If someone had told Callie that she would one morning wake up and take stock of her life and actually like what was happening in it, she'd have summarily dismissed them and called them crazy. Still, Callie woke up one morning and realized that she was happy.

Not perfect. No, not by any stretch of the imagination, perfect. She was still dealing with the emotional aftermath and expected fallout from her last (and final, she hoped) conversation with her mother. She hadn't meant to pit Jason against them and trap him in the middle, but he was strained, trying to balance his professional obligation to Callie and his familial obligation to his father and the first woman to at least pretend to care about him since his own mother had left and moved on. Callie offered Jason the option of bowing out, if he desired. She would find a new manager and life would go on, but she would not, and could not return to life as it were. Callie thanked every lucky star that Jason decided it was too much of a gamble to give up what was an exciting career for him, doing something he loved, simply for the affection of people who had proven to want nothing more than a monthly check and to be able to say they knew Callie Phelps.

Without Callie's monthly support, their quality of life began to drag, as they had to count on James' salary alone. They could not afford the upkeep of expensive cars, could not manage the high balances on the credit cards, could not sustain their position in society. When they began to falter, and their lifestyles were forced to change, they reached out to Callie several times, to no avail. When their pleas fell on deaf ears, they used every tactic in every book to get her to respond. Callie did not take joy in knocking them down, but she was determined to live her life for herself in a way that her father would be proud to see her living. That did not include financing a life of opulence and luxury for Julia and James, so as much as she hated to, she ignored the nagging guilt and stayed busy so that she didn't have to think about it.

Part of staying busy was spending time in LA with Jason, who had relocated not only his home but his office; with Paula, who continued to cheer her on and be her staunchest supporter; and with JC, who was continuing to amaze her daily, weekly, monthly, with how he cared for her, took care of her, supported her. Callie had been in a world of dysfunction since she was a child-- she had never known a real relationship. She had never known what it was like to care for someone so much it was scary, to love someone so much it hurt, to be loved by someone so generous, when she felt so completely undeserving. Though she had admitted that she loved him, she also admitted that it scared her to feel it and to admit it and to live it. Yet everyday she was living it and though she was cautious, she was also optimistic and let herself enjoy it a little more every day.

It was, of course, no fairy tale. JC could be as stubborn as she could, and their only saving grace was that he was amused by her tantrums and her bullish nature, and gently reminded her when she was being selfish and bratty. He was laid back where she was high strung, relaxed where she fidgeted out of nervousness, and positive where she looked for the problems and the issues. The old adage that opposites attract one another was working in their favor, though just barely.

Over the weeks and months of their relationship, and especially when it dealt with her professional life, JC could either be a fountain of information, or he would clam up and not offer advice or anecdotes or a rambling, senseless story or diatribe. Callie noticed that he cut her off the most when she asked about his career-- his hopes and dreams and what he planned to do with the rest of his life. He was a competent producer, and a skilled songwriter, but Callie saw more in his eyes, in his heart, could almost see the wheels turning on the memory machine-- being out in front of a large crowd, the deafening screams, the band kicking up behind you, the absolute heat in a packed arena.

He missed it. She knew he missed it. He refused to acknowledge it, and when she pressed him and insisted that lightening could strike twice for him, he shut down and shut her out, and it took days to get him back to normal. Callie tired of this cycle, but it killed her inside to see him so tormented and afflicted by what he wanted, but refused to go after. She was a fighter, though-- she wouldn't forgive herself if she didn't at least try to push him, and she couldn't let him live vicariously through her. The pressure to do it her way was enough, let alone to try to do it louder, bigger, better for his benefit.

Things began to change, the more she pressed, albeit slowly. Where he would normally cut her off, he would suddenly talk about the old days and his old life and being a star and maybe getting back to it. Maybe. But, no, he couldn't. Then he would retreat into himself and go about his daily tasks, his routines and schedules. He would sell his ideas and his words and his thoughts and feelings to other artists who were no match for his caliber. Things he could express himself, if he had will and opportunity, and carry them off in a completely more polished fashion. He was content to come out of his cave when necessary, lend a hand, lend an ear, create a hit and a storm, and the slink back to his cave once his part was complete. This was the cycle that was slowly driving her mad.

