almost | taylor swift au

chapter 21

Two days later, Taylor wakes up in a hotel room in San Diego, California. That means two things. One, it's the second to last stop of tour. And two, it's the day that she's going to the courthouse with the band. Everyone's going to sign a contract, have it notarized, and just like that, it'll be done and dusted. Taylor will be able to do whatever she wants with the song that she wrote, and they won't be able to stop her.

She doesn't know if she's excited or terrified. Perhaps a little bit of both. But she puts on a dress and makes herself look all professional, pasting a smile on her face. She's glad she isn't going to have to put up a fight today... well, assuming all goes according to plan. Still, she wants everyone to take her seriously. She wants to make sure that they know that she means business. That her art is just as important to her as theirs is to them. It shouldn't matter that she hasn't yet seen mainstream success. It should only matter that she created something, and what happens with that should be hers to choose.

Once she's all ready, she goes to meet Jett. He asked her to come to his room and said they could walk to the courthouse together, with the rest of the band. Taylor thinks that this will be a nice gesture. It shows that she really doesn't want there to be any bad blood. Especially with the rest of the band. As hard as it is to admit it, she's absolutely sure that this was all Jett's wrongdoing. The other guys in the band wouldn't know- how could they? It's not like she played her song for any of them. And though she hasn't had nearly as much contact with them as she has had with Jett, she has still gotten to know them. They're good guys. They would've stopped Jett if he'd have told them where the lyrics came from.

No, she knows in her heart of hearts that they had nothing to do with it. She knows that it's really all Jett's doing.

And still, she can't find it in herself to be upset with him for it. He agreed to sign this. Anthony's legal team has extensively looked over the contract that they drafted up, searching and scanning for any possible loopholes that the band could find. They can't find any. The band's legal team agreed to everything last night, at the last possible minute. They were afraid that an agreement wouldn't be reached, but ultimately, The Unprompted's lawyers realized that all of Taylor's demands were reasonable... and that she would sue them if they didn't agree.

She wasn't joking about it. She can't help but wonder if the band thought that she'd back down. That Jett could get to her and she'd let it slide. She doesn't know what the conversations were behind closed doors. She quite frankly doesn't even care. All that she knows is that as time was coming down to the final moments, the contract was agreed upon.

Now, all that they have to do is go down to the courthouse and sign everything with a notary. Then, it'll all be a legally binding document.

The terms of the agreement are simple: they take the recording of the performance off of streaming services so that they aren't able to profit off of it anymore. They never make a new recording of the song with intentions of releasing it. They can still perform it live- she doesn't much care about that. She knows that the song will still be accessible to fans. In this day and age, nothing can be permanently erased from the internet. But she can make sure that they're not profiting off of her art. And as per the contract, the band will let her do whatever she wants with her song that she wrote, as it exists in her journal on the day that she wrote it.

That's one thing that she had to concede- she isn't able to make any more changes to the lyrics. But she really likes them how they are. She also is agreeing that she'll never talk about this contract. Not publicly. She won't ruin the band's reputation. And she doesn't want to. That's a very fair term of the agreement. They're making the same promise. And she doesn't want it to get out just as much as them. She doesn't want the first time that the world hears the name 'Taylor Swift' to be in the context of a legal battle with her boyfriend's band.