Merritt, me and Brody, me and Trey, before I even knew they needed to happen. Maybe that was because she was actually answering my phone, my emails, and even my texts.
On day three of her working for me, the morning after I first fucked her, I’d basically handed her my phone and let her have at it.
When she started working for me, I’d had over forty-thousand unread emails in my inbox. Taylor had taken on the herculean task of diligently sorting through them for me.
I don’t even know how you can think straight with the pressure of this number staring you in the face, she’d told me.
Embarrassingly, there were many dozens of other things that I’d left neglected like that, like weeds growing up in the cracks all over my world. I just dealt with it by pretty much ignoring them, but she was right. They created clutter. Pressure. I knew they were there, gradually pushing through the walls I’d built, until one day they’d crack. It wasn’t a comfortable way to live, but I’d done it for so long that I thought I’d gotten used to it.
Taylor literally opened the curtains to let the sun into the studio, and she was now metaphorically pulling up the weeds I’d let overtake the place.
Felt like I could breathe easier in here already.
It was all very impressive, and I appreciated it. But the most striking thing about her wasn’t her competence or her friendly professionalism or the warm support she offered. It was the way she did it all without judgment.
She didn’t seem to judge me at all.
Was that what I found so irresistible about her?
That she didn’t put pressure on me to change? Or judge me for not being something that I wasn’t?
She didn’t seem to judge me for being reclusive or private or antisocial, or anything else. Even the sex club thing, which I assumed would be a big ask for most women. She didn’t criticize my behavior or my habits, even in a subtle, non-verbal way. She didn’t even seem to question them, other than to try, carefully and respectfully, to understand.
Like when she’d gently asked me if I was agoraphobic and tried to talk to me about stage fright.
But when I didn’t want to talk about it, she took my cues and let it go.
Obviously, she fucking noticed that I wasn’t a normal guy. She lived out there, in the real world, and when she walked in the door, she saw me. But she didn’t treat me like there was already something wrong with me before she met me. She didn’t act like she’d already made up her mind about me before that day.
It was like I had a blank slate with her. And it was a little intoxicating.
I really hadn’t been new to anyone in years.
People who didn’t even know me already knew me, or thought they knew me, in the most ignorant, judgmental, intrusive ways imaginable. People who’d maybe met me once, twice, they all had an opinion. I’d learned that as I got famous; that everyone had an opinion about the public you, and that seemed to make them think that they knew the private you when they didn’t.
And for someone they didn’t even know, they became fanatically invested in everything you did—especially your highest highs and your lowest lows.
They loved it when you were on top, a shining star, so bright they could hardly fathom your brilliance.
And they loved it when you fell.
There was no in-between. No one cared about a mediocre musician, a halfway famous person known for ordinary things. Musician dropping off kids at soccer practice just didn’t stop anyone’s scroll.
Rock star losing his shit at nightclub where ex-wife showed up with another man was somehow irresistible.
Staggering amounts of success sold.
Pain sold.
Godlike. Untouchable. Idolized. Beloved. Superhuman.
Fallen. Broken. Dead. Dying. Disgraced.
That was how the world wanted its rock stars. There was no in-between. And everyone wanted to figure out which end of the spectrum they could slot you into.
A lot of my peers still put me in that first category. Beloved. Untouchable. Out of respect, pity, or a lingering belief in me and my work. Out of respect for the work I still put out there, even though I was no longer touring, no longer in a band, and regardless of anything that had happened in my personal life.
Most of the rest of the world saw me as fallen. Broken.
In hiding.
I wasn’t onstage. I wasn’t shining like a star. I’d reversed into the