Page 85 of Embracing the Beat
MICHAELA
The rest of the weekend is a blur of normalcy. By the time we got back to the house, my stomach was fine.
Sawyer called mom to tell her he’s coming for a visit later this week. She knows something is up, but she doesn’t say anything at dinner that night or the next day. I think she trusts us enough not to ask questions until we’re all together.
As my trip to LA on Tuesday looms, my anxiety spikes, and each time I check my email, the dread in the pit of my stomach tightens.
By Monday I’ve almost talked myself out of going. I’m looking for something to eat for lunch when the doorbell rings, and I find the mailman holding a certified letter addressed to me, the Reverb logo grinning like the devil from the top left-hand corner.
Mom and Dad are both back at work, and West is gone too, so I’m alone when I close the door and lean against it.
“Come on Kayla, open the letter,” I say to the empty living room. “Bad news doesn’t get better with time.”
Boy, am I the walking, talking example of that saying.
I convince myself to move to the couch and fall numbly against the cushions.
I should have ignored the doorbell.
Blowing out a breath, I slide my fingernail along the fold, opening the envelope and letting the folded piece of paper flutter out. Only flutter is the wrong word for the thick, expensive paper tucked inside.
Ms. King,
We have been notified by your label representative, Bradley Russell, about attempts on three separate occasions to contact you regarding your work with Reverb. After these attempts went unreturned, Bradley notified us that you were in breach of contract. Pursuant to the last clause of your contract…
The rest is a bunch of legalese, hard to wrap my brain around, considering it took me ten minutes to work out the first paragraph. The only words that jumped off the page were breach of contract.
A small part of me wonders if Brad is under contract, and if assaulting me would be considered a breach of his contract.
Does it matter?
He did exactly what he said he was going to do. He turned me over to the lawyers and gave them his half of the story.
“Shit. What am I going to do now?”
I ask West the same question when he gets home that night.
“You’ll want to show this to the attorney, along with your contract. Do you have a copy?”
Standing from my bed, I open my top dresser drawer and pull out the contract I had “filed” there after signing it almost two years ago.
“We should send this to Sawyer, too.” He lays the letter flat on the bed, snaps a picture, and texts it to my brother.
So far, we’ve sent Sawyer copies of the texts and the emails, but he said he already had a copy of my contract. I don’t even want to know how.
“What if”—I swallow around the lump of uncertainty growing in my throat—“what if they can’t do anything? What if my only choices are to get sued or go back? What if—”
He pulls me onto the bed with him, silencing my uncertainty with a kiss that leaves me clinging to him breathlessly by the time he lifts his head.
“We won’t know unless we try, right? Whatever happens, I’m here.” His hands come up, chafing warmth up and down into my arms before his fingers interlace with mine. “We’ll tackle this as a team.”
??????
The alarm cuts through an amazing dream I’m having.
I’m on stage, singing to a huge crowd full of lights and cheers while West smiles at me from the wings. They love my music. They want more, and I open my mouth, but words don’t come out. Instead, it’s the screech of the alarm.
The lights and crowd fade, and so does the smiling West on the side of the stage. Thankfully, I can burrow against the real version whose chest and shoulder I’m currently draped over.
