An hour later, we were climbing into the SUV he rented, jet-black with tinted windows, and took off, speeding around I-285.

“Does he know you’re here?”

“I didn’t tell him, but he probably knows I came out here. He stuck his nose right in the middle of everything with you and me. I couldn’t get him off the phone—he just kept saying, ‘give her a few days, she’s hurt you know, but she still loves you, man. Don’t let her get away, dude’.”

JC chuckled while expertly weaving through traffic. Though he wore his trademark worn Fedora and aviator shades, he still squinted into the late afternoon sun as it beat down on us through the windshield.

I slouched into the leather seat and leaned my head against the headrest, idly watching traffic go by, trying to quell my nervous stomach and rapidly beating heart.

He was going to let me hear something, something new that he had written and recorded. A few recordings, if I could talk him into it. That was my request, and after a few minutes of pressure and cajoling and a promise to bake him something, he relented and told me to hurry up and get ready before he changed his mind. He had a disc but not his Notebook and it wouldn’t play on my PC, so we headed to the only place he knew of with the technology to play the contents—Dallas’ studio.

I’d never heard anything new, nothing past a few hums and mindless bars when he wasn’t thinking. JC never explained his shyness for letting me hear his new music—I would think he’d be excited to let me hear some but he always waived me off. “You’ll hear it when everyone else hears it. Secret,” he’d say whenever I asked. 

Now though, we were just a few minutes away from the round white structure looming in the distance, where I was going to finally hear what he’d been working on, for so long. I had no idea what to even expect.

More eclectic than Schizophrenic? More tales of drama like Until Yesterday?  More Heart wrenching ballads like You Ruined Me? I was shaking with anticipation.  

JC stopped at the closed entrance, had a brief conversation with the squawking box, and then drove through the gate when it opened. He pulled into the long drive and my eyebrow rose as he parked next to a shiny, black, late model Bentley.

“How did you know he was home?”

JC removed his sunglasses and hooked them into the collar of his shirt. “He told me he would be. I think he was hinting that he’d be here in case I decided to come out.”   He popped the latch on his door and glanced over at me. “You’d be mad if I said I forgot the CD, huh?”

“Infuriated,” I said, my head whipping around. “You didn’t did you?”

“No,” he said, laughing, then stepped out of the SUV. “Gotcha.”

“Fucker,” I mumbled to myself, opened the door and slid out of the smooth seats. He waited for me before walking toward the door, dropping an arm over my shoulder.

“You’re all tense. Shoulders all hunched up.” He bumped me with his hip as he guided us down the longish path to a massive door that was slowly sliding open.

“I’m just excited. And scared you’ll change your mind because I’m so excited.”

“I won’t change my mind, honey. Just remember they aren’t perfected, or anything.”

“I know, I know. But even imperfect new music will sound good.”

“You’re good at sucking up,” he said, laughing, walking through the open door and calling out into the general atmosphere, “Yo!”

The roundness of Dallas’ home was always a little disconcerting at first. There weren’t really corners, just curves and long bending hallways. It felt a little like a circular maze, or one of those games where you drop the marble in and roll the box around, working the marble into the nooks and crannies until it rolled through the puzzle and out the other side. I had to say that being a marble wasn’t the best feeling in the world and I kind of couldn’t wait to get to the studio. At least it was square.

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew you came out.” A wide grin and a large hand with long fingers greeted JC as we stepped into the studio. A handshake turned into a hug and a series of backslaps and gut level laughter and manly chatter. I stood behind JC as they grunted and congratulated each other on working together to get me back—like I wasn’t coming back.

Dallas finally realized I was there, too and a loud “Serena, baby!” filled the room. Before I could blink I was swept into a hug, drowning in the scent of marijuana and some brand of alcohol I probably couldn’t even pronounce. I coughed and he pulled back, gripping me by the shoulders, grinning wide.

“So this is good, right? Ya’ll are together because everything is good? I mean, no one called me with an update or anything…” Dallas glanced at JC, his fingers still digging into my shoulders. “I mean, can I be happy, or what?”

