Circles Collide

Chapter 19: Keeping in Time

Santa Clarita, California

August 29, 1997

Jake and Laura Kingsley were back in the rhythm of making daily morning flights to Los Angeles, working all day in the KVA studio, and then flying back to San Luis Obispo at the end of the day. They had been doing this five days a week since the first week of August and, so far, were having no problem with the pace or the timing. With the Avanti and its twenty-five-minute flight time from airport to airport, they were actually spending less time commuting than many Los Angeles area nine-to-fivers—and the commute in question was considerably less stressful and soul-sucking. In fact, Jake found the actual flights to and from to be the highlight of each day.

It was just past noon on this final Friday before the final weekend of the month of August. Both of the Kingsleys were in the studio helping Celia Valdez work up the tunes for her next CD—which was tentatively titled Living in Limbo. The tune they had been working on all morning was called The End of the Journey. It was a mournful, sad piece about her divorce from Greg Oldfellow (though she did not name names in the lyrics—that would be uncouth). Jake, in particular, understood the meaning of the title quite intimately. It was the exact opposite of the title of the song he had written, composed, and performed at Celia and Greg’s wedding: The Start of the Journey (the similarity in title, Jake knew, was not coincidental).

Though Jake was committed to working with Matt Tisdale on his upcoming CD—his direct involvement in that project would start in earnest the following Monday when he would go to the rehearsal warehouse and evaluate the tunes Matt and his band had worked up so far—it had become obvious over the past month that he was going to have to involve himself quite heavily in Celia’s efforts as well if they were going to turn out to be all that they could be. Celia was an extraordinarily talented songwriter and composer of melodies, but she was nowhere near as talented as Jake when it came to shaping the basic tunes into complex musical compositions that would sound good on the radio and the CD. In addition, though Little Stevie was a talented guitarist, he was almost completely worthless when it came to composing riffs and solos. He could imitate to perfection anything that someone else had come up with—everything from simple acoustic pieces to full-blown Matt Tisdale riffs and solos—but he was incapable of coming up with anything original. Therefore, it would have to be Jake’s role to come up with the electric guitar parts, including the solos and riffs, and teach them to Little Stevie so he could reproduce them in the studio.

It was going to be a busy next few months. They were scheduled to enter the recording studio in Coos Bay on October 15^th to begin laying down tracks for both Matt’s and Celia’s efforts. They had until January 30^th to finish both projects. And, as if that wasn’t enough on Jake’s plate, Laura—who would be playing saxophone on at least six of the ten tunes on Celia’s CD—would be squirting out little Ziggy sometime near the end of November, well before there was any hope of having recorded all of her parts, let alone done the overdubs.

Jake was behind the sound board with the Nerdlys currently, a sheaf of musical score sheets before him, a pencil tucked behind his ear. They had already worked up the basic composition of Journey, as they called the tune, and were polishing it up now. Little Stevie was playing his high-end Brogan knockoff but Jake’s sunburst Les Paul was leaning against a wall and there was a secondary guitar cord leading to the amps that he could plug in with if further refinement of the guitar part seemed necessary. Nerdly, who had his own musical score sheet before him, was listening to the take through a set of headphones while Sharon was intently watching the levels on the board itself. Celia, her own 12-string guitar in hand, was sitting in a chair in front of her microphone. Laura, her belly now swollen and prominent with Ziggy’s third trimester of life, was standing, her alto sax in hand so she could blow out the secondary melody and the solo she had composed to go with the piece.

All in all, Jake thought the tune was coming along nicely. It would likely require only a few more changes to the instrumentation, most of which would be minor in nature. He was already thinking that Journey would be the first tune promoted when the CD was released.

A gentle elbow in his side took him out of his thoughts. It was Sharon, who was pointing at the phone mounted on the wall next to the door. A bright red light was flashing on the phone, indicating that someone—most likely Kayla, the latest KVA receptionist—was trying to reach them. For obvious reasons, the phone in the studio did not actually ring.

Jake got up and walked over to it. He picked up the receiver and put it to his ear. “It’s Jake,” he said into it.

Even though the volume of the earpiece was turned all the way up, Jake could barely hear over the music. He heard enough though. It was indeed Kayla. She was telling him that the catering service had just dropped off lunch.

“Got it,” he said. “I’ll be out in a few minutes to get it.”

She said something else that he could not make out, but it did not sound important. He hung up the phone and then waited until the group wound up Journey (Jake still thought the outro needed some more work—maybe a violin solo from Eric?) and fell silent. He then announced that lunch was here and it was time to take thirty or so and feed themselves.

Lunch today was hamburgers and French fries. Jake and Laura brought everything into the studio and everyone settled down in various places to eat. Celia sat with Jake and Laura on the edge of the drum platform. They balanced their paper plates on their laps and set their bottles of water and tea down next to them. Celia noticed that between bites Laura was rubbing her belly just above the belly button.

“Is Ziggy kicking you again?” she asked, a big part of her full of envy at the life that her friend and occasional lover was growing in her body.

The kicks were now a regular occurrence, and strong enough now that others could feel them by putting a hand on her belly. Jake remembered with a sense of awe the first time he had actually felt an unmistakable fetal movement by his daughter. “She’s calming down now,” Laura said. “She was really hammering me when the music was playing a few minutes ago.”

“Oh yeah?” Celia asked.

“Ziggy definitely likes music,” Laura said. “Whenever we’re playing or when I’m listening to it at home, she gets really active in there. And then, when it stops, she calms down.”

“She’s certainly got musical genes in her,” Celia said.

“Or, it’s just part of God’s great plan,” Jake said.

Both ladies looked at him strangely.

“That’s what your brother told me when I suggested the existence of musical genes,” he explained. “He said there are no musical genes, that your musical talent and mine were instilled upon us by God so that we could fulfill our part in his plan.”

“What plan is that?” Laura asked.

“For us to meet and get married was how I understood the explanation,” Jake said.

“Just that?” Laura asked.

“What do you mean ‘just that’?” Jake asked. “Don’t you think that you and I hooking up was a good plan?”

“It was all right,” she said with a shrug. “It’s just that I’m not sure it rises to the level of divine intervention or anything. Wouldn’t you think that if God had a plan that involved instilling us with musical talent so we would find each other, it would have an end goal a little more profound than us jumping into the sack one night and then eventually deciding we actually loved each other enough to get married and have a little Ziggy?”

“Perhaps,” Jake said.

“Were you and your brother-in-law drinking, by chance, when you had this divine plan conversation?” asked Celia.

“Uh ... well, yeah, we kind of were.”

“Kind of?”

He shrugged. “It was Budweiser from the can,” he said.

She nodded her head wisely. “That explains a lot,” she said.

“You don’t actually believe that, do you, sweetie?” Laura asked. “That some supreme being who controls everyone’s fate just wrote my musical talent into me for the express purpose of having me meet you some twenty-six years later?”

“No, not really,” he said. “It was an interesting point of view though.”

“Budweiser from the can will do that for you,” Laura said with a giggle.

“I suppose,” Jake said with a sigh. He took a drink of his green tea and then popped another French fry into his mouth.

“So ... speaking of getting laid,” Celia suddenly blurted, though with her volume somewhat muted to keep others from overhearing.

Jake and Laura both looked at her. “Were we speaking about that?” Jake asked.

“Well ... no,” Celia said, “but we should be.”

