Surge

“Honestly? I don’t think we’ll even move into court. Once Jason’s lawyer realizes the direction we’re going… and this is just me believing everything you’ve said, of course, they have nothing to counter with. How is Jason going to prove he was anything? Can you think of any evidence at all he might have to prove he wrote anything? Contributed in any way? Could he have taken any audio recordings during sessions? Practice? Anything?”

She tumbled through the notebook again. “I’m always surprised when cell audio comes out of the woodwork. It’s like, if you’re so suspicious someone is screwing you over up-front, why are you even spending time with them? You know?”

“Yeeee-eah…”

Her eyes widened. “You don’t record us? Do you?”

I shook my head. “Noooo…”

“What!” She slapped my arm.

“Just fucking with you. That’s not my thing.”

Her shoulder softened.

“I’m more of a video guy.”

She slapped my arm again. “Shut up.” She laughed.

It was just a blip in time, but I savored every second of this light-heartedness.

But her eyes dropped into the notebooks again, and I thought for a moment. Would Jay have anything? Just one piece of evidence that he contributed anything to the music I created? The easy answer was “no.” He’d been high most of the time. But then I remembered that crack addicts were pretty good at scheming. Still, he hadn’t needed anything from me but money for his next hit. Which he’d typically stolen when he’d thought I wasn’t looking.

I popped my knuckles. “Here’s the deal.”

Maeve met my gaze.

“He didn’t write anything. Not a single note. Not a single word. But I can’t guarantee that he doesn’t have anything that could be misconstrued.”

She nodded. “That’s why we need to scare the shit out of them with a countersuit. It’s one thing to be on the offense, it’s another to be on the defense. It does worry me a little. All he needs is one audio recording of him saying: Hey, why don’t we try this? People go to court over four bars of music. But then again, his lawyer is small-time and does know the RI dick is long enough to wrap around the world. There’s no way his production company is going to be confident against us.”

She pulled the rest of the notebooks out of the plastic box and put them on the bed. “Let’s take the most important ones in our luggage back to LA. The notebooks that might contain word sets that were used in the songs under question. Now, please tell me you were just as organized with your invoices and bookings?”

I wiggled my phone. “Those are in the cloud.” I knelt again, seizing a box from under the bed. “But I’m a bit old-school so I have copies in the cloud and paper copies of everything.”

“Fuck. Were you an accountant in a previous life?”

I flared my nostrils. “Which kind of accountant do you mean?”

Maeve made a circle with her hand around my face. “What’s this sassy expression you’re throwing at me mean? Am I behind in my pop culture or something? What other kind of accountant is there?”

“I learned a lot from Tayo when we did TikTok. She made a list of terms I shouldn’t use. Accountant was on it.”

“Why?” Maeve half-smiled.

“Apparently, it’s what people on OnlyFans say is their job.”

She laughed. “Okay, well, I was referring to the other kind, but if we can’t get this paperwork put together, you might have to monetize your social following in other ways.”

I flipped open the lid of box two, examining the contents. “I’m a fucking geek by the look of this box.”

She peeked over the bed into box two. “You had me at hello. Damn, Drake, you’re a lawyer’s wet dream. I thought we’d be here all day, but this shouldn’t take long.”

I took out a three-ring binder with plastic sleeves in it, and Maeve and I sifted through various receipts, invoices, and records of all my online memberships allowing me to play covers with the band. Even though most venues had their own memberships to these vaults, I was one to cover my ass.

We paged through everything, right down to my receipts for every pick and string I’d ever purchased.

Maeve’s hair fell down along the sides of her face, her eyebrows knitted together in concentration. She did this for me. Yeah, I knew she also did it for RI. This woman would fall on a sword for that company, but here, on this bed, in rainy Seattle, she spent her vacation time pushing papers and waiting for family-style home-cooked lasagne and garlic bread from the freezer because she loved me.