On a sunny Thursday in Los Angeles, Callie decided she'd had enough of him sitting on the sidelines, watching the game in play, wanting to be on the field, but scared to go out there, all the while insisting he was ‘fine’. He wasn’t fine. 

“Are you listening to me? You're not listening to me.”

Callie reached across the table and stole a fry from JC’s plate. “Shit, that’s hot!” JC laughed as she fanned her mouth and chewed the piping hot, fresh from the oil, french fry.

“That’s what you get. Keep your fingers on your own plate,” he said, reaching across the table to steal her pickle. Callie hated pickles, didn’t know why every sandwich came with a pickle, but JC was willing to take it, so she never asked to have them removed.

“If you order fries, I’m having one. Are you ignoring me? I won't be ignored, Dan!”

He smirked at the Fatal Attraction reference, a movie they'd watched together the night before. Almost without thinking, he methodically disassembled his sandwich and put it back together the way he wanted it. “Honey, you're right here. Can‘t ignore Callie Phelps. ”

“Fucker. You know what I mean. Your album. Talk to me. Why can't you do one?”

JC stalled for time, taking a large bite of his sandwich. He was growing tired of this same conversation. It went the same way, every time, every few months. After the fight they’d had the last time she brought it up, he thought she had given up asking.

“There’s no album, Callie,” he said, around the sandwich in his mouth. “It’s just… I’m done. I don’t even have a label.”

Callie rolled her eyes at the standard excuse, as if that could even be an excuse, these days. Lots of artists went Independent, when they couldn't get major label deals. That wasn't JC's problem, though. He was getting offers. Tons of them. One a week at least. He just wouldn't sign any of them. “That’s an easily solvable problem, JC. Just open one of those thick envelopes-- you know, with the record label logo on it?”

He swallowed, then wiped his mouth, his elbows on the table. “Callie,” he started, his eyes boring into hers. “I don’t like fighting with you and I don't like having this same fight with you. Honey, I get that you want me to put something out there, and I appreciate that you believe in me, it’s just not going to happen. I’d like to enjoy a nice lunch with my girlfriend, and not fight with her and not piss her off today, because I’d like to have sex, later. Okay?” He reached for his glass but she snatched it and slid it to her side of the table.

“What if I say, no sex until you agree to do a record? Hm?” Callie gave him a sideways glance, with her eyebrows raised.

His eyes sparkled as he laughed. “I’d say that’s dirty warfare. I'd say let’s not do that, and I would remind you how you begged me to sleep with you before your album was done, so you’ll never stick to it. Gimme that.”

She slid the glass back to him and watched him take long gulps before setting it back down and picking up his sandwich. Sighing, she dropped the subject and picked up her own sandwich. She had figured she could ask him every few weeks and maybe, eventually, she would hear a different answer, but the same answer always came-- he didn’t want to, he didn’t have a label, it wasn’t going to happen.

They had only met for lunch, so after they stepped out of the busy café, JC and Callie went their separate ways-- JC back to the studio and Callie to Jason’s office. Callie held several phone interviews, mostly about her album, her new single, the movie that had been out for months and would be released on DVD soon. After a long but productive planning meeting with Jason and her assistant and an indulgent few quiet hours of Internet surfing, Callie and JC met some of his friends for dinner.

She was starting to like LA, a little. Just a little. Since Jason had relocated, she found herself there more than at home, so she had been able to explore more, see more, do more. JC’s friends left a bit to be desired at times, but she enjoyed the company of a few of them, and his brother was always entertaining. LA wasn’t always about pop tarts engaging in antics to stay on the front page of the tabloids. Most often it was about quiet, out-of-the-way places with good food, good drinks, good music, and lots of laughter. Callie liked that part of LA. She liked it a lot.