“You can—“ I grabbed Dallas’ hands and held them in mine and put on my nicest smile. He was sweet to be excited, but he was used to manhandling people and he was hurting me. “You can be happy, Dallas,” I continued. “You can be very happy. JC showed up last night and we have been talking ever since.”

“You been doing more than talking, I hope,” he said, winking.

I smiled and winked back. “You said it yourself-- JC does not start things he can’t finish. And I… am not going to say anymore!” 

Dallas and JC both burst into laughter while I blushed and marched to a long, red couch that lined one wall.

“Aww, she’s shy, “ Dallas taunted.

“No, she isn’t,” JC responded, still laughing. “But we should probably… you know… get to it.”

“Yeah, get to it,” I said, tucking my feet up under me and getting comfortable. “Play me some stuff.”

“Well okay, sweet thing. But I don’t know why you’re over there.” JC gestured at me with a finger, then pointed to one of the rolling chairs parked under the mixing board. “Get your ass up. Get over here.”

I hopped right up, my heart pounding out of my chest. He wanted me to sit at the board with him! Not hide on the couch or in the corner, out of sight and out of mind, but at the board. Front and center. I slipped into the seat and clasped my hands, trying not to touch anything.

JC chuckled. “You’re not gonna break it, you can touch it. Just don’t go crazy. You wanna see what the buttons do?”

I nodded and was instantly launched into Sound Engineering 101, with JC on one side, and Dallas adding commentary. They played a sample song and let me listen to how it was affected by a mere turn of a knob, a push of a lever, a touch of a button. I was into it, amazed at how the sound changed.

“So what do you want to hear?” He reached into a pocket inside his jacket and pulled out a small disc, then removed the jacket and tossed it toward my purse on the couch. “I got a lot of stuff on here. You wanna hear something upbeat, something slow, something general? What?”

“Uhm…” My mind was scrambled and I couldn’t think! “I don’t know… can you put it on shuffle?”

JC and Dallas both laughed, which made me blush again. “Okay, don’t put it on shuffle. I don’t know, pick one.”

“I’ll see what we have, just randomly.”

He inserted the CD into a machine and a program on the large monitor started up and opened up a menu. He scrolled the list—a long list—stopped at one and clicked it twice. From the speakers mounted up on the wall on either side of the console and behind us each corner of the room, the sound of drumsticks clacking together filled the air. One, two, three, four clacks and then a piano, guitar, and drums struck up an upbeat tune full of rock flavor. It seemed a little angry, the drums beating hard over the rest of the sounds.

JC’s head instinctively bobbed to the beat as he adjusted the levels—and now the drums weren’t drowning out everything else.

“So this is mixing?” I asked, leaning close to him so he could hear over the music.

“Sort of,” he answered with a nod.

“Is this old?”

“Very,” he said. “At least three or four years old. I keep saying I’m gonna use it and…” He shrugged and went back to the menu, clicked on the song and it stopped. The sudden silence was jarring.

“So, I don’t want to be pushy…”

“Sure you do, honey.” He laughed and scrolled the list. “But what?”

“But… what are the songs you might be performing on your tour? Testing out, for the label?”

“Oh you want to hear that stuff.”

“If you want to play it, yeah.”

“Alright, uhm. I’ll play you something new-ish, then.” He squinted at the screen, scrolling the list, mindlessly chewing on his lip, then shoving a thumb into the corner of his mouth.

“C, why don’t you play her the one you—“

JC’s head whipped around and he gave Dallas a look I hadn’t ever seen before. “I’m gonna—“ He pointed at the screen and went back to his list. “She just wants to hear some new stuff. I’m… that one’s not ready.”

“It’s fine,” Dallas argued. “You just think it’s not ready.”

“I’m not ready for that one, man.”

“What one?” I asked.

“Nothing, sweetie,” he answered, his voice light and sweet and sing song, but his eyes shooting daggers at Dallas.

“You don’t want me to hear it?”

“It’s not that I don’t want you to hear it. It’s just…nothin’.” He went back to his list and the long scroll of songs continued, speeding by so fast I don’t know how he read any of the titles.

“You think I won’t like it?”

