Shards of sunlight peeked out from over the horizon, threatening to burst into brightness at any moment. Callie and JC, bleary eyed, exhausted, but with contentment and accomplishment coating their stride, walked out of the studio and climbed into Callie’s car.  They’d take the day off so Callie could rest her voice.  JC  planned to  drive out and visit his family.

“You alright?” JC asked, as Callie stood in front of her door. She nodded but didn’t go in.

“You wanna come down, for a minute? Unwind?” he nodded toward the suite he was staying in, a few doors down. “Come on,” he said, taking her by the arm and pulling her with him.  He slid his keycard in and the latch popped open. He shoved her inside and she made a beeline for the comfortable couch and sat, staring at the TV but it wasn’t on. JC disappeared and reappeared in sweats and a t-shirt. He plopped heavily next to her.

“Callie, you don’t look good. What’s up?”

She stared and breathed, unblinking, then a tear escaped and slid down her cheek.  JC rushed to her side, an arm around her shoulder, pulling her to his chest.

“Callie… what’s wrong? Did I say something? I'm sorry.”

“No, it's not you,' she said, fighting tears. "I’m just jealous."

“Jealous of what?”

Callie felt small and spoke quietly. “Of you. Your family. That you get to go visit every Sunday, because they love you and want to see you and be with you.  I’ve alienated everyone I know, to the point that no one wants to be around me. I just feel really alone."

“Oh, honey,” he soothed, rubbing her back. “There are people on this earth who adore you. Paula, Tillie, Me. Not that I matter, but still.”

Callie sniffled but didn’t respond. She futilely wiped at her tears, and grabbing her bag, dug through it for Kleenex.

“Here, you were looking for tissue? Let me help. How do you find anything in here? It’s like a black hole.”

She laughed through her tears. “I have a highly sophisticated organizing system.”

“I see,’ he said, finally finding the package of tissues and handing them to her, returning his hand to her back. “You can come out to the house, if you want.”

Callie sat up and waived him off. “No, no. I don’t need a pity invite, JC. I think I’m just tired. I’m gonna let you rest now. Thanks.” Callie quickly got up and headed for the door.

“I’m serious; you can come, if you want. I’ll call you, before I leave.”

“I’ll be sleeping, don’t you dare,” she answered, and walked out.

Callie entered her own suite and dropped her bag on a chair. She stomped through her bedroom to the bathroom where she turned on the shower. As soon as the temperature was right, she stripped and stepped in, letting the hot steam spray beat on her back and shoulders. Anyone who said this wasn’t work had never worked with JC before. She felt like she’d been breaking rocks for the last week.

‘You fucking idiot. You sat on his couch and CRIED? What, in the entire FUCK, is wrong with you? You need to shape it up Callie. Shake it off, let it go. That man does not want you. You made your bed, you lie in it. DEAL.’

Callie stepped out of the shower, donned a long t-shirt and climbed in under the covers. She didn’t even know what to think, to herself, about herself anymore. The more she tried to fight it the less effective she was. The more of herself she showed to him, the more he accepted but he still showed no sign of wanting anything more than a friendship, a working relationship. She couldn’t just ‘let it go’, ‘shake it off’, as she’d told herself to do. If she could, she’d have done it.

‘Maybe things will be easier when I’m done recording. Then I won’t see him everyday and spend every waking minute with him.’ Callie’s heart sank at the prospect, and before anymore tears could come, she rolled over and breathed deeply, falling into sleep.

...

An incessant ringing in her ears interrupted a dreamless sleep. Callie blinked against the bright sun in her eyes and looked for the source of the ringing. It stopped, then started again.

Cell Phone.  ‘Argh. He IS calling me.’

“WHAT?!” she screamed as she picked up the line.

“Oh good, you’re awake. Be right down.”

“J-“ he hung up before she could even finish his name. She sat staring at the phone in her hand, shaking her head. Moments later, there was a knock at the door. Callie marched through the suite and threw the door open, infuriated.

JC stood in the doorway, staring. He couldn’t help it. His eyes would not leave her body and his feet would not move. Her thin t-shirt clung to her womanly curves. She was quite obviously not wearing a bra, but her breasts were perky nonetheless, nipples poking out of the thin material. The shirt hit her mid thigh—mid beautiful, smooth, lovely shaped thigh, and his eye traveled down her leg to her calf and small feet with fire engine red toes.  He lifted his eyes to her face, void of any makeup but very simply pretty, and her hair a wild, disheveled mane, piled high upon her head in a messy ponytail.

