After I left Maddy's I went to Savannah's.
She opened the door and looked at me. Not in a bad way. Just reading.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. I just need some."
She smiled. "Ok."
She stepped back and let me in. The lights were low. She was already in a sleep shirt and she looked good in it and she knew it. I came in and closed the door and she turned around and I grabbed her from behind, one hand on her stomach, and kissed her neck. She leaned back into me.
I walked her to the bedroom.
I bent her over the edge of the bed and pulled her shirt up. She had nothing underneath. I ran my hand over her ass and she exhaled slow and pushed back against me. I took my time with it. She was already wet when I touched her and she made a sound into the sheets when I pressed two fingers in, rolling her hips, trying to get more.
"Stop teasing," she said into the pillow.
I didn't stop.
She came the first time like that, gripping the sheets, muffled into the pillow. I kept going until she was shaking a little and trying to pull away and I held her still.
Then I fucked her from the back. Her ass moved under me every time I went deep and I slapped it and she moaned loud and pushed back to match it. She came again about halfway through, clenching around me, swearing into the sheets. I went harder after that. She took it.
I came on her back. She stayed still for a second, breathing. Then she laughed quietly.
"Feel better?"
"Yeah."
She got up and took a shower. I lay on the bed and looked at the ceiling and let everything from the last twelve hours just sit there without touching it.
She came back out in a robe with her hair wrapped and pulled her laptop off the nightstand.
"You ready to see this?"
She turned the screen toward me.
* * *
The Lost Boy Productions logo.
I had sketched the concept weeks ago — a pink R34 doing a burnout, smoke coming off the tires, the letters spelling out LOST BOY built from the smoke rising behind it. Productions on the license plate. Clean and specific and car-world enough that anyone who knew anything would get it immediately.
She had gotten it rendered properly. It looked exactly right.
I looked at it for a second.
"That's it."
She nodded. "I thought so."
I was ready to lock in.
* * *
I bought a loft downtown. Two floors, open plan on the top, studio space I built out on the bottom. I moved my equipment first, then my clothes, then everything else. Two days, just me and the Tahoe making trips. The whole move felt like a statement I wasn't making out loud.
It was the first space that was fully mine. No family noise through the walls, no schedule I didn't set, no one coming through unless I said so. I could work at three in the morning or not at all and nobody had an opinion about it.
Maddy was there most of the time. She had her own place but she slept at the loft more nights than not. Things arrived gradually — a jacket on the chair, her toiletries in the bathroom, a blanket she liked that was now on the couch. I didn't say anything about any of it. I just kept making room.
I had Savannah working on finding houses in the better parts of the city. Somewhere with a real yard, a real neighborhood, enough space that it didn't feel like everyone was on top of each other. East Highland had gotten everything it was going to get from my family. That chapter was done.
* * *
Album mode was exactly what it sounded like.
Beats in the morning while my head was still clear. Lyrics in the afternoon. Mixing and arranging at night. The tracklist was mapped on the wall — eight songs, each one with a theme written underneath, everything connected. I wasn't putting anything on this project that didn't belong there. Sony had the deadline and I had the vision and both things had to line up in about three months.
Maddy couldn't cook. We both knew it and neither of us brought it up. What she did was make sure I had food anyway. She went out and came back with things, asked what I wanted before I thought to want it, set something on the desk next to me around noon without interrupting what I was working on and then went back upstairs. She would come back around two and check.
"You need anything?"
"No."
"You eaten since this morning?"
"Yeah."
She'd look at the empty desk. Then at me.
"I'll get something."
I didn't argue.
* * *
She had friends over sometimes. The loft was big enough that it didn't interfere — she'd have people upstairs and I'd be in the studio and neither thing touched the other.
Cassie was never one of them. I didn't say a word about it. Whether Maddy was ever going to forgive her was Maddy's business. But Cassie didn't come through my door and I wasn't going to pretend that was an accident.
Kat came over a lot. She and Maddy had their own thing that didn't need me involved. She'd come in, nod at me, ask if I was working on something good, I'd say yeah, she'd go find Maddy. That was the whole exchange. I liked it.
Maddy also had a new friend named Valentina. She came through one afternoon when I was upstairs getting water, already talking loud and laughing at something, completely at home before she had any right to be. Short, Hispanic, funny. She looked at me when I walked in and said, "So you're the one keeping her occupied."
"I'm trying to make an album."
"Yeah that's what she said." She looked around the loft. "Nice place."
"Thanks."
She was better than Cassie. Better energy, no drama attached to her name. Maddy was lighter around her and I was good with that.
* * *
Label meetings I handled with June. Savannah ran everything else — scheduling, follow-ups, all the boring parts that needed to get done without me in the room. She had built a system inside the first two months that ran without me thinking about it. That was the whole point of hiring her right.
When I had meetings Maddy stepped out without being asked. She had a sense for what was her business and what wasn't. I appreciated that more than I said.
The album came together track by track. Each song started to sound like something specific — not just good but distinct, the kind of thing where you know exactly where it belongs and why. Track three was the one I kept returning to. I wasn't done with it yet but I could feel where it was going and it was going somewhere right.
Months passed. The loft became its own world. Morning beats, afternoon food, studio nights, Maddy next to me when I woke up, Savannah running the outside, June running the label side. I had something specific to do every day and I did it.
Then it was a week before the album dropped.
I was in the studio at midnight looking at the final tracklist on screen. Eight songs. Everything I had to say right now, in the right order, nothing wasted.
I sent it to June.
She replied in three minutes.
It's time.