Chapter Four
Neil didn’t wake up until after noon the next morning. Blinking slowly, he thought that this was probably a bad sign, since he didn’t get in that late last night to begin with. But when his anxiety spiked pretty bad it could really wipe him out, something he hadn’t known until embarrassingly recently. No one had really told him that sleeping too much could be a bad sign until he mentioned it in casual conversation to Cat, who’d seemed concerned.
She’d sat him down, telling him a bit about how anxiety and depression can manifest differently for different people, and explained how when she was a teenager she’d spent months falling asleep in school despite getting more than enough rest at night, how she had days when she felt like nothing was ever going to get any better and times when there wasn’t anyone or anything that really brought her joy. She told him about how therapy had saved her life, and how he should consider it, even if he didn’t have anything in particular he wanted to talk about. Neil had refrained from telling her that he had more than enough things to talk about, but that he'd rather never go through the agony of sharing them to begin with. But he’d nodded along anyways, taking a few of the suggestions she gave to heart and deciding to do some research on his laptop when he got home.
And that he did. After pages and pages upon reading into anxiety and depression and PTSD, Neil came to the conclusion that he did, in fact, have a lot of things going on in his head. This wasn’t exactly news. So he glanced over suggestions for dealing with bad days and ignored the parts about talking to a trusted professional and kept going.
So needless to say, he was somewhat frustrated by how late in the day it had gotten by the time he dragged himself into the kitchen. He poured himself some tea absentmindedly while checking his phone. He saw that Cat had texted him a link to a video less than a minute ago, something he didn’t pay much mind to. She had a tendency to send him whatever she thought he’d like whenever she first watched it, so he was used to getting videos of cats pushing items off tables and poorly executed gymnastics fails at three in the morning.
He’d come to the conclusion, sometime between getting up and checking his messages that Cat really didn’t have it in her to trick him into playing last night, so she was pretty much off the hook. That completely changed when he saw the title of the video she’d sent. It said “Mystery Performer Enthralls Audience.” He clicked on it, panicked, to see a shaky recording of his performance from the night before. His breath caught in his throat, and he felt like his lungs were shutting down. Neil pressed the base of his hand against the space between his ribs, trying to force himself to breath normally, and as he did so his phone vibrated in his hand. Once, then twice, and then three times. He saw Cat was frantically messaging him, having seen that he’d gotten her message, and apparently doing damage control. That was slightly uncharitable. He supposed it was more just her being a good friend.
Cat: im so so so so sorry neil
Cat: i messaged the person who posted trying to get it taken down im so sorry i never should have asked you to do this i dont deserve you
Cat: they havent gotten back yet but i’ll let you know when they do i’ll fucking sue them i stg ill fix this
Neil closed his eyes, vaguely trying to practice some breathing technique he’d seen online the other week. It wasn’t really working, but he’d skimmed the article to be fair. He raised shaky fingers to his phone and typed back a quick message.
Neil: It’s not your fault. What’s done is done.
He put their conversation on silent. He’d been thrilled when he figured out he could do that. As much as it infuriated his friends, it sometimes calmed him down to not have to worry about reading people’s responses as they popped up in front of him in real time. Instead of waiting for Cat to respond, he tapped on a different conversation and sent a quick text.
It took Laila about fifteen minutes to get over to Neil’s place. It was more than a ten minute drive, and so Neil assumed she’d left as soon as she'd gotten his message. That particular assessment was confirmed when he saw that she was standing outside of his door wearing rainbow socks, crocs, and a tank top paired with a fairly tiny pair of shorts. He knew she tended to skimp on the air-con at her place when she was working, so she’d probably been painting, trying to keep cool when she’d heard from him. Her hair was haphazardly pulled back, strands falling in her face, and she was carrying an atrociously large bottle of sangria in one hand, which she held up like a peace offering.
Neil didn’t really drink. He’d never really adjusted to the taste except for when it was to consume it in mass quantities for injury healing purposes, so he tended to steer clear regardless of his trauma. But Laila had started him with mostly juice and fruit mixes and started slowly, with his permission, adding red wine in, to the point where Neil, despite still maintaining an ideal combination of more juice than alcohol, actually enjoyed drinking with her from time to time.
Ironically, his mother had done the same for him with black tea. It was fairly common in British households, particularly more traditional ones, to wean children onto tea by slowly decreasing the ratio of milk to tea so that it was bearable until they were drinking pure black tea. It was certainly how Neil had ended up drinking pretty much anything, dregs of the pot or not.
So he and Laila crashed on his couch for the rest of the afternoon, cycling between reality TV shows and magazines Laila had brought shoved in her purse, drinking sangria from coffee mugs Neil kept in his cabinet and pointedly ignoring their phones.
That was probably why he missed it when he got an email from one David Wymack that evening with a contract attached.
It wasn’t until they were thoroughly wiped out by their day of lazing around, debating whether they should order something for dinner when Neil finally gave in and checked his email. When he saw the message, his face dropped. It didn’t go unnoticed by Laila, who tapped a chipped nail against his cheek, raising her eyebrows. He looked up and sighed.