Callie let him look her up and down, then caught his attention with a tilt of her head. He blushed and finally tore his eyes away. “What are you doing here? You told me to rest, then woke me up.”

“I’ve been ordered to not show up for dinner without you. Get dressed. My mom is cookin’,” he said as he blew past her into her suite.

“I’m not going,” she said, curling up on the couch and covering herself with a blanket.

“Yeah, you are. Come on. Chop chop. Really. I’m not taking no for an answer.”

“Then you’ll be sitting there all night. I’m not going.”

“I’ll wait,” he said, slouching down on the couch and resting his legs on the ottoman.

“Have I ever told you that I HATE you?”

“A few times.  It really warms my heart. Come on, get dressed.”

“I’m. Not. Going.”

JC stared at Callie and she stared back. He turned so he was facing her, and took one of her hands in his.

“Callie,” he said softly. “Please come. It’ll be relaxing. No pressure, I promise, you’ll get a hot home cooked meal, no one will bug you. You can lay on the couch for 7 hours for all I care. I won’t have a good time knowing you’re here by yourself. Please?”

‘If you don’t get your ass up and go get dressed…’

Callie sighed. “Fine. I’ll be right back.” She was fully aware of him watching her walk away as she stomped to her bedroom to change. Minutes later she came back out.

“I’m about to share a secret with you,” she said, sitting next to him and digging through her bag.

“Uh oh. What is it?” he asked, putting down the magazine he was flipping through.

Callie set the bag down and looked at him. She was wearing her glasses, not her contacts and wanted to see if he’d noticed something unusual about her. Right away, his eyes grew big and he laughed.

“Holy shit. Are you some kinda freak?”

“Yes, I am some kind of freak. I have Heterochromia, or two different eye colors. I usually hide it but my eyes are  ‘just saying no’ to contacts today.”

“Wow. I’ve never seen that before. So you have contacts to match the brown eye then?”

“Yes, one clear and one colored contact so my eyes match. They don’t exactly match but no one looks close
enough to be able to tell.”

“The uh… the green one is hot.”

Callie swallowed hard. ‘Don’t be an ass. Don’t be an ass. Don’t be an ass.’  “Thank you. Ready?”

“Yes, but I’m driving. I want to get there alive.”

“My driving is NOT that bad! Stop whining!”

“I’m gonna issue a formal complaint against the state of Illinois for issuing a drivers license to you.”

It felt good to be back on teasing terms with JC. Callie laughed and ducked into the car and they took off.

…

Callie had surprised herself. After about an hour she relaxed and really enjoyed the time spent at the cozy family home. They were warm and loving-- very laid back and obviously involved in their son’s life, but  not obsessively like her mom. They clearly just wanted him to be happy. Oddly, she found herself at the feet of Karen Chasez, figuratively so, asking her about her own mother and what approach she should take. The advice Karen gave would take some bravado but she also agreed it was a step Callie would have to take in order to really be free. She looked forward to being completely free more than anything.

In the car on the way back, JC smiled over at her. “You have a good time?”

“Yeah. Your parents are great. Thanks for MAKING me come.”

“My pleasure,” he answered. “You ready to go on 'Let’s Start Over' tomorrow?”

“Yep. It was nice to take a day off before I had to jump into it. I can’t believe this is the last song.”

“Yeah. These last couple of months have been… busy. Amazing, though. You have so much talent, Callie. So much inside you. I mean that.”

“I think I believe that, for the first time. Thanks for bringing it out. Jive knew what they were doing when they assigned you to me.”

“Callie…” JC hesitated. She turned to look at him, staring blindly out at the road. Finally, he said, “I asked to work with you. I didn’t expect them to say yes, or make it sound like you HAD to work with me but I offered it and I asked for you specifically.”

“Why?” she asked quietly.

“Because of what you just said. I heard something else in you and it didn’t look like anyone else was willing or able to try to bring it out. I told them I could try and they let me.”

“I don’t think I’ve had anyone request me, before. I’m… I’m shocked. And… flattered. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And I’m even in one piece, still.”

“Don’t get too cocky. We have one song left and it’s gonna be the toughest song I’ve ever done. I think I just wanna give it one complete run through before we break it down, see where we stand. Really, if it’s too much work, I don’t want to waste time on it. My voice is tired, I’m tired, I’m sick of that little room.”

“I gotcha. It’ll be good though. And worth your time. Promise.”

Callie sighed and slumped down in her seat, watching the traffic go by.

…

“ ‘Kay, sorry. I know I’m picky. Can we go back to that little break between Verse 2 and the chorus?”

“Don’t apologize. You’re the boss. Ready when you are.”

“Start it.”

