I brought Savannah over to the house that afternoon.
I hadn't planned it as a formal introduction. I just needed to tell my family she'd be around more and it made more sense to do it in person than over text. I told them she was my new assistant, official, on payroll. That was it.
Gia looked at her and said, "You're Seven's mom."
Savannah smiled. "I am."
"Seven talks about you all the time."
"Good things I hope."
"Mostly."
Mom came out of the kitchen and I introduced them and something happened that I didn't fully expect. Mom liked her immediately. Not in the polite way she was nice to everyone. In the real way, where she asked questions and actually listened to the answers and laughed at something Savannah said about the office space. By the time I came back from the bathroom they were in the kitchen talking about something I hadn't been part of starting.
I leaned in the doorway and watched for a second.
Okay.
Maddy had come over too, which I'd told her was fine.She walked in behind me, said hi to everyone Gia got up and went to her room, Maddy looked at Savannah's bag.
"That purse is really nice," she said.
"Thank you. It was a gift."
"From who?"
"Myself."
Maddy smiled at that.
They didn't have a full conversation. But it wasn't awkward either. I'd take it.
* * *
After everyone cleared out I called June.
She picked up on the second ring.
"It's you," I said.
Then: "Thank you. I won't make you regret it."
"I know. Tomorrow morning, nine. Bring whatever you have."
"Already ready," she said. "See you then."
I hung up and texted Savannah to start the LLC paperwork. I'd been thinking about the name for a while and I'd landed on it — Lost Child Records. It felt right.
* * *
I hadn't touched a car in weeks.
Not seriously. Not with my hands in the engine and grease on my forearms and the specific quiet that came from being focused on something mechanical with no people around. The Z was fine. I sold the charger i had stripped the wrap and cleaned the inside sewed up the place i hide the gun and got another 20k so i was at $40k. I needed something to build. Something that didn't have a destination yet.
I traded the bike for a black Tahoe. It was older, maybe mid-2000s, and it already had an LS swap in it which meant whoever owned it before me had the same instinct I did. The body was clean. The interior was taken care of. The previous owner had loved it without finishing it and I could see the potential sitting in all the places he'd stopped short.
I drove it home slowly, listening to the engine, getting a feel for where the power was and where it wasn't. I already had ideas. I wasn't in a rush. That was the whole point.
* * *
Before the mall, I sat with Gia in her room.
She was on her phone and looked up when I came in. I sat on the edge of her bed and she already had that face on, the one she got when she knew I was about to say something she didn't want to hear.
"You're coming to the mall with me and Maddy today," I said.
She made a face. "Why?"
"Because I'm asking you to."
"Jordan."
"I know you don't love her. I'm not asking you to. But she's going to be around, and I can't have it weird every time she comes through. You don't have to be best friends. Just be normal."
Gia looked at her phone, then back at me. "She's still Maddy Perez."
"I know who she is."
"I'm just saying."
"I know. Come anyway."
She put her phone down. "Fine. But I'm not pretending to like stuff I don't like."
"I'm not asking you to."
* * *
The mall was crowded for a weekday. Maddy moved through it with a purpose; she'd already decided she was going to help Gia find something. I watched that happen in real time. She didn't make a big deal of it, didn't announce she was doing it. She just started asking Gia questions about what she actually liked and then steering them toward stores that made sense.
Gia was suspicious at first. She answered in short sentences and kept her arms crossed and gave me a look every few minutes that said she knew what I was doing. But Maddy wasn't performing. She was just paying attention, which was a side of her I didn't always get to see.
By the third store Gia had her arms uncrossed. By the fourth she was holding up a jacket and asking Maddy's opinion without me prompting anything.
Maddy said, "That one, definitely," and Gia put it in her pile.
I stayed back and let it happen.
Then a group came up to me. Five or six people, East Highland faces I recognized from around. They wanted pictures. I said sure and we did the whole thing and then one of the girls stayed a second longer than everyone else and started talking, close, the kind of close that had a point to it.
I kept it short. Friendly but short.
When I looked back Maddy was watching with her arms crossed and something on her face that wasn't quite neutral.
I looked away before she caught me noticing.
There it is.
On the drive back Gia was in the backseat with three bags and her feet up and her head against the window. Maddy was quiet in the front, scrolling her phone.
At a red light Gia said, without looking up, "She's not that bad."
I glanced in the rearview. She was still looking out the window, like she was talking to herself.
Maddy didn't say anything but the corner of her mouth moved.
I kept driving.
* * *
I dropped Maddy off First. She grabbed her bag and got out and then turned back at the door.
"Your sister's funny," she said.
"Don't tell her that."
Gia said "i can hear you"
She smiled and went inside.
* * *
That night I thought about Rue.
I'd been watching her for weeks, the way you watch something you're not ready to call what it is yet. The signs were quiet but they were stacking. She was sleeping weird hours. She'd stopped talking as much at dinner. She had that look sometimes, not always, but sometimes, the one I remembered from before rehab when she was managing something nobody was supposed to see.
I didn't know how to do this. I'd been through the trial and the coma and the verdict and none of that felt harder than the idea of sitting across from my sister and saying out loud what I thought was happening. Because if I was right then it was real. And if it was real then I had to do something about it and I didn't know what that was yet.
I sat at my desk until two in the morning without making music. Just thinking.
I was going to have to address it. I just needed to figure out how.
* * *
Nine in the morning. June and Savannah sat across from me in the office and June had a folder open before I'd even finished my coffee.
She'd set up the Power 106 interview. I'd be going in the following week, in-studio, which meant the freestyle conversation was unavoidable.
"They're going to want you to freestyle," she said.
"I know. That's fine."
"Most artists prep something. Off the dome sounds good for the image but it's a risk you don't need to take at this stage."
"I know how it works. I've got something ready." I paused. "I just don't want it to sound ready."
June wrote that down. "Good. That's the right instinct."
We went through the rest of the meeting — press contacts, a few blog features she'd already lined up, timeline for the next label round. Then I brought up the social media manager.
"I need someone who actually knows what they're doing. Not just someone who posts. Someone who understands how to build a presence without making it look like you're trying to build a presence."
June nodded. "I have two or three names. I'll send them over today."
Savannah looked up from her notepad. "What about Maddy?"
I looked at her.
"She has good taste," Savannah said. "Her own Instagram is actually really well curated. She clearly understands aesthetics."
"Fuck no," I said.
Savannah put her pen down. "I'm just saying."
"I heard you. No."
June looked between us and wisely said nothing. She made a note. We moved on.