After dinner they saw a movie, an independent film that had been produced by a friend. By the time the movie let out Callie was ready for some peace and quiet and some personal time with JC. He had made it clear on the drive home that he was looking forward to the same.

Yet, there she laid, in bed, waiting for JC to come out of the shower. He was the world’s most neurotic person, what with his rituals. ‘Let’s take a shower’ meant more than just showering and she often finished her pre-bed checklist long before he had completed his. Callie checked the clock-- twenty minutes in. By this point the was flossing- again. Next he would clean his ears, then obsessively stare at himself smiling in the mirror. He said he was checking to make sure his teeth were clean. She really thought he was trying to smile without his teeth looking weird. He was self conscious about his teeth.

Frustrated, Callie threw the covers back and rolled out of the bed, stomped to the bathroom and tapped twice on the door.

“You need in here?” he called, from behind the door.

“I came to ask you the same question. What are you DOING? For a man that cut off a fight because he wanted to have sex, you’re taking an awful long ti--”

The door swung open in her face, warm air billowing out above her head. JC stood in the doorway, bare chested and wrapped in a towel, holding a length of floss. “Horny, honey?”

“Are you? The way you rushed out of the theater and ran a couple of lights getting back here made me think you were ready. I’ve been in bed for fifteen minutes!”

“Well, I have to get all sexy for you,” he said, flashing a smile at her, then tossing the floss into the trashcan under the sink and opening the medicine cabinet.

“Joshua Chasez! If you reach for Q-tips, I’m going to sleep!” He chuckled and didn’t hesitate to pick up the box of cotton swabs. Callie groaned and turned around and stomped back toward the bed, flung herself into it and threw the covers over herself. Huffing, she rolled to her side, away from him. JC laughed during her tantrum, and swabbed his ears.

“You just can’t stand to not get your way, can you? Spoiled girl. I spoil you.” He snapped off the light in the bathroom and shed his towel, dropping it into a basket in the closet, then slid into bed next to her.

“You don’t spoil me. You don’t do anything I tell you to do.”

“That doesn’t stop you from telling me what to do. Roll over. Let’s get this party started, baby.” She didn’t move, so he tried to ply her with kisses, soft slow ones across her shoulder, down her arm, along her back and back up. “Callie... You mad at me?”

“Mmm..” she murmured, eyes closed, unmoving.

“I love you. Do you love me? Hmmm?”

“Mmmm…”

“Callie, come on. I’m sorry. You know I can’t relax unless I know everything’s in order. Can you turn around, please?”

She turned, finally, and snaked her arms around his neck, welcoming a warm, deep kiss as a hand wandered her body, very gently caressing the skin beneath his fingers.

“What took you so long? You were sexy before you went in there.”

###

She'd drifted to sleep, momentarily-- sex was incredibly relaxing to her and not to insult him, but it was the best sleeping pill, ever. She awoke again when she felt him tossing and turning next to her, the hairs of his day old beard growth scratching against her skin as he pulled her close to him and laid his head next to hers. She wriggled backward toward him, to get as close to him as possible, enveloped in the scent of his shower gel mixed with sweat.

“Can't sleep,” he whispered.

Callie laid awake, listening to him breathe, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his chest. He could tell she wasn't asleep either, and after a few minutes she felt a finger draw small curlicues down her arm. It tickled, and he knew it. She giggled quietly. She almost heard him smile behind her.

“JC.”

“Hm?”

“I just hate to see you so... you know. You won’t even think about it? Please?”

“I have thought about, babe,” he said, softly. “Believe me, I have. I can't go through…I can't. Why do you keep bringing this up, Callie? You do like to fight, don’t you?”

“J, it’s not that I like to fight,” she said, turning over to lie on her back.

