Page 28 of Just Business

“I said I don’t know if Austin told you, but the man is shit at poker. Pretty sure he emptied his wallet last night.”

Austin shrugs. “Listen, I have a lot of faces, but a poker face ain’t one of ’em.”

“I thought you guys normally played for quarters?” Greg claps Austin on the back and we fall silent, waiting for his reaction.

Austin looks at each of us blinking, mouth slightly open.

“I’m messing with you,” Greg says after a beat. “Liam has more money squirreled away than any of us from his poker winnings.”

Austin barks a laugh. “You had me going for a second there.”

They’re teasing each other good-naturedly, like old friends, and a mental image flashes through my mind, unbidden. I can practically see Austin being long-term friends with these guys, and I have to yank that thought out by the stem before the idea of him staying here takes root.

What the hell was that about?

“I was too busy admiring that sexy man hanging on Jackson’s wall. Couldn’t take my eyes off him,” Austin retorts, pulling a big laugh from all of us.

Finally, Greg claps his hands loudly, interrupting us to get down to business. He’s basically the leader of this group. He’s on drums, and he’s also the longest standing member of the band. In my opinion, he’s the best drummer I’ve ever heard, but he’s too modest to agree with me. He also happens to be Liam’s dad. When Liam was old enough, Greg convinced his wife, Lisa, to let him join the band and play bass, despite only being seventeen. Reluctantly, Lisa agreed. Now Liam can play any instrument we decide the recording needs. Ed joined the band on keys not long after Greg. He’s the quiet one of this bunch, only speaking when it's important. Still waters run deep and all that.

“All right, guys, let’s make some ones!” Greg calls out his catchphrase for making number-one records.

I slip behind the mixing board and Greg takes his seat in the booth that holds his drum kit. Ed takes a seat at the baby grand piano while Austin and Liam perch on the stools, instruments in hand. From my vantage point I can see the entire room, and it brightens my day whenever I take the time to look around.

It’s like a time capsule from the sixties in here. The burlap fabric stapled to every wall and ceiling is in shades of primary colors, and there’s Styrofoam on top of that. Back then the original guys had to come up with creative and frugal ways to create good acoustics in here.The Burlap Castle,my Pops called it. I smile at how much this modest studio has seen over the years. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall.

As they play through one song after another, I’m overcome with the sense that something special is happening. I think we’re all feeling it. This won’t be any ol’ album for Austin. With the full band here, the songs he penned are starting to take on a new life. Don’t get me wrong, they already sounded great with just him and his guitar, but adding all the instruments brings more depth and layers. Some are ready to record after one or two takes, and it hits me that we might actually get through every song he showed me the other day.

The morning flies by, and before we know it, it’s time to break for lunch. Everyone brought something from home today so we could eat and get back to it quickly. I grab my PB&J and settle onto the old vintage couch in the lounge room. The door opens behind me and I expect it to be Austin, but it's Greg who follows me in. Since Dad passed, Greg has tried to take on the fatherly role as best he can. He folds his large frame into the chair across from me and unwraps his lunch.

“How’ve you been? Lisa and I were talking last night about how we’ve hardly seen you lately.”

I used to make it to dinner at their house at least once a month, but the last few invites I’ve stayed home.

I give him a small smile and shrug. “Just been busy. Hey, I finally changed the website. I know that’s been driving you crazy.”

“Bout damn time. You’re the owner now, and the website needs to say it.”

We fall silent, eating our lunches, but when I look up he’s eyeing me with his head cocked to the side. “You know they’d be proud of you, right?” he asks.

Bythey, Greg means my dad and my pops. Pops was the original owner and he handed it over to my dad when he was too old to handle it all. Dad was a fantastic owner for the most part, but the way Greg tells it, a few years after Mom died, things started falling through the cracks. It was little things for several years, things so small you could chalk them up to forgetfulness. Like an occasional power bill or internet bill paid a few weeks late. But, based on the timeline I’ve put together, things started really falling apart when I went off to college. It seems like that’s when his drinking got even worse. He began forgetting bookings entirely, and musicians would show up to find they’d been double booked with another group; or worse, they’d show up with the doors locked and no studio time at all. The studio’s stellar reputation had begun to slip, and musicians quit booking completely. That’s what I’ve been working on since I took it over. Rebuilding everything and bringing us to the twenty-first century the best I can with the tiny budget I have.

I give him a watery smile. “You think?”

“Penny girl, I know it.” His expression is incredulous. “I knew your daddy my whole adult life and there’s no way he meant for it to end up the way it did. Yes, they’d absolutely be proud of you, and you know it.”

My cheeks heat at his praise, but I know he’s telling the truth. Imposter syndrome is a beast to overcome, and it rears its ugly head whenever I think about the studio’s recent success.

"I'm sensing abutcoming after all that high praise," I say, raising an eyebrow.

"All I want to say is, make sure you're not overworking yourself. Have you paid yourself lately? Lisa was looking at the numbers and she said it doesn’t look like you have."

I let out a long, heavy sigh. Nobody knows about the loan my dad took out against our house. I’d rather not drag anyone else into that mess. I’ve hardly paid myself in a while because I've been putting every penny toward it.

"I’m getting a few things squared away, but I'm about to start," I assure him.

About to is relative, right?

Greg raises an eyebrow.

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