“Mmm…” He bobbed his head from side to side, contemplating.”You’ll probably like it. I just was going to surprise you with it but someone over there,” he said, tipping his head in Dallas’ direction, “ruined it.”

We both slowly rolled our heads over to the left. Dallas; mouth formed a small ‘o’, and he silently got up from his chair and walked out of the room.

JC puffed up his cheeks with air and slowly blew it out. “So…”

“So…”

He looked over at me, eyes wide, framed by those lush lashes. “So, you want to hear it?”

If I wasn’t mistaken, he wanted me to say yes. So I did. “I would love to hear it, if you want to play it. I don’t want to ruin anything, though.”

“Well, it’s all out in the open, now. But uhm. I’m gonna let you listen to this by yourself. I gotta go find Dallas and make sure he’s not mad or anything.”  He reached for a set of headphones hanging on a rack next to the board and handed them to me. “Put these on.”

I slipped the heavy set of headphones onto my head and let JC adjust them so they were snug before he plugged the cord into a hidden hole under the board. A light, low hum sounded through them as JC scrolled the list again, all the way to the bottom.

“Gonna be kind of loud,” he said.”Adjust the volume here.” He pointed at a knob and clicked on the song, gave me the thumbs up signal and walked out.

A few seconds of silence was followed by the sound of a bass guitar, playing the same chords over and over, laying a foundation. Then a lighter guitar joined in, followed by drums, adding a beat that was not fast, but wasn’t slow either. JC’s voice, sultry and haunting came in after a few measures. The rhythm of the words wasn’t smooth, more halting and offbeat but not uncomfortably so. I was more into his voice and how passionate he already sounded, in just the first few seconds.

I wished I knew how to rewind and replay, because I was having trouble catching the words—and because I wanted to hear them, hear him sing them over and over. That old familiar feeling of hearing a JC song for the first time washed over me, again and again. I closed my eyes, lost in the sound, sinking lower, never wanting to come back to the surface. Every ounce of anticipation I had about hearing new music was borne out in those few short minutes.

I listened hard, trying to catch a lyric and try to get the gist of the song. From the chorus, I caught that it was called Last Night.

Last night I didn’t love you

Last night my world was changed

Last night I didn’t know what holding you would mean to me

After last night I’m not the same.

It was beautiful, I thought, from the lyrics to the arrangements to how he sang it, from how he almost whispered the verses with so much heartfelt meaning to nearly belting the chorus with explosive emotion. As the song faded into silence and I took the head phones off, I toyed with the coiled cord and enjoyed the remnants of the song floating around in my memory.

“You decent in here?”

I turned to find JC in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb, the light from the hallway shining behind him and creating a halo-like effect.

I smiled back at him. “Yeah, I’m great. It finished.”

“And?” He inched into the room but hung near the door.

“You wrote that the weekend we met, didn’t you?”

JC laughed loud and long, bent over at the waist, he was laughing so hard. “Wow,” he said, walking across the room, to the table, and landing heavily in the chair next to me.

Shit. What if it was an old song that was just eerily appropriate and I was just being narcissistic?  I cringed at the thought, then started to get mad that he’d let me think it was about us. “Wow, what?”

He laughed some more and shook his head but wouldn’t look at me. Instead, he fiddled with buttons and levers. “I’m just… transparent is all. I wrote that the morning after we… you know. When I said I was doing some stuff in the studio, that day? That’s what I was doing.”

A beat of silence followed and then he cleared his throat and asked, “So, you like it?”

I grabbed his arm and pulled it away from the hundreds of buttons, wrapped it around my waist and leaned into him, laying an arm across his shoulder and planting a kiss on his lips. “I love it. It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah?” He still played with buttons with his free hand. He seemed nervous. “You think it’s good?”

I nodded. “I think so.”

He nodded and chewed on his bottom lip for a second. “Like, maybe first single release, good?”

I laughed. “It’s good, baby. Whether you release it first or last, it’s good.”  I kissed him again and when I pulled back he was smiling and the slightest hint of pink colored his cheeks.

“I like that you like it,” he said, so softly he may as well have been whispering.”Been working on it for awhile.”

“It shows. It’s good. It really is. I wouldn’t say so, if it wasn’t.”

