You'd probably never know it, but JC was drunk.

Not weaving and bobbing and out of his mind, crying or otherwise out of control, but to look into his eyes and listen to him talk-ramble, rather-I could tell that he was gone. I wanted to be gone, too, and tossed back enough shots to make that happen. At 2 am, though, I was coherent enough to realize that though I was drunk, I wasn't getting away from anything. And neither was JC.

The entire day was rolling around in my mind, like a film reel on nonstop loop. The highlight of that reel was the moment that could have ended so much worse than it did. I'd been trying to let it go and get over it and just be thankful we made it out, okay. We weren't in an accident and didn't get mixed up in that pile of steaming, twisted metal. We drove past it and moved on with our lives. The hypothetical scenario ran endlessly, continuously, repeatedly through my head-what if, what if, what if. What if the last thing I'd said to him, this man I loved more than anything, whose mere presence on the planet changed my life, was ‘I don't fucking care, just get off my ass'?  

I shuddered at the thought and tried, once again, to forget it, to lift my goblet of pink fizzy something or other back to my lips and let another swallow slide down my throat and dull the ache and quiet the voices. The demons still circled, for entirely different reasons, now.

JC had other issues roaming his subconscious and as I was winding down, he was just starting up. Seated in blue, oddly formed stools in front of a spectacular view of Times Square and Broadway, we talked into the wee hours of the night. He rambled about the things a man in his station in life would ramble about-getting older, the passage of time allowing him to see things and people change before his eyes, some for better, some for worse.  Then about family-missing his mom and dad a lot, feeling like he should see them more, especially as they grew older, conflicted about living so far away from them but needing to be near studios and artists and the recording industry Mecca. Then finally drilling down to his career and his personal life-the highs and the lows, the regrets and the pride, the amazing opportunities and unbearable disappointments. 

 "And I don't think I want to go on this tour..."

I was sleepy, drunk, tired. But not deaf. I knew I wasn't hearing things, but couldn't believe my ears. JC was on some stream of consciousness flow and jumping from subject to subject and had already moved on. He was sneaky, tossing that in there, thinking I'd miss it.

"Wait, whoa, stop. Wait," I said, flapping my hands in his face to stop him from talking. "Rewind. Go back to that... tour, thing. What'd you say?"

"Oh. That."

He waved me off with a slow flick of his hand and gulped at something clear and potent. His eyes were droopy and half open, the bags under them standing out against his pale skin. He blinked slowly, his lids staying closed for more than a few seconds, his teeth gnawing at the inside of his bottom lip. When he opened them again, his eyes traveled the room, spent a few moments on the ‘Great White Way', the strip of lights, down Times Square, and finally settling on me, sitting next to him, confused and worried and not really thinking all that clearly.

"You don't want to go on the tour, now? I thought you were excited about it? About playing new stuff for new fans?"

"I mean... I am. It's the pressure. It's thinking this is make or break, for me. It's thinking it'll be this big, last chance for exposure and practically having my legs cut out from under me."

"I don't..." I shook my head, trying to clear it. Did I not understand something? "Explain. What do you mean having your legs cut out from under you?"

"They want me to sing to tracks," he blurted out, his words slurring a little. "To tape. Or disc."

That didn't make sense...why, then, was he in rehearsals with a band?

His voice rising in tempo and tone and hands flying, JC ranted on. "You know, when I talked with Randy about this, it was gonna be cool. A real concert setting. My own band, my own music, my chance to be out there. He was giving me this chance." His eyes closed and his shoulders sagged as he leaned forward, his elbows balanced on the counter in front of us. The enormous window showed off a view of New York socialites and businessmen rubbing elbows and networking. Drink in one hand, business card in the other.

"I never wanted to be those guys," he said, nodding toward the exchanges taking place before us. "I never wanted to be the guy that gets up and puts on a designer suit and expensive shoes and a leather satchel and drags ass to the subway and slaves under some Overlord who tells him what to do and how to do it and when to take a fucking piss."  