“Should we?” Laura asked, a little shine in her green eyes. Though she was now well into the third trimester of her pregnancy, the second trimester hormones had still not given up their prominent position.

“We should,” Celia whispered. “I was hoping that maybe the two of you could come over for a little visit after rehearsal today. It is Friday, after all.”

“Yes it is,” Jake said, smiling a little, already starting to feel warm inside. “No need to get up early tomorrow.”

“No real reason not to have a visit, right?” asked Laura.

They looked at each other and exchanged sly smiles. No, there was no real reason not to, those smiles said.

“Perhaps we could pop by for a bit on our way to the airport,” Laura offered, although Malibu was nearly an hour away from Santa Clarita (assuming reasonable traffic, which most certainly could not be assumed on the LA freeways) and the airport in question was only ten minutes away in the opposite direction. “What do you say, sweetie?”

“Yeah,” he said casually. “I think we can make a little side trip for a friendly visit.”

“All right then,” Celia said happily. “It’s a date.”

“I’d better go call Elsa,” Jake said. “Remember what happened the last time we decided to visit without giving her advance notice.”

Laura remembered. Elsa had made a pot roast dinner that had gone uneaten because the people she had prepared it for had decided to eat something else in Malibu. It had not been a pleasant scene when they finally arrived home. You have never really been dressed down until you’ve been dressed down by an angry Nigerian housekeeper who had put food on the table for someone who hadn’t bothered to show up or even call to say they weren’t going to show up.

“Good idea,” Laura said solemnly.

Jake trotted back to the phone and made the call. Elsa listened to him and politely thanked him for letting her know they were not going to be home at the usual time.

“Will you be home at some point this evening?” she asked.

“Oh yes,” Jake said. “We’re still flying back tonight. Celia just invited us over for dinner at her place. We should be back between nine and ten.”

“Very good, Jake,” she said. “There are two dozen of those farm fresh eggs you like and a pound of that Italian sausage in the refrigerator if you want to make breakfast in the morning.”

“Sounds good, Elsa,” Jake said. “Have a good evening and enjoy your weekend off.”

They finished their lunch and then went back to work. Having become a bit burned on working up Journey, they spent the second half of the workday getting familiar with another tune. This one was called When You’re Lonely. It had been introduced to the band only two days before and, while the average listener would likely not be able to pick up on the meaning of the lyrics beyond the fact that it was a testament to moving on from a failed primary relationship to a rebound relationship that had no real hope of lasting, every one of the band members—who knew Celia and her secrets quite well—understood on the first presentation that she was singing about her affair with Suzy the pilot. It was a melancholy piece that evoked strong emotion, especially now, considering the fact that Suzy and Celia had not seen each other in several months. Suzy did not know who Celia had found to replace her, but she knew she had been replaced. Heartbroken, she had accepted a pilot-in-command position in Houston, flying Gulfstreams out of Ellington Field, and had made no attempts at communication with Celia since. The references to the rebound lover in the lyrics were deliberately gender-neutral, which would lead most to conclude she was singing about some nameless guy, but composed with clear affection and love with an unmistakable undertone of sadness.

No one mentioned to Celia that they knew what the tune was about. They did not have to. They simply worked on it professionally, like the musicians they were. Today they progressed beyond the basic acoustic version of the piece and started the process of working it up into what it would eventually be. This was where the teamwork and musical relationship between Celia and Jake truly shined. Celia suggested that the verses of the song remain at the tempo she had composed it and that her twelve-string would remain the primary melodic instrument. Jake agreed that this would work but suggested that for the choruses they go up-tempo and switch to a moderately distorted electric guitar for the melody here, backed by a strong backbeat of drums and bass.

“That could work,” Celia said thoughtfully after pondering this. “Show me what you mean.”

He showed her. He plugged in his Les Paul and spent the better part of twenty minutes working out a suitable translation of the acoustic melody into a distortion riff. Finally, he hit upon something that seemed to work. Coop and Charlie then jumped in and they ran through it a few times until it sounded reasonably like music. Then Celia joined them, singing the lyrics at the new tempo but keeping her own guitar mute.

“I like it,” said Celia with a smile. Since it was her tune, she had the final say. “Let’s work it up a little and see if I keep liking it. If I do, we’ll try to get Liz and Eric in on it somehow.”

“What about me?” asked Laura, who was sitting in a chair, still sipping from her tea, her alto sax still hanging on the rack.

“I don’t know,” Celia said. “I can’t envision any sax on the choruses, but maybe as a secondary melody on the verses?”

“It would have to be a light melody,” Nerdly said sternly. “You don’t want to overpower the guitar.”

“That is a good point,” Jake said, nodding.

“What if I used the soprano sax?” Laura suggested. “Like I did on Blur?”

Celia thought about this for a moment. “That might just work,” she said. “Let’s run through the choruses until we get it down and then we’ll try you out on the verses, Teach.”

“And maybe we can have Eric do some fills on top as well,” Jake suggested.

“Maybe,” Celia said.

They spent the next three hours playing around with the song. They decided that there should be no percussion at all on the verses, just a light bass line to set the rhythm. Laura on the soprano sax did compliment the acoustic guitar melody quite well, as did some fills by Eric on the violin. Liz and her piano, however, did not mix well on the verses and they abandoned that experiment rather quickly. On the heavier choruses, on the other hand, Liz was able to lay down a secondary melody atop the distorted guitar that kept the tune from broaching into the land of hard rock by just the barest of margins. After they settled on the distortion riff, Jake unplugged his guitar and let Little Stevie start working. As always, he perfectly imitated the riff that Jake had composed, the only difference a slight variance of phrasing.

They knocked off for the day just before five o’clock. Everyone stowed their instruments in their accustomed places while the Nerdlys made sure all of the electrical equipment was shut down. Nerdly then gathered up all of the notes and musical scores they had generated that day and scanned them into the computer in the office, where one copy was saved to the hard drive and another copy was saved to a disc that Nerdly would take home with him and put in his safe. The studio was then locked up and secured with the alarm (there was over a hundred thousand dollars worth of musical instruments and audio equipment in there). Everyone said their goodbyes to one another and climbed in their vehicles for their respective commutes home.

Celia deliberately left first in her Mercedes. Jake and Laura deliberately left last in Jake’s truck. They thought they were being discreet and perhaps they were. They need not have bothered, however. By this point, everyone in the band—even Eric—had realized that there was something going on between the Kingsleys and Celia Valdez. No one had overheard any remarks made, any plans being laid down, or any other confirming information. None of them had even talked to each other about their suspicions (except the Nerdlys among themselves). But all had noted the way the three of them always sat together, how they looked at each other, how they whispered to each other at times.

They were fooling no one but themselves.

By this point, Jake and Celia had their own garage door opener and key to Celia’s Malibu house. Jake parked next to the Mercedes and closed the garage door using the opener before either he or Laura stepped out of the truck. Once the door was closed, they made their way into the foyer and down the stairs to the second level. The lights were all off in the lower level, the blinds all drawn. The hallway that led to the master bedroom was lit up. They turned right and headed that way.

In Celia’s bedroom, the covers on the bed had been neatly turned back. The lights were on. Soft music was playing from the sound system. From the master bath, they could hear the sound of the shower running, could smell the steam and the scent of body wash. Both of them began to feel their libidos kick up a few notches.

Laura smiled and looked at her husband. “This still doesn’t feel wrong,” she said.

“No,” he agreed, leaning in and giving her a kiss. “And hopefully it never will.”

