Word of Mouth Read online

  “Nah, I wouldn’t do that to you.” He grinned. “I promise, you are gonna be a very happy fucking man in very short order.” He took the form back and passed him another. The contract.

  “I’m not signing that until I know who it is.”

  Clark looked like the Cheshire cat. “How about I show you? Follow me.”

  “What about my stuff?”

  “It’s safe, don’t worry. Come on.” He led Jonah down the hallway and through a couple of doors, until they emerged into the anteroom outside a control booth for a recording studio. The large window showed both the studio and the control booth.

  Inside the studio—

  Jonah’s eyes widened and he nearly choked on the swallow of coffee he’d just taken. “No fucking way!”

  “Fucking way.” Clark cackled and slapped him on the back with one hand, holding out the clipboard and pen with the other. “Still want to hold off signing the contract?”

  With numb fingers, Jonah handed Clark his coffee and then snatched the clipboard from him and signed where Clark told him to without even reading the damn thing past the immediate terms listed on the front page.

  Clark patted him on the back. “Welcome to Portnoy’s Oyster, kid. Play your cards right, and they’ll keep you on past the contract as a background and backup player. They’ve been wanting to hire another couple of guitarists, anyway.”

  Inside the studio, Mevi Maynard, one of the most famous rock stars of Jonah’s lifetime, front man for a band whose music he’d covered countless times at gigs, wore a pair of headphones and was laying down vocal backing tracks.

  Oh, shit!

  * * * *

  Clark led him back to the lobby and helped him carry one of the guitars down to a different studio. “We know you’ll need some warm-up time,” he said. He pointed to a stack of sheet music on top of an amp. “The set list is on top. You probably know some of them. You’ve got at least two hours before they’ll be ready for you. There’s a fridge in the break room through that door, so help yourself”—he pointed to one across from where they’d entered—“and Troy should be here soon to go through stuff with you.”

  Jonah remembered Clark mentioning a Troy earlier. “Troy Garland?”

  Clark grinned again. “Yep. Broke his wrist and three fingers in a stupid accident at home last night. Tripped and fell down his stairs and caught his left hand wrong in the railing. He’s having surgery tomorrow for it.” He turned to leave.

  “Hey, so how did you think of me for this?”

  Clark turned back. “Well, I still had you in my contacts. When I mentioned your name in an emergency conference call this morning with everyone, Rich chimed in and voted for you. Guess he knew you back in Florida, he said?”

  Jonah mentally winced at the reminder of what he’d mulled over in the shower earlier. “What’s his last name?” He wanted to know for sure, just in case.

  “Hurst.”

  That triggered another thought. “Wait—”

  “Yes, the same one.” He smiled. “He’s touring with Mevi and the band now. They met through friends in common a few months back and hit it off.”

  Oh, shit.

  When he’d last seen Rich Hurst, Rich was playing the same coffeeshop he himself had once played, when the guy wasn’t driving for a pizza place.

  I wonder if he’s still in contact with—

  He slammed the door shut on that thought. There was a very pathetically cruel irony that his old acquaintance from Florida had been the one to hit it big while still in Florida, and here he was, in LA, and still nameless and struggling.

  Clark’s gaze narrowed. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry. Memories, man.” He forced a smile. “Sorry. But…why me?”

  “Band’s sober. Totally. We needed a guy who’d mesh well with everyone, and Rich spoke highly of you. Yeah, there might be better players than you, and yes, I even called a couple of them, but they couldn’t just drop everything and tour, or were already contracted and booked, or admitted they couldn’t pass a drug test.

  “So we’re taking a chance on you. Don’t fuck it up, kid, and this could become a long-term gig for you. Oh, there will be a tech here in the next hour or so to draw blood and get a urine specimen for the drug test. You better be clean.”

  Jonah nodded. “I am. I don’t even smoke.”

  “Perfect.”

  “So I can just set up?”

  “Yep. Make yourself at home, kid.”

