The Red Sox game was showing on three different TV's, easily viewable from my booth at Big Wangs, had I bothered to look up. Instead, I was in the corner, bent over my notebook. A frothy beer sat to my left; a plate of monster nachos to my right. In front of me was a blur of words and phrases. Meaningless, stupid sentences that didn't rhyme or make sense or even really matter, anymore.

I'd scoped out Runyon, trying to see if Lena and Barksdale would be there, but I knew she wouldn't be. She wouldn't want to run into me, to see me. Even if I saw her there, she would refuse to talk to me. I hiked up to my favorite spot, the spot where her dog had run me over the first time and I stood there for what seemed like forever, in the blazing heat, watching her condo and hoping for a glimpse of her.

Just when I'd started to give up, I saw her. But she and Barksdale weren't headed for Runyon or even for the grassy area where he like to play. Rather, she loaded him up into her small SUV and drove away. It felt a little like she was driving right out of my life. But I was too far away, too powerless, too...removed to stop her.

"Figured I'd find you here."

Eric, my manager, slid into the booth across from me, an open bottle in his hand. "Tried calling you. Are you not talking to me, now?"

I glanced at my phone, which I'd turned off after I'd tried to call Lena again and got the voicemail right away. She'd probably blocked me. Reaching for my beer, I shook my head. "Had some things blow up on me. I needed some time to myself."

"Understood." He lifted the bottle to his mouth, downing a swallow before continuing. "Have you given any thought to our phone call the other night?"

My eyes settled on the page, the words still blurring together in a senseless mess. I clasped my hands together and rested my chin on them. The short, wiry hairs in the goatee I hadn't shaved yet pricked my skin. "I'm not sure what I want to do, honestly."

Eric's eyes grew huge. His mouth fell open and words tried to come, but all I got was frustrated, impatient sounds.

"Look, I know it's a big deal. It's a lot of money. It's exposure. It's... everything good for me. I hear everything you're not saying right now."

"It's just that it's Rex Luther." Eric licked his lips, rubbing his thumb along his chin. "And he's waiting and I don't want to keep him waiting. If you want to say yes, contingent on a few points, then let's do that.  I don't want to string him out, piss him off."

"I'm not worried about pissing off Rex Luther-"

"It's my job to worry about it. Look, J..." He pushed his beer aside and leaned forward. "I heard about that girl you're dating. She knew him, she worked for him, they had a professional relationship that ended. That's got nothing to do with you. Don't go all Captain-Save-a-Hoe on me right now. You've known this girl a couple of weeks. This is your career. Just the announcement of this deal could put you back on the map."

"First off, it's a song. Nobody cares who writes the song, alright? If it goes on the record, it goes on the record. If it charts, it charts. Rex Luther isn't any different from any other artist I've worked with. Second?"

I leveled a cold, steel stare across the table. "Don't bring up Lena again. Not in that way. There's things you don't know about her, about what went on between her and Rex-"

"What, that they fucked?" Eric scoffed, his face bearing a wicked half grin. "Why would switching publicists be such a big deal if they hadn't? He threw his weight around and got her fired-who doesn't know that? And who cares? In LA time, it was a century ago. Water under the bridge.  She moved on, right? She's at Sexy Hair now, doing well, I hear. And, I remind you again, none of this has anything. to do. with you."

Through closed eyelids, I rubbed my painfully dry eyes. Listening to Eric drone on about Lena and Rex and their relationship like it was People magazine fodder was driving me crazy. I hadn't slept more than a few hours since Thursday and my nerve endings were frazzled. My mind was on a path that I couldn't manage to detour from. Her fiery eyes, the words she'd said, even how fiercely she'd slammed the door after I left- all played on an endless loop.

If I had a chance to get her back, it was slim. Was it even worth the effort when right in front of me was a golden ticket? All I had to do was write one song. Doors could open, huge opportunities could fall in my lap.

The choice was obvious. But then again.... it wasn't.

 I cleared my throat to remove the grit from my voice. "Give me a few days before you talk to him. I need to think, to come up with something. Then... tell him I want to meet. Not a yes. But not a no. Let's talk first."

"I can handle that," said Eric. He extended his hand. I reluctantly shook it, just so he would go away. "I'll call you when it's set up. Just keep in mind that you'd be a fool to throw away a good thing for a girl you barely know."

Eric walked away, leaving me alone in a booth, deep in the bowels of Big Wangs. I stared at the notebook in front of me, pen in hand. I scratched out a word or two here, moved a phrase or two there.

Then I ripped out the page, and the pages before it.  It was time to write something new.