Free The Love Song of Jonny Valentine by Teddy Wayne Page A

sneak peek,” he said, and he pulled a CD out from his inner jacket pocket. “Or do people do that constantly to you, so it’s really annoying?”
    People hardly ever did it to me, since Walter or Jane was always providing buffer, but they pushed demos on Jane all the time.
    “It’s not annoying,” I said. “I’ll show it to them.”
    “Seriously? That’s really cool of you.”
    I stuffed the CD in my track sweater’s pocket before Jane came back. “Ready, boys?” she asked, a little slurry.
    “I’m so sorry to do this,” the actor said, “but I just found out I have to take care of my daughter tonight, and she’s up in Encino.” He looked at me real quick.
    “Oh,” Jane said.
    “I mean, I could drop you off after I get her, if you want.” So he’d gone after Jane at first, but once he realized he had me, he didn’t need her anymore. Or maybe he thought this was part of the deal, that he didn’t go home with her if I told the label about him.
    “No, that’s fine,” Jane said, with a strong voice like everything was all right and she was totally sober, but I knew better. “We’ll be in touch, and have a good night.”
    They kissed on the cheek, he left, and she called the car service and guzzled one more prosecco while we waited, but I didn’t say anything this time. She conked out pretty quick in the backseat on the ride home, so I played the actor’s CD on low volume. He was the lead singer, and had limited range and a reedy texture that he compensated for with some yells and a put-on scratchy growl. The only way that’s real is if you’ve been singing and smoking cigarettes for like thirty years, which this guy definitely hadn’t done. The musicianship was medium-caliber, nothing special. Bland arrangement. Sloppy production. No real hook. Zero nuance to the vocal/lyrical relationship. My lyrics may be simple, but Rog says I’m the most subtle pop vocalist around. You need to exert control over the lyrics, not the other way around.
    Plus he’d have to be the next MJ for me to help him now.
    Sharon goes to sleep at like nine o’clock unless I’m coming home from a show, so no one was up. Jane headed to the stairs, because she forgot they were being renovated. I steered her to the elevator. She leaned against the wall inside and didn’t budge when the door opened. I put her arm around my shoulder and escorted her to her bedroom.
    She collapsed on the bed and I took off her heels. Then I got a plastic cup from my bathroom so she wouldn’t chip her teeth and filled it with water and dumped out two Tylenol PMs. I brought them back to her and made her sit up to swallow them, and while she was up I pushed her under the sheets. Before I left the room, she said, “You wanna sleep here tonight?”
    I really needed a good night’s sleep, and Jane tosses and turns even when she’s on zolpidem or an over-the-counter pill. But I said, “Okay,”and stripped down to my underwear and sponsored energy-drink T-shirt. I closed the shades all the way so the sun wouldn’t wake her early and climbed in next to her, and she sort of murmured to herself, “You’re really a good kid.”
    She started snoring soon and moved around a lot and took up more than half the bed, but I put up with it and eventually fell asleep.

CHAPTER 3
Los Angeles (Second Day)
    I let Jane sleep it off in the morning. In the kitchen, Walter sat at the table and nodded at me over his copy of the L.A. Times .
    Peter put down his own copy of the Times and poured me a cup of coffee and separated three eggs for my omelet and got out the spinach. He’s got muscular forearms with blue veins popping out like worms under his skin, but he’s delicate when he cooks, and even though he used to work at a restaurant with buzz in L.A. until Jane poached him and now he makes food that’s beneath his talent level, he cares about every meal. That’s what professionals do.
    “Morning, little sensei,” he said. I told him I liked karate