Hand in hand, they walked into the master bath. They could see the side profile of a naked Celia Valdez behind the steamy glass of the enclosed shower. She was scrubbing herself with a loofah sponge, currently working on her lower belly. They stepped closer.

“Should we join you in there?” Laura asked, her Nymph voice clearly coming forth. The shower was certainly big enough for all three of them.

“As tempting as that sounds, no,” Celia replied with a giggle. “I’m almost done in here. Hopefully you won’t mind if I don’t wash my hair?”

“I can live with that,” Jake said.

“Me too,” Laura agreed.

Celia laughed. “I ordered a pizza on the way home. It should be here in another five minutes or so. I’ll collect it while you two get showered up.”

“Oh ... okay,” Laura said, giving a naughty look at her husband. “We’ll shower right up.”

“No starting without me,” Celia said, now scrubbing between her legs. “In Casa Valdez, it’s all for one or none for all. Just get clean so we can get dirty.”

“I wasn’t going to do anything,” Laura said with a pout.

“You were going to suck his dick,” Celia said. “Don’t even try to claim otherwise.”

“Just a little,” Laura said.

“It is a good warmup exercise,” Jake added. Laura did give a mean blowjob—always had, always would.

“Save it for the bed,” Celia said. “I will not be denied in my own home.”

They reluctantly agreed to save it for the bed.

The shower door opened and Celia stepped out in all her glory. She looked and smelled incredible. Both of the Kingsleys stared at her nakedness in lustful awe. Though they had both seen her this way multiple times now (Jake one more time than his wife, unbeknownst to her) they never got tired of the view. Celia had a truly magnificent body in all dimensions of the word.

“I left the water running for you,” Celia said as she picked up a large bath towel and began to dry herself off. “Stop gawking at me and get in there.”

“Right,” the Kingsleys said in unison.

They stripped off their clothes, leaving them in a neat pile next to the bathtub. Now it was Celia who was staring, her eyes shifting from Laura’s pregnant body to Jake’s rapidly inflating manhood and then back again.

“Stop gawking and go get that pizza,” Jake admonished as they stepped into the steamy shower.

“Right,” Celia said, putting on a fuzzy white robe over her nudity and tying it tightly around her waist.

The Kingsleys showered quickly, using the large washcloths and the bottle of body wash that smelled like watermelon and cucumbers. They kept their hands and mouths to themselves for the time being. After rinsing, they turned off the shower and stepped out, picking up the two towels that Celia had left for them. They dried off and then walked naked back into the bedroom. Celia’s robe was now hanging on a hook and Celia herself was laying naked on the bed, her fingers idly playing with herself.

“We don’t want to eat the pizza first?” asked Jake.

“No,” Laura said, licking her lips. “We don’t want to eat the pizza first.”

“What a rip,” he said with mock indignation.

They climbed into bed with her, Jake on the left side, Laura on the right, Celia in the middle. They spent a while just kissing and caressing, Jake kissing Celia, Celia kissing Laura, Jake and Laura kissing each other, and then all three of them swirling their tongues together while their hands touched and probed in forbidden places. Laura then spent awhile licking and suckling Celia’s nipples while Jake went down between Celia’s legs and licked her swollen vagina. He kept it up until he managed to pull an orgasm from her.

“All right,” she panted once she recovered from it. “I want to eat some pussy now. Lay down here, Teach.”

“If I must,” Laura said, giving a little mock indignation of her own.

While Celia lay on her belly and licked and sucked between Laura’s legs, Jake went around behind her and raised her hips into the air. He then slid himself into her body from behind. She moaned out her approval of this action. Grasping her hips, he set a steady, deep pace of thrusting, keeping his mental block firmly in place for now.

Soon, all three of them were sweating and reeking of musk. Laura was the next to come, crying out loudly as Celia sucked on her clitoris and fingered her at the same time. After the orgasm, Celia moved up her body, kissing her passionately for a few minutes and then moving back down to suckle her pregnancy swollen nipples. Celia had found that her favorite part of making love to a woman was deep kissing her and touching and sucking on breasts (not that she minded the other aspects) and she got her fill of all of this. Laura reached between their bodies and began to play with Celia’s clitoris. Soon, she was bucking out another orgasm.

“Your turn, sweetie,” Laura panted to Jake. “Come in her! You know what I want to do next!”

Jake did know. Laura’s favorite part of the games they played was licking and sucking his semen out of Celia’s vagina after he deposited it there. He let himself go and fired off inside her body while she was still shuddering out her own climax. The moment he was done, Laura rolled their lover over onto her back and put her face between her legs. Celia sighed contentedly as she felt the soft lips and tongue working on her, as her mind turned over the sheer eroticism and nastiness of what Laura was doing.

“Come up here,” Celia panted, pulling on Jake’s leg. “I want to suck you.”

“Okay,” Jake said agreeably. A moment later, her mouth was on his manhood, slurping their combined juices off and getting him ready for round two.

Once he was back to a full erection—it did not take long—he moved back down the bed and positioned himself behind his wife. He lifted her hips up this time and slid into her body. He and Celia both caressed her swollen belly while he thrust in and out. After doing this for a while, they repositioned again, this time with Jake on his back and Laura mounting him in the female superior position. Celia leaned forward and alternated between kissing Laura’s mouth and suckling her bouncing breasts until Laura came again and Jake was given the go-ahead to finish up. He did so, blasting a second load up into his wife’s body. The three of them then collapsed in a heap onto the mattress, Laura in the middle this time.

They shared a few more kisses and caresses with each other and then Jake looked at the clock. They had been going at it for almost an hour. He felt sleepy but he also felt hungry.

“How about that pizza now?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Celia said, nodding, her face still flushed with excitement. “I seem to have worked up an appetite.”

“Me too,” agreed Laura.

They got out of bed and Celia put her robe back on. Jake and Laura talked about taking a quick shower but decided not to since they were just going to put back on the same clothes they had worn all day. They did decide that they would get in the habit of carrying a change of clothes with them on Fridays.

“Good idea,” Celia said as she watched them get dressed. “This is starting to become an end of the week tradition, isn’t it?”

They agreed that it was. They all went downstairs and tore into the pizza, annihilating two thirds of it in only twenty minutes. By then, it was approaching eight o’clock. There was no discussion about the Kingsleys staying the night. They said their goodbyes, exchanged affectionate kisses with their lover, and then headed for the airport so they could go home.

Laura slept for most of the drive back to the airport. She woke up long enough to strap into the plane and was back to sleep again before he even made it to his cruising altitude of ten thousand feet. She woke up, as always, when she heard the sound of the flaps being deployed just prior to landing.

“You know what I want?” she asked him as they climbed into Jake’s BMW for the drive home.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“One of those big microwave burritos from the 7-11.”

He looked over at her. By now, he was used to her strange and extremely specific cravings. “You just had pizza an hour ago,” he reminded her.

“Ziggy is hungry,” she insisted.

“Ziggy is hungry a lot,” he said. “How about I make you a burrito when we get home? We still have some of that leftover tri-tip from last night, I’m sure there’s a few cans of refried beans in the pantry, I can shred up some of that pepper-jack cheese we have, and Elsa always has tortillas laying around.”

She was shaking her head. “Ziggy wants the burrito you get at 7-11,” she insisted. “The spicy one that comes in the red package.”

“I think Ziggy might be a stoner,” Jake suggested.

