I Just Wanted to be Edgy Too

Chapter Forty-Nine

Van
One week later

Jack played the entire album through for us, start to finish, even the hidden B-side that Steve knew nothing of. No one said a word as the last bit of guitar filled the air and the tape clicked to a stop.

Blakes and Bob were on the couch, Larry was sitting on the floor by them, Bondy and I were seated on the tabletop next to the mixing board. We all looked at each other, trading glances for silent thoughts. We'd been here before a handful of times, and this time it needed to be different. Jack reached for the power button and pressed it, the green light fading.

He leaned back in his chair, it creaked gently, filling the room with something other than heavy silence that rolled around us.

"Well...that was....something." Steve looked at all of us but rested his eyes on me longer than the others. "That little...coda at the end, was that your doing?"

I nodded. And just like that the song had a title. Coda.

"And the lot of you...you knew about that?"

The lids all nodded simultaneously.

"I'm just shocked is all, didn't see it on the track list."

"Well it didn't have a name until just now. We'll call if Coda in honor of you...our tour manager." There was a bite to my words. Steve wasn't in charge the way he wanted to be, that was left up to Marcus and the rest of the management team, but Steve had a rapport with us because he'd been with us for so long. Steve was hired by Marcus, Steve worked for Marcus, he kept us in line, regardless if we were on tour or not. So he had a say, but not the final one.

Jack cleared his throat. "I'm not just saying it because I produced it, but it's way more than I thought it was going to be. It's rough and triumphant in the same breath. It's got that edge you all wanted, it's got the punch to the gut that three didn't have...no offense."

"None taken." Bondy smirked.

"It's what we wanted. All of us." Bob spoke up from the couch. "It's everything we worked hard for. It's us. It sounds like us."

"It sounds like we used to." Benji bit his lip and smiled at me reassuringly. Those days were long gone where we used to sit in my basement and pick at the strings of our instruments, pretending we were going to open for The Strokes and acting like we'd be the next Oasis. But it still felt like that sometimes. Right now felt like that.

"It's proper perfect." Larry spoke up from the floor.

Steve chewed the inside of his cheek before clearing his throat. "I like it, I do...it's just much different than I thought. I don't know what management will say."

"If they don't like it, we'll release it independently."

Steve laughed. "It's not that simple."

"Actually it is." Jack spun in his chair so he was facing Steve. "Especially if you have the backing of a producer. If your management and your label don't like this, trust me when I say that I know a handful of people in this industry that would kill for this."

"They're under contract-"

"We'll break it." I snickered.

"You can't be serious, Van. You'll lose more than you're worth." A threat.

"If this isn't the album our label wants, then we'll release it independently or through someone else and give them some mass produced, robotic like version of ourselves."

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not saying they're not going to like it, it's just not what I expected, and they might not expect it either."