Page 22 (1/2)

Instead it was a tiny, annoying nagging sense that he didn’t mind that they had to wrap up their practice early Even worse: that Josh ht be just a little bit relieved

Which didn’tit, playing it He knew that without vanity or conceit, he was the center Most of the band’s songs were his songs; the band was together because he’d brought theether

Josh was the heart of the Weathered Gentle

He’d been feeling thelike a douche, even to himself, Josh had always felt the side baseball practice all the way through high school

And though his baseball prowess had et hie, where he’d continued to write songs at night to give himself a break from finance homework and economics ­papers

And that was the tricky part Josh had been every bit as good with numbers as he ithtwo separate skills; it was as though they’d been intertwined Music had been the counterpoint to the numbers, and vice versa

Hence the problelad of it

But he didn’t have the numbers

Not since he’d quit the firm First because he’d had to, and then because when it had been tio back, he’d realized he hadn’t wanted to

Hadn’t wanted to go back to the suits and the power lunches and the power drinks followed by power dinners, and thenrepeat Days had blended into nights, weekdays blended into weekends, and though objectively he’d known that it wasn’t his long hours that had caused his entire life to fall apart, it certainly hadn’t helped matters any

Maybe if he hadn’t been so da on frozen dinners and cocktails, he ns a little earlier Could have saved himself and his family a whole lot of fear

And so he’d politely turned down his boss’s offer of having his old job back, and had become, wellwhatever he was now