Chapter 50: Building A Fanbase

"Exactly," I said, leaning back against the sofa. "We build her presence on social media first. Short clips, raw freestyles, simple snippets. No expensive production, no crazy mixing—just her raw talent on full display for the camera."

Joejay snapped his fingers, nodding aggressively in agreement. "Now you’re talking. That’s how you build a bulletproof fanbase. When people see a girl standing in a casual room with a phone camera, dropping vocals that sound like an angel without any auto-tune or studio polish, it breaks the internet. It makes them feel like they discovered a hidden gem before anyone else."

He turned his focus back to Ruby. "Can you do that? Just raw, unedited clips of you singing to a phone camera?"

Ruby took a deep breath, her hands clasped in her lap. After the vocal sessions with Annie and clearing her mind about the public fear, standing in front of a phone camera didn’t feel nearly as terrifying as stepping onto a massive stage. It was a step she could actually handle.

"I can do that," Ruby said, a subtle spark of genuine excitement and confidence touching her voice. "Behind a camera, in a quiet space... I can give them everything I’ve got."

"Perfect," Joejay grinned, checking his watch as he stood up and grabbed his jacket. "We drop the first snippet anonymously on short-form video platforms. No tag, no bio, no fancy link. Just pure music. Let the algorithm do its magic, and let Travis’s team sit there wondering who this ghost is."

As Joejay headed out to his SUV.

Ruby turned to me, her eyes shining with anticipation as she pulled out her phone. "So... when do we record the first snippet?"

---

The living room fell into a quiet, comfortable silence after the heavy oak doors clicked shut behind Joejay.

Ruby remained on the sofa, clutching her phone to her chest while digesting everything we had discussed. After a few silent minutes, she unlocked her screen, tapping through her existing apps with a look of hesitation.

"I have my old personal social media accounts," she admitted softly, showing me her screen. "But those are tied to my past... to my old life under Travis, back when I was writing in the dark."

"Then we start fresh," I said, sitting beside her. "Create brand-new accounts across every platform. Clean slate. No old baggage, no old connections."

She nodded, setting up fresh profiles from scratch. But when she hit the username field on the setup page, her fingers hovered over the screen.

"What about a stage name?" Ruby asked, turning her head to look at me. "Should I invent a handle? An alias? Something mysterious so nobody realizes who I am right away?"

We spent the next twenty minutes brainstorming titles, bouncing back and forth between abstract aliases, stylized pseudonyms, and dark fantasy-sounding mononyms. But none of them hit right. They felt like a mask—the kind of mask Travis forced her to hide behind for years.

"No," I told her, looking straight into her eyes with firm conviction. "Don’t hide behind a fake alias. Use your real name: Ruby. Your voice is too real, too powerful for a gimmick. When you blow up and take over the charts, everyone needs to know exactly who you are. No ghost-writing, no code names. Just Ruby."

A quiet gasp escaped her lips, her eyes softening as the realization settled in. After years of having her work stolen and her name buried in fine print, taking ownership of her real identity felt like a massive victory.

"Ruby," she repeated, testing the weight of it on her tongue with a growing smile.

She quickly typed it in, securing her brand-new official handles.

"It’s set," Ruby whispered, holding up the phone to show the clean, blank profile page waiting for its first upload. "Now we just need to hit record.

"So... what should I even sing for the first clip?" Ruby asked, tapping her chin as she stared at the blank profile.

I leaned back, tossing my hands up slightly. "Honestly? I don’t know. Go with your heart. What do you actually feel like singing?"

She bit her lip, thinking it over for a few seconds. "Everything I’ve written lately feels too raw..."

"What about your favorite song?" I asked, looking over at her. "Out of everything you’ve ever written, which one is closest to you?"

Ruby’s eyes flickered with a mix of pride and bitterness. "It’s actually a track I wrote last year... the one Travis gave to Hailey. It’s her biggest hit right now. But I hated how over-produced and empty her version sounded. In my head, it was always meant to be stripped-down, acoustic, and real."

A sharp grin spread across my face.

"Do a cover," I told her instantly. "The song is already wildly popular, which means the algorithm will push it. Sing your version—the real version. Let people hear how it was actually supposed to sound. It’ll be the ultimate first video."

Ruby’s eyes lit up as the genius of the idea hit her. She pulled her acoustic guitar out of its case, sitting on the edge of the sofa with a newfound, hungry energy in her posture.

"Setting up the phone," she said, leaning her device against a glass vase on the coffee table. "No lights, no filters. Just me and the guitar."

She took a deep breath, looked straight into the camera lens, and hit record.

She cleared her throat softly, taking a second to center herself as her fingers found the first simple chord on the acoustic guitar.

When her voice entered, it sent an immediate chill down my spine. Stripped of the synthetic autotune, loud bass, and tacky pop effects Travis’s studio had slapped onto Hailey’s release, the song felt completely brand new. Ruby sang with an raw, effortless elegance—her voice melting into the room with melodic precision, perfectly riding the soft strumming of her guitar.

I leaned back on the couch, entirely quiet, just taking it in.

Every word carried weight. When she hit the chorus, her eyes closed, her head tilting slightly as she surrendered completely to the music. The sheer passion pouring out of her was mesmerizing; you could hear the pain, the betrayal, and the resilience woven into every single note. It wasn’t just a cover—it was a masterclass in emotional delivery. She took a track that Hailey had turned into a brainless, repetitive club anthem and reclaimed it as a haunting, unforgettable masterpiece.

As she strummed the final fading chord, she kept her eyes closed for a second longer, letting the last note ring out in the quiet living room.

She opened her eyes, looking over at the phone camera, then turned to me with a nervous, breathless expression, waiting for my reaction.

"Ruby," I said quietly, a slow grin spreading across my face as I shook my head in pure disbelief. "That was incredible. You didn’t just cover it—you completely destroyed Hailey’s version."