Missing in Action

Chapter 018

Ten years earlier Ryan would have imagined himself a completely different way at thirty. He'd seen something like a big-shot lawyer with a trophy-wife and two point five beautiful children, senior partner in his own firm. When he'd joined the UBI and had thought about being thirty, he'd thought he'd either be a highly successful field agent, or maybe director of his own department. There had been no room for family in his thoughts when he was twenty-three. The truth of his life at thirty, really, had to be better than either of those. And much more surprising. He had graduated from Oxford nearly two years earlier, with honours, and while he was still based in Oxford, now a small, cozy house, he and Lucía lived part-time in Spain. He hadn't ever thought he'd be a novelist with five published books out of which three were on the London bestseller lists, two on the New York Times. And however much he'd always enjoyed music, he had never thought he'd find himself a ghost writer for uninspired rock stars, especially not one as highly respected in the industry as he'd ended up being. He might have once dreamed of children, but none of the dreams lived up to his real daughter. Lucía, known as Keely to everyone but Ryan himself, and Jon who still visited every few months, was five years and nearly three months old, and the most beautiful child he had ever seen, biased or not. Her hair had stayed her mother's golden blond, but it had the waves Ryan had stopped bothering to straighten out in his own, and the same texture as his. She had his eyes and soft, slightly rounded features, still tiny in her young face. And she spoke like an adult and was as smart as they came. Well, what else could he have expected as a result of the procreation of two Oxford students?

Now, really, wasn't actually the time to think about that, though. Ryan was in the 'formal' living room in his villa on Costa Bravo, which he'd bought when he realized that avoiding the press in England was more than a little hard and that most rock stars preferred having people think they wrote their own songs. He'd gotten it probably six months ago, and now that money wasn't a problem for him anymore he'd bought it the moment he'd seen it, big and pricey or no. Across from him was a young band whose record label had stated that only eight songs on an album was unacceptable, but the stressed out band members hadn't been able to come up with more without being given more time, and their manager and contacted Ryan. "So," he muttered, sipping his glass of sangría slowly. "Do you have any ideas what you want these songs to be? Themes, preferred chord arrangements, anything?"

The four young musicians looked sheepish, and their black, worn clothes looked completely out of place in the light, nicely furnished room. The lead singer finally shrugged. "It's not as though the album so far has any kind of a common thread," he stated. "But I guess we were thinking about writing something about the world today. You know, corruption, the way everything seems to be decomposing around us. We just didn't know how to do it." He shrugged again, teeth tugging at the hoop through his lip.

Oh, one of those bands. Ryan kept in the laugh and gave a slow, serious chuckle instead. "You guys are from Vegas, right?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow although he obviously already knew perfectly well. He waited for them to nod, though, before he continued. "So, how about rather than writing about how fucked up everything is, you take some of the things Vegas is famous for and make a big, ugly metaphor out of it? Or, I do, if you want." The guitarist was nodding eagerly, a grin trying to make its way to his scowling face, manoeuvring around multiple piercings and dyed-black hair. Ryan nodded back and grabbed his notebook from the table, setting his glass aside as he thought for a moment, somehow managing to refrain from biting the pencil out of habit. Finally he started jutting things down, random words at first before he thought he might know how the first verse, at least should go. "And a reference to the 'good old days'," he muttered, looking up to see how they reacted to that. At their nods he gave a small smile. "Sound of Music," he stated, writing down another few words. "But twisted."