“Don’t talk about your daughter that way,” she told him. “Just stop at the 7-11 and get her one of those burritos.”

“Will do,” he said with a sigh. The 7-11 was a bit out of the way, but Ziggy ruled supreme.

They arrived home at 9:45. The house was dark except for the security lights that clicked on as they made the trip from the gate to the garage. There were a few lights on in Elsa’s quarters. This was the usual situation. Elsa’s bedtime was generally 10:00 PM and she would wake up at 6:00 AM, whether it was her worknight or not—and tomorrow and Sunday were her days off.

They made their way into the house and Laura went immediately to the kitchen so she could pop her 7-11 burrito into the microwave and get it cooking. Jake went to the entertainment room and turned on the lights. He began to construct a Captain and coke at the bar so he could mellow a bit for the start of his weekend off. Just as he was putting the bottle of Captain Morgan back in its place, he heard the sound of a key turning in the lock at the side door that led from the outside into the kitchen. A moment later, the alarm panel inside that door began beeping its countdown while it waited for the security code to be input. The code was put in quickly, which meant that it was Elsa who just entered the house and not some deranged fan who wanted to kill them all with a kitchen knife.

He carried his drink back to the kitchen, where Laura was just sitting down in the nook to eat her burrito and drink a large glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade from the large pitcher of it that Elsa always kept in the refrigerator since Ziggy had decided that was her favorite beverage. Elsa was there, dressed in her sweatpants and an oversized pullover shirt that fell to her knees.

“Hey, Elsa,” he greeted. “What’s up?”

She was standing next to Laura and only a few feet from Jake. Jake saw that her nostrils were flaring a bit and that a knowing look was in her eyes. Oops, Jake thought, a little embarrassed. I guess we probably smell a little strongly of sex right now. Hopefully she won’t guess that Celia was involved.

But Elsa made no mention of their odor or what they might have been doing to acquire it. “Sorry to disturb you,” she said, “but the Los Angeles Police called this afternoon.”

Jake sighed. “Again?” he asked.

“Again,” she confirmed. “It was Sergeant Cranston, the same one who called on the other occasions.”

Jake nodded. Sergeant Cranston was a supervisor for the LAPD’s Community Resource Team, a hand-picked group of officers and civilian workers who, among a few other things, were assigned to deal with most of the minor issues involving celebrities who lived in the Los Angeles city limits. And since Matt had moved into Jake and Laura’s Granada Hills house, which was inside those city limits and under the LAPD’s jurisdiction, he had talked to Cranston on three occasions now. The first had been the day Matt had moved in and the neighbors, seeing the scrungy, long-haired and tattooed man moving things in from a Maserati, had called the police and reported a burglary. The second time had been a few days later when they saw Jim, Matt’s paramedic, set up residence in the house as well (Jake reluctantly allowed Jim to stay in one of the guest rooms, though he was still not really sure what the relationship between those two was all about—other than it was not a sexual one). The third time had been when Jim and Matt had been using the pool one night after rehearsal and playing Metallica’s Master of Puppets CD at ear-shattering volume.

“Did he say what the issue was this time?” Jake asked Elsa now.

“He did not,” Elsa replied. “He did ask that you give him a call on his department phone on Monday morning to discuss the situation. I have written the number down and placed it on the office desk.”

Jake sighed. “All right,” he said. “Thanks, Elsa.”

She nodded, flared her nostrils one last time, cast one more knowing look, and then retreated from the house.

“What do you think he did this time?” Laura asked as she poked at her burrito to feel if it had cooled enough for human consumption.

“God only knows,” Jake said. “I guess I should give him a call.”

“He’ll be drunk,” she said.

“And stoned as well,” Jake said, “but at least he’ll be in a reasonable mood.”

He left Laura and Ziggy to their burrito and made the walk into the office with its security camera monitors and the computer. Out of habit, he took a glance at the screens, seeing that all were showing the night vision view and that everything appeared to be in order. He then sat down at the desk and took a look at the note that Elsa had left. It listed Sergeant Cranston’s name, title, and phone number in Elsa’s disturbingly neat handwriting. He pushed it to the side and picked up the phone, dialing the area code and the number for the Granada Hills house from memory.

A male voice picked up on the third ring. It was not Matt. “Kingsley residence,” the voice said politely, though with an obvious slurring of speech.

“Hey, Jim, it’s Jake,” Jake said. “Is Matt around?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jim said. “I’ll go grab him for you.”

“Thanks.”

The phone clunked down. In the background, Jake could hear music playing from his sound system. It was the intro for Camera Eye from Rush’s Moving Pictures CD. Just as the primary riff for the tune began to play, Jake heard the sound of footsteps stomping closer. There was another clunk and then Matt’s voice was speaking to him—a little loudly and a lot slurred.

“Jake, wassup?” Matt enquired.

“I might ask the same thing,” Jake replied.

“What do you mean?”

“I just got home and was informed that Sergeant Crandall of the LAPD wants to speak to me again.”

“That fuckhead?” Matt barked. “I swear to God, he’s such a fuckin’ narc.”

“He’s a cop, Matt,” Jake explained carefully. “He’s supposed to be a narc.”

“Oh yeah,” Matt said with a laugh. “I guess that shit makes sense!”

“I’m glad you agree,” Jake said. “What happened?”

“It was no big deal,” Matt said. “Your snooty-ass neighbors called the cops again.”

“Why did they call the cops?”

“They said I was out smoking some weed with Taco and Taquito.”

“Who are Taco and Taquito?” Jake asked, rubbing at the back of his head to stave off a tension headache that wanted to form there.

“Those two beaners that do your fuckin’ landscaping,” Matt said. “The big beaner and the little beaner.”

“Ahh,” Jake said. “That would be Ramone and Miguel, not Taco and Taquito.”

“Yeah ... whatever,” Matt said.

“Were you, in fact, smoking weed with them?” Jake asked.

“Not when the cops showed up,” Matt said.

Jake closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “But, at some point during Ramone and Miguel’s visit to cut the lawn, you were smoking weed with them?”

“Yeah, of course,” Matt said. “I mean, why not? Those motherfuckers work hard. I thought they might like a little break from all that manual labor shit, so I took a doob out and shared it with them. They were very grateful—at least I think they were. I couldn’t understand a fuckin’ thing they were saying.”

Jake nodded. He knew that Miguel spoke fluent English and wondered if the man just didn’t want Matt to know that or if he had been speaking English and Matt had not been able to follow the landscaper’s thick accent. Probably the former. “What happened when the cops got there?”

“Nothing much,” Matt said. “We’d already burned the whole doob by that point and I’d swallowed the roach. The two beaners don’t speak English and the two cops didn’t speak Mexican and I just denied the shit out of the accusation and told them I was just having a friendly chat.”

“And they bought that?” Jake asked.

“Who gives a shit if they bought it?” Matt asked. “There wasn’t no fuckin’ evidence. They let Taco and Taquito go and then had that Sergeant fuckhead come out and talk to me.”

“And what did he say?” Jake asked.

“The usual bullshit that cops say when they ain’t got nothin’ on you,” Matt said. “He told me that weed is still illegal in California unless you got one of them cards from a doctor, and even if I did have one of them cards, I don’t get to smoke the shit on a public street or share the shit with a couple of beaner landscapers unless they got cards too.”

“And you replied to him politely and respectfully?” Jake asked.

“Well ... for me, yeah,” Matt said. “I told him that your fuckin’ neighbors need to mind their own goddamn business instead of mine.”

