I turned on my car and floored it out of the parking lot. I wasn't sure where I should go. I drove towards my Dad's studio without thinking. I needed someone strong around me right now. This was where Cameron usually came in but since things were still strained between us, going to him was completely out of the question.

I changed into a different shirt in the parking lot; I was lucky I had a spare in my car. If my dad would have seen me like that, he would have gone back after the guy. I had to hope this stayed quiet so no one else found out. I was embarrassed. Hopefully, the guy would be too humiliated about getting his ass kicked by a girl to call the cops. I knew how guilty I looked because I ran. I hoped he wouldn't be stupid enough to try to file charges against me.

I just wanted it to go away and pretend like it never happened.

When I walked into the brightly lit studio, my dad was sitting behind the mixing board playing with the settings. I could hear an intricate rhythm playing and a woman trying to keep up with the stylistic key changes. The music pattern was interesting, but the vocals didn't match the sound.

Just like my job interview today, it was all wrong.

There was another girl with a short pixie cut sitting on a stool next to Dad. She was watching him slide the settings in different ways to blend the music together. My dad pushed his hair back off his head and grunted in frustration. I knew why he was so irritated; I was hearing the same thing in the music that he was. He was seconds from letting this push him over the edge. He was a perfectionist when it came to the music he helped produce. Mediocrity was not in his vocabulary.

I leaned against the wall and didn't say a word. I didn't want to break his concentration. He always looked so serious when he was working in the studio.

"Stop. Take a break." Dad pressed the intercom button and spoke harshly into it. A girl with very little clothing on and pink pigtails stopped singing and crossed her arms as she frowned in his direction. I would trade spots with her in a heartbeat after the day I was having. At least she didn't need to worry about some creep touching her.

She was completely furious. My Dad was pissed too and so was the owner of the studio, who was stomping angrily in his direction. I had picked a horrible time to show up here. Trouble followed me around like a shadow. It always waited just long enough to creep in and turn everything around me upside down.

"Why did you stop? We are on a schedule." Lincoln, his boss, screamed at him.

"I can't do it. I can't make her sound good. It's impossible." My dad said, defending his decision to stop the session.

"Ezra, work your magic and make this happen. Stells wanted the new song to be a duet and you are going to find a way to make this work for her." His boss barked.

If I hadn't seen Lincoln do this before, I would have walked over to him and told him to back off. Lincoln was a bit of a hothead, but he was all bark. My dad was a musical genius, he was lucky to have someone like him working here and he knew it.

"I can't make something good when all you gave me was a tone-deaf goose to work with." My dad's hands were flailing around angrily as he and Lincoln were puffed up, screaming in each other's faces.

I laughed and then covered my mouth. Dad's head turned in my direction and his anger changed over to amusement. Lincoln looked over at me and smiled as he shrunk back down to normal size.

I was busted.

"Sweet Pea, tell the man how terrible it is." Dad wanted my back up.

"It's bad, Link," I said, smiling at him.

"Who's this?" The girl with the pixie cut asked, studying me in my wonderful post-interview outfit. If she liked this one, I could only imagine her face if she saw the shirt that was almost ripped off of me right before I came here.

She glanced down at my feet and giggled. I looked down and realized I still wasn't wearing any shoes.

"Stells, this is my daughter, Jessa. Jessa, this is Stells Leigh." My dad said.

"Dad, I know who she is," I smiled over at her.

I almost didn't recognize her at first. She was a lot smaller than I imagined. Her stage presence was enormous. It was so strange to see she was just a regular girl like me. My heart was thumping as I was about to fangirl out. She was a female rock solo act that had hit the top of the charts for thirty straight weeks and was everything I had ever aspired to be. She was a goddess.

The amazing Stells Leigh was here in my dad's studio studying me from head to toe while I fought to keep myself standing after being sexually assaulted at a job interview. My life had always been such a disaster.

"What's so bad about the song?" Stells asked me curiously. Even her thick Norwegian accent sounded musical to me.

"She is pulling sharp when she goes into a falsetto, which is something she should never even attempt in the first place. It sounds like nails on a chalkboard. I don't know who lied to her and told her it is a good sound, but it is awful." I said, scrunching my nose.

