The Beverly Hills restaurant hadn't been built yet in my first 2005—its grand opening would have been in 2008, a glittering affair I'd attended with a different version of success weighing on my shoulders. Now, sitting across from my father in a space that shouldn't exist, watching him study a menu that hadn't been written yet, the paradoxes of my situation felt particularly acute.
"Your mother tells me you signed with Interscope," he said, his voice carrying that particular timbre of paternal pride he hadn't earned in either timeline. "Ten million dollars. That's... that's something else, hijo."
In my previous life, this dinner had happened four years later, after my first Grammy nomination. He'd worn the same watch—a Rolex he'd bought himself to celebrate someone else's success—but his hair had been grayer, his approach more hesitant. Now, in this accelerated present, he sat before me with the confidence of a man who thought he understood the opportunity before him.
"The money's not important," I said, though we both knew it was a lie. In my memories, he'd asked for a loan two weeks after this dinner. I wondered if that part of history would repeat itself.
A waiter appeared—young enough that in my original timeline, he'd still be in high school—carrying a bottle of wine I remembered (would remember?) being discontinued in 2012. "Compliments of Jimmy Iovine," he announced, presenting the label for inspection.
My father's eyebrows rose slightly. "Jimmy Iovine sends you wine?"
"Jimmy Iovine sends everyone wine," I replied, though in truth, this particular vintage had been my favorite during the industry parties of 2015. I'd mentioned it casually to him yesterday, knowing exactly what would happen.
Through the restaurant's windows, I could see Sunset Boulevard's neon prophecies bleeding into the twilight. A billboard across the street advertised an album that, in my previous life, had defined 2006's sound. Now, barely into 2005, our new production techniques had already made it sound dated before its release.
"I heard your track on Power 106 today," my father continued, swirling the wine with practiced pretension. "The one with Beyoncé. It's... different. Like nothing I've ever heard before."
*Like nothing anyone's heard before*, I thought, *because it won't exist for another decade*. But I just nodded, watching his reflection in the window overlap with memories of future disappointments I was trying to prevent.
My BlackBerry buzzed—Rico, this time:
"Timbaland's team trying to reverse engineer your techniques. Jimmy says let them try. The future's already ours."
The irony wasn't lost on me. In my previous life, Timbaland had been one of my closest collaborators. Now, he was trying to decode production methods he wouldn't invent for years.
"Marcus?" My father's voice pulled me back. "I've been thinking... about your success. About family. About second chances."
The words hit like déjà vu. In my first timeline, this speech had led to years of financial manipulation and emotional exploitation. But now, armed with twenty years of hindsight compressed into prophetic memory, I could see the patterns before they formed.
"Second chances are complicated," I said carefully, thinking of my own impossible return to the past. "They require change on both sides."
He leaned forward, and I could smell the same cologne he'd worn to my first Grammy ceremony—a ceremony that now might never happen, or might happen differently, or might... The paradoxes of temporal causality made my head spin sometimes.
"I know I wasn't there before," he began, but I cut him off.
"No, you weren't. And success doesn't change that." I met his eyes across the table, forty years of experience facing down decades of absence. "But the future isn't written yet."
The lie tasted bitter—the future was written, had been written, was being unwritten even as we sat here in this not-yet-built restaurant, drinking not-yet-discontinued wine, discussing a success that had arrived a decade early.
Through the window, I watched a group of young producers enter the building—faces I recognized from future collaborations that now might never happen. They were probably here to network, to catch a glimpse of the wunderkind who was rewriting the rules of production. If they only knew those rules came from their own future innovations.
"Your mother says you've bought her a house," my father said finally, his tone caught between pride and something darker. "In Riverdale."
"She deserves it." In my first life, that house hadn't come until 2010. Now, watching my father process this acceleration of fortune, I wondered how many other timelines I was inadvertently altering.
The waiter returned with menus, but neither of us moved to open them. The weight of unspent years hung between us like smoke, and somewhere in the distance, I could hear the faint pulse of music that hadn't been written yet.
The future was changing, one relationship at a time. I just hoped I was changing it for the better.