Simon's Daughter

Chapter 11

The boys had been in America for nearly three weeks now. Eleanor was in the Bahamas and other various countries doing photoshoots and Danielle was back to her busy schedule of the XFactor. Jerry was getting busy with things for me and my dad, helping him figure out new details for my dad’s newest reality series.

Recently, I spent most of my time in the studio, recording backing tracks or listening to the band record the backing tracks and changing things. One of the most important things to me was making sure that my music represented me, not anyone else.

Currently, I was listening to Josh bang out a beat on the drums, we were experimenting for a new song I was in the process of writing.

“Oi, Devine!” I called. “Try a more jazzy beat.”

He playfully groaned, “Why on earth do I have to be stuck here with you? Why couldn’t I go with the boys and band to America?”

“Maybe because you blew out your eardrum at their last concert here and had to get surgery to correct it, and Simon didn’t feel like waiting for your little self to get better,” I teased him.

He stuck his tongue out at me but played the beat I wanted anyway.

Since the boys had gone to America with the rest of their band and found a temporary drummer, Josh and I had become really good friends. He was stuck here because during their last concert, a drumstick caught the cord of his earpiece and pulled the wires out of alignment. That resulted in a loud shriek of feedback which blew out his eardrum. He had to have surgery to fix it, but the boys were leaving immediately after and the doctor wouldn’t sign him to fly because he was afraid the pressure would rupture his eardrum again.

So Josh was now my drummer, on the recordings anyway.

“Hey, Abriella,” my manager squawked over the microphone from outside the booth. “Listen to this cool beat I found!”

A fun, electric beat started up in my headphones and I nodded my head. “That’s really cool, Becky, but I really want everything on my CD to be live. I just can’t see myself on stage singing to a backing track, I want the live band and everything.”

“Okay,” she replied dejectedly.

Becky was my manager. She’d managed a few small acts that booked various gigs, but I was her first artist that actually had demands. I was the first artist she was managing that would probably have real interviews, a tight schedule, fans, hate, and of course, the pressure of being signed to Syco records. There were other managers who helped her out with the intensities, but she was my official “Manager”.

“I just don’t think we’re going to be able to even start recording anything until I’m closer to finishing the lyrics. Otherwise, I just don’t know exactly how I want it to sound,” I told Josh, who nodded before stretching and going upstairs to flop down on my couch.

I followed him and sat next to him, pulling out my phone and going on Twitter. The hate had died down since in an interview overseas, Louis had clarified that he and I weren’t dating, just really, really good friends. Plus, since they were over there, the boys hadn’t been tweeting me much.