A Song for Julia

room.”
    “That’s a great idea,” Crank said.
    I burst into laughter. But I also felt my stomach tighten, warmth flooding my body. Maybe that really was a great idea. But we only had three hours before we had to be back at the airport. I stepped close to Crank as the elevator started moving again and whispered, “Soon.”
    He grinned and put his arm around my waist. And we started laughing again. And then I said, “I’ve made my decision.”
    “About?”
    “Grad school … career … all that.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “Oh? What did you decide?”
    “I think I’m going to manage Morbid Obesity. Full time.”
    The elevator came to a stop at the ground floor, and he said in a near growl, “You know how to tell a guy what he wants to hear.”
    I winked at him. “Time for you to get going writing some new songs, buddy. We’ve got an album to record.”
    He laughed, and we walked out onto the street. He turned toward me and pulled me close, and said, “And what about us?” He was looking at my eyes as he said the words, and what I wanted to say was this: I’m yours. I wanted to tell him I was as committed to him as I was to the band, to our future together. I wanted to tell him … that I loved him.
    I wasn’t ready for that. I looked back, feeling like his eyes were looking right into my soul. “I’m ready to take some risks,” I said. That was as far as I could go.
    “We’ll take them together,” he replied. “Take your time, Julia. I know you’re not ready to commit yet. But I need you to know: I want you in my life. Not just with the band, not hanging out with my family. I want you.”
    I was trembling. My whole body responded—my nipples tightening under my bra, my body flushing. I didn’t know how to answer that. I didn’t even know how to think about that. But my body seemed to know what it thought, whatever my brain was doing. Because my body was yielding to his words, pushing me closer in a way that was almost impossible to resist.
    “I don’t know how to answer that,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. “I can’t even think about all that.”
    “You don’t have to answer, Julia.” His voice felt like a caress. “But if you aren’t going to let me take you to a room right this second and have wild sex, then we better go eat. Because I’m so hungry right now I could scream.”
    I don’t think he meant he was hungry for breakfast. But for today, in Los Angeles, that was all he was going to get. That was all I was going to get, and right now, I wanted so much more.
    So we walked, and we found a diner, and sat down and ordered. And brainstormed a schedule, to write and record the album, by the end of January, so it would be released in time for the summer tour. We talked websites and building a permanent fan base beyond the local Boston music scene. It was time to turn things up a notch, and now we had the resources to do it.
    We were riding high on dreams, and for now, that was enough.
    As we were finishing breakfast, he said, “The rest of the band is going to freak. None of us expected more than a single.”
    “What do you think they’ll say?”
    He chuckled. “Serena told me to be nice to you.”
    “She what?”
    “She said something along the lines of … I’m a hollow man. And that I needed to watch out and not screw up. Because you deserve better than what I usually offer.”
    I don’t know why, but I found the idea of Serena and Crank discussing me … disturbing. “How close are you and Serena?” I asked.
    He looked at me a little sideways. “We’re close friends. But not like that.”
    “That’s not what I meant.” Yes, it was.
    “What did you mean?”
    “I’m just curious,” I said, lying. “I don’t know the rest of the band that well.”
    “Well … Mark’s from Somerville. We met hanging out in the Pit, four, maybe five years ago. We used to get drunk in the cemetery.”
    “Really?” I asked, trying not to laugh.
    “Yeah. That’s like a right of passage where I come from.”
    “So you guys have been friends a long time.”
    “I wouldn’t say that … we beat the crap out of each other the first time we met. It was over a girl. She took off with me, and he didn’t like it.”
    “Ouch,” I said.
    “Yeah. Well, I was a real asshole. But he got over it, and we got to be friends. And we started the band together. Good times back then. We’d set up just … wherever, until the cops came and kicked us out. Dad would get