Callie bobbed her head in time with the driving guitar chords and hard drum beat, coming in exactly where she needed to and singing from the pit of her stomach. If this song was going in, she was giving it all she had. Thankfully, she had a lot.

They worked and reworked and worked the song over and over, took a break, and came back and worked more. JC sent Callie for a walk around the building before her last take. “Clear your head, relax, psych yourself up, whatever you have to do. When you come back be ready to KILL this song, ok?”

Callie took a few minutes for herself out on a ledge where the building employees must stand outside and smoke, during the day. She felt like she was standing on the edge of a very tall cliff. Her options were to stay there and flirt with jumping off, her toes gripping the edge in fear, or to just take the leap to something better. No safety net, no going back. She was tired of standing on that cliff. She needed to make a move, and soon.

Ready to face the most emotional song she’d ever written, she headed back upstairs to the studio. JC stopped in mid conversation with the engineer and smiled at her. She smiled back, gave him a thumbs up sign and then headed into the booth.

3 minutes, 24 seconds later, JC’s voice came through the headphones. “Come out here.”  Callie hung up the headphones and came out of the booth. JC looked like he was about to explode, and waved her over to the speaker.

“I want you to hear this.” He pressed ‘play’ and she knew immediately what he meant, and wanted to hear it, too. It was a part near the end, the last run through the chorus when the music dropped out and it was just her voice ringing out, ragged, emotional, but strong and carried through to the end. Callie couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face as she heard the playback.

“Mama likes, mama likes! Can I hear the whole thing?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” he said, and skipped back to the beginning. Callie sat, bowed her head, closed her eyes and tried to listen to herself objectively. She didn’t move an inch, didn’t bob her head, tap her foot, make a sound until the song ended. When it went off, the room was quiet as JC and the engineer waited for her reaction.

When Callie lifted her head, she was grinning ear to ear. “Producer Man, you are the SHIT! I love it!”

Relieved, JC grinned. “You do? You serious?”

“Yes. Hell yes. I don’t want to touch it. It’s PERFECT!”

“Yeah, I’m not messin’ with it at all. It’s great. You did it.” He turned to her, away from the engineer who was recording the song to disc, and winked, his lower lip caught between his teeth. She winked back, and hopped up and down.

“Play it again! Play it again!”

“Okay, okay, hold on a minute,” he said, laughing. JC hit play and they listened to the playback together. JC’s head bobbed wildly to the music, his arms punching out the beat—Callie had as much fun watching him listen to it as she had listening to it herself. They both loved the ending chorus and replayed it several times.

“It’s money, baby! It’s money,” he said, over and over until she put her hand over his mouth.

While Callie was happy to see the song be transferred to disc and zipped away safely in JC’s bag so it could be mixed, she was sad that it meant the last of their recording sessions. JC would work with another producer on mixing the songs and would meet her in New York in a few weeks for her meeting with Jive. Past that, they had no further obligations to each other. Callie had a few fixes on previously recorded songs but for the most part, she was done. It had been a rough journey—but JC had promised it would be worth it, and it was.

“So, when are you heading back to LA?” Callie asked as she stood outside her suite and watched JC walk toward his.

“Uhm… probably in a few days. I want to see my parents again before I head out. Why?”

Callie shrugged. “Just wondering when I can finally be rid of you,” she teased.

He pointed at her. “I’m onto you, Calpernia.”

“Stop calling me that! This is why I can’t be nice to you,” she said, giggling as he walked into his suite.  “Hey. Hold on.” Callie walked past the two doors between their suites and he stepped back out.

‘I don’t believe I’m doing this,’ she thought as stepped close, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. She felt his arms close around her waist and he held her tight for the briefest of moments and then let go.

“Thank you, for everything,” she whispered in his ear, and then stepped back. He was beet red and seemed uncomfortable, so she pulled away and let herself into her own suite.

JC walked into his suite and closed the door behind him. ‘What was that? Just a thank you? How many artists thank you with a hug and a kiss?’ He didn’t know if he should be encouraged by it or take it at face value but coupled with what he had seen of her the other day it felt nice. Really nice.

Callie walked into her suite and dug into her bag for her phone. She needed backup.

“You realize it’s 11pm here, right?” Paula asked, yawning into the phone.

“Be quiet, I have something important to talk to you about,” Callie said, stretching out on her bed. “So, you were right. About JC. Producer Man. I like him. I don’t know what to do about it but I do and I can’t make it go away and I don’t know that I want to, but tonight was our last recording session and I won’t see him again until next month, so…well, I gave him a hug and I kissed him. Do you think that was dumb?”