There was so much venom in his words, his tone, his body language, I was shocked. I'd never even heard him say that, in that way, before. "I never wanted to be that. I feel like I am that. I hate that feeling."

"Who's the Overlord?"

He  sighed. "Tour dates aren't selling. Sponsors are pulling money left and right. Shows are being moved to smaller venues, so configurations are affected. Randy's saying there's no room for a band, now. Word comes to him from above. So, MTV. Viacom, I guess."  

His eyes were glassy. Mine were about to match. Suddenly, the opportunity of a lifetime was turning into what could end up as six weeks of hell.

"I pulled people off of projects, paying projects to do this for me. With me. We've been working on songs for months. So now instead of playing the songs live, I have to switch gears and record music and backing vocals... and hope these guys find work again. I feel shitty about that."

"Oh, honey. But... it's not like you could help it. You're not doing this on purpose."

He shrugged, but didn't argue. "And...and well, I figured it was taking so long for you to get a job out there that you'd still be looking, in January. I thought, you know, if you hadn't found a job yet... you could wait and come out with me for a couple of weeks, just to kick it off."

Fuck!  I wished he'd told me that! Before I got so excited about getting a new job and not having to mooch off of him for very long, and feeling more stable about moving to LA and rambled on and on while he just sat there and listened. He must have been so disappointed, listening to me talk. And he must have never intended to tell me that.  

JC pouted and drained his glass, setting it back on the counter with a hard thunk, settling against the high back of the plastic chair. "Would have made it better. Bearable. Who knew I was dating a fucking rock star in the marketing world?"  A thin smile flashed across his face and he bobbed his head in my direction. Just as quickly, his smile disappeared and he drew a deep breath, his lips a straight line across his face. "So, now I have to go alone. I don't want to."

"Do you have any options?"

He snorted. "Yeah, I have options. Two of them. I can do what they want, how they want me to, or I have till mid-December to let them know that I don't want to be on the tour anymore." A slow nod. A deep breath.  I knew it was coming, but it still sort of killed me when he said, "I'm close to choosing option two."

My heart sank, at those words. That near final declaration. "Okay, you're crushed, totally, and I see that. But, I mean, there's a greater good, here. There's a reason you're supposed to go on this tour. Sony wants to see you in action. What will you do about the label?"

JC seemed to drift off to somewhere in space. The heavy bottom of his empty glass rolled and thumped against the bar counter in a distinct rhythm. The crowd around us was loud and boisterous -neighborhood regulars and out of towners mixing and mingling, oblivious to the massive change that was taking place mere feet away.

"I'll just go out on my own."  

The chair under me was sliding, suddenly. Or maybe it was me that was sliding off of the chair. Either way, I gripped the table to stop the slow movement toward the floor and stared at him.

"Go out on your own? Just like that?"

"I'd leave a little later than I planned, but...yeah, just like that. I know people here and there." He named off cities on his fingers, one by one. "LA. New York. Orlando. Denver. Atlanta. New Orleans... I could set something up, with a little help. I've done it before, I can do it again. Just get in the car and go. A little show, some radio station visits. And I'd do it my way."

"Well the fans... uhm....." I struggled to keep myself upright in the chair, finally just leaning forward onto the counter. "The fans would love that. That would be really cool. All they...we... really want is to see you and hear you sing the songs you wrote."

"Then I'll give them that. I'll do free shows, if I have to. For people that want to hear me, not random people who couldn't give a shit, held hostage by a billion dollar corporation trying to save a buck." He nodded, his attention somewhere off in the distance. "Just me and a guitar, if that's how it has to be."  

"So... how, exactly, would you do that?"

Conviction and passion seemed to rise up in him, the more he talked and laid out his plan. He glanced at me every few minutes, to make sure I was listening, and the fire in his eyes-a fire that had been missing for awhile-- was nice to see. Whether he could pull this off was questionable, but hell if I was going to kill that dream. His excitement was palpable. And contagious. And sexy.

