Brock

Fame is a funny thing, like a secret, both are hard to keep – Richard Peck

Brock had never before been in the studio at Hype Records but he had to admit, however grudgingly, that it was nice. Better than nice, actually.

Warm hardwood floors ran throughout the entryway and the walls were painted a springtime green. Tasteful artwork had been put up on the walls, intermixed with images of the label's best-selling artists.

He recognized a few of them. Had even performed with a few over the years at various award shows and on tours. None of them, Brock knew, were signed to his new label.

Instead, Hype Records and Eclipse Records were co-owned by the same two men, Julio Alvarez and David Porter. Hype had been their first project together – a project that focused more on pop and alternative artists – but five years later had decided to branch out in the country scene. They chose not to rebrand Hype but instead created a second label, Eclipse Records, of which Brock Mason was now an artist.

Brock had taken the weekend to recoup his losses. He'd had a particularly snide conversation with the label execs at Frontier Records, angry at the fact that he'd never been told that his contract being sold was a possibility. He felt blindsided and pissed off, but there was little they could do about it now.

So, he'd spent the rest of his time researching. Looking into the owners of his new label and the execs they had working under them. From what he could tell, they seemed like decent guys. Brock had even reached out to one of the bands in L.A. who were signed to Hype in order to get a real account of what he was in for.

Miles Eaton of Imagine Reality – a pop-alternative band that had developed their roots and chosen to stay in L.A. – only had great things to say about Julio and David. The others he'd spoken to, which included two-time Grammy winner Kennedy Collins, said the same.

It was a good sign about the way that Julio and David liked to run things. Brock still wasn't thrilled about how things had gone down but after a long conversation with his parents, he'd come to see that things could have been much worse. At the very least, he still had a recording contract that was good for two more albums.

After that, well...He'd crossed that bridge when he came to it.

"Mr. Mason?" the receptionist said, calling over to him from behind the pristine white desk she sat at. Brock slid off of the leather armchair in the foyer and rose to his feet. "They're ready for you now."

"Thanks."

He followed her through a pair of sliding glass doors to the right of the desk and then into an elevator. It was a short ride to the third floor and then he was being led down a hallway and into a board room where two men waited.

Brock recognized Julio Alvarez and David Porter easily from the photos he'd seen online. Julio was tall and slim with dark hair and eyes. David was the exact opposite, short and stocky, blond and blue-eyed. They were both dressed smartly but hadn't opted for stuffy suits, instead wearing sport jackets and jeans. What struck Brock the most about them was the way that they seemed happy to see him. Welcoming and warm.

"Brock Mason!" David said, lunging out of the chair he'd been in to shake Brock's hand. "How wonderful to meet you in the flesh."

"It's great to meet you too," Brock said with as much truth and sincerity as he could muster. "Thank you for inviting me here."

Not like he'd had a choice in attending since Des would have flayed him alive if he'd missed this meeting, but whatever.

Julio was a little more reserved than his business partner but didn't greet Brock any less warmly. "We're very excited to have you joining us."

"Me too." He forced a smile and wondered how many others he'd have to fake over the course of the day.

They all took their seats and Brock was just starting to feel his hands clam up when Julio said, "I'd expect that you're a bit nervous about being here."

Brock didn't see the point in denying it. "Just a bit."

"Well, I hope by the end of our conversation today, you're a little bit more relaxed so we can continue on making this a beneficial partnership for us all."

"Your agent told us that Frontier selling your contract came as a bit of a shock last week," David added. "I have to say, though, that we are exceptionally glad to have you as an Eclipse artist."

"You might be the only two people in all of country music who are glad to have me right now," Brock said and immediately regretted the words. Oh well. Might as well air all of the dirty laundry out first.

He watched as Julio and David exchanged a quick look that spoke volumes. Brock's chest tightened. It was an effort to swallow the lump in his throat.

"Well," Julio started slowly, "we do know that there has been some, um, bad press surrounding you this weekend. We know about the stories that broke on Friday from your former bandmate."

"None of it is true. Trace and I used to be friends and, to put things bluntly, he's angry because his career went nowhere after our band broke up and mine has done okay."

Though it had been better than okay for a long time. It had only been within the last year that things had started to turn south. Since Trace had re-emerged and started running his damned mouth.

"Be that as it may," David interjected as he drummed his fingers against the tabletop. "It's important that we repair your public image as we integrate you into Eclipse Records. Before we get into how we'd like to do that, there's someone we would like you to meet.

"As Julio and I are based here in Los Angeles, we brought in a third partner into Eclipse Records who is based solely in Nashville. Cierra Ortega has a background in business and music and she spent six years with Visage Entertainment before we managed to convince her to jump ship and join us at Eclipse. She's going to be connecting with us on a video call in a few moments but we wanted to know if you had any questions for us before we got started?"