“It’s just that it practically hurts my feelings that you pushed me so hard, especially to record Let’s Start Over, and gave me this big giant speech about not being afraid, and about doing shit just for the money and knowing that I have talent and pushing myself to bring the best to the recording session. And then, when it comes to you, suddenly it’s okay to sit in your house and not open envelopes that could be good news for you, not even try to negotiate, if the deal isn’t exactly what you like. All of a sudden, it’s okay to write and produce for artists that you don’t necessarily believe in, as long as they can sign a check. It just feels like you gave up. And that hurts my feelings.”

JC sat up, scratched his head and rubbed his eyes. Callie sat up as well, sitting cross legged on her side of the bed. No matter how many times he said he didn‘t want to talk about it, and gently steered the conversation to another topic, Callie, like a bulldog, sank her teeth in and wouldn‘t let it go.

“Honey, what do you want me to do? Run out to every label in the industry and beg them to sign me, give me what I really want?”

“Why would you have to do that, J? You. Have. Fucking. Offers,” she seethed, punctuating her words with a fist into the firm mattress. “In your office. Right Now! What’s stopping you from taking one of those suckers to the bargaining table? You waste your time writing for mediocre artists and dumb down your talent and your abilities and put up with so much shit, for songs that Jive won’t release-- and you know they won’t release them! Did you just feed me some lines to get me to do what you wanted me to do, shit out a hit, and then go back to living whatever life this is, that you've built for yourself? This cave? It can't have been that you believed in me or my talent. Because if you really believed the words you said to me, then you have not one excuse to be sitting here with no recording contract and no album being sent to press. Goddammit, JC! I I know you want it. Get off your ass!”

JC huffed, tossed the covers back and swung his feet off of the bed and onto the floor, yanked his robe from the post in his closet and stormed out of the room. Callie turned on the lamp next to the bed and rubbed her neck. A tension headache was building, and she wished she’d never brought it up again. The bedroom door swung open again and he stomped in, face set in a frown, arms loaded with folders and envelopes and papers and dumped them on the bed.

“You want to talk about my offers? Let’s talk about my offers.”

“J, you know what, I’m sorry, you don’t have to do this. Stop.”

“Oh, no. You started this. You like to fight, so come on. Fight with me. Okay. So, my Uncle goes through every contract I get and tells me what sucks about it, right?” He tore open the envelope and tossed the stack into her lap. She flipped through the pages and pages of familiar typewritten verbiage.

“That first one? One album deal, non-negotiable on points, which are shitty. I’m offended by how shitty the points are. They pick my producer, I get no choice. No advance unless I want to give up a percentage of overall earnings. I mean, I don’t need an advance but if they’ll do this to me, imagine what they’ll do to a new artist who's not likely to sell enough to pay the advance back and earn anything on top of it. This label has a historically low cap on promo unless you‘re already huge. No publishing-- are they serious? I have no power, no freedom at all. I do what they say, they pay me in peanuts and I’m supposed to be happy with that. I'm supposed to feel lucky to have a recording contract.”

“This one, this one, this one,” he ranted, picking up random envelopes, “all identical. Run of the mill, low paying, low man on the totem pole, debut artist offerings. Babe, this is what the industry offers when they don’t know what to expect. When your name isn’t ‘Callie Phelps’ and you can’t guarantee them a  hit. No one wants to take a chance on an artist that isn‘t mainstream, that doesn‘t fit in their box, that might be slightly quirky and maybe writes songs about things that you don‘t regularly hear on the Top 40 chart.”

He sifted through a second pile, a plentiful stack, grabbed them up and shoved them in her face. “These are all the requests I get, everyday, to write songs, to produce songs, which I love to do and you know that. They meet my quote and they don’t give me push back. I get to choose who I work with, but I don’t work for free, so yeah, the check has to clear. I don’t have to fight red tape... and I don’t have to sit in some meeting with four suits who hold my career in their hands, telling me an album that I have poured my life into is shit and they have no intention of pushing it.”

That-- he'd never said that before. He'd never explained it that way, put it in those words before. Those words that slammed against her heart so hard it broke, for him. “Okay,” Callie whispered, tearing up. “I get it. I get it.”