Jake sighed, giving a few more rubs of the head. “Are you deliberately trying to be a pain in my ass, Matt, or does this just come naturally to you?”

“It’s fuckin’ natural, dude,” Matt said simply. “If I wanted to be a pain in your ass I would’ve gotten in a fight with the cop.”

Matt did have a point there, Jake supposed. “All right,” he said. “Will you please refrain from smoking weed or doing anything else illegal where my neighbors can see, hear, or smell you doing it?”

“No problem, Jake,” Matt said. “And it was no big deal. I’m surprised that cop even called you about this shit.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “How’s the rehearsal coming along? Will you and boys be ready to start working for real on Monday?”

“We’re ready,” Matt assured him. “We got twelve solid tunes pretty much dialed in.”

“I can’t wait to hear them,” Jake said. “Monday at nine, right?”

“Fuckin’ A,” Matt said.

“I’ll see you then,” Jake said. “Until then, however, can you please try to avoid having the cops respond to my house?”

“Hey,” Matt said, “I never fuckin’ called them.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Jake said. “Catch you later.”

“Later,” Matt said and then hung up.

Jake put his extension down and then stood up. He headed back to the kitchen to grab a couple of Tylenol tablets out of the medicine cabinet.

Jake and Laura spent the weekend doing absolutely nothing of consequence. They played no music. They did not leave the house a single time except to go out on the back deck or out to the hot tub on the cliff to watch the sunsets. Jake thawed out some baby back ribs from the local meat market and spent all day Saturday smoking them out on the Weber barbeque. They ate them with canned baked beans on Saturday and Sunday night. Jake had a few beers while they were smoking, a few glasses of white wine with the meals, and scotch on the rocks before retiring each night, but otherwise drank no alcohol. It just wasn’t fun to drink when there was no one able to drink with him. He smoked no marijuana for the same reason.

On Monday morning, it was back to the routine. They woke up at 6:45 AM, showered, got dressed, and then went to the kitchen for coffee and the breakfast that Elsa had prepared for them (it was eggs benedict, Laura’s favorite). At 7:25, they left the house in Jake’s BMW and drove to San Luis Obispo Regional Airport, arriving there at 7:45 AM and parking the car in the hangar after using the electric tug to pull the Avanti out. The aircraft was preflighted and the flight plan filed by 8:00. They roared into the sky at 8:10 and landed at Whiteman Airport at 8:35, parking in the general aviation tie-down area and then retrieving the Ford F-150 from the hangar by 8:42. Jake then drove to KVA’s studio and dropped Laura off out front, watching to make sure she made it safely inside before beginning his drive out to Stonehurst and the rented warehouse where Matt and his band had been rehearsing. He arrived there at 8:55 and nodded in satisfaction that the timetable he had worked out for the days he would working with Matt had got him there on time.

Now the only thing left was to see if the two of them could actually work together.

Jake secured his car and walked to the man entrance that was guarded by a uniformed private security officer sitting in a chair and drinking coffee. The young guard looked at Jake in awe as he approached.

“Hey,” Jake greeted. “Matt is expecting me.”

The guard nodded rapidly. “He said you would be here today,” he said. “Does this mean ... uh ... you know ... that Intemp is getting back together?”

“No,” Jake said simply. “It doesn’t mean that at all.”

The guard’s face fell a bit. “That’s a bummer, dude,” he said.

“I suppose,” Jake said. “Is the door unlocked?”

“Oh ... yeah, go right in, Mr. Kingsley.”

“Thanks,” Jake said. “And call me Jake, if you don’t mind.”

“Right ... Jake,” the guard said.

“And ... you are?” Jake enquired.

“Huh? Oh, I’m Aaron,” the guard said. “Aaron Jackson.”

“Nice to meet you, Aaron,” Jake said, holding out his hand for a shake. “I appreciate the work you’re doing here.”

“Oh ... thanks, Mr. K—uh ... Jake.” They shook hands. Aaron seemed to be pleased by the gesture and by Jake’s expressed appreciation for what he was doing.

Jake opened the steel door and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. The band’s equipment was still sitting in the same place it had been in when they had set everything up last month. The band itself was present but Matt was not here yet. Jake walked over and greeted Steve Calhoun, the drummer; Austin Jefferson, the bass player; and Corban Slate, the young rhythm guitarist. It was only his second time meeting them. All shook hands politely with him and treated him respectfully and with perhaps a bit of awe of their own.

“What time does Matt usually roll in?” Jake asked them.

“Nine o’clock on the button,” Steve said. “You can set your fuckin’ watch by him.”

“Fair enough,” Jake said. “How’s everything going with you guys? You getting by on the advance money okay?” KVA had fronted Matt and his band two hundred thousand dollars in advance money, which would be their only recoupable expense under the contract. Matt, of course, had not divided that up equally, but had given each of them twenty thousand to live on until such time as actual KVA royalty checks started rolling in.

“So far, so good,” said Austin. “I haven’t had to spend much of it yet. We’re still getting pretty good royalty checks from National—at least in our eyes.”

“Yeah,” said Corban, “we don’t have to give half of it to the IRS like Matt.”

“We also don’t live in mansions that have huge fuckin’ tax bills due every quarter,” added Steve.

“Good points,” Jake said.

The door opened a minute later and Matt stepped inside. He was dressed in a pair of denim shorts that hung to just above his knees and a faded Corona t-shirt that had its sleeves cut off. Jake glanced at his watch and saw that Steve had been right. It was nine o’clock, right on the button.

“Wassup, motherfuckers!” Matt greeted his bandmembers. They all returned the wassups with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Matt then looked at Jake. “Jake,” he said softly.

“Matt,” Jake returned. “Where’s Jim?”

“He doesn’t come in every day,” Matt said. “Usually only when we plan to go out and score some gash after the session.”

“I see,” Jake said.

“He gets better gash that way,” Matt explained. “If he goes to score some on his own, he can’t attract the high-class skank and has to settle for mediocre skank. When he’s with us, though, the bitches treat him just like a member of the band.”

“It’s good to hear you’re having a positive effect on his gash scoring,” Jake said. “What’s your normal routine for first thing in the morning?”

“We do a quick sound check and make sure everything is in tune and then get to work,” Matt said simply. “Usually, we’ll work on tunes we’ve already established in full for the first part of the morning and then work up some of the newer shit after lunch.”

“I’ll just watch from over here,” Jake said, pointing to a lone stool that sat twenty feet in front of the microphone stand where Matt would be playing. The stand had no less than eight separate effects pedals arranged at its base, all of them wired together and then patched into a master cable that led to the amplifier.

“Good deal,” Matt said. “We were just going to run through everything we’ve got for the morning session. That way, you can check out what we’ve come up with so far.”

Jake nodded. “Sounds like a plan,” he said.

Matt seemed a bit on edge but seemed to relax a bit now. He turned back to the band. “All right, motherfuckers,” he said. “Let’s get everything powered up and get started.”

Jake took his seat and opened up an eight and a half by eleven notebook he had brought with him. His plan was to write down the tunes as they were played and scribble down any thoughts he developed as notes. Matt went over and opened up a guitar case that sat on the drum platform. He pulled out a red Fender Stratocaster—a much newer model than the iconic black Strat he played on stage (that one was currently locked in a display case in his house). He slung it over his shoulder and then went to the sound board and powered it up. Once it was live, he picked up a guitar cord and plugged in. He then sat down on the stool before his microphone and began making sure the instrument was in tune. It was slightly off but this was quickly rectified.

