“I don’t want that,” he told me. He said it so seriously, with such gravity in his voice, that my heart stuttered and clunked in my chest. I put a hand up to my chest to protect my heart, and the other I flexed outwardly toward him.
“I can’t do this right now. I have a meeting that’s about to start. Please, just leave me alone.”
Hawkley took his sunglasses off and folded them on the table.
“Meeting already started, Allison. I’m Kestrel. Kestrel is me.”
I was speechless. Dumbstruck. The reality of it was painfully, painfully obvious. Maybe it wasn’t just supermodels who were inherently stupid. It was music executives too. In a town, this small, a man with a voice was a rarity. Of course, I had to fucking bang my potential client before I ever listened to him sing.
I cleared my throat.
“Nice to meet you, Kestrel. Diana has told me a lot about you, and she prepared this extensive bio about you. How you signed with a label twelve years ago in LA and then took off for a family emergency, is that right? And you were unable to complete your contract, I understand?”
“Do we have to do this?” he asked me. His eyes were sad.
“We do. I’m sorry. It was unprofessional of me, so let’s erase that whole scene from our heads and start from scratch. Deal?”
“If that’s my only choice,” he said. He crossed his sexy arms across his chest and leaned back dangerous in his chair.
“My mom got cancer. Wren was little. My dad was working full time. There was no one to take care of her. I didn’t have a choice. Music was my life, but my family meant more.”
“Wren?” I asked, my voice shaking.
“Yep, baby Wren, my not-so-little-anymore little sister who you had coffee with the other day.”
“Your sister?” I whispered.
He nodded his head slowly. They did look so much alike. The family resemblance was strong. I was a completely fucking stupid idiot. I’d ruined it all.
“Oh my God, I’m so dumb.”
“Don’t say that,” he said, taking my hands. “You’re actually one of the smartest people I’ve ever talked to. Last Tuesday was the best time I’ve had in a long fucking time, Allison. I’d rather take you out again than sign any recording contracts. I’d rather sing for just you and have you like it than a whole stadium of fans.”
I put my hand on my chest, and my eyes fluttered as they filled with tears.
“The only reason I reached out to Columbia and sent them the demo in the first place is because Bob put it on his bucket list that we wrote together last year. He and Gloria teamed up on me and goad me to do it. And when Wren is home, she goes nuts on me too. So I’m trying to be a good son and make my dad happy, but if that means that things will be awkward between us, then I’m finished before we even get started. I felt a real connection with you, Allison Carpenter, like a real fucking thing,” he pounded his fist on his chest with each word.
“And if this meeting is going to blow my chances on feeling that again? I’d give up music in a heartbeat to be able to hold you in my arms again.”
I was now full-on crying in the Spring Java Café, tears and mascara running down my face.
“You can’t give up music for me; we just met!” I sobbed to Hawkley.
“If music comes between the people I love and me, then that isn’t music, Ally. That’s noise. Music is the sound that love makes when it’s filled you all the way up and got no place to go. The music passes through us; we don’t own it. I can make music any time I want, but I can’t make a connection like the one we had. That shit comes but once in a lifetime. Please tell me you felt it too.”
I tapped the bio with my pen, unsure of how to move forward. I took a sip of my coffee and got lost in Hawkley’s hazel whiskey-colored eyes.
“So I can’t hear you sing?” I croaked. “Because I still want to hear you, you know.”
“I will sing for you anytime you want. Every morning, every night, if you’ll go out with me again.”
“Hawkley, I have to do my job. I have to take you to the studio and listen to you record a new demo. I have to hear you sing live and send the video to Diana by tonight. I can’t do my job because we have a connection.”
“Let’s do it then!” he bumped his palm on the table. “Let’s finish your job, scratch one off of Bob and Gloria’s incessant bucket list, and make the Tarot reading Wren gave me last night come true!” He stood up energetically with a smile on his face. His enthusiasm was infectious. I knew a star when I saw one, felt the thrumming in my chest when I got close to greatness in the making. I hadn’t heard Hawk sing yet, but he had all the rest. The looks, the charisma, the encyclopedic knowledge of rock history. Now I just had to see if this Kestrel had the chops. He was, off the record, an absolute rock star in bed.