I study the whiteboard chart. An X and Y schedule with each track labeled, the various tracks that go into the track, color coded, filled in as completed. Fourteen tracks. Instrument tracks completed for all, but only five tracks completely finished. He’s got nine vocal tracks left to go.

I search the studio with my gaze. “Where’s Alan?”

“Five minute lyric break,” Ian explains. He points to the ground, and I ease up to find Alan huddled on the studio floor, staring down at a yellow notepad.

“He writes lyrics in five minutes?”

Ian laughs and props his feet on the console, leaning slightly back in his chair. “You’ve never seen him work? He’s like Mozart. A fucking musical genius. Every track written in his head before he enters the studio.”

Ian rolls across the room and grabs a tape. “I don’t know who he worked with on the instrument tracks. The execs didn’t know he was working while on…sabbatical.” Ian grins and winks. “They just flew in last week. Every track. Every instrument. Him. No band.”

I smile and refrain from comment.

Ian studies me. “So, did your old man send you east to keep Manny on a leash until this is finished?” Ian shakes his head. “I don’t think me finding you in the middle of the night in Manny’s t-shirt is quite what your old man had in mind.”

Oh shit, I blush and try to stutter out a reasonable diversion.

Ian throws his head back, laughs, and plants his feet loudly on the floor. “Jeez girl! I’m just messing with you. Your secret is safe with me. Jack would kill Manny if he knew about this, especially since it’s obvious who Manny’s been working with. I recognized the mix day one, and there are quite a few riffs that are a giveaway.”

Ian is queuing up the tape. “Do you want to hear? It is unbelievable work.”

Ian grabs the cans and rolls away from the viewing glass. He pulls me down on his thigh, and I laugh, since three years ago this would have been a dream come true, but today it is nothing. Then I realize that the headset can only stretch so far, and he’s trying to keep Alan from seeing us.

“I’m not supposed to do this,” Ian says. “For some reason, no one hears this until it’s finished. Don’t tell him I did this. I don’t want to manage a pissed off Manny.”

Ian motions for Ryan to roll the tracks, and I’m consumed by the music practically from note one. I’ve never heard anything like it. It starts quietly, acoustic quiet, precise and haunting and then building waves, angry, sad, powerful, intensely quiet, and unlike anything I’ve ever heard in contemporary music. It’s definitely not music like anything Alan’s ever released. His raspy voice and gifted fingers flood my senses with waves of intensity, penetrating, a blending of darkness and light.

I look at the white board and I know which track it is. It is All I want and it is a five minute reveal of all that is Alan. I blush… it exemplifies what it feels like to go to bed with him, to be consumed by him, to exist inside of him. This is the music of his touch and his lovemaking and his pain and his regrets. Extremes and contradictions, every emotion unfurled, hauntingly him.

I pull off the cans, and for a moment I am breathless and can’t speak.

“The only music he didn’t record on these tracks are moments of background symphony.”

I shake my head, searching for words to describe it, realizing that the label is right. This will never sell to his fan base.

“It’s acoustic,” I say in disbelief, “and yet the sound is so powerful.”

“I don’t know how to describe it, either. It is brilliant and it will never be released. It is a masterpiece. It’s not commercial. The label will shelve it. They have to avoid another year of loss. Manny is the only one who doesn’t believe that.”

I fix my eyes on Ian. “I want to hear another track.”

Ian laughs. “You’ve got it bad, girl. I’ve seen that look before. But don’t worry. Being on the merry-go-round with Manny is the antitoxin.”

I feel my cheeks burn scarlet. Ian tells Ryan that it’s OK to queue up another track.

Alan’s five-minute lyric break stretches into forty-five minutes and four more tracks in my ears. Each track individually a complete event. It makes me think of us in bed. Each kiss. Each touch. A complete event. The tracks all connected, a different complete event. I want to hear it all, but there are only five tracks complete. In the music there is much about Alan to be learned, much I don’t think he will ever share with anyone any other way.

I don’t know what’s on my face as I listen, but when I pull the headset off, I realize that Ian has watched me, fascinated, through it all.

He takes the headset, tosses it on the console and holds me in a sloppy bear hug, giving me a little shake. “I shouldn’t have done that. You’re already under his spell, but after watching you listen to that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to steal you away from him.”

I roll my eyes. “As if you’d try.”

Ian laughs giving me a big sloppy wet one on my cheek. “Keep walking around dressed only in his t-shirt and I won’t be able to stop myself.”

I relax back against him as we laugh, and it is funny how we’ve slipped into this comfortable friendship-like flirtation, when there had once been a time when I’d have given anything for Ian to notice me.

I am breathless and smiling. “How long do you think he’ll work tonight?”

“I don’t know. Five minutes. Five hours. Five days. You know the drill, Chrissie. You can never tell what it’s going to be until it’s over.”

I do know the drill. Sometimes Jack would go into the studio and I wouldn’t see him for days. I debate with myself whether to go back to bed, but I’m wide awake now and sleep just isn’t going to happen.

I move from Ian’s lap and settle on the couch. Alan is still absorbed in his five-minute lyric break, and Ian grabs a bottle, settling on the couch beside me. We are slouched into each other, taking alternate drinks from the bottle, reminiscing about the old days and all the California shit.

Laughing, I cover my face, curling into Ian because some of his memories embarrass me. So, he did notice my awkward crush on him.

I peek from behind fingers covering my reddened face. “You are a jerk to let me know you remember any of that,” I exclaim.

I part my fingers and find Ian smiling at me.

“Oh, Chrissie. It was flattering. You were like my own little groupie. So cute and shy.”

I’m giving him little nudges with my leg when the studio door flies open. Ian Kennedy is suddenly shoved up against the wall.

“You don’t look at her,” Alan growls. “You don’t talk to her. You don’t touch her. Or I will put you through this fucking wall so that you’ll remember.”

I jump from the couch, but Ryan has already flown across the room.

Ian is struggling and trying to push Alan away, but Alan is an unrelenting force.

“Shit, Manny, get your hands off me!” Ian shouts, panting and furious. “Chrissie and I are old friends. Get the fuck off of me.”

Ryan pulls them apart, and Ian slides down the wall to the floor.

“What is wrong with you, Alan? We were just talking,” I whisper, stunned.

Alan doesn’t look at me, and his anger is very extreme. It was like it was at CBGBs, out of nowhere, illogical.

“Take it easy. We’re all on edge, and nothing happened, so let it go, Manny.” Ryan says intensely. There is a uniquely soothing quality to Ryan’s voice.

I can see the tension shuddering through Alan’s flesh. He looks at me. “Fuck, Chrissie! First Jimmy Stallworth, then Vince Carroll and now Ian Kennedy. It’s like you’re a magnet for fuck-you-over guys.”

I flush scarlet. That was insulting, and worse, it has a hurtful ring of truth because it could be said about me being with him, the recovering heroin addict, train wreck, blasting extreme emotions without warning.