  Clark left, and Jonah forced himself into work mode. He grabbed two guitar stands and removed his from the cases to set them up. He positioned a music stand where he wanted it next to a stool, plugged in his Ibanez and Martin…and tried not to shit himself at the thought that he was not only sharing the same building with Mevi Maynard, he’d be playing with the guy.

  Recording with him.

  Holy shit!

  Chapter Three

  Jonah found the restroom, grabbed himself a bottle of water from the break room, and returned to the studio. He picked up his Ibanez first, adjusting the amp so he wasn’t blasting his own hearing with it, and tuned it, then picked up the Martin. It had built-in pickups, and he could make adjustments to the sound. If he played it without that turned on, it was a traditional acoustic, even though its sound in that mode wasn’t quite as good as his Yamaha acoustic.

  None of them were top-of-the-line, either, but they did what he needed them to do. He was a skilled enough player he could make a shitty guitar sound good, but if you were a shitty player, even a high-end Gibson would sound like crap.

  I guess now I can upgrade.

  Hopefully.

  With the strap of the Martin over his shoulder, he tuned it and took a deep breath before running through a few scales to loosen up, then playing “When I Was With You,” one of his favorite Portnoy’s Oyster songs.

  Still, he couldn’t relax, couldn’t let the music flow. His fingers felt stiff, disconnected to his brain, and he knew exactly why.

  He swapped out the Martin for the Ibanez and, with the volume low, and despite it not being made for it, he played “Spanish Romance,” in classical style. He closed his eyes and now the music—and memories—flowed.

  He hadn’t played this song in a while, but every note was embedded in his soul.

  If he needed to quickly access his emotions for serious music, this was the express elevator to his self-made Hell. It wasn’t the song itself that did it to him every time, it was memories of times he could never recapture, the self-loathing he now felt over the senseless destruction he’d wrought.

  The longing to return to a happier time in his life, before his ego and his stupid lust for fame brought him…

  Well, here.

  Then again, this was a chance in a lifetime, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t all artists suffer before they hit their big break?

  When he finished, he sat there and let the last note ring out and fade, which was why he jumped when he heard the voice on the speaker from the control booth.

  “Dude, that was amazing.”

  Oh, fuck.

  He opened his eyes to see Mevi Maynard standing there on the other side of the glass.

  “Um, thanks.”

  Mevi opened the door and walked over to him, his hand extended. “Mevi.”

  Jonah shook with him. “Jonah Yeager. Thank you for the opportunity today.”

  The man looked different now that he wasn’t dying his hair anymore, and he was keeping it trimmed shorter than he used to. Looked younger.

  Happier.

  He knew from the news that Mevi had come out as gay and married a guy, but he didn’t have time to follow gossip beyond that. Today the man was dressed in jeans and a comfortable T-shirt, much like he himself was.

  “Well, when we were all on the conference call this morning, Rich stopped Clark when he mentioned your name, and he vouched for your skills.”

  “I haven’t seen or talked to Rich in a few years, since before I left Florida, but please tell him I said th
anks. I don’t have his contact info.”

  Mevi waved him off. “We’ll get you all of that. For all of us. Did Clark give you the deets?”

  “Some of them. Said today was a practice.”

  “Yeah. We’re all flying out to Florida on Tuesday, though. Charter flight. Feel free to bring whatever you need to with you. We’ll get you the details. We won’t be back here until after the tour ends, so if you have anything to arrange, I’d do it fast. Doyle and I put in a recording studio at the house we built there. The paparazzi here are freaking crazy right now, driving us all nuts, and we’re sick of it. We’ll pay your expenses, obviously. We’ll be there for four weeks before we leave on tour.”

  “Um, wow. Okay.” Hell, he could pack the contents of his shitty-ass apartment into a couple of large rolling suitcases.

  Including his damn bed.

  “What else can you play like that? In classical style?” Mevi settled onto another stool.

  Now Jonah felt so nervous he didn’t know what the hell to do, so he opted for another old standard that would rip the scabs off his unhealed heart and make him bleed…but maybe that would make his music sound richer for it.