"Are you alright, over there?" He was grinning, this cute slapass half grin on his face, his eyes droopy and limbs clearly very loose. Even so, he reached behind me and curled a hand around my waist to steady me. "The chair is all flipped up, back here, silly girl. Got your ass in the air."

He laughed, pulling me back in the seat. The rear legs touched ground again and suddenly I was sitting straight up and not sliding anymore. I blushed and leaned into him, laid my head on his shoulder and tipped my head up to brush my lips across his chin. He practically purred in my ear, his arm squeezing tighter around me.

"Time to go, before you fall on your ass, and neither of us can remember where the hotel is."

"It's... down the street," I mumbled. I felt myself sliding again, this time tucked under an arm and against a broad chest.

"Well, good. Neither of us is very fucked up, then."

"Speak for yourself, mister. I was just hanging off of a chair. I'm pretty fucked up."

"Well then... mission accomplished."

The air at 3 am was bitter cold as it whipped past the front door of Novotel, the hotel that housed the Sky bar, and where we'd spent our evening. Our hotel, the Blakely, was only a few blocks away but it felt like the city blocks were miles long. I fell into step next to JC, snuggled up against him but so cold I was shaking.

"We gotta get you back before you turn into a popsicle."

My teeth chattered as I nodded. "F-F-F-Fucking f-f-f-freezing, out here!"

"Just think of it as your last cold winter. Once you hit LA, it'll be like, 800 degrees on Christmas."

"God, I'm so looking forward to that. Except I won't be in LA on Christmas. Did I tell you what my mom said?"

"Just that they were excited to see you."

"I can't believe her. She said Regina should come to Vail for the New Year and spend it with us. Can you believe that?"

"What's wrong with that? You're not ashamed of her or anything... right?"

"No, of course not. But I'm not ready to combine my... families yet."

"Right. Yeah. I guess that would be awkward. Why does she want that?"

"Well... things with my parents are a little tense because I told them I would be in Denver for the New Year, where I would usually stay through New Year in Vail.  And I get that they miss me, since I left, and they were looking forward to seeing me, but Charles asked me to come out. And I can't go to Denver without seeing my-seeing Regina." Caught myself. I almost said my mom! "I hoped they would understand, but they don't, really. I feel kind of torn."

"Well, do you blame them?"

"Thank you, for your support," I snapped, before I realized it was coming. Damn that fizzy pink shit!

He was unphased by my angry tone, and pressed on in a soothing voice. "Serena, honey, I'm just saying, protect their feelings. You know?" He jostled my shoulder a little, bending down to brush warm lips across my temple. God, how was he so warm? I was freezing!

"They'll say whatever they have to say to convince you they're fine, because they won't want to burden you with their feelings. They won't say it, but they're probably jealous. They rescued you from what could have been a nightmare childhood. They're pretty proud of that. Then Regina makes a grand re-entry, because she's turning her life around and tries to win you over. And then she tops it off by giving you something they could never give you-your dad."

"You're right. I know. I just don't want to be in the middle. I liked it better when everyone was happy. Now I feel like the rope in a tug-of-war.  It fucking sucks."

"I know. You know I know."

We walked the last half block in silence, quiet steps up the sidewalk and to the front door, and then, blissfully, inside the warm lobby. I heaved a sigh of relief and the front desk clerk smiled as we passed her on the way to the elevator. In seconds we were slowly gliding upward.

JC perked suddenly, grabbed me by the waist and pulled me up against him. "So. Are we excited about tomorrow?"

"Oh, God," I said, my eyes closing, groaning loudly. That's right. An entire day of shit. Even worse, I couldn't complain. This day was going to prove my love for him. "I forgot all about that."

"Didn't you just tell me you were having fun? The most fun you ever had on a road trip? Have some faith." He winked and pulled me forward, tighter against him and leaned down to kiss me, his lips dancing over mine, feather soft. I almost didn't hear the ding of the elevator announcing our arrival at our floor.  "Let's go, sweet girl. Get some rest. You'll need your energy for tomorrow."