to see what they come up with first, without me in the mix. We’ll use that as a starting point and we’ll go from there. But I’ll be writing, too. And after they show me theirs, I’ll show them mine, and we’ll see where it crosses over, if it does. In the end, all that matters is that the very best songs make it onto the album. Whoever wrote them is irrelevant.”
“You’re very smart, Cary Clarke.”
I smiled a little, because it was hard not to eat up anything nice that she said to me. “Probably not as smart as people take me for, Taylor Lawson.”
Chapter Fifteen
Cary
Afraid of Heights
After lunch, Taylor worked in the great room again while I worked in the control room with the door open. I could hear her on the phone with someone, chatting. Merritt, maybe. Sounded like they were talking about the Players, but she was laughing a bit.
Could’ve been Courteney, actually, or maybe Ashley’s wife.
Fuck, for all I knew she was talking to some delivery guy, and she was just that at ease talking to strangers.
I liked that. That it was so easy for her to talk to people. Really fucking unlike me that way.
I liked it that she’d seemed to bond with my sister. That she’d taken herself right down to Little Black Hole to introduce herself to everyone there, and bonded with Merritt, too.
That she’d made herself at home in my world so quickly. Even here, in my home studio.
I didn’t even realize it was possible for anyone to do that anymore. The very few people who’d walked through these doors over the last few years had never seemed comfortable here.
Dean, maybe. But only because he was such a self-interested narcissist that he didn’t really pick up on other people’s social cues. Probably never occurred to him to feel uncomfortable here because whatever was wrong with me had nothing to do with him anyway. Alive’s lead singer had always been marvelously impervious to other people’s problems in a way that I envied.
Maybe that was why I put up with him.
Dean Slater just swept in here every once in a while, talked about himself, and went on his way. I didn’t doubt that he cared about me, in his way, or he probably wouldn’t bother, but the interaction probably didn’t do much for either of us.
And then there was Xander. And my sister. Two people who definitely cared about me, but were never comfortable in here because they knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t happy. It was hard for them to take.
I got that.
It would be hard for me to take if I knew either of them was unhappy. Which was one of the reasons I stayed away from them as much as I could. It was a survival mechanism. I had enough of my own problems to try to deal with. I really couldn’t handle other people’s pain.
And yes, I was well aware of how pathetic that was, that I was too fucking fragile to handle normal human relationships and everything that went with them. That didn’t mean it was something I wanted to chat about, though.
Just another reason on the long list of reasons to keep to myself.
Of course, there was Rose. And Liam, though he never really stepped through the front door. People who were paid to enter my world, but only for brief periods of time and a specific function.
Maybe you could put Nicolette on that list, too, though she’d never come here. I’d never seen her outside of Bliss.
But unlike Taylor, all those people did their thing and were gone.
Taylor couldn’t really leave. Because I’d gotten her to move in, control freak that I was. But also, I could tell she wanted to stay.
I’d probably never fucking understand why.
I watched her for a while through the window, even as I slipped on headphones to try to concentrate. I was listening through the rough cut of a song that the Players had sent me after our morning talk. Something they’d been working on but weren’t sure I’d like.
It had potential.
But I kept getting distracted, watching Taylor working on the couch.
I kept letting myself get distracted.
I was impressed by her passion for her job. The hard work she was already putting in. All the little things she did, like making sure I had coffee and food, and even feeding my cat. But she was also several steps ahead of me on most things, facilitating conversations between me and