“So, I mean…” He glanced at the board and then back at me. “You know, all that stuff we talked about today. You know, now, that I’m serious about you, right?”

“Yes.” I had already talked so much that day—into corners and in circles—I didn’t need to say much more than that. “Yes, I do know that.”

“Good,” he said with a nod. He punched at a button and it spit the disc out. “Uhm… there’s not really much else on this thing I want you to hear. Most of it is kind of old. But when you come out, in a couple weeks I will play you some newer stuff. I promise. Okay?”

I nodded, not really caring. I had heard a few older songs I’d never heard before and a new song that pretty much changed my life in three minutes.

“You want to do anything since we’re out? Or you wanna go home so you can bake me something?”  I laughed at his wide, cheesy grin. It was obvious which choice he wanted me to make.

“I was thinking we could go home and—“

“We can do that, too. Let’s go.”

JC was already standing, his arms out in a stretch. “Dallas left. He had a club gig.”

I stood too, picking up my purse and JC’s jacket, looping both over my arm. “Aw. He wasn’t mad, was he?”

“Nah.” JC turned knobs and pressed buttons and the board began to shut down. Monitors popped off and lights dimmed. “He felt bad for ruining my surprise, though.”

“I didn’t help. Sorry about that.”

“Was meant to be, I guess. It was a good day for you to hear it.”

He let me walk out of the studio first and flipped the light switch behind him. I got lost in Dallas’ house, every time, so I waited for JC to lead the way back to the front door and out to the car. In the dark, a hand found mine as we picked our way back along the path. The Bentley was gone and the SUV sat alone in the wide driveway.

JC walked me around to my side and opened the door, helped me inside and walked around to his door and slid in next to me. The late model vehicle purred to life and he backed out of the drive and headed the way we came. 

“JC…”

“Yeah, honey.”

I reached across the center console and laid a hand on this thigh. He covered my hand with his, the callous rubbing the skin there in small, soothing circles. He could put me to sleep, with that. After a few minutes he moved our hands further up his thigh. I laughed and moved them back.

“Not while you’re driving. Later.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. Be good.”

“Okay. So, what? You said my name and then wanted to play grabass…”

“I did not, you moved--- anyway. I was gonna say…that night… I think about it a lot. About how I started changing in just a couple of hours. I honestly started thinking about going to therapy the very next day.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t explain why—well I could, but at the time it was stupid to think anything would happen between us. But yeah.”

“See, that’s what I love about you, honey.” I could his grin even in the darkness of the car as we traveled the access road back to my neighborhood.

“Anybody else would probably take everything you went through and like, use it as an excuse to not succeed, to lag behind everyone else. You know, every time you push them, they’re like ‘well I was adopted and my mom was an addict and I don’t know my dad’, and whatever else. Not you,” he said, pointing our joined hands at me before returning them to his lap. “You took everything you didn’t like and turned it around and made it work for you. You were doing that, long before I knew you.”

“I needed that therapy, though. Everyone told me I needed it, but I wasn’t going to go until you told me I should.”

“Well, sure,” he said, nodding. “That’s a lot to go through without help to figure it all out. But what you didn’t do was lie down and play the victim. So, maybe I do know a lot of hot actress chicks, but…” he shook his head, watching traffic, glancing at me every so often. “They got nothin’ on you. I love you because you’re a fighter. A mover and a shaker. You make things happen. You don’t think you are, but you’re a really strong person, Serena. I admire that about you. A lot.”

My heart fell into my stomach and I swallowed hard to keep from tearing up again. I was embarrassed at how much it meant to me to hear that. I should have been telling myself that all along but it just felt different, it meant something different when he thought to tell me so.

“Thank you. I like hearing that. Thank you for saying it.”

“I should have said it before,” he said, staring into the night, his face only lit up by the headlights of passing cars and the dim glow of the instrument panel. “I should have been saying it this whole time.”

“It’s okay.” I squeezed his thigh. “It’s nice to hear, no matter when you say it.”

What else was nice to hear was the comfortable silence, the muffled sound of the road underneath the tires, the low humming from the driver’s seat of the song I now recognized as Last Night.

He’d been singing it for months.