  “Cavatina” flowed from his fingers and through the Ibanez. It never sounded as good as it would have on a classical guitar, a good one, with nylon strings, but Jonah didn’t have one of those anymore. He’d had to pawn his three months ago. It hadn’t been an expensive one, and he’d actually bought it from a pawn shop in Sarasota, but it had held bittersweet memories.

  At least he still had his mandolin. That was something he’d never part with.

  “Dude, that’s fucking amazing,” Mevi said when Jonah finished. “I’ve never heard it played like that before.”

  Jonah’s face felt beet red and he shrugged. “I used to play classical a lot. Learned in high school.”

  “Can you play anything else? Instruments, I mean.”

  He nodded. “I’m not bad on bass, but it’s not my favorite, and I don’t have one of my own. I’m good on a mandolin. There are plenty of guys who can outplay me on one of those, though. I can play a twelve-string, but, again, I don’t have one.”

  Mevi got a faraway look in his eyes. “A mandolin…hmm…”

  “What?” Jonah was still trying to absorb he was having this conversation—any conversation—with Mevi-fucking-Maynard.

  “Hold on. I’ll be right back.” Mevi hurried out of the room.

  Now that Jonah had started that old wound bleeding, he took a deep breath and played “Gran Vals,” all the while struggling against the tears hiding just beneath the surface.

  Gawd, I really am a masochist.

  Except that was something else he’d lost by leaving Florida—he’d left behind his heart, his Master, his submission. He hadn’t even tried finding a local BDSM scene since hitting LA. He’d been too busy grinding, trying to make a living, trying to find a lucky break.

  Too damn broke.

  Add to that he couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone but—

  Sigh.

  Returning to Florida would be sweet agony, but fuck, this was his career, his literal big break.

  Ironic that he’d be heading home to do it, returning to a state he hadn’t set foot in since he’d left. At least it was a big damn state. Hopefully they’d be nowhere near Sarasota or Venice.

  Mevi returned a few minutes later, carrying a mandolin by the neck in one hand, and an acoustic guitar in the other.

  Jonah set his Ibanez aside and took the mandolin when Mevi offered it.

  “Oh, here.” Mevi dug into his pocket and handed him a plectrum for it, a little larger and rounder than the usual guitar pick.

  Jonah checked the tuning on it and tried to get used to the narrower neck. It’d been a while since he’d played his.

  Mostly because of the ghosts it conjured in his heart and soul.

  That’s the main reason he settled on playing a few lines from “Man of Constant Sorrow” to warm up on it and get a feel for its sound.

  “Excellent,” Mevi said. “Now, listen to this. E-minor.” He perched on the other stool, slung the acoustic’s strap around his neck, and launched into a song Jonah had never heard before. Three-quarter time, it was a ballad, that much was obvious. Not real slow, but definitely not possessing the high-energy punch of some of the most famous Portnoy’s Oyster songs.

  Jonah thought it through as Mevi played the first verse, then when he repeated the verse, Jonah started fingerpicking, adding chords and walk-downs and walk-ups to harmonize with him.

  From the smile Mevi wore, and the way he nodded to Jonah, he knew that was exactly the kind of feel Mevi was looking for. Mevi repeated the verse again, and now that Jonah was feeling a little more confident, he started improvising more in the same key, harmonizing and adding a slightly brighter tone to the piece, bringing a sound of hopefulness to it and lifting the overall feel.

  He followed Mevi into the chorus, only stumbling a little, but he’d listened to and played enough of Mevi Maynard’s songs in the past to anticipate where he might be going with it, then back into the verse again. A bridge, another chorus, the verse.

  When Mevi strummed the last note, he reached over and high-fived Jonah. “Dude, that was brilliant! Perfect. Wait until we play that for Rich.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Yeah, we’re collaborating on it. I’m writing the lyrics, he’s writing the music, but we both knew there was something not quite right about it, and neither of us could pinpoint it. You fucking nailed exactly what we needed for it. In fact…” He pulled his cell phone out and put it in speaker mode.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Rich, it’s Mal. Listen to this.” He set his phone on the music stand and started playing.

