“So what are you going to do, break his arm like you did Vince Carroll for not getting me out of CBGB’s quietly?” I snap, smarting and indignant.

“I broke Vince Carroll’s arm for drugging you,” Alan growls at my departing back, clipping each word harshly.

My hand freezes on the knob. Oh shit, and suddenly everything about that night makes sense. I sink away from him onto the couch, feeling small and stupid and struggling not to cry.

The studio is nerve-rackingly tense. I can’t even look at him now. “Still, you shouldn’t have broken his arm,” I whisper. “He’s a drummer, Alan.”

I’m held in the raging burn of his gaze. I look at him and the tears rise behind my lids. On top of all the other things I’m feeling, I’m scared because I have never done a hard drug in my life, am terrified that I’d become an addict like my brother.

“What did he drug me with?” I ask on a trembling voice.

Alan drops to sit on his knees in front of my curled legs. “Just ludes. I’m pretty sure it was just ludes by the way you were acting.” I nod, and he starts to brush the hairs from my face. “It was only ludes, baby. If I thought it was something worse, I would have broken his other arm the next day.”

A soggy laugh bursts out of me after Alan’s weird reassurance.

I blink at him rapidly. “Can we pretend I never came to the studio?”

Alan kisses my cheek. “No. Besides, I was about to go get you. I need you here.”

I roll my eyes. “Me? I seriously doubt that.”

“I want you to record a song with me.”

It feels like someone has just punched the air out of my lungs, and it is absolutely impossible to assimilate this turn.

“Alan, I don’t sing. I’m a cellist.”

“Wrong. You have that backwards. You are a singer, not a cellist.”

I frown at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

He meets my eyes directly. There is something in those penetrating black orbs that makes me tense.

“You were never going to get into Juilliard. You are a competent cellist, technically proficient, but when you play it’s like a beautiful meal with no taste. You hide behind the cello and put nothing of yourself in the music. I don’t even get a sense that you enjoy it. As a cellist, you will never be more than third chair in a third rate orchestra.”

My entire face burns from the humiliation of truth. I know he speaks the truth, and it is something I’ve always known, that no one would say to me. But it really does hurt the first time you have it confirmed by someone else.

“You told me I was flawless. Perfect.”

“Technically flawless. No taste.”

My brain and my emotions are not working cooperatively. “So why did you lie to me? Were you trying to hit on me?” I fling.

“Yes, I lied because I was hitting on you. But spending time with you made it something I just couldn’t do. Not that night. Not that way.”

I am caught completely off guard because I’ve forgotten Alan’s warning that he doesn’t do bullshit and to be careful what direction I go.

This conversation has deteriorated in ways I never imagined possible. I am breathing heavily, hurt, acutely aware that Alan let loose some really ugly truth in a room where we are not alone and he expects me stay to record with him.

“God, you’re an asshole.” I can’t hide the pain from my voice.

“Why? Because I prefer to be honest with you?”

My wounded eyes fix on him. “It’s not about honesty, Alan. Its meanness. You can be so mean sometimes.”

“I confirmed that you are not a cellist. That should be a relief to you. I asked you to record a song with me. That should be a compliment. I told you that I wanted to fuck you. That should be obvious by now.”

“Conceited and an asshole.” I rise. “I don’t sing.”

“Bullshit. You were willing to sing for Vince Carroll.”

I stare at him, shocked.

He leans against the closed studio door, crossing his arms, blocking my exit. “I changed my mind about how I wanted to complete this, the moment I heard you sing. I knew when I heard you. I knew what I wanted. Why are you being so stubborn about this?”

“Because I don’t want to record a song with you,” I counter in growing frustration.

He runs a hand through his hair. “You asked what you could do for me, Chrissie. Do this.”

It feels like the earth has fallen away again. Oh that was unfair, Alan. That was unfair. His quiet, raspy plea makes all the junk inside me stir up again.

Aggravated, I run my hand through my hair. “You are such an asshole.”

“I need you to do this,” he orders.

“You don’t need me for anything,” I say, feeling my resolve weaken.

He grabs my chin and kisses me roughly. Against my mouth, he breathes, “You are everything I need for everything I do.”

More theatrics. I let out a shuddering breath. “I’m not a singer.”

Alan touches my cheek with his callused thumb. “You are not an artist when you play the cello, but, baby, you are an artist when you sing. Perfect pitch. Beautiful tone. Believable. You don’t playact when you sing. You are magnificent.”

I brush at my face and realize I am crying. That was why Alan brushed me gently with his thumb, touching the tears I didn’t even feel because I am completely emotionally drained.

“Fine,” I agree, not all graciously.

Getting his way has made Alan shift in the blink of an eye, now energized and focused as if none of the prior thirty minutes happened. He’s talking with Ian like their thing was normal. He’s holding me against his chest like our thing was normal. And he’s about to record a song with me as if that is normal.

“Hit track seven, Ian.”

Alan is pulling me into the studio and he is all work again. I can feel Ian staring at me through the glass. Watching. The lyric sheet is forced into my hand. And then there is music in the studio. The melody is so beautiful. It’s a ballad.

I scan the lyric sheet. His words are so moving and yet nakedly revealing. I feel a sick suspicion that this incredible ballad is about us. Allusions to the beach and other things. How the heck does he expect me to record with him a song about us? And jeez, why did he title it Long and Hard. It’s a beautiful ballad and he gave it the title of a porn movie.

Alan sinks on the floor in the middle of the room, guitar in hand, and he is looking at me, but I don’t look at him. He is waiting for the music to end.

“Come, sit. Watch my hands while I play. Just sing it, Chrissie. Don’t worry about being perfect. Don’t worry about even hitting the right notes. We’ll just sing through it until you’re comfortable.”

The first-run through is halting, off-key and just plain awful. I glance around. How long have we been here? Ian and Ryan are still at the console and the expression on Ian’s face says it all.

Alan reaches for a CF Martin acoustic guitar and lays it in my lap. “Again. This time you play, Chrissie.”

I stare at the instrument and I don’t pick it up. How does Alan know I play?

Those penetrating black eyes are watching me, amused. “Six instruments by the age of nine. Flute, guitar, piano, cello, violin, piccolo. It wasn’t bullshit, Chrissie. You are all that Jack talks about.”

I let out a shuddering breath and can’t stop myself from thinking: if that’s true, Alan, then why doesn’t he talk to me? Why does he ignore me? Do you have that nifty answer conveniently located in your head?

“Don’t roll the track again,” Alan shouts into the intercom. “We’re just going to play until Chrissie is comfortable.”

I feel on the verge of tears. “I don’t want to do this, Alan.”

“Play!”

I do as I am told and, for some reason, now that we are playing together, this is effortless. Like when we laugh or when we argue or when we have sex. We gel without trying. Whatever we do together is easy, and it feels right and I feel completely absorbed into him.