Corban and Austin tuned their instruments as well and then Steve went through his drums and cymbals one by one, warming up and making sure all of his equipment was in tune as well. Matt then made a few adjustments to the sound board, tweaking the volume levels here and there and then directing adjustments to the individual instruments. In all, the entire warmup took about fifteen minutes, about a third of the time it would have taken had the Nerdlys been involved.

“All right,” Matt said, sitting back down in his stool. “I think we’re ready.”

“Let’s hear what you got,” Jake said, actually looking forward to what was coming.

Matt nodded and then turned to his band. “Let’s do Faithless first,” he told them. They all nodded in understanding. He turned back to Jake. “This is Faithless. It’s the first tune we started working on and the one we’ve nailed down the best so far. I’m thinking it might be the first cut on the new CD, maybe even the title cut.”

Jake saw that there was a bit of challenge and defiance in Matt’s eyes and realized what it meant. Matt was expecting Jake to start throwing his weight around immediately, just to prove that he could, to say something like: “I’ll be the one to decide which tune is the title cut and which is played first.” Jake had no intention of doing this, however. He knew that this experiment could only work if he used that weight only when necessary and then as gently and delicately as possible when he did have to throw it about. He simply nodded and said, “fire it up.”

They fired it up. It opened with a fast-tempo riff backed by a solid drumline and strong rhythm guitar. The lyrics seemed to be a proclamation that the vast majority of the human race was untrustworthy and hopeless. Jake did not entirely disagree with this sentiment, though his view was not quite as bleak as Matt’s. The primary melody was a complicated six-chord riff that was only semi-repetitive—it cycled in and out of three distinctly separate manifestations. It was classic Matt Tisdale shit. For the choruses however, he switched down to a slower tempo, shedding sixty beats per minute, and changing to a complimentary four chord riff to support it. Jake listened with the ear of the professional musician and producer that he was and found he liked what he was hearing. He also could hear where improvements could be made. He began jotting notes down under the heading FAITHLESS on his notepad.

More abrupt changeover from verse to chorus? Rhythm guitar semi-clean for the chorus? More fills from the drums on the verses! Gradual build-up on the intro instead of launching right in? Will have to if this is going to be the first promoted and the title cut.

They ended the tune with an extended solo that transitioned into a dual guitar outro of the main riff. They then silenced their instruments and looked at Jake expectantly, Matt with that expression of defiance on his face once again.

Jake simply nodded. “I like it,” he told them. “That riff on the verses is amazing, Matt, especially with the variations you lay down. You definitely have not lost your touch.”

Matt seemed surprised by the praise. “Oh ... thanks,” he said. “I saw you jotting shit down though. Any ideas yet?”

Jake shook his head. “Not really,” he said. “I’ll need to hear the tune a few more times before I start pondering anything solid. We’ll get together at the end of the week, have a beer or two, and then talk it over.”

“Really?” Matt asked, his voice nearly dripping with cynicism.

“Really,” Jake assured him. “What’s next?”

They went through all twelve tunes they had put together, playing them one by one. This took a little more than an hour. Jake was very impressed with six of the tunes and moderately impressed with two of the others. The remaining four, he was not so sure about. Maybe they would grow on him after he heard them a few more times. Maybe he could direct a little polish on them to shape them better. He kept his misgivings to himself for the time being, but did make a point to praise each of the tunes he liked on first listen, always offering a specific reason why he liked each individual tune. It was far too early to tell for sure at this point, of course, but he was getting a good feeling about this project (he had already named it Project Tisdale in his mind).

“That’s what we got so far,” Matt said after the final piece—it was called Without a Doubt and was one of the ones that Jake liked the most on first listen—came to a close. “What do you think?”

“I think you got the makings of a good CD here,” Jake said.

“Really?” Matt asked, as if he thought Jake was just fucking with him, or telling him what he wanted to hear.

“Really,” Jake assured him. “We’ll need to polish everything up some, naturally.”

“The overdubs and the engineering and all that shit,” Matt said, though with resignation instead of hostility, which was a vast improvement over the last time Jake had worked with him.

“That’s right,” Jake said. “We don’t want to put out another Next Phase here. Now, don’t get me wrong, I liked your riffs and solos on Next Phase. It was good, solid music. The reason it wasn’t radio friendly and didn’t appeal to anyone but your hard-core fans was that lack of engineering—that and the fact that the tunes tended to be too long.”

“Yeah, I have acknowledged that shit multiple times now,” Matt said sourly. “I made a mistake with that one.”

“We all make mistakes, Matt,” Jake told him. “Even you. Even me. My point is that the engineering and polishing is a necessary part of producing a quality CD that is going to not only satisfy your core demographic, but have some crossover into the other demographics as well. Does that make sense?”

Matt thought that over for a few moments and then nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. “It does make sense.”

“You guys up for going through everything again?” Jake asked them. “I’d like to hear it all for the second time and make a few more notes.”

“Yeah, sure, we can do that shit,” Matt said.

“Excellent,” Jake said. “And at some point, I’m afraid to say, we’re going to have to bring the Nerdlys in to hear your set as well.”

Matt sighed. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

Jake alternated his days that week between the KVA studio where Celia was working up her tunes and the Stonehurst warehouse where Matt was working up his. Tuesday was with Celia, Wednesday with Matt, Thursday with Celia again. On Friday, things went a little differently. Jake still spent the day with Matt and his band, but this time the Nerdlys came with him. They were reluctant to leave Celia and the rest to their own devices (“who will supervise the sound check?” Nerdly cried. “Who will inscribe any changes to the master score sheets?”) but finally agreed to let them work on their own for just one day.

In preparation for the visit, Jake had instructed Matt to transcribe all of the tunes onto clean musical score sheets for the Nerdlys to peruse and make notations on. He had also leased a copy machine and a computer with internet access and a scanner so the Nerdlys could forever enshrine digital copies of the scores and notes.

“You are actually getting along with him?” Nerdly asked Jake as they made the drive that morning.

“So far we have had no major problems,” Jake said. “Things were a little tense at first because he thought I was going to come in and start ordering him around.”

“That would not be the best way to facilitate progress when dealing with Matt Tisdale,” Nerdly observed.

“No, it would fuckin’ destroy it,” Jake said. “And I know that. I’ve felt like I’m poking around with an unexploded bomb every time I make a minor suggestion, but I’m careful to phrase everything in that manner: as a suggestion, not an order.”

“And he responds well to this methodology?” asked Sharon from the back seat of the truck.

“Better than I had any right to expect,” Jake replied. “I think it just goes to show how desperate Matt really is.”

“Or perhaps he has just matured?” asked Sharon.

Jake shook his head. “No, it’s not that at all. It’s desperation.”

“Interesting,” said Nerdly.

“Why do you have all of these clothes back here?” asked Sharon. There was a pile of jeans, shirts, a maternity top, and men’s and women’s underwear piled up next to her.

“Oh ... Laura and I are going to stay the night at Celia’s place,” Jake said casually.

“You’re not flying home tonight?” asked Nerdly.

“No, I’m taking Matt and the boys out for a few beers after rehearsal. That’s when I’m going to start hitting them with some of the stronger suggestions on the tunes. I figured that would be the best setting to accomplish that particular mission.”

“A wise choice,” Nerdly said. “You’re staying with Celia because you’ll be drinking beer tonight?”

