“Can you hear me now?”  

JC groans inwardly as he tries to tap another button on his laptop. “Yeah, I can hear you but I-oh wait, I see you now!” 

He grins as Jax’s familiar face pops up on his screen, greeting him with a toothy smile. She waves and he chuckles. “I still suck at this stuff, but I’m getting better.”

He hears her laugh softly as she nods and readjusts the colourful guitar strap on her shoulder. She seems happy and relaxed, wearing a vintage Led Zeppelin shirt which is drooping off of one of her shoulders, showing him a line of small whimsically colourful tattoos lining their way from behind her ear, over her shoulders to what he knows goes all the way down her arm. She’s absently strumming her guitar with a pick and quickly rearranges her hair with her other arm as she shifts. He’s never seen her hair like this; big, wild and curly. It suits her.

“You’re gettin’ good! How are you? It feels like forever since we talked!” She grins again, leaning forward toward the camera as if she wants to see him more closely.

“I’m good, I’m good. Same old, I guess. Stuck in this house like everyone else,” he chuckles uncomfortably and shifts in his seat in front of his keyboard. “How are you? Your hair! I’ve never seen it like this!”

She laughs and though the video quality isn’t the greatest, he can tell that she blushes a bit as she rearranges her fluffy hair again, covering part of her face with it. “Yeah, I know. This is the natural me, when I can’t be bothered to straighten my hair.” 

She looks down at her fingers absently strumming again. “I”m good though.  Same as you, stuck in the house. I’ve run out of things to clean and random stuff to do. Are you staying alone too?”

He nods, “Yeah, all by myself too. Although the Uber Eats guy is on a first name basis with me at this point.” He hears her laugh and he grins. He wants to tell her that she looks amazing. That’d be weird though right?

“Yeah, it’s been rough staying alone though this. I’ve been doing lots of video chats, and I try to do some lives a few times a week for the fans. I ask for song requests and then sing a few the next day. I like it, kinda brings me back to when I was doing open mics.”

He smiles, “Yeah, I actually caught a few. You still amaze me with how talented you are all the time.”

She does the same shy, hair face covering thing and rolls her eyes. “Whatever. You’re ten times better than me.”

“Nuh uh,” he chuckles the clicks on his keyboard. “Did you want to do this?”

She nods excitedly and rearranges her guitar and strap again. “So I thought we could kind of practice together then you can record your part. I’ll record mine while I listen to yours so it blends better. I’ve seen other duets, and they sometimes go a little off because of lag and it sounds weird.”

He nods having thought the same thing earlier. “Yeah, that works. What song do you want to do?”

She tightens the strings on her guitar with one hand as she shifts again. She seems to hesitate and he wonders why until she asks shyly, “Can we do Tipee?”

He frowns and narrows his eyes, “What the hell is Tipee?”

She laughs, throwing her head back a little and her curls bounce. His stomach flutters a little at the sound. 

“This I Promise You,” she explains with a smirk, “T-I-PY or Tipee for the uninitiated.”

He groans and shifts in his seat again. He really doesn’t want to. But he feels bad saying no to anything she asks. “We could, “ he concedes gently. “Or maybe we could do your second single. I’ve tinkered with it and I have an idea how we could make it acoustic and slower.”

He’s relieved when her face lights up and she nods eagerly, asking him to show her. He explains how he envisions her part on the guitar and uses his keyboard to accompany. She picks it up right away and in no time they have a melody down and they’re working on separating their singing parts.

He’s not sure if the grin on his face ever leaves his lips the whole time. He just can’t get enough of her voice and its versatility. “You got it, Mama. How ‘bout we do this?”

**

Jax can barely stay still in her seat as they finish another practice run through of what they are working on. She can’t say she’s not disappointed that they hadn’t done his song, but she’s now really excited about what he’s thought up for her own song. The fans are going to love this.

She clears her throat and grabs her nearby bottle of water for a well earned sip. He’s trying to make last minute technical adjustments before he records his part and she watches him quietly. He seems happy. His eyes seem a little tired, but she rarely has seen him without his glasses so that may be why he seems different. His hair has definitely gotten shorter, its messy strands sticking out every which way reminiscent of a style he sported several years ago. 

They’d been keeping in contact during this strange time, locked in their own private homes connected to the entire world but also entirely alone. At first it had been kind of fun. She’d been relieved that some of her events had been cancelled in the short term, she’d been starting to feel exhausted and had almost appreciated the time off, alone and away. But after the first 2 weeks, things started to change. There was only so much Netflix she could stream, songs she could write, colours she could messily paint her nails. She was craving human interactions. So she’d reached out to a few of her friends. Then a few of her musician friends and she’d decided to schedule some live sessions on Insta. This ended up sort of blowing up and thousands of people were regularly tuning in to her lives to hear her sing songs they’d requested and she sang with her guitar, sometimes with a duet partner.

When she’d broached the subject with JC when they were chatting about a Netflix series he’d recommended she watch, she’d asked if he would be interested in doing a duet with her and surprisingly he’d said yes. She knows he’s notorious for being private and doesn’t participate in social media much, but maybe this crazy quarantine had forced him to reach out for human contact too.

Now, as she watched him sing his part of their duet while playing the keyboard, she can’t help but feel her heart flutter a little. His voice is just velvet. So smooth and easy, such talent being hidden behind a soundboard instead of a mic. 

She shakes her head a little as he finishes and she smiles. “That was perfect, JC.” She sees him shrug and hears his uncomfortable chuckle.

“I showed you mine, now show me yours” he says with a smirk after he clicks off his keyboard and leans back expectantly.

She tells him to wait a minute while she replays his video then nods that it’s fine. She starts up her recording and introduces him and the song they are going to do.  Then she strums her guitar and completes her side of the song, her voice merging perfectly with his, harmonizing in a way that really enhances both their tones. After she finishes, she saves the recording and sends it to him for review.

After he reviews it and a little bit of small talk, including the promise to text later after she finishes the last episodes of her series she waves and grins her goodbye at him.

“Bye JC!”

His grin matches hers and before he logs off she hears him say, “You look amazing by the way, I like you better natural like that.”

And with that, he’s gone and she’s sitting there all wild hair and red cheeked, wondering why he’d waited until the last minute to squeeze that compliment in.

XX