  Jonah scrambled to catch up and join him, adding even more to what he’d done the first time. This time, they played the verse twice, a chorus, another verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus.

  When they finished, Mevi grabbed his phone. “What do you think?”

  “That was perfect! Was that a mandolin?”

  “Yeah.” Mevi grinned at Jonah. “Our newest band member.”

  “Is that Jonah?”

  Mevi nodded at him, and Jonah found himself tongue-tied for a moment. “Um, hey, man. Long time, no see. Thank you for the recommendation. You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”

  “Dude, this is awesome,” Rich said. “We’ve been fighting that song for weeks. I don’t know why neither of us thought about adding a mandolin.”

  “I’ll lay down a track with him today for reference,” Mevi said. “We can refine it later, once we get through the tour.”

  “Yeah, perfect. I gotta go, Chelbie and I are at the airport now.”

  “Okay, man. See you in Venice.”

  “Later.”

  Mevi ended the call and smiled at him. “So that’s going to happen today, too,” he said. “Oh, and by the way, you can call me Mal. Mevi’s a stage name. I’ll answer to either one, but just so you don’t get confused by who’s calling me that.”

  “Gotcha.” Jonah’s heart had squeezed a little at the mention of Venice, when he realized they’d probably meant Venice Beach here, not in Florida. “Are they flying back to California?”

  “No, they’re heading home to Florida.” He smiled. “They’re in the process of building a house a few properties down the road from ours, in Venice.”

  Oh, fuck!

  Chapter Four

  Gordon’s fingers walked through “Cavatina” as guests milled around the Sunday afternoon cocktail party currently filling the Ca’ d’Zan. This was a regular gig he played every three months. The average net worth of each attendee was probably well over a million dollars, easy. A political action group hosted it, renting the Ringling mansion in Sarasota and taking over the grounds and interior for the evening.

  Outside, a string trio was playing for people on the patio, but he had the interior to himself. Even with the sound of people’s voices filter
ing through the space, he loved the way his music echoed through the air beneath the soaring ceilings. He used a wireless pick-up for his small amp, which gave just enough oomph without distortion to keep him from being lost in the crowd.

  Finishing that, he moved into “Capricho Arabe” for the next number. He didn’t get many gigs where he could totally stick to classical numbers, and he savored the peace that flowed through him with every note he played.

  Then he mixed it up with Mozart’s “Variations on a Theme,” followed by “Spanish Romance.”

  He didn’t even need a playlist for this gig, because he could pull up every song he loved deep within his heart. These were the songs he played alone at home, unless he was hired to play a wedding or other event.

  Bach came next, “Bourrée in E Minor.” That led into “Asturias.” All of these songs were perfect for this space, not just the tone and feel of the event, but the building and decor, too.

  Tomorrow night, though, he’d be sitting in a coffeeshop and listening to someone beg him to play “Classical Gas,” if they weren’t asking for John Denver, or Johnny Cash, or Simon and Garfunkel. Not that he had anything against any of those, but…

  It was boring.

  That gig would follow a day of teaching, which he did three days a week, at Sorrellson Academy, a private school there in Sarasota. He’d started working part-time at Sorrellson at the start of the school year, specifically teaching classical guitar techniques. It wasn’t the greatest paying job, but it was guaranteed work, provided him regular paychecks, he now had health benefits for the first time in his adult life, and he no longer had to take every crappy paying gig someone offered him, either.

  He could pay his rent and utilities and now lived in an apartment complex that wasn’t being raided by the sheriff’s office every weekend. He’d actually bought a new-to-him SUV that didn’t break down every damned month like clockwork, usually the day after he’d paid his rent.

  It meant he could sit back and breathe, finally, after the past three years of struggling to make ends meet through his heartbreak.