BRUNO
I became a machine. I filled every minute with work. Nothing was beneath me. I accompanied my artists to interviews. I called radio stations myself or popped in on DJs to talk up my clients. I helped roadies do sound checks at pop-up venues in the city. I went live on TikTok with Sam and Delilah. I took Eddy to court the day she became emancipated and made sure she signed a contract moments later. I spent the last month of my trial as LSA’s CEO consumed by the job.
I had another five days in my four-month timeline, but it was Monday night so my last chance to make the Billboard charts was the following morning. I had two hits. In addition to James’s first single, Sam and Delilah hit the music world with a bang, as expected. Eddy had been the sticking point. Because of the issues with her age, we weren’t able to promote or release her single until a week ago. She was definitely going viral, but I wasn’t sure her success would slide in under my deadline. The bigger problem was, I wasn’t sure I cared about any of it. No amount of work could help me escape what it felt like to lose Ava.
And I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it, so I just worked, and then on my way out late each night, I walked past her closed office door, wondering if she was hiding inside. She had made herself scarce. She managed all the details of the office that I had no interest in, but there was no sign of her in my space. Since I’d stormed out of her apartment, I only seen her from a distance. If I was coming, she was leaving. She wouldn’t even take meetings with my friends. She built a giant wall between our two worlds and went on like we’d never worked together, like I hadn’t served her my heart on a platter, complete with knife and fork.
Tonight felt different. Haggard from the breakback pace I’d prescribed myself, I left the office at around nine p.m. I could have called a car, but I decided to walk. I milled through the throngs of New Yorkers rushing their way to things like dinner reservations or second jobs and wondered if I was meant to run my parents’ company.
I remember being a teenager home from boarding school and fighting with my father. I came home for three days because he and I were supposed to go to some stupid hockey game. He bought the tickets and asked me if I wanted to go with him. I didn’t give a shit about hockey, but he rarely made time for me, so I said yes. I was just happy to do something with him. An hour before we were supposed to go, he got a call—something came up at work. I didn’t mind, did I? Oh, I minded. I went nuts. I made all kinds of accusations, called him a fucking shitty father, and told him LSA Records was always more important to him than I was. He tried to argue that wasn’t true, and then he said, “One day when you run this company, you’ll realize the immense pressure and dedication required.”
“I will never run your fucking company,” I’d screamed.
There were many years in my life when I thought I was going to open my own label. I wanted to show them that I could do what they did and do it better. I never had any intention of working for them. I would have hated working for them. And then they died.
And they didn’t even leave me their company. Even in death they didn’t trust me to be mature enough to do what they did, and I was. I always had been. Ava didn’t treat me like they did. They made her my warden, but she gave me free rein from day one. But I didn’t see it that way. My parents’ will made me incensed, still I was trying to prove to them and the world that I was what LSA always needed. But maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I needed something that was mine. Something I could foster and nurture on my own. Some place where there wouldn’t always be shitheads like Charlie Albrecht reminding me that the world saw me as incapable, just like my parents had.
That wouldn’t be so easy though. I had let all my people, my found family, sign contracts with LSA. Walking away meant leaving them there. I knew Ava would look after them—but in the end, she would always choose the company and her reputation over their personal needs—she was just built that way.
Forlorn, I pushed through the door to the apartment building I lived in—the building my parents had lived in—and rode the elevator to the top floor. The doors opened into my parents’ foyer. Everything about the house still felt like it belonged to them, and for the first time since they died, I wondered why I hadn’t made it my own.
I could hear my gang moving about the kitchen, making food. They were eating dinner late and it occurred to me that they had waited. In the back pocket of my jeans, my phone rang. I dropped my wallet and keys in the bowl on the foyer table and pulled the phone out to look at the screen. It said Andrew Warner. For a second, I considered not answering. I just wanted to take off my coat and go into the other room and let my friends feed and comfort me.
But that wasn’t the job, and no matter if I wasn’t sure whether running LSA Records was for me or not, at the moment, I was committed. Swiping the bar on the screen, I brought the phone to my ear as I shimmied out of my coat.
“Andrew,” I said as hello.
“Big night, kid,” he replied. “Think you have it in the bag?”
“We’ll see in the morning.” I was calm. I wanted to win, but if I didn’t, I’d survive. Thinking he was just calling out of kindness, I said, “Listen, I’m just walking in the door and I smell dinner on the table. Can we talk tomorrow?”
“Nope.” His tone was serious. “Sorry, this has to be tonight.”
“Shit.” I sighed. “What now?”
He was somehow strong and soft when he said, “I don’t care about tomorrow, Bruno. LSA is your company. I will fight for that, no matter what happens.”
And just like that, I wanted LSA. I wanted it because it was my parents’ and even though they didn’t see how good I was or the limitlessness of my potential, I loved them.
I lost it. Tears were running down my face and my voice was shaking when I whimpered, “Fuck. Goddammit. I can’t believe they’re gone.”
Andrew, who had lost his wife and child many years ago, said, “I hate it too. They were my friends.” I slid down to the floor, pressing my back against the wall behind me, and kept crying like a baby. The clamoring in the kitchen went silent. And I heard the movement of the people who stood by me rushing to see what was wrong. But in my ear, Andrew said, “Listen, Bruno, there’s something you need to know.” I held my hand up, keeping my people at bay as Andrew said, “Ava has signed away her shares of LSA.”
My brow furrowed. I didn’t really understand what he was telling me. Ava lived and died for LSA; there was no way she gave up her stake in the company. “To who?” I asked through the fog of my disbelief.
Meredith sat down next to me on the floor and the others followed suit, circling around me, waiting patiently for me to get off the phone.
With a sarcastic laugh, Andrew said, “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
“What?” I continued to be confused.
“She bet her shares on your success. If you don’t get your chart-topper, her twenty-six percent divides evenly among the board, and if you do, all twenty-six shares go to you, making you the primary shareholder.”
“What? Why?” I felt baffled. How was that possible? LSA was all that mattered to Ava. “Wait, when?”
“Last month, after you walked out of the board meeting,” he said matter-of-factly. “She argued that you were the best thing for LSA Records and she was willing to bet her stake on it. She even offered to step down completely, but everyone knows she’s great at her job so we just made her draw a line in the sand between your work and hers and obviously you two had to stop fucking…”
Fire burned in my chest. She gave it all up for me. She gambled her dreams on me. She sacrificed everything for me. Andrew was still talking. “…I think after tomorrow she might try to resign. You need to talk to her about it.”
I snapped, “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
On the other end, Andrew was startled. “I’m sorry?”
“This is her life you fucked with. Not my company. I love her, Andrew. She loves me. And you fuckers in your suits, you made her choose between saving me and loving me.”
On the other end, Andrew was silent.
Meredith slipped her hand down and threaded her fingers through mine as she whispered, “We can fix it.”
James, Josh, and Eric we’re bobbing their heads like idiots.
“We got this bish,” Kelly winked.
And Marcus, he was already tapping at his phone.
Clearing his throat, Andrew asked, “You loved each other?”
I laughed at him. “She gave up her stake in the company for me. Doesn’t that sound like love to you?”
“Well, fuck, kid,” Andrew said. “If you can’t fix it, I will.”