Claire showed up three days later.
Twenty-four, dark red curly hair with bangs, green eyes, freckles. Diamond choker. Chest tattoo crawling out of her neckline. She walked in, put her bag down, and looked around the room without saying anything about it.
"Nice setup," she said finally.
Not a compliment. Just an observation.
Jordan slid a water across the table. She caught it without looking.
She had a hundred thousand YouTube subscribers, all covers, no originals. Her comment section was four years of people telling her she was wasting her voice. She knew it. She just had not found the right situation yet.
"I can't write," she said, before he could ask.
"I know. I write."
She looked at him. "For yourself."
"For whoever needs it."
She thought about that. "Why?"
"Because your audience is already built. That's half the work." He pulled up his laptop. "I just need to know what we're building toward."
She leaned back. "Something real. Something I can actually stand behind." She glanced at the tattoo on her chest. "I've been doing other people's songs for four years. I'm done with that."
"Sing something then. Anything."
She did not make a thing of it. Just sang, low and easy, something she was making up as she went. Her voice was warm with a rough edge, like she had been saving it for the right room.
Jordan kept his face flat. He was already building.
* * *
She was funny. That caught him off guard.
Dry and fast, the kind of humor that landed sideways before you saw it coming. She told him about a vitamin brand deal she had turned down and by the end of it he was actually laughing.
She had a daughter, Zoe, six, at the hotel down the street watching the same movie on repeat. Single mom since day one. She said it clean, no drama attached.
"I needed to find the right person before I did this," she said. "I wasn't handing my first original material to somebody who was going to use it for themselves."
"And you think I'm the right person."
"You haven't tried to impress me yet." She tilted her head. "That's a good sign."
* * *
He signed her that evening. Two-fifty.
She read every page, asked three questions, and did not sign until she had real answers. When it was done she looked at him.
"I know what a hundred thousand subs actually means," she said. "It's not nothing but it's not a career either. You didn't have to come looking for me." She folded her copy. "I'm not going to waste this."
"I know," Jordan said.
He texted Maddy.
Come through. Got two new artists. Bring your eye.
already bored. omw.
* * *
Maddy showed up twenty minutes later and immediately started walking slow circles around Claire.
Claire watched her with one eyebrow up.
"Boots are perfect," Maddy said. "Jacket I want to swap, not the vibe just the actual jacket. The tattoo needs to be in every promo photo, non-negotiable." She stopped in front of her. "Three words. Describe your whole thing."
"Honest. A little dark. Funnier than I look."
Maddy looked at Jordan. "I like her."
"She's right here," Jordan said.
"I know. I'm telling you because you picked well." She sat down and opened her phone. "Alt but warm. This is fun."
Claire looked at Jordan with an amused expression.
"She's always like that," he said.
"I love it," Claire said.
* * *
Imani showed up at nine.
Little black dress, platinum hair down, nose ring catching the light. She walked in and clocked Maddy immediately.
"Who's this?" she asked.
"Maddy. She styles my artists."
Imani looked at Maddy. Maddy looked back at her, already doing the thing where she was taking inventory.
"The hair is the whole look," Maddy said. "Platinum on your skin tone is crazy. We lean into that hard." She looked her up and down. "You like showing skin."
"Obviously," Imani said.
"Good. We're not hiding that. We just make it intentional." She pulled up her camera and took a photo before Imani could react. "You photograph insane by the way."
Imani smiled. "I know."
Maddy laughed. She looked at Jordan. "Okay I like this one too."
* * *
After Maddy finished with her, Jordan put on three beats.
Imani shook her head at the first. Sat up on the second. Closed her eyes on the third.
"That one."
"Yeah." He had already known.
He told her to perform. Not just sing, actually move with it. She stood up without making it a whole thing and did exactly that, slow and deliberate, completely comfortable. She laughed once at herself mid-lyric and it did not break anything. It made it better.
Diane was in the corner, barely watching. She already knew.
When Imani finished she sat back down and looked at Jordan.
"I want to sign you," he said.
She exhaled. "Yeah." She looked at her mom. "He wants to sign me."
Diane did not look up. "I heard him."
"Mom."
Diane looked up, looked at Jordan. "One seventy-five. Send the contract tonight."
"Done."
Imani turned back to Jordan. She held his gaze for a second. "I know you didn't have to do any of this. Like genuinely." She said it quiet, no performance in it. "Not everybody would've answered that DM."
"You're the one with the voice," he said.
"And you're the one who gave it somewhere to go."
She held his eyes a beat longer than she needed to. Then she smiled and looked away.
Jordan texted June. Two contracts. Both tonight.
He had two artists, neither of them could write, and Maddy was already in his ear about Imani's promo shoot before he even put his phone down.
It was going to be a long season.
He did not mind at all.