Swish

.38

"These songs are crazy good. What timeframe are you looking at in having them all completed as far as touching up vocal runs and producing the rest of the track?"

"My producer says only two more weeks if I'm in the studio for eight hours a day every weekday. I already have the first single completely finished, though."

My manager's eyes lit up like a kid in a candy store with that magic sentence.

"Nessa? You okay there?"

"Oh yeah, girl. You just hit the jackpot with that. You wanted to do 'New' or 'Faking It' as your first single?"

Vanessa Laryan usually wasn't one to be shocked, but I was probably about to pull that off with the news I had.

"They're both actually ready to go. I was going to let you listen to them and get your input on which one you thought would be better."

"Oh, even without hearing them, I know the lyrics to 'New' are going to drive the media crazy, especially after the romance rumors about that basketball player and the love triangle you're in. How did you manage to swirl up all this buzz about you without even having a solid social media presence? You haven't released any music before...at all. I doubt the world even knows you can sing at this point."

I rolled my eyes and sidled up next to the switchboard and pressed play on the monitor, the bass beat and snare drum of the first lilting notes of 'New' coming through the speakers.

"Oh, I like what your producer did with this already. Is that synth? This is so different."

"Wait until you hear the chorus."

The sensual climb to the chorus through the meandering verses speaking of finding a new love after a dark time was the epitome of my feelings for Eli, and it was a song that I'd written in the midst of settling in after leaving him, reminiscing on my feelings even though he was gone.

"Oh hell girl, you do realize you're going to be the most photographed and talked about girl in the world for a few weeks after you release this, right? All this drama surrounding you and those boys is only going to make the public more curious about you and what you're doing...we could use this to our advantage, you know. The NBA is desperate for you. They call me every day, now. Ever since I sent them that recording of you singing the national anthem and Felicity Reeves pulled out of doing the All Star game anthem..."

"I don't think it would be a good idea, Vanessa. Being around that atmosphere, all those people, after everything I went through with my father...I just don't know if I could do it."

"I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't think you could do it. You're stronger than you think, you know? You took your father's death in stride, you don't go out and party, don't drink or do drugs, don't smoke, you just work and work harder and harder. You're smart as hell, and you have an amazing head on your shoulders. Don't let your past and the ghosts living there ruin the future you have ahead of you. They need an answer by tomorrow, the game is in a week after all."

"Okay, I'll think about it. Thank you, Vanessa."

She flicked her dark curls behind her shoulder and threw me a wink.

"Sure thing, kiddo. Now, have your producer send me the cut of that track and make sure that it's in the proper format so that we can launch it on iTunes and Spotify, Pandora, the works. Start coming up with some marketing ideas. We could either surprise launch or you could tease it on social media. Let me know!"

Always on her way out onto something bigger and better, Vanessa Laryan had left the building. I hung back, listening to the subtle and alluring melody of my first real song.