“Do you, Callie? Do you get that I have already been on top, and how I had to humble myself and practically beg to get these offers, and you see how shitty they are. I won't get anywhere with…” he picked up the remaining envelopes and tossed them onto the floor, “that shit right there. I wipe my ass with better deals than that.”

“Yes, I get it. I get that. I’m sorry, J, I didn’t know. I didn't know it was like that.” She reached out to him, grasped his hand, held it in both of hers, kissed his fingertips, her tears dripping onto them.

His gaze softened, thick lashes framing his blue eyes. “Now you do. Now you get why I can’t just ‘get off my ass’. I’m not ON my ass. I work, you know I do. It's just easier this way. It's awesome to be here with you and go through it with you. I had my fun, years ago, and I get that you want what's happening for you to happen for me, too… just… maybe I don’t want that for me. Maybe I’m happy just being next to you while it’s happening for you?”

Callie held her tongue, because she thought it was best, but she didn’t believe that for one second. Not when she could see subtle signs in the expression on his face when she kissed him before she went on stage –he would love nothing more than to rush out there with her and return to performing on a stage in front of an adoring crowd. She couldn’t make him be honest with himself, so it made no sense for her to make him be honest with her.

She gathered the stacks of paper and folders and set them on the night stand, then tugged at the sleeve of his robe. “C’mon, take this off. Come back to bed. I’m sorry. You’re right.” She laid down, he took off his robe and crawled back into the bed and laid his head on her chest. She rubbed his back, on occasion lightly scratching and she listened to his heart beat a fast rhythm.

“It’s not that I don’t want it, Callie. It’s that I can’t have it.”

“Shhhh… let’s not talk about it anymore, okay? Just relax. Relax.”

At breakfast the following morning, JC was quiet. As was normal after a 'what are you doing with your career' fight, he had retreated into his own mind. He wasn't talking or laughing or reading the paper and laughing at the local stories, offering up any of the usual banter that she had come to love. He barely lifted his eyes from his plate of toast and eggs and his mug of coffee and he seemed to be dragging himself just to eat. Callie sat across the table from him, hardly able to stand the tension in the air, the only sound being the coffee percolator bubbling and his fork scraping against his plate.

“You’re not eating,” he said in a flat, dull tone.

“I’m not that hungry after all,” she answered. More silence. Callie tapped the side of her mug with her nail. “How do the eggs taste?”

“Good. It’s good. Thank you. You cook better than you drive.” He offered a brief smile and went back to his eggs.

“Will Ty eat the eggs and toast if I leave them?”

“Probably. Just leave him a note up there.” His eyes lifted toward the cork board that hung in the kitchen, their communication center of sorts. It was where all mail and messages lived, so they didn’t get lost amongst the many people that came and went.

Callie couldn’t stand to keep avoiding the subject. She had to say it.

“J. I’m sorry. I’ll just say that, because I’m not bringing the subject up again. Just, I’m sorry. I love you and I know you want support, and I want to be supportive, so whatever you decide, I‘m behind you. I'll just leave it alone, now. You talk to me when you're ready.”

JC paused, then set his fork down on the plate. He stared into space for a few minutes and then his eyes fixed on Callie. A weak smile crossed his lips. “Thanks for your support,” he said.

He finished his coffee and pushed his plate away, then stood and raked the remnants of his breakfast into the garbage compactor and set his plate and fork into the sink. He busied himself dumping the rest of the eggs and the two pieces of toast that Callie didn’t eat onto a plate, then set the skillet into the sink and the plate into the microwave. He plugged the sink, turned on the faucet, squirted some dish soap and waited for the hot, soapy water to fill the sink before he turned off the faucet and picked up the sponge.

“Callie,” he said, wiping his plate and fork and the skillet.

“Yeah,” she said watching him.

“Don’t stop pushing. Okay?” He didn’t look up. His words weren’t full of emotion. He could have just as easily been talking about…well, anything, but he had matter-of-factly asked her to not give up on him, to not stop pushing him to move his career forward. To go for what he wanted. Her heart sang a loud, obnoxious song with a heavy beat.

