Free Hell Bent (Rock Bottom #1) by Katheryn Kiden

herself.”
    “Didn’t work out the way you expected did it?” Jameson chuckles. I think it’s Jameson, anyway. I’m pretty sure I have them right. Jason has brown hair, Jameson is blonde. I repeat the differences between the two until it sticks in my head.
    “Not in the least fuckin’ bit. I still don’t understand why the hell she isn’t recording.”
    Abby sighs, her eyes drifting to a row of photos on the wall. “She says she doesn’t want to. Part of me has always wondered if she said no to singing because she wants to be more like her father.”
    I push away from the wall and make my way over to the photos that she is looking at. There’s an entire row of photographs with a little blond girl that must be Izzy and a guy that I’m assuming is her father. Each one is of her helping him in the studio, and you can see how happy she is. But the row below it is of her on stage singing with different people. I don’t think she can be more than seven in any of the photos.
    “She stopped singing when Alex died, so I’m really surprised she sang for you,” Abby says sadly as she steps up beside me. “She threw herself into becoming like him, and it makes me wonder if somewhere along the line she forgot that she had a choice in her life.”
    I scan the photos again; I don’t understand why they say she stopped singing. Does she only sing when she’s with me? Part of me hopes that she does it because she trusts herself with me, but that same thought breaks my heart.
    “Have you ever come out and asked her what she wanted?”
    “What are you getting at?”
    “I’m just wondering if you’ve actually straight out asked her what she wanted. Because she sings with me and is helping me write. I mean we were writing at the Opry the other night, and I asked her if she ever wanted to sing there and she told me it was something she thinks about every day.”
    Out of the corner of my eye I see Abby cross her arms and quickly swipe at her eyes. She stays silent for a minute, thinking over what I said, and I really hope she isn’t going to tell me I overstepped.
    “She never told me that,” she whispers sadly. “Why didn’t she tell me that?”
    “You’re Abby Irons, maybe she’s intimidated by you.”
    All three of them laugh at me. “Did you miss how she just called me out when I did something wrong?” Abby asks, pointing at the chair she was sitting in when we showed up. “That girl is anything but intimidated by me.”
    I shrug, deciding to keep my mouth shut and stay out of it. Family therapy is not my specialty, but maybe now that they know Izzy wants more they can talk about it.
    “The booth’s open if you wanna roughly run through something while we wait for Izzy to calm down and come back. It’ll give us an idea of what you’re working toward.”
    “What the hell,” I say, heading for my notebook and guitar. If I’m going to make a fool out of myself, I’d rather hear it from these guys. I hand a copy of what we’ve been working on over, and just before I open the door, Abby grabs my arm. She pushes a leather-bound notebook into my hand and closes her eyes.
    “This was her dad’s. Maybe since she actually talks to you you can figure out how to make her see that the world should hear them.”
    I stare at the book she just entrusted me with and have no clue what to say. Knowing that nothing I come up with will be sufficient, I simply nod and continue into the booth. I tuck the small book into my back pocket as I step into the open room and get myself situated behind the mic. The intercom clicks on and the room fills with Abby’s voice as I pull my strap over my head and slide the headphones on.
    “Whenever you’re ready,” she tells me. Every mistake I make in the first run through I blame on nerves because of who is watching me. There is a hell of a difference between working with a producer with a full band surrounding you, and working alone with three huge names in the music business on