Page 1 of The First Deal

1

“What’s your poison?” the barmaid with the raven hair asked, her voice husky, eyes hooded.

“I’ll call you back,” I said to my business partner, keeping my gaze locked on the stunning young woman. I hung up and tossed my phone onto the sticky table, then cocked my head, raking my gaze over her appreciatively before answering her question.

“Coming right up,” she purred, licked her ruby-red lips, then turned and made her way back behind the bar with her hips swinging seductively.

Having this effect on women wasn’t new to me. But I still found myself caught a little off guard. I was certain that no one here apart from the owner knew who I was, so I doubted that the gorgeous barmaid’s reaction was because of my name and what came with it. She also didn’t look like any of the gold diggers or struggling musicians I had encountered in my career so far. So that left me with two thoughts: she was either flirting with me because she liked what she saw, or she flirted with everyone. I probably shouldn’t have, but I hoped for the former.

More importantly, though, I was here—at a seaside bar in Dorset called Kim’s—to check out one specific act, a man who was once a member of a well-known band. They had kicked him out when they got their big break, or so Beatrix Bolton had said when she had called me a couple of nights ago. How she had managed to get my number was beyond me, and that had been the first thing to make me consider making the long journey to Dorset to check out the solo act. Anyone who was that determined to get through to me was worth my time, and the fact that she loosely threatened me may have been another. That girl had fucking balls.

On my journey down here though, I had wondered if I was wasting my time. She hadn’t been able to send me any proof that the guy had talent, but I took a chance anyway.

Now, in this bar, staring at the barmaid as her eyes crossed with concentration while pouring another customer’s drink, I knew it wouldn’t be a waste, even if Nathaniel Cook turned out to be a tone-deaf, wannabe rockstar.

There was a different type of talent here.

She had brought my drink over with another flirty smile, and I found my gaze locking on her ass when she walked away again. It was a damn fine ass; round, firm, but not in that over-the-top way the girls I usually came across had—implants, that was what they had. Fake hair, tits, lips, and ass. This girl had none of that. Everything about her was real, except for maybe the colour of her hair, but it suited her, and complemented her pale complexion.

For a moment I lost myself to thoughts of that skin, how soft it must feel, how easily it might bruise. I wondered how many times I’d have to spank her to see her cheeks glow. Once? Maybe twice? Would she enjoy that? I knew that I would.

I snapped out of my musings when the owner of the bar caught my attention, indicating to me that the dark-haired man approaching her makeshift stage was the man I was here to see. Being the professional that I am, I quickly shoved thoughts of the barmaid’s body to the back of my mind and focused on the stage, sipping my whiskey as he strummed his guitar and introduced himself.

He didn’t say much, and it seemed like he was simply a man of few words rather than shy. I instantly liked that about him. Then he played, and he sang, and I found myself leaning forward, ignoring how my elbows stuck to the table as the man up on the ‘stage’ captivated me.

Ho–ly shit.

The Bolton girl was right to have called me. He had the type of talent you only saw once in a blue moon, the type of talent that even our superstars, like Leo Birch, could only dream of. The lyrics were unfamiliar, his own perhaps, and if that was the case then this man was an even rarer find.

His biggest downside: his age. Not that it bothered me that he was closer to my age than any of our other artists. But I knew that it would bother Lynda. She liked to keep the acts that Limelight took on young. Fresh and malleable, that was what she wanted. Young’uns who she could turn into whatever she believed would bring us the most money. Lynda was talented, she knew exactly how to shape people, it was what drove me to go into business with her in the first place. But her inability to see past age was something I knew I’d struggle with when batting for this guy.

I was ready to fight though. So long as he was too.

He’d have to prove himself with more than just his talent. Lynda would need to see that he could hold his own, and I’d need assurance that he could handle what we’d throw his way. Shit tours to start, supporting whoever the hell he could. He’d need to be able to write songs like the one he was playing right now, consistently. He’d need to take care of that voice, his body too.

I knew a little about him. I had spoken with one of the girls at the label that had signed Hand That Feeds—the band he was kicked out of. She explained very briefly why he had been dismissed. His mental health was a shitshow, and it made him a liability.

I didn’t see him that way though. People had all sorts of struggles, and sometimes those struggles could bring out the best sides of them in the end. I hoped that he was one of those people. So, as long as he looked after himself, I’d stand in his corner, I was sure of it.

In fact, I had never been surer of an act in my life.

But I wasn’t going to let on exactly how I felt straight away. When he took his leave from the ‘stage’ and went to sit at the bar, gesturing for a fresh drink from the owner, I stayed where I was, looking thoughtful, pretending that I needed to think about what I had just seen.

The raven-haired beauty came strolling over in my direction only a minute later. She glanced at my empty glass and then met my gaze as I stared at her, not even slightly ashamed by the way I was blatantly undressing her in my head. “Another?”

I swirled my finger slowly around the rim of my empty glass, then nodded once before resting my chin on my knuckle, my thumb resting beneath my now lightly stubbled jaw.

She picked up the glass and walked away slowly, again, swaying her hips even more than before. As I watched her, I wondered again if that effort was because she saw in me what I saw in her, or if now she had been instructed to put on a show by her boss, a little effort to sweeten me up since I hadn’t jumped straight up and declared her man’s act the best I’d seen in a long time.

I always did like to build suspense though.

So I sat, sipped, and stared up at the following acts as they played covers, mostly quite badly, in the dark bar. My attention drifted between acts to the patrons, plenty of them clearly regulars with their favourite tables and drinks. A group of older men sat by the bar on the opposite end where the man I had come to see was sitting. They were a moody-looking bunch, but they all seemed to soften the moment the owner looked their way. Their interactions made me smile.

The owner looked my way over and over, seeming on edge, and I wasn’t surprised. From the way she was looking at the dark-haired man with the incredible lyrics and addictive voice, she had some kind of deep connection with him.

Love perhaps.

No doubt the messy kind. I wondered: would their dreams align? This bar looked like a work in progress, and it had potential. It had a long way to go before it could be classed as a decent venue, the kind of place I’d send any of my acts to, but the vision was clearly there. With exposed brick walls and neon signs, it was the type of place I could send any of our bands to and bring her enough business to make her head spin.

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