The words had barely escaped his mouth before she was standing behind him, arms wrapped around him. She laid her head on his back, dropping the occasional kiss on the skin there. “I won’t,“ she whispered. “I promise.”

“I mean it. Stay on my ass. I know you know how to not let things go,” he lobbed over his shoulder.

“You got it. On your ass like white on rice, like flies on shit, like a cheap suit, like…” She blinked, then laughed.

“Uh huh. Trying to be funny,” he snickered. The sound echoed through his chest, to his back, against her ear. She loved that sound.

“Shut up. I was trying to demonstrate how supportive I’ll be.”

“Rude. You love me.”

“I do.”

He pulled the plug in the sink and rinsed the suds down the drain.

“Can I push you on something, now?”

“Oh, sure, I guess,” she said, releasing him and leaning against the counter. “What could you possibly need to push me on? I'm not ready to even start thinking about a new album.”

“Not that. You're just spending a lot of time out here. Don't you think it's time you got a place?” He dared a brief look at her before going back to wiping down the sink.

She shrugged. “I've been thinking about it.”

“Really?” he asked, glancing back at her, eyebrows raised.

“Well... yeah. I am spending a lot of time, here and thanks to you and Paula I don't have to stay in hotels but it would be nice to come here and go, like, home. Tired of dragging a bag between here and downtown.”

“Are you thinking of actually getting a real place, or doing the hotel thing?”

“I don't know,” she said. “Part of me wants to buy something. Part of me is scared of that because what if something happens and I don't need to be here so much?”

“Then you sell it. Or rent it out. Stop being scared. Do what you want.”

“Maybe,” she said, thinking deeply, chewing her lip. “Maybe.”

He dried his hands on a towel, sighing, then took her hands in his and brought them around him. She closed the circle and tightened her arms around his waist. His arms fell around her and he leaned forward, resting his forehead on hers. He closed his eyes.

“You were right, last night. And like, right now I'm telling you to not be scared and I'm... such a fucking hypocrite.”

“About...the album?” she asked.

He nodded, rolling his forehead on hers.

“Babe, can I ask you something?” She stared up at him, and waited. He nodded.

“What do you want? I mean, really. If you had a dream that could come true, right now, right fucking now, what would it be?”

He sighed and his shoulders sagged. He pulled away and leaned on the counter opposite her. He crossed his arms, a hand reaching up rub his chin.

“I would do my music. My way. The way I wrote it. The way I want it released, with no notes and no changes and no 'gosh, JC that's not very radio friendly, maybe you should'...” He stared into the distance, chewing his lip. Then, like he'd received a jolt of static electricity, his eyes shot back to hers.

“But I can't have it, because the deal I need, or want, doesn't exist, and the industry sucks so bad that no one wants to take that chance. I'm just stuck where I am, and lucky they want me to even write songs and produce. I'm lucky they even let me work with you, Callie. You were never in danger of being dropped. They love the shit out of you-- you make them money. They wanted something softer, something catchy and mainstream, something radio friendly to sell the album, and when I offered to help, they let me do that.”

Callie had long suspected that, but never said anything to him. There was no sense in insulting his talent, and he had orchestrated a rise that she hadn't been able to achieve on her own. The remainder of the album was classic Callie flavor, so if the singles that topped the charts were a little mainstream, she could stomach that.

“Eric had a meeting set up,” he said, suddenly, chewing his thumbnail. It was a nervous habit.“I canceled it.”

“A meeting for what?”

“With Virgin.”

Callie sucked in a breath. “You canceled it?” she asked.

He nodded, again and a deep crimson crawled up his neck and flushed his face to his hairline. “I can't... Callie I cannot hear 'no' again. I can't. I could go the rest of my life, the way I am, now. I seriously could. I save, I'm great with my money, I don't have to do anything. I don't have to go for this. I don't have to sit in another meeting and see the 'what the fuck' look cross their faces when I play my stuff, and defend myself and prove I know what I’m doing and I wasn’t just hiding behind Justin.”