“I got an offer last night from David Wymack.”
Her eyebrows shot up even further. “Allison’s boss?”
He shrugged. “Kind of. Also a huge name in music. And so are the people he works with.”
She waved that off. “Yeah, but so are you. A huge name in music, I mean.”
“You know I’m not.”
“You could be.”
“I can’t.”
“Neil, I really try, but sometimes I just don’t get it. I know that the Moriyamas make trouble for you in terms of your career. But these guys are still reaching out, right? So clearly they don’t care. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is...I don’t know if I’m ready to be known the way artists like Allison are.”
“But that’s why you came out here in the beginning, isn’t it?”
“I came out here because I love music. And I thought that I could do something with it, and that my only option was to be a performer, like everyone else. I guess I never really thought of it any other way. And I do like performing, it’s just...I can’t help but feel that it’s too risky.”
“I don’t know everything about your past, and I won’t pretend to. But it’s clear that you feel like you’ll be exposing yourself by making yourself a well known figure, right?”
“More or less.”
“Okay, but have you considered that maybe by making yourself well known, you’ll actually be better protected?”
“What do you mean?”
She leaned her head against her knuckles tiredly. “Listen, if you were in serious trouble, like someone took a hit out on you or something, I’d say starting on a career path where you have scheduled appearances and people who stalk you for fun wouldn’t be your best bet.” Neil wanted to laugh. She had no idea how “serious” things had been at one point. Laila continued, unhindered by his odd silence. “But you made it clear that most of what you’re worried about here isn’t exactly the most realistic stuff, it’s more...of a feeling than anything else, right? So maybe by making yourself a public figure, you’d actually be more safe. You’d have security for any shows and it would make someone trying to come after you way harder since you’d be in the limelight a bunch. No one could really come and steal you away in the night, could they? I don’t know, maybe I’m talking out of my ass here, but if you play it right, it could actually help calm some of that anxiety.”
“Yeah, and if people find out more about me? There’s some stuff in my past that I don’t really want being public knowledge Laila.”
“I guess that’s a risk you’re going to have to take. It’s a matter of if this is something you want badly enough that you’d put up with some stuff coming out about you in the press. I know you, Neil.” She reached out, brushing his hair behind his ear lightly. “I know who you are as a person, and nothing in your past can change that. Plus, with your talent, even if people do react badly, your music speaks for itself. You can’t just brush away a gift like that over some gossip rag highlights. But again: it’s up to you. I’m with you either way.”
She leaned her head slightly to her left, tapping his skull against hers where it lay inches from hers on the back of the couch.
He sighed heavily, rearranging his blanket pile. “Yeah. You’re right. And plus, the artists there are…” He broke off.
He knew more about Allison’s colleagues than he’d let on to her in the past. Part of it came with Kevin’s transfer to working with Foxhole Records and Neil’s immediate interest, but the rest of the artists associated with the label were pretty incredible too. Even with his hand broken, Kevin’s guitar skills were fairly impressive, and his powerhouse of a voice remained intact. There was Allison, former pop-diva turned soloist, and her friend Renee Walker, prodigy violinist and indie artist. There was also Dan Wilds, dynamic vocalist, and her longtime partner Matt Boyd, who both had a number of hit songs with their smooth voices and impeccable technique.
Then there were the newest additions. Andrew and Aaron Minyard, twins, and their cousin Nicky. Neil had brushed over Aaron pretty quickly. He was fine, but his voice was just average. Nicky was an interesting addition for his skills with sound mixing and electronic pop hits, but he too had a fairly unremarkable voice, as those in the industry went.
Andrew was something else. He’d collaborated on songs with Kevin in the past, and the tracks he was featured on were generally considered to rival even what Kevin and Riko had produced in the past. His collaboration with his cousin had been in the top ten on the alternative charts for weeks, and his latest single was heading the same way.
The only thing that really confused Neil was why he hadn’t produced more music. His cousin and brother had been working at Foxhole for the same amount of time as him and had double the amount of songs, and despite clearly being the most talented of the bunch, Andrew had produced the least music. Neil knew the fans were desperate for more of his work, and it just didn’t make sense, keeping him as an occasional backup singer for the other’s music. But Neil didn’t really share that opinion, although he knew it was widely accepted by the public, since he didn’t really want Allison knowing how much attention he paid to the music of her coworkers. Plus, he sometimes got a bit carried away when it came to talking about music.
In the end, it was the chance to work with all of them that Neil couldn’t turn down. He’d made himself get used to the idea of staying in the shadows, being no one for the rest of his career and then his life. But the fact that there was this incredible group of artists that wanted to work with him as much as he wanted to work for them? That was too much to turn down.
He sent Wymack the contract by Sunday, after much careful examination, and was just shutting off his phone to try and get some sleep when he received a follow-up email asking him to come into the studio on Monday to meet everyone.
He felt his chest tighten slightly. Normally he preferred a bit more warning when it came to major functions like this, particularly functions that could change the rest of his life. But he’d already signed himself over, so he sent back a quick message confirming and rolled over. He’d need the sleep for the next morning.