“Eight hours from bottle to throttle,” Jake said. “I’ve never broken that rule yet and do not intend to start tonight.”

“Celia’s house is so far away though,” Nerdly said. “Why don’t you stay with us instead? Our house is much closer than Celia’s. We have the guest room all made up and Kelvin would love to see you.”

“Uh ... well ... uh ... thanks for the offer, Bill,” Jake said, “but we’ve already made the plan. Laura is going to ride home with C tonight and I’ll just meet her there after my business dinner with Matt.”

“Laura could just as easily ride home with us,” Sharon suggested, a little smile on her face.

“That’s right,” Nerdly said. “It would be no big deal for us to swing by and pick her up.”

“Uh ... well ... I don’t want to put you out,” Jake said.

“It would be no imposition whatsoever,” Nerdly said. “And you would be much closer to Whiteman Airport for your trip home in the morning.”

Jake, who did not realize he was being baited, became uncharacteristically flustered. “Uh ... yeah,” he stammered. “The fact of the matter is ... uh ... you know ... that we already promised Celia we would be there tonight ... and she’s made ... you know ... accommodations and things ... and ... uh ... you know?”

“We know,” Nerdly said. “And we understand. Keep us in mind next time though.”

“Will do,” Jake said, obviously relieved.

He did not see the sly little looks that were passed between the Nerdlys.

Jake may have been judicious in directing Matt and his band on what they should do and how they should do it, but the Nerdlys had no such compunction. They entered the rehearsal warehouse like Macarthur returning ashore in the Philippines and took immediate charge of the sound check and the sound board. Matt and the group did not express any resentment toward them, however. On the contrary, they actually appreciated having the experts dial in their sound for them—even if it was just for a standard rehearsal. As Jake had surmised at the beginning of the week, the sound check portion of the day took a little more than an hour to accomplish.

“All right, guys,” Jake said once he and Matt managed to get the Nerdlys to declare a halt to the endless adjustments, “how about you show them what you got?”

“Fuckin’ A,” Matt agreed. He turned to his band. “Let’s do it, motherfuckers.”

They did it. They ran through all twelve songs one by one. Jake and the Nerdlys sat behind the sound board and listened. Jake shared his notes with them, pointing out things he had jotted down about each song. They each had copies of the scores before them and made a multitude of notes of their own.

“Well?” asked Matt once the performance was at an end.

“I think we can work with this raw material,” Nerdly said after a moment’s thought.

“It will most definitely need some major engineering though,” added Mrs. Nerdly.

Again, Jake would have never said anything so blunt to Matt because it likely would have sparked an angry confrontation, but when the Nerdlys said it, the entire band, Matt included, simply nodded, silently acquiescing to their wisdom.

“Do the entire set again,” Nerdly directed. “I want to make some notes regarding my second impression of your work.”

“Right,” Matt said. He turned to his band. “You heard Nerdly. Let’s do the motherfucker again!”

They did it again. And then they did it one more time. The Nerdlys furiously scribbled away on the scores until every sheet was filled with notations and little arrows pointing to various places. Only then did Nerdly begin offering some praise. He was particularly fond of Matt’s work with the effects pedals and the way he combined them to draw unique and unconventional sounds from his guitar. Matt mostly used this technique on his solos, but Nerdly suggested that maybe he could apply some of it to the riffs and changeovers as well.

“Where would I do that?” Matt asked, pondering thoughtfully.

Nerdly flipped through his notes for a few moments. “That distortion you used on the solo for Looking Down,” he said. “You could apply something like that to the chorus to bridge transition on Faithless.”

Matt thought that one over and then nodded. “Maybe,” he said.

“Wouldn’t you have to eliminate the backing guitar for that section though?” asked Sharon. “It would override the effect you’re looking for.”

“Not necessarily,” Jake put in, already liking the idea. “You could just have Corban switch to clean output and keep it soft.”

“And then switch back to distortion after the bridge?” asked Matt.

“Why not?” Jake asked.

“I’d have to get my own step-down pedal in order to do that,” Corban said. “Either that, or I play my double neck.”

“You have a double neck?” asked Matt.

“Goddamn right, I do,” Corban said. “It’s the bomb!”

“Isn’t that a little seventies?” asked Austin.

“Fuck no!” Matt said. “Double necks rock! I used to have three of them—one was the exact guitar that Alex Lifeson played on Xanadu in Toronto when they recorded Exit, Stage Left.” He soured a little. “Of course, I had to sell the motherfucker to help pay off the fuckin’ IRS.”

“Dude,” Jake said longingly. “You should have talked to me first. I would’ve bought it.”

“We weren’t talking to each other then,” Matt reminded him.

“Oh yeah,” Jake said. “Anyway, maybe Corban could play the double-neck during live performances if we like how this goes. For now, do you have another step-down pedal here?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” Matt asked.

“Set it up,” Nerdly said. “Let’s see how it sounds.”

They set it up. It took another thirty minutes for the Nerdlys to adjust everything so it sounded as close to perfect as they could make it. They then began to play around with Faithless some more, focusing particularly on the second chorus and its transition to the bridge and back. It was very awkward at first. Matt had to come up with the proper phrasing of the unconventional effect he was using. From there, they struggled with the actual transitions. They did discover, however, that Jake’s suggestion of having Corban switch down to clean output on the bridge complimented the distorted riff quite well, especially when they dialed down the drum strikes and the bass line proportionately.

“I’m thinking we go with this,” Matt said after they finally managed to squeak out a few reps of the measure without fucking it up.

“I agree,” said Jake. “It sounds badass!”

And, though none of them really paused to ponder the situation at that moment in time, the first modification of a Matt Tisdale tune under the direction of KVA Records was accomplished. And it was accomplished without argument or hostility.

There was only about ten thousand more to go.

The Nerdlys joined Matt, Jake, and Matt’s band for the post-rehearsal dinner meeting. They went to a local Mexican place. Everyone ordered Mexican beer and ate chips and salsa from well-stocked bowls. Jake deliberately waited until everyone had at least two beers in them—this was the point in the meal between ordering and receiving the food—before he started to talk music.

“All right,” he said. “I’m encouraged by the progress we’ve made today.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Matt said. “I dig what we did with Faithless. It fuckin’ rocks!”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Jake said. “It means that despite our past differences, maybe we can work together and put something out that will catch attention and sell a lot of CDs. I was a little worried about how this was going to go, but so far it seems to be working.”

“So far,” Matt agreed, sipping from his third beer, which had just been delivered.

“Having said that,” Jake went on, “I want to go over a few suggestions I came up with while watching and listening these past few days.”

Jake could see Matt tensing up at his words. But he did not say anything disrespectful. At least not yet. “I’m listening,” was what he did say.

Jake nodded. “It’s just minor things at this point in the game,” he said. “Let’s start with Faithless. We did some good modification to it today in the chorus to bridge measures. Let’s talk intro now.”

“What’s wrong with the intro?” Matt asked.

“Well ... there’s nothing really wrong with the intro other than the fact that there isn’t one. The tune just jumps right into the main riff. Now, there is a place for that—don’t get me wrong here—but if Faithless is going to be the title cut and the first cut on the album, and the first song promoted as you suggested, I think it needs a little more flair at the beginning.”

“What kind of flair?” Matt asked.