She pushed herself off of the counter and wrapped her arms around him. “So, you're scared. And nervous. And there’s a chance it could go to shit. Okay. So. Good. That means that you're not cocky and full of yourself. I know you, JC. You will not rest until you take this to the end, until you try to make this happen. So...you're rescheduling, right? Push, push,” she said, patting his back.

He tried not to smile but it broke through. He bobbed his head from side to side and shrugged.

“In the great words of one Mister Joshua Chasez, better known as Producer Man, what are you scared of? You already have the worst of the worst, upstairs on the floor in your bedroom, still. You do not know what will happen, at that meeting. Reschedule. Please? For me?” She smiled up at him.

He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. “I guess,” he mumbled against them, “if you're telling me to, and you'll throw a fit if you don't get your way, that I have to, don't I?”

“Hmmmm....” she hummed, sliding her hands up his chest and around his neck. “I will have, like, a serious DIVA fit if you don't.”

“We can't have that,” he said, lifting her up onto the counter and stepping between her legs, stroking her long waist, up and down. He kissed her softly, which slowly gave way to a hard, passionate, moan filled exchange of wet tongues and hot breath and restless hands.

“Is anyone home?” Callie asked, breathless.

“Not right now.”

Elated, Callie nearly ripped the buttons off of her blouse to get it open. JC fell into her ample cleavage, licking little flames of fire around the edge of each cup and sucking lightly, then lifting his lips back to hers to kiss her more.

“You know what I want?” Callie asked, when she could get her lips free to take a breath.

“I have an idea. Tell me anyway,” he said, between flicks of his tongue down her neck.

“I want you to take me upstairs so we can have make-up sex.”

JC laughed, but tightened his arms around her and lifted her up off of the counter. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck and held on tight as he carried her up all three flights of stairs to his bedroom. He slowly knelt onto the bed and let her slide away from him, onto her back, and then removed his t-shirt. She wiggled out of her blouse and reached behind her to unclasp her bra, tossing them both to the floor. He unzipped his jeans and kicked out of them, then unzipped hers, pulling them and her panties off and dumping them onto the floor.

“I want this so bad,” he moaned, landing on top of her. She wrapped her legs around him as he took a nipple into his mouth, flicking it with his tongue. Callie found it hard to breath, what with the shockwaves coursing through her. She felt nimble, thick fingers between her legs, pressing, slowly rotating, her hips undulating to match the speed.

“J,” she gasped. “Now. Please!” He chuckled and opened the drawer next to the bed and dug out a small square package.

“Want to do the honors?”

###

Callie awoke slowly, aware of a quiet conversation being carried on behind her. The room was dark but she could see bright sun shining behind the heavy blackout curtains that JC often pulled so he could sleep during the day.

“Yeah, whenever they want, I'll clear my schedule,” she heard, his voice hushed. She felt a hand resting casually on her thigh, as if he just needed to touch her even though she was sleeping. She smiled to herself. Sometimes she found him so endearing. He found comfort in things like being able to touch her. Some part of his body was always touching her. Even at breakfast, while the tension in the air was thick, his feet were touching hers.

She lifted an arm, stretched and yawned. He poked her in her side and she grabbed his hand and kissed his palm. His conversation didn't miss a beat as she sat up, brushed his cheek with her lips and mouthed 'love you'. He simply raised and lowered an eyebrow and patted her on the backside as she crawled out of the bed.

“Meeting is back on.”

“Good,” she said, stepping into the bathroom. “Because I didn't want to have that damn fight one more time. You know I'm stubborn, I always win.”

“You don't always win. I let you win.”

“Whatever,” she said, returning to the bed, sitting cross legged on what had become 'her' side, and gathered the sheet around her. “So, now what?”

“Now, I have to get my ass in the studio and get something ready for them to hear. And hope for the best. And try not to freak out, or ruin this for myself.”

“What can I do? To help. Let me help.”

“Just keep pushing, honey. Keep pushing.”