Page 151 of Sing For Me

Epilogue

Will

Seven Months Later

It’s beena full hour since our set ended, and I’m still buzzing with adrenaline. I’m clearly not the only one—Eva can barely sit still next to me in the truck. Of course, my adrenaline rush has more to do with what’s going to happen next than the show itself, but Eva doesn’t know that yet.

“You remind me of an excited puppy right now,” I tell her, placing a hand on her knee to try to keep it from bouncing.

“I don’t understand how you aren’t freaking out!” she exclaims. “That set was amazing!”

I grin. “It was, wasn’t it?”

“I knew you were having fun! Does that mean you might be willing to do it again sometime?”

“We’ll see,” I say, but I think we both know I have every intention of performing with her again. Rather than making me feel sick, the thought of being on stage with her has me feeling happier than I ever thought possible.

How times have changed.

The last few months have been both difficult and amazing at the same time. As promised, my family made a ton of phone calls on Eva’s behalf, until we found a new manager that she really clicked with. Because Reese Hall came so highly recommended from so many of the people my family trusted, I felt reasonably sure that she’d have my girl’s best interest at heart.

What really sealed the deal for me was when she accompanied us to one of Eva’s doctor appointments, wanting to get an overview of her injury and treatment plan. As soon as we left the office, she immediately pulled out Eva’s calendar and started to look for the best time to schedule the surgery. There was no trying to talk Eva out of it, no attempts to have her put it off until she could get into the recording studio again.

“I work for you, Eva,” Reese had told her. “And that means my first job is to help you get healthy.”

I wanted to high five her right there in the parking lot. Talk about a one-eighty from Dennis.

The surgery was tough on both of us. Eva hated being in the hospital, hated the pain that came with her recovery. I just hated to see her hurting. I went to every single physical therapy session with her, trying to motivate her with kisses and promises of special massages when she finished her exercises.

I made sure to have the time to be there with her. I’d finally hired an office manager. And another tattoo artist. I worked out a new agreement with my Uncle Lennon, giving me longer to pay off the loan so I was no longer killing myself trying to clear it out early. I was done living most of my life in that shop, done trying to prove myself to my uncles.

Dealing with Eva’s label was the next big hurdle. Our family’s lawyers agreed with hers that her contract was full of unusual clauses and she might just be able to get out of it. But that would mean months—maybe even years—of legal battles. Levi hadn’t been kidding when he said it was notoriously difficult to break a recording contract.

There was a part of me, a pretty big part, that wanted her to try anyhow. If Eva was free from her label, that meant she’d be free to sign with another one. She’d be free to sign with us.

We discussed it. Me and my uncles. Me and Eva. They all assured us they’d be thrilled to have her. But they were leaving it up to us.

The thought of her signing with Six Man Band both comforted and terrified me. I liked the idea of her working with the family, of us being tied in that way. Plus, there was no one in the world I trusted more to guide her career than Levi, my dad, and my uncles. I knew they’d give her the freedom to stretch and grow as an artist and put her best interests first.

On the other hand, it was impossible not to think about everything that happened the last time my girlfriend signed with our label.

In the end, Eva made the decision on her own. She felt like it would put too much pressure on me too soon. She wanted to table the decision for a few years, and see how we felt then. If she stuck with her current label, she was under contract for two more albums. We could revisit the idea down the road. I was just really happy that she was talking aboutusin terms of years.

Eva’s new manager used the threat of a legal fight to make some changes. For the first time in my girl’s career, she was going to have some actual say in the type of music she made. She got to choose the producers she worked with and the songwriters they brought on board.

Which is why I just spent the evening on stage with her. It was a low-key show, just some friends and family, label execs, and a smattering of industry people. A chance for Eva to show off some of what she’d been working on during her recovery from surgery, get some feedback on her new sound.

A sound that included me.

She hadn’t asked me to help her write some of the new songs—it just happened. We’d been sitting out on her deck one night, our guitars in hand. I’d been playing a lot more since we got back together, the instrument no longer filling me with dread every time I touched it. That night we weren’t playing anything specific, just messing around. Then Eva started to strum a melody I had never heard. I picked up the thread pretty quickly, adding my direction. Pretty soon, we had something. It didn’t have words yet, didn’t even have the full structure of a song, but it was something. Something we could build on.

I felt that way about a lot of things lately.

I ended up helping her write three more songs. She plans for her new album to be quite a bit different from her last two, more stripped down, the instruments a back drop for her voice to soar. No more choreographed dancing or synthesized sound. No blonde hair. Just Eva on stage with a few musicians backing her up.

Tonight, I was one of those musicians, playing guitar on every song. I had the best seat in the house—right behind my girl, a witness to her amazing talent.

I’m definitely not ready to be a full-time musician. My tattoo shop might have started as a back-up plan, but it has come to mean a lot to me over the years, and I have no plans to leave it. Not yet, anyhow.