Brock looked between the two men and said, "No questions here, but I do want to thank you for buying my contract. Music is what I love and when I got the news that Frontier was selling my contract, I was worried about my future and about being forced into a new label. Then, I talked to a few of your artists here at Hype Records and they all sang your praises. I just hope that I can make great music here."

"That's the plan," Julio said. "Great music, creatively satisfied artists, and a fun place to come to work. That's what we try and preach."

"That's something I can get behind." Brock meant it.

Perhaps for once, he'd even get to have some semblance of control over his craft – something that he'd never had in the past. Frontier had always been restricting, telling him what he could and couldn't put on a record. It would be freeing to make decisions for himself. If Julio and David trusted him enough to do that.

"Cierra is ready and waiting for us whenever we're ready to go," David murmured.

Julio affirmed that they were. They took a moment to adjust their chairs so that they could see Brock at his end of the table and look at the woman who flared to life on the screen on the western wall of the room.

Cierra Ortega was not quite what Brock expected – then again, so far nothing about Eclipse Records was what he had expected. At Frontier, all of the label owners were strict, grim-faced people in suits who cared more about the bottom line of the company than the happiness or creativity of the artists. Julio and David were definitely not cut from that cloth and it appeared that Cierra wasn't either, if her open face and kind blue-gray eyes were any indication.

Like her business partners, Cierra was dressed smartly, but not stuffy, in a blazer and blouse. Her hair was curled and controlled around her naturally tanned face. A half-smile curved her lips as she purred, "Hello."

"Hey Cierra," Julio replied smoothly. "Can you hear us okay?"

"Yup. Can you hear me?"

"Affirmative."

"Then we're good to go," David said. "Cierra, we'd like you to meet our newest Eclipse Records acquisition. This is Brock Mason, formerly of Frontier Records and previously from the band Tallahassee."

Cierra turned her eyes to Brock. "Nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you and I remember your Tallahassee days, too. At the very least, I remember liking your music."

"That's a relief. It'd be really awkward if you didn't," Brock responded wryly.

She laughed, face brightening. "Now that we've got the introductions out of the way, let's talk business."

"Where do you want to start, Cierra?" David asked.

"From our previous conversations, we're not worried about Brock musically." She turned her gaze on Brock. "You're a talented artist with a good voice. We'd like to see better song choices but you've got a good vocal range to work with. So our biggest issue with you is the media. I've connected with your agent, Brock, and she's filled me in with some of the details about this media shit-storm we're dealing with."

Brock swallowed. "It's a bit of a mess, I know."

Cierra's smile warmed and though she was two-thousand miles away, it actually put him at ease. "I've had my interns do some digging on you and from what we've learned, you specifically are pretty scandal-free. Right now, all you've been accused of is guilt-by-association, which is a good thing. It means that, in time, this bad press should go away. We just want to make sure that it stays gone."

"Believe me," Brock said earnestly and he took the time to look them each in the eye, "that's all that I want, too."

"We're glad to hear that," Julio said. "What we would like to know from you is whether any of Mr. Strickland's claims about you have any truth. Even loose truths that have the potential to be twisted into lies are things that we need to prepare for with our communications team."

David shuffled through a few of the papers that were sitting on the desk before him and added, "Specifically, Strickland is claiming the following:

"First, that you are addicted to cocaine and were the primary party responsible for attaining the substance for the band and your staff– and that you would give it to fans at meet-and-greet events;

"Second, that you promoted a toxic work environment and constantly berated your bandmates and the staff in your employ;

"And third, that you were aware of the women Mr. Strickland were assaulting and did nothing to stop it. That you encouraged him to destroy the career of another woman, Miss Bailey Grant, to increase Tallahassee's popularity."

There was a beat of silence as those allegations settled between them like a blanket. Three pairs of eyes staring at him, waiting for him to say something. Anything.

Brock hesitated, wondering if this was the sort of thing that he ought to have his lawyer present for – or at least Des. Someone who would tell him when to shut up and bite his tongue. Brock debated for a moment then decided to screw it.

He had nothing to hide anyways.

"Before Tallahassee split," he started, "we were known as a band that liked to get a little bit wild. Trace loved to party and it was never hard to convince Grayson Thomas, Jeremiah Danvers, or I to join in. Have I done cocaine...yes. Only once and I hated it. That rumour about me giving it to fans is not true, but a fan did try to give it to me once at a meet-and-greet and someone got a photo of it. Of course, I don't have proof that it didn't go the other way around, which is probably why Trace twisted it."