“Any kind of flair,” Jake said. “It has none currently. You could start with a bass intro that gradually increases in tempo until it hits the main verse tempo. You could start with a slowly building guitar solo that transitions to the double distortion riff of the primary. The sky is the limit and I’ll leave the composition up to you, Matt. It is what you do best. My point is that something should be there if it’s going to be the first tune that people hear from the new CD. If you want to leave the intro as it is, I don’t think we should promote Faithless first when the CD comes out. It can still be the first cut and the title cut, but not the first promoted.”

Matt looked at Jake thoughtfully. It was clear that he wanted to be angry at the suggestion but just could not seem to accomplish it. “That makes sense,” he said with clear reluctance.

“Do you think you could come up with something?” Jake asked him.

“Yeah, I can come up with something,” Matt said.

“Cool,” Jake said.

In all, they talked about three of the tunes on the list and how Jake thought they should be modified in some way. He made a point to offer his suggestions as just that—suggestions and not orders. He carefully explained his reasoning for each suggestion and was usually backed up by the Nerdlys. Matt listened each time and agreed to modify in the manner suggested in every case—always after being told that it was he, Matt, who would be responsible for just how the modification would be composed and carried out.

They got through dinner without an argument. Jake paid the bill and they all headed back to their respective vehicles in the parking lot. Before Jake could climb into his truck, Matt called him over to his Maserati.

“What’s up?” Jake asked.

Matt looked him in the eye. “I think this is going to work,” he told him.

“What’s going to work?”

“All of this,” Matt said. “Me signing with your label, you producing my CD. I gave it about a ten percent chance when I first agreed to all this, but now I think it’s really going to work.”

Jake smiled. “Ten percent?” he asked. “You were optimistic, weren’t you?”

“What did you figure?” Matt asked.

“About half that,” Jake admitted. “You’re going to start working on the mods on Monday?”

“Fuckin’ A,” Matt said.

“I’ll come in on Tuesday and Thursday then,” Jake told him. “We’ll see how things are going then.”

Matt nodded. “See you Tuesday, then,” he said. He then stepped in his car and closed the door. A minute later, he was roaring out of the parking lot on his way to Jake’s Los Angeles home.

Jake arrived at Celia’s Malibu home just over an hour later. He found that the two ladies had picked up Chinese food from a chain restaurant on their way there. Both had already eaten, already showered, and were now dressed in their robes.

“Did you shower together?” he asked them, feeling his libido kick into high gear at the sight and smell of freshly bathed female squared.

“Maybe,” Laura said coyly. “There is a drought after all.”

“How green of you,” he said with a chuckle. “I trust you adhered to the rules.”

“Yes,” Celia said sourly. “I tried to cheat a little and suck one of her chichis—you know how I love those big pregnant boobies she has—but she wouldn’t let me.”

“We have an agreement,” Laura said sternly.

“It can’t be bent for one little nipple suck?” Celia asked.

“It wouldn’t have been just one,” Laura told her.

“Yeah ... probably not,” Celia had to agree. She turned to Jake. “Anyway, we’ve been waiting patiently for you to get here. Why aren’t you in the shower yet?”

“Good question,” he said, dropping the pile of clothes onto a nightstand. He headed for the shower.

They had sex together for the better part of an hour once Jake dried off and joined them in the bed. It was very good. Still not as good as the first time, but nothing to scoff at. After the last orgasm faded away, they fell back on the bed, sweaty, stinky, all of them satisfied and exhausted. And, one by one, they fell asleep there, Laura in the middle laying on her right side, Jake behind her, cuddling her with his hand on her bare belly (and occasionally feeling a little kick from Ziggy the passenger within), Celia on her right side being cuddled by Laura (and occasionally feeling a little Ziggy kick in her back).

They slept that way until the morning came, the first time they had spent the night together after enjoying each other’s bodies.

Sunday afternoon found Jake sitting out on his deck in one of the chairs. His Fender guitar was in his hands and a glass of wine was half empty on the table next to him. On the Weber he had a chicken cooking and the fragrant mesquite smoke would occasionally drift over him. The sky was a brilliant blue and there were a few fishing boats out on the ocean. Further out was a container ship slowly making its way toward Long Beach.

Jake was strumming absently on the guitar. He had brought it out here to get in a little practice on the tune he and Gordon were working on—it was called Let’s Do It Tonight and it was indeed about sex—but had gotten bored with that a few minutes before and was now just letting his mind run freely. He had settled into a basic melody that had been playing in his head the last few days. It was something mellow, something that likely would not transition well to a distorted electric. As of yet, he had no lyrics to go with it, but he fancied that it might be something to do with little Ziggy and his feelings about becoming a father for the first time. He played the melody over and over again, not modifying it or trying to improve it, just enjoying it. It was a four-chord melody, the first three soft, the final with a strong emphasis to set the cadence of the rhythm.

The sliding glass door opened behind him and Laura stepped out. She was wearing a maternity t-shirt with a picture of a puppy on it and a pair of baggy grey sweat shorts. She had no bra on since she was home and had no plans to go out today. She carried a glass of lemonade on the rocks in her hand.

“Hey, babe,” he greeted, pausing in his playing and picking up his wine glass. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” she said with a smile. “Just coming out to see what you’re doing and get a little air.” She sat down in the chair next to him. She looked at his wine longingly. “Oh god, that looks so good. Let me smell it.”

He handed her the wine glass and she took a large sniff. “Oh ... heavenly,” she said. “I can’t wait until Ziggy is born so I can enjoy some chardonnay every now and then.”

“Another eleven weeks,” Jake said.

“Eleven long weeks,” she said with a sigh, handing him back the glass.

He put his hands back on the guitar. “Tell me what you think about this melody,” he said. He began to strum it out for her. One two three FOUR, one two three FOUR, one two three FOUR.

“I like it,” she said, nodding her head. “Something new?”

“Yeah,” he said, continuing to strum it out. “It’s been running around in my head the past few days. When that happens, I have to strum it out, write it down, come up with something to go with it.”

“It’s got a pretty sound to it,” she said. “I’m not sure it would sound good as a distortion riff though.”

“Me either,” he said. “When I come up with some lyrics and put it together it will have to stay acoustic.”

“Hey,” Laura said with a smile. “Ziggy likes it too. She just started kicking me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Laura said, delighted, as always when Ziggy responded to music. “She’s keeping time. Keep playing it.”

Jake kept playing the rhythm. One two three FOUR, one two three FOUR, striking the strings a little harder, increasing the volume so Ziggy could hear it better.

“Look at this,” Laura said, pulling the bottom of her shirt up to reveal her swollen belly. “She’s keeping time.”

Jake saw that she was right. On the fourth chord of each repetition Ziggy was giving a kick in time with it, a little bulge pushing out just above and to the right of Laura’s belly button. He continued to run through the melody and she kicked every time on each fourth chord. There was no way to claim that she was not responding to the music.

“That’s wild,” Jake said, a big smile on his face as he continued to play, a strong tug of love for his unborn child sounding in his heart. “She’s keeping cadence.”

“Yep,” Laura said, feeling much the same. “That’s exactly what she’s doing.”

Jake strummed out three more reps, watched three more outward bulges as Ziggy kept cadence. And then his fingers came to a sudden halt and his mouth dropped open.

“Why’d you stop?” Laura asked.

Jake looked at his wife. “Cadence,” he said softly. “Cadence.”

She looked back at him, at first not picking up what he was laying down. But then she understood and smiled back at him. “Cadence,” she said with a laugh. “Oh my God. It’s perfect!”