sleep I think I’ve had in years,” he said.
“Ha!” I said. “You slept for like two hours!”
“Your bed is really fucking comfortable,” he said. “I’ll be honest. I’m really looking forward to sleeping in it again.”
“Oh, you think we’re sharing the bed tonight?”
“Are we not?”
We gave each other a funny look, neither of us breaking.
“Go take a shower,” I said.
On cue, he smirked and threw off his shirt, revealing his tanned, strong body. I wanted to bite his tattoos.
“Where would clean towels be?” he asked.
“They’re in the bathroom closet.”
He got out of bed and marched into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
Instantly, I began to fantasize. I thought about opening the door, pulling back the shower curtain and getting in there with him. I wondered what it would be like. How long would we end up being in there?
He turned the shower on and got in. While he was bathing, I finished putting on my outfit and applying my makeup. I wasn’t sure who all I’d be seeing that day, so I was going for smart casual.
As I was finishing up, I started hearing Darren singing in the shower. He was quiet, but it was audible. He was singing Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea,” and he sounded marvelous. Part of me wanted to sing with him, belting into the door for him to hear. I held my tongue and hummed along.
He quickly got dressed and ready. We got into my car, and I drove us out of the parking garage.
“You excited to see Memphis!?” I asked him.
“Absolutely.”
“We can’t see too much yet,” I said. “I need to have my meeting with Leah, and deal with a bunch of boring business crap.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“You wanted it, you got it.” I laughed. “You’ll get to see what I do, and you’ll probably fall asleep.”
“Nah, I’m not sleeping again until I get back into that bed,” said Darren.
We drove down part of the market district, where I was showing Darren some of the places around town that I liked. We had a light brunch together from a diner I’d never been to that served excellent eggs and fresh juice.
I took us on a few scenic routes to the studio so that I could point out more of what Memphis had to offer. While I was explaining things to him, he was skimming through the car’s radio stations never staying on one for long.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
“I’m trying to find a station that’s playing the new Bailey Wright song.”
“Oh, stop it!” I said waving his hand away from the radio. “No, I hear my voice every day. I don’t need to hear it on the radio.”
“Why not?” he asked. “I really like the song.”
“I like it too,” I said. “I’ve sung it hundreds of times and want to go on tour and sing that song. So, I’m okay with a break from it every once in a while.”
“Geez, sorry,” he said. “Would you listen to my song if it was on the radio?”
“Honey, are you kidding?” I said. “I’d probably be your music producer if you were putting out songs on the radio. You know I’ll listen to your music.”
We got to the studio. Thankfully, the only car nearby was Leah’s; and, fortunately, it was the only car around for the entire duration of our stay.
I showed Darren the office areas where “work” could get done, as well as the space I reserved specifically for writing sessions.
I showed him the recording booth and my studio setup, and he was like a kid in a candy store. While he looked around at everything, I took a seat at the piano.
Leah joined us, sipping on an iced coffee and looking good.
“What’s up, girl?” I said to her.
“Not much,” Leah said. “I didn’t even hear you guys come in.”
I began playing the piano, dancing around the keys, hoping to find a decent accompaniment to the words I’d been thinking up on the plane.
“Hi Leah!” said Darren as he checked out a subwoofer.
“Hey, Darren! Nice to see you again. You like Tennessee so far?”
“Haven’t seen much of it, but so far so good!”
I found a few melodies that I liked, but none that matched what I was looking for.
“So, what’ll it be, superstar?” she asked me. “Are we signed to a label?”
I confided to her my apprehensions and communicated my fears. I expected a heated response, but she was surprisingly chill.
“I’m just glad you’re really thinking about it,” said Leah. “I know we were supposed to kind of have an answer by now, but they actually said we could push meetings and discussions until the start of next week.”
“Fuck, yes!” I cheered.
“Monday is the day, though,” she said. “Know your decision by then, so I know whether we’re talking to their producers or not.”
I agreed with Leah’s assessment. Darren stood by the piano, watching me.
“I’m really happy to see you doing so well, Bailey,” he said. “This studio is—don’t take it personally—way better than I thought it was going to be. You have a killer setup here. I’m jealous.”
“You can use some of the equipment, you know,” I told him. “It’s all ours. Or, you can sit here on the bench with me and sing.”
“I’m good,” he said.
“C’mon,” I whined. “Play the piano with me.”
“You’re the artist, darling,” he said.
“I thought you were a performer, too,” said Leah. “I want to hear you play!”
“I’m terribly out of practice,” he said.
“Yeah, if you’re going to be putting out music on the radio, you’ve got to start somewhere,” I said with a wink.
“I’ll just wait until you’re really famous and sleep with you to get a recording contract,” he remarked.
“Damn!” said Leah. “Cold!”
“Listen to me, Darren Holt,” I said. “Before you go back to Rome, you will do music with me—seriously. I want us belting out power ballads, and playing instruments until our fingers go numb.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that,” he said. “There’s a lady present.”
Leah grinned and did a humorous curtsey.
Levity aside, I knew that what needed to be at the forefront of my brain was music. I needed to figure out how to get Darren to play with me. I needed to decide whether I was going to sign to the record label or not. I needed to find a tune that could carry some of the insane lyrics I’d written in the sky.
I worried that if I wasn’t careful, my wants would overpower my needs.