Brock drummed his fingers on the table. "As for the second rumour, all of my staff who were loyal to me, I treated like family. But I had a personal assistant who was stealing things from my house when I was away and replacing items with cheap replicas. He thought that I wouldn't notice but I did. His girlfriend, who was Tallahassee's social media accounts manager at the time, was also in on it. We fought about it right before a performance in front of our entire production crew and I fired them both on the spot. It made the production crew a little nervous because they didn't know about what had gone on."

"You're not the only one who's been the victim of a poor personal assistant," Julio interjected. "It's more common than I bet you know."

"I haven't had a P.A. since. Don't want to trust someone that much again."

"Understandable," Cierra added. "And what about the third rumour?"

Brock felt his throat go dry, his tongue grow heavy in his mouth. He took a steadying breath. "This one is a little more complicated but like before, there's truth mixed in with the lies. Did I know that Trace was sleeping around with a lot of women?  Yes, I did. Did I know that he often met them while he was partying and they were both drunk or high?  Also yes. But if you're asking me if I knew that he was doping them to get them into bed with him, then the answer is no.

"The reason people – the media – might not buy that is because Trace and I lived together at the time. We grew up together after he moved from Tallahassee to L.A. He and I went to the same schools, had the same friends, and had an interest in music. In high school, we started the band and brought in Jeremiah and Grayson later when he and I were starting to get noticed. So we were always close but Trace's argument is that I knew what he was doing because the signs were in our condo and I must be lying when I say that I never saw them, but it's the damned truth."

Cierra cocked her head to the side and asked quietly, "What about the other part? Did you conspire with Trace Strickland to try and sabotage the career of Bailey Grant and her band, Chasing Mayflies, while you were in Tallahassee? He mentioned her name and your specific involvement in that magazine article."

It was hard to meet their gazes so he stared at the table when he answered her.

"Tallahassee's popularity had been declining for a little while. Frontier was pushing us in the wrong direction and it was showing. Our album sales were pitiful and we all knew that we were going to be released after our contract ended unless things turned around quickly.

"That's where the problems with Bailey Grant started. We met Chasing Mayflies at an award show and Trace – brilliant as he was – tried to repair our image by linking up with Bailey because he thought that she was our ticket to regaining popularity. Her band was doing well and we thought that ours would do better just by being associated with them. I was the one who encouraged Trace to get closer to Bailey."

"Bailey, specifically?" Julio clarified. "Why not Kyra Ward or Mae Lafferty, her bandmates?"

"Mae was in a long-term relationship and Kyra had a habit of being in the press just as much as we did but because of Bailey and Mae's low profiles, her exploits never had the same impact on their band as ours did," Brock said. "In our case, all four of us were known for getting a bit wild. Bailey was the easiest option to get close to and the one with the best public image."

Brock paused long enough to see David and Julio exchange a look with each other – lips pursed tight. There was a new tension in the room.

He released a shuddering breath and closed his eyes. The next part was more difficult to say. "I didn't know what he was planning on saying about her."

"What exactly was the rumour Trace spread?  There was a lot of media on it but quotes were less clear," Cierra said from the screen. Her brows were furrowed.  "Even my interns had a hard time distinguishing what Trace said and what the media fabricated."

That sounded like every interaction Brock had ever had with the media.  He muttered, "For part of the time that Trace and Bailey were dating, his younger brother was crashing on our couch. Dane had just moved to L.A. to pursue a career in filmmaking. Without consulting anyone in the band or our management team, Trace went to the media with a rumour stating that Bailey had cheated on him with Dane while she was pregnant with Trace's kid. And that she'd terminated the pregnancy so that she could be with Dane instead."

Brock heard a few hitched breaths from David and Julio – as if they'd known some of the story but hadn't remembered the finer, horrifying details of it.

"All of it was lies but Jeremiah, Grayson, and I didn't know that," Brock continued. "Trace fed it to us the way he fed it to everyone else – like it was the truth. It had the desired effect because our band began doing really well and suddenly Chasing Mayflies was in shambles.

"A few weeks later, Bailey went on a talk show and aired out the truth, which included her saying that not only had she'd never had sex with Trace, she was still a virgin. The media went wild but this time they were praising Chasing Mayflies and Bailey's strength while shit really hit the fan for us. I learned the truth from the pages of a magazine. Trace didn't even have the dignity to tell us that he'd lied. It was the last straw and that's what caused the end of our band. I walked away and never looked back."

Brock forced himself to look at each of the label owners right in the eye. Made sure that they were able to read the sincerity in his gaze, even as he felt bile rise in his throat. He hated thinking about those days – the way that he'd stood by Trace, comforting him as his friend feigned heartbreak and grief.

A lie and a performance. And a damned good one at that. Trace should have been an actor instead of a musician.

David asked, "How much contact do you and Trace Strickland have with each other now?"

"None unless you count what's done through lawyers or our agents, when necessary."