"Huh," Stells nodded, looking amused.

"She's not finished." My dad smiled at me. "Go on, Jess."

"Are you sure?" I asked nervously when I saw Link throw his hands up in the air. He looked like he was about to pick me up and carry me out of the room to shut me up.

"Go ahead." Stells encouraged me.

"She also has terrible phrasing and is always a second behind the beat like she is chasing it." My cheeks were red. My inner music nerd was radiating out of my body.

"Play it again." Stells signaled to Dad.

He reached over and hit the button. We all sat quietly and listened to the work in progress. It sounded even worse the second time I heard it. I had made a mental note of thirty-five more corrections that she needed to make.

"It doesn't sound so bad." Link said, trying to be positive.

"Jess, you have a good ear," Stells smiled. I could see her agreeing with my assessment. "Link, she is done. We need to find someone else. Can you make that happen?"

"Stells, it is short notice. I don't know if I can get anyone that fast." Link looked broken. He was going to disappoint his star and I felt bad for him. Maybe I shouldn't have pointed it out. I didn't want him to lose the biggest act that he ever had come through his studio because I had a big mouth.  It was partially my dad's fault too; he was the one who encouraged me to keep going.

"You have an ear, can you sing?" Stells asked me.

I blushed as I lost my confidence. Damn, these meds made me feel like a completely different person. Jessa Miller never had stage fright.

"Jessa can do it. I tried to sign her when she was twelve, but someone wasn't having it." Link gave my dad a sideways glance.

"Twelve-year-old girls don't need recording contracts." Dad countered back.

"Let's hear it. Impress me." Stells challenged. She handed me the lyric sheet.

I took a few minutes to study it. Stells had put a lot of effort into it. She even had the music notes written out instead of the guitar tabs that I had expected. It was good. I could sight-read this and knew exactly where to go with the harmonies.

"You ready?" Dad asked, trying to hide his smile.

I took a deep breath and nodded. Dad hit the button for the music to start.

"I'll lead you in," Stells whispered.

She began singing and I picked out the harmony to match her sultry deep tones when we got to the first chorus. It was completely different than the one originally written and sung by the other girl in the booth. I knew I was taking a risk, but my version felt cleaner and fit the song's tone better. The slightly minor tones highlighted Stells' expert level guitar picking skills.

She stopped singing and waved me on to take over on the next verse. I was trying not to smile; I was enjoying singing again. It had been ages since I had done anything like this. It felt terrific after all the horribleness that happened today.

"Stop, stop, stop," Stells said, waving her hands as I sang the chorus that led to the bridge.

My face fell and I handed her back the lyric sheet. I guess I was the only one in the room feeling the magical music moment. First, I was groped by an asshole at a job interview and now one of my music idols was going to crush my music career aspirations. It's been such a wonderful day. Maybe I should go back to Cam today so he could commit me again.

"This is fucking ridiculous," Stells said as she looked back at Link and Dad.

"Sorry, I bothered you. Thanks for letting me sing with you today. I'll let you get back to work." I waved and began to walk out of the room. I felt incredibly dejected, but I still tried to hold my head high.

"I meant ridiculously good, Jessa.  Get your adorable little butt back in here and go record my song." Stells called after me.

"Really?" I lit up and stood a little taller.

"You heard the lady. Time to record, Jess." My dad was beaming down at me proudly.

I came here to cry on my dad's shoulder about my terrible day, most likely excluding the specific details. Now I was getting shoved into a recording booth unprepared. This was not at all how I expected my day to turn out.

Within a few minutes, they had me standing in front of a microphone and pulling on headphones. The music began playing and Stells' voice cut through the whining guitar.

I closed my eyes and sang like my life depended on it. When the music finished, I opened them again and looked through the glass at the three sets of unblinking eyes watching me. Their mouths were hanging open.

Dad was secretly wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. He was such a baby sometimes.

Stells pressed the intercom button and I anxiously waited for her to give me her notes for the second run-through. I expected I would probably be in here for at least the next few hours tweaking the sound in different ways.

"That's it. That's our song." She screamed into the intercom and started dancing around the room.

She signed off on it in one take. I literally just recorded a song, without practicing it, to pitch to a record label.

Was it ok to pass out now?