Page 41 of In This Together

‘I wasn’t expecting you to be in the meeting today.’ He moved to sit in one corner of the sofa as he spoke.

‘I hadn’t intended to stay, to be honest.’

Tommy looked around the room they were in, then took in Andrea, in her pencil skirt and tailored blouse, the high heels she’d finally gotten used to wearing at work all day. Just as she felt he was scrutinising everything he saw, he shifted his attention to look out of the window, rubbing the gruff of his chin contemplatively.

‘Do you miss being in the studio?’ he asked.

She’d been too busy recently to think about being in the studio, but whenever she did, she definitely missed working with artists, being creative. More than that, she missed the early days, before she’d become so heavily involved in the business management of Sanfia Records, when the big decisions at Sanfia were made by her dad and she was able to focus on the music. When she could turn up to work in jeans, a sweater and sneakers.

She nodded as she came to sit in the opposite corner of the sofa to Tommy. ‘I’m mostly too busy to think about it.’

‘Do you remember those first EPs we made together?’

She nodded again, smiling at the memory of being blown away by Tommy and his band. Back then he’d had a great sound, but it was rough around the edges and he was shaggy looking, unintentionally, not like the polished, intentionally unkempt rock god he was now.

They’d spent weeks in the studio, often working into the early hours, collaborating to make the kind of music that Andrea felt in her core.

‘It was fun, wasn’t it?’ Tommy continued.

‘Yeah. Yeah, it was. But, you know, you went on to bigger and better. And I did more and more of the business side of things at Sanfia and, now here, that’s pretty much all I do at Stellar. I guess we can’t have it both ways.’

He nodded, watching her a beat too long, until she squirmed in her seat. ‘So… you wanted to see me about…?’

Shifting his body to face her, he pulled a knee up to the cushions. ‘First, I want your view of the music. Honestly, what do you think of the sample track?’

Even Tommy Dawson has doubts,she thought.

‘Honestly? I’m blown away by it, Tommy. It’s stripped bare, it’s raw. It’s heartfelt and you’ve kept that… edge, or… electricity you have these days. It’s like early-days Tommy Dawson, pouring his heart into his lyrics with not two dimes to rub together, meets a seasoned artist, accomplished and fine-tuned. I… I love it.’

He didn’t smile or even seem to react; he simply kept staring at her.

When eventually he spoke, he said, ‘Have dinner with me tonight.’

It took Andrea a second to get over the flattery of Tommy asking her to dinner. Not because of who he was but because he had never asked her to dinner before. In the past, they’d ended up in bed after a long day in the studio, and later, they’d met at shows, shared impromptu drinks and screwed. Then, he or she always left and it would be months before they next saw each other.

She scoffed and brushed invisible dust from her skirt as she stood, walking toward her desk and coming to stand behind it, physically shielded from the man on her sofa. ‘No.’

He followed her, standing across the desk from her, his arms folded across his chest, his bottom lip almost protruding like a petulant child. ‘Why not?’

She matched his stance. ‘For one thing, you don’t mean dinner, you mean sex.’

‘Huh. Someone has a big opinion of herself, doesn’t she?’

Andrea raised an eyebrow incredulously.

‘Okay, I take that back. But I asked you to dinner and I meant dinner. At my new place, not a hotel, and I’ll cook.’

Now she laughed. ‘You cook? Since when?’

‘All right, I’ll order in. But I’ll order in nice. I’ve told you, this is a new me. New home, new music, maybe even a few morals. It would just be nice to… hang out… talk music, catch up.’

She smiled. That did sound nice. But… ‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘Let’s suppose you really mean dinner. So we’ll eat this great food you order in. We’ll drink some single malt on the rocks. We’ll sit by your open fire.’

‘I live in a penthouse apartment.’

---