“On the cheek. Why?”

“Just asking. So. What are you calling me about, again?”

“Well he seemed kind of… uncomfortable. I wonder if I shouldn’t have.”

“Guys like to be kissed by pretty girls. I doubt he’s offended. But you’ve spent two months yelling at him and being bitchy to him and suddenly you turn on the charm… don’t you think he’s confused?”

“Yeah. I guess he would be. I didn’t tell you what happened yesterday.”

“Good or bad?”

“Uhm… I dunno. You tell me. Yesterday, we worked all night and decided we would take the day off. I was gonna hang out here, he’s was going to visit his family. Well he decided I was coming to dinner, and beat down my door. Dumbass that I am just gets up and answers the door in a t-shirt.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhh. So he got quite a view of Miss Callie.”

“He was looking pretty hard.”

“Callie, do I need to explain men to you? Of course he was looking hard. So, now… what?”

“Well. Now. He goes home. And I finish my album and I see him in New York in a few weeks. Past that, unless we see each other on purpose or at random industry events…” Callie sighed.

“And so you choose now, on the Eve of Never See Him Again, to admit you like him.”

“Paula, you're not helping!”

“I’m not trying to!  I was willing to talk about this, weeks ago, but you insisted that you didn’t feel anything for him, so I let it go. Now that you do, you want me to pull some magic potion out of my ass, and I don’t have one. The magical time and place would have been when you had a reason to see him. Now you don’t and now you’re gonna have to chase him, which I know Callie Phelps doesn’t do.”

Callie hung up the phone rather discouraged and feeling stupid. Not for doing what she did—it was innocent enough and she could play it off as gratitude—but for feeling anything in the first place. She told herself, again, that it was a useless hope, a stupid wish, and willed it to go away.

A light knock at her door interrupted her self lecture. She opened the door to find JC standing there in the fuzzy socks she’d lent him, with a silly grin on his face and a pizza in his hand. “Thought I’d give these one last spin,” he said, kicking his foot up. 

Callie giggled and let him in and went to change into her own pair.

...

“You didn’t think I was getting out of here without spending some time with you outside of a studio, did you?” JC pushed the empty pizza box across the table and, sitting on the floor, stretched his arms across the couch he was leaning against. Callie sat next to him, laughing at how silly their feet looked in their fuzzy socks.

“I feared it.”

“Well, you were WRONG,” he barked in her face.

“Gross,” Callie wiped her face, and then wiped her hand on his sweatpants.

JC pulled back to look at her, smiling at her mismatched eyes. “That green eye is hot.”

She laughed. “You told me that, yesterday.”

“I did. I still mean it. Yesterday—I didn’t mean to stare like a pervert. At the door. I'm sorry.”

Callie laughed, remembering the look on his face as his eyes traveled her body. “Did you enjoy that little peep show?”

“Hell yeah. I… uhm… have been waiting for you to say something.”

“About yesterday?”

“I felt a lecture coming on.”

Callie shrugged. “Not worth it and I really wasn’t offended. I'm the one who opened the door half naked. It’s not every day you get JC Chasez to ogle you. I promise not to write a bitchy song about you.” Callie glanced up and winked.   

“If you do, make sure you rewrite the lyrics so I don’t know the song is about me.”

“But hey, even if you do, I wrote a great song...” Callie started to laugh.

JC laughed with her. “… and painted a great picture…”

“How many times have you used that line? Did I get swindled?”

“I’ve used it a few times. You got swindled, but just a little bit. I do believe the song is a hit and I do believe your songs kick serious ass. It’s a win- win situation, but we’ll see what the suits say.”

“You think the suits will like it?”

“Hard to tell, with them. Depends on the climate of the industry or whether or not their eggs were scrambled the right way at breakfast, you know? It’s hard to predict, so try not to worry about it. Just believe in yourself and your talent—“

“—and my producer—“

“—and your producer, thank you, and things will work out. You did good work. I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you. I’m proud of me, too.”  

 “I should… let you get some sleep. You gonna be around tomorrow?” JC got up from the floor and stretched, cracking his back. Callie was not not NOT staring at his belly as his shirt rode up, momentarily admiring the trail of hair into his sweatpants.

“Yeah. Come on down.”

“I thought maybe we could do some of that touristy stuff you tried to kill me with a few weeks ago.”

“Are you gonna whine about that every week?”

“I had planned on it.”

“Get out. This is why I can’t be nice to you. Call me when you wake up.”

“You love me. Night honey,” he said, closing the door behind him. Callie turned the deadbolt and knob lock and leaned against the door.

‘You have no idea.’