The room suddenly felt very small, like the walls were closing in. Brock wished that he could go back to those days and undo everything he'd ever done, all of the things that he'd said to defend Trace. Over and over and over he'd defended his friend.

Trace had never deserved that defence. Not one word.

"That is a lot to unpack in a very short period of time," Julio said. "Thank you for your honesty, Brock."

Brock offered him a weak smile. "Anytime."

"Cierra, can you and your team begin preparing a strategic communications plan to reply to any negative press we may get about Brock?" David asked the woman on the screen. "We'll need to determine how to go about defuncting these rumours, but I'd like to consult our legal department, and your legal representation, Brock, before we make any statements."

"I can get you in contact with my people," Brock said as Cierra affirmed her involvement.

"Fantastic."

"How much contact have you had with Bailey since the scandal?" Julio questioned.

Another no-thought question "Absolutely none. As you can imagine, there was bad blood between us and then Chasing Mayflies split. Never really had a reason to reach out to any of them since Mae Lafferty went into pop music and Kyra Ward's album flopped. I've stayed clear of Bailey except for when our paths cross at award shows and other functions though I've followed her enough to know that she's doing well as a soloist."

Cierra stifled a laugh by trying to disguise it as a cough. Even Julio and David were staring at Brock with amusement. It was to the point where he felt as if they were all part of some grand inside joke that he was looking in on.

"Yes," Julio said. "Bailey is doing well. In fact, she's our best-selling artist at the moment."

For a moment, Brock thought that he had misheard. Because he was fairly certain that Julio had told him that Bailey Grant was an artist at Eclipse Records and that just seemed impossible under the circumstances.

He'd never looked to see who'd she'd signed with after going solo. He'd mistakenly assumed that she'd stayed with Spectrum Entertainment after her band had split because that's what had happened with him. Tallahassee broke up and then Frontier had resigned him as a soloist. There had never been a period where Brock hadn't known who he was making music with.

"Oh," Brock said stupidly. He couldn't think of anything else to say because he didn't think that his life could get much worse.

There was not a doubt in his mind that Bailey Grant hated him. He'd been friends with the traitor that had slandered her across the media. He'd let his former friend do it too, standing by as Trace set up meetings with paparazzi and trashy magazine columnists and convinced everyone that she'd cheated on him. Brock hadn't done anything until it had gotten much too far out of hand that he'd been unable to stand by any longer.

Now it felt like some kind of cosmic joke. Like the universe was getting back at him for all of the times he'd been a terrible person.

"She is also someone we wanted to talk to you about," Julio continued.

"Why?" Brock asked warily, looking between them all again.

"Well, Bailey knows what it's like to rebrand and jumpstart a new career. We thought it would it would be good for the two of you to connect."

Cierra rolled her eyes. "Actually, what Julio isn't saying is that we want you to record a single with her. Bailey is working on her second album with us which is due to be out by the end of the year. We want you to be featured as a way to show that you're now part of our label and are working with our best artists."

They wanted him to sing a duet with Bailey Grant.

Shit.

This wasn't happening. Some cruel god must have just decided to royally fuck up his life these past weeks. Nothing else could explain how his life kept going from bad to worse.

"We'll release the duet as a single prior to her album's release," David interjected. "Around that same time, we're hoping to have you release an album as well. We know that you started working on new music with Frontier and we bought the rights to the unreleased songs you've been preparing. They'll go on your album but we'll need to bring in some more of our writers to get more material for you."

Brock cleared his throat. "That all sounds great from my end but have you talked to Bailey about any of this? Does she know that you want the two of us to record something together? Because I could see how that would be a problem for her."

"No, she doesn't know," Cierra said bluntly. "Since we didn't realize the whole extent of the history between the two of you, we've held off discussing matters with her. But I've got a call set up with her later this week to discuss her album's progress. I'll bring it up with her then."

"I just don't want to force her into doing something that she's uncomfortable with," Brock murmured. "She and I didn't really interact much when she was dating Trace but I didn't exactly stick up for her when he started spewing lies."

"We'll get her insight and then bring you back into the discussion. It would be good for your image if she's amenable to recording something with you. Bailey is the golden girl of country music right now as well as a gifted songwriter who would be an asset on your album. If you can get her on your side, then your chances of success will increase."

Be that as it may, Brock didn't want to bring Bailey down with him if the public decided that he wasn't worth supporting.

Maybe he and Bailey could bond over hating Trace Strickland together.

"Okay," he said with a sigh. "If Bailey is willing then I'm game to collaborate with her."

"Good," David replied, taking a moment to shuffle the papers in front of him. "Now let's get down and into the nitty-gritty of this conversation. Let's figure out where your career is headed musically, Mr. Mason."