Page 96 of Gin and Bear It

“Trust me, I’m aware. I know her and Gordon’s attorney, and she’s a patient person. I can sense that she’s at the end of her rope just over email.”

Caro, Gordon, and their lawyer, an Asian woman with a stylish pixie cut, stroll in twenty minutes late. Probably to try to make us sweat, and it worked. I try not to show it.

Seeing Caro and Gordon in person for the first time in months is surreal. There was a period of time when I saw them more than I saw my own family. Caro’s familiar, signature black bob has a streak of lime green in it, and she’s wearing huge sunglasses. Out of everyone, she’s the most likely to be recognized in public, but she could take the sunglasses off now that we’re inside.

Gordon slinks behind her. He’s the tallest of all of us and has always had a bit of a hunch as if he’s trying to hide that. He shaved his head at some point recently, the stubble of regrowth showing. Gordon annoys me less when he’s not with Caro, but the fact that he’s so spineless that he’s gone along with everything pisses me off.

Their lawyer, Stacy, greets us, a warm smile on her face, and sits on the opposite side of the table. Caro flounces into the chair next to us, her mouth tense. Her sunglasses are mirrored, so all I can see is my reflection in them.

“Good morning,” Stacy says. “We’ve called this meeting to close negotiations. Our clients agree to change the contract language and repay their bandmates their owed royalties, with interest. We don’t want to take this to trial.”

The room is dead silent. The only sound that breaks it is Dylan turning to look at me, eyes wide.

“We’d prefer not to take this to trial. You’ve submitted enough evidence to prove that Mr. Stryker and Mr. Hawke were the sole songwriters for their albums, so anything else would be a further waste of time,” Stacy says. I pick up on the bitterness when she says further. Caro and Gordon must have really been bullshitting her with their “evidence”. “In addition to discussing the terms of the payout and the contract revisions, we’d like to officially dissolve the band.”

“Break up, you mean?” I say. Why am I surprised? It’s not like we’ll go back to being on tour after all of this.

“Obviously,” Caro says with a sigh. She’s definitely rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses. “Just leave it behind us. We have other projects on the horizon and you can go back to your little hick town and do whatever. Leave our names out of your mouths. We can add that to the contract, right?”

“Anything to wrap it up will be great,” Dylan says.

“Agreed.” I breathe out all the tension that’s been in my chest. Being on official hiatus has been a good first step, but officially breaking up and throwing everything but our royalties into the past? It’s a better ending for this band than I ever thought I’d get.

Caro’s and Gordon’s egos are obviously bruised, so Stacy and Harrison do most of the talking. Dylan and I will get our proper split of royalties from now on, and we’ll get back-royalties in installments over the next five years. Just from a rough understanding of what our royalties should have been, the back pay will be a lot.

By the end of the meeting, both Caro and Gordon are very visibly pissed. But I’m elated. I don’t have to worry about money for a long, long time. The freedom that affords me is immeasurable.

It’s not “set for life and chill on a yacht” kind of money, but it’s enough to live on comfortably without working at Stryker Liquors after this year. I could just dick around and write music for a while. Or maybe do something else I haven’t discovered yet.

The future is suddenly wide open, and that elation turns to worry in an instant. Jada and I need to be married for a full year, which isn’t a problem. But after that, then what? We continue to be married, even if I’m living somewhere else? We do long distance?

I’m falling for her. But is it “stay married for life” levels of feelings? All of the old scars from what happened with Alexis ache, even though I know Jada would never do anything like that to me. Then again, just because she wouldn’t dump me and tell me I’m not good enough doesn’t mean we wouldn’t fade or fall apart.

That would almost be worse in some ways. A slow death versus cutting it off before we’re too entangled.

“You look stressed out even though we just got everything we wanted,” Dylan says when we finally get out of the meeting.

Caro and Gordon leave around the same time. For the first time, Caro takes her sunglasses off and glances across the street. Paparazzi, who she probably called herself. She probably called this face-to-face meeting just for this photo op. How will she spin this in her favor?

I meander away so it’s not obvious that I saw them, but they follow us from a distance.

“I’m fine,” I say. “Just a lot on my mind about what to do next. I got an email from that songwriter Luis about possibly writing some songs.”

“Same. I turned him down.” Dylan shrugs.

“Really?” Dylan’s a great songwriter. I’ve always wondered why he chose drums over everything when he could front a band if he wanted.

“Yeah. I mean, it’ll always be there. But I want to take a break.” He glances across the street where the photographers are and turns so his back is to them. .

“Do you know what you’re going to do?”

“I’m going to help my family with the farm for now. We’re expanding into some new businesses,” he says. He ducks into a narrow space between two buildings, which leads to a side street. The photographers won’t follow us here.

“Really? I expected some travel or climbing a volcano or something,” I say, dead serious. He loves his family and goes back to their central Florida farm all the time, but it’s not a place where he sticks around for long periods of time.

“Nah, not this time.” He smiles, and his eyes are tired. “Want to celebrate our win? I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, let me get Jada.” I’m excited to tell her but nervous at the same time. What will come next between us?