Every Song He Sang Was Mine novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Letter
Dax fires Linnea in front of the staff, moves Calla into her writing room and cuts her mother's insurance; she walks out with her notebooks and gets his text: apologize and Donna is covered again.
On Monday morning, in front of all fourteen people who worked at the record label I built, my husband slid a termination letter across the mixing console.
Dax looked tired, and his hand on the letter wasn't quite steady.
He glanced back at his manager, who stood behind him with a leather folder.
"I'm sorry it's today, Linnea," Dax said quietly. "Gil will walk you through it."
Nobody on the staff said a word.
Sunday night Dax had texted me: "Big meeting tomorrow. Nothing to worry about. Love you."
I had put a heart on it and gone to sleep.
"You're firing me," I said. "From the label I built."
The manager was Gil, and he had been Dax's shadow for ten years.
"From the company," Gil said. "It's cleaner if everyone hears it as a company decision."
"I signed the first lease on this chapel at twenty-five. With my savings."
"And we're grateful," Dax said, and his voice caught.
A young woman by the door came forward and pressed a packet of tissues into my hand.
It was Calla Allbritton, the singer Dax had signed in the spring.
"I'm so sorry," she said quietly. "I told him it was cruel to do it in front of everyone. I didn't know it was today."
"Calla," Dax said. "Not now."
She stepped back at once and folded her hands, and she looked close to crying herself.
I thanked her.
I want that on the record, because I did.
Gil opened his folder. "Your health coverage ends with your employment. It stops at noon today. HR will email the continuation paperwork."
I did the math before he finished the sentence.
My mother was on my plan, because the company insured employees' families.
Her chemo infusion was Wednesday.
"Gil," I said. "My mother has cancer."
"Which is why I said the paperwork is coming," he said, and turned a page.
Dax cleared his throat. "Calla needs a proper room to write in. The piano upstairs is the best one in the building."
He meant my writing room.
I had written four of his albums in that room, at that piano, with the door shut and a lamp on.
Two movers I had never seen wheeled a keyboard stand in through the control room door, and one of them asked where to put the garment rack.
"Upstairs," Dax said. "The room at the top."
Calla followed them toward the stairs with her bag on her shoulder.
On the first step she hummed the opening line of "Paper Moon."
It was my father's song. I wrote it the week he died, and I had never released it.
I told myself the floors in the old chapel were thin and the studio had been rehearsing all week.
At the back wall, Abel Tennant stood holding his guitar case.
Abel had been our first hire, six years ago, and he played on every record we made.
He had not looked up once since Dax sat down.
"Abel stays," Dax said. "He and I have vocals tonight."
Dax recorded every lead vocal after midnight, with Abel behind the glass and nobody else in the building.
He'd told me years ago that he got shy.
I had never once been in the booth.
I looked at Abel, and he looked at the floor.
Above the console, on the shelf Dax's chair faced every day, stood thirty-four spiral notebooks.
My handwriting ran along every spine, with a date.
Nine years of songs, and he had sung every one of them.
I stepped up on the riser and pulled down the first notebook.
"Those are company property," Gil said.
"They're in my handwriting." I took down the second. "Call security."
Nobody called anyone.
The engineer at the board, a man who had worked for me since the first month, stood up and opened the door of the control room.
"Let her pack, Dax," he said.
Dax scoffed. "Fine. Take your notebooks. I hope they help you."
I took the third notebook, and the fourth, and the fifth.
I stacked them in an empty cable crate from under the console.
When it was full, Abel crossed the room, took one handle and carried the other end out to the hall without a word.
He set the crate on the step outside the door, and I thought he would say something.
He went back inside.
So I took my songs and left.
In the parking lot, I put the crate in the back seat and sat there with both hands on the wheel.
My phone rang before I could start the car.
It was Donna's cancer clinic.
"Ms. Sorrell, I'm calling about your mother's coverage," a woman said. "It was terminated at 9:10 this morning. Wednesday's infusion is fourteen thousand dollars, due up front."
It was not even noon yet.
Gil had told me noon, and the plan had been cut an hour ago.
I thanked her and hung up.
A text from Dax lit the screen.
"Come home tonight. Apologize to Calla in front of Gil. Say you understand. I'll have your mother put back on the plan by morning."
He had known about Wednesday.
He had put it in writing.
I read it twice.
Then I started the car and drove to my mother's house instead of mine.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend