A Song for Julia

me, and I nodded, grinning. Her lips slowly curled up into a smile, and she stood, and suddenly Mark and Pathin were standing too, and shouting, and Serena walked over to Julia and wrapped her arms around her. Then Serena did something I didn’t think I’d ever see in my life. She burst into tears. Mark and Pathin began peppering me with excited questions, and I tried to answer them, but the general pandemonium took a few minutes to calm down.
    Finally Julia said, “Look … we’re both … very tired. It’s been a long couple of days. I’ll answer more questions tomorrow. The main thing right now is you guys are going to have to go to work. We need the album completed by January 30th. Which means you’ve got songs to write and record starting right away.”
    “We’ve got a budget for recording?” Pathin asked.
    “Yes. Plenty.”
    “Hell, yeah!” Mark shouted.
    “Plus, the advance. We’ll sit down and figure out the accounting on that. We need to hold some back for merchandising, we’ll work out the details. Plus, I need to be reimbursed for the tickets to California, which weren’t cheap.”
    Serena looked at Julia. “Looks like you got the job. You’re the boss now. Just tell us what to do.”
    Julia shook her head. “Let us get some sleep?”
    “One thing first,” Mark said.
    Julia raised her eyebrows. Mark had been hostile to her managing the band from the moment the idea came up. I tensed, ready to tell Mark to shut the hell up as he approached her. “I’m sorry. And … thank you.”
    Julia smiled. “Thank you, Mark.”
    I felt my body relax. Mark was unpredictable, and who knew what was going to come out of his mouth at any given moment. It was a relief knowing I wasn’t going to have to beat the crap out of him.
    “Let’s go to bed,” I said, quietly, and I took her hand and led her back to my room.
    The moment she walked inside, her face lifted into a grin. “Is it safe to sleep in here?”
    I gave her a sour look, but then took a second glance around the room, and I guess I could see where she was coming from. Place was a mess. The top of my old, scarred dresser I’d picked up beside the sidewalk was scattered with paper, mostly messy musical notations. The floor, what you could see of it, had old, dingy carpeting, but my clothes, which were fairly evenly distributed around the floor, completely hid that.
    The sheets were clean. But rumpled.
    In fact, the only genuinely clean spot in the room was the corner opposite the window, where my guitar leaned in its stand.
    I grunted. “Once the light is out, you won’t even notice.”
    She snickered, and I wrapped my arms around her, feeling her warmth against my chest.
    “I’m proud of you,” I said. “No one else could have carried off what you did this weekend.”
    “No,” she said. “It was your music that did it. All I did was give the song to a friend and ask him to pass it on to his dad.”
    “My music, which I would have sold short to a bankrupt studio.”
    She shrugged.
    “We make a good team,” she said.
    I leaned forward, bringing our lips together. She breathed deeply, pressing against me, as our tongues played against each other, wet, passionate. For the first time since I was in middle school, my lips were actually sore from so much kissing. I slid my hands down, cupping her butt, and she moaned, and suddenly her fingers were clawing at my back, pulling me closer, it felt like she was trying to get inside me.
    My lips dropped to her neck, and she gasped and pushed me toward the bed. I pulled her along, lying down with her on top of me, and then her lips were moving down the base of my throat, and I whispered, “God, I love you.”
    She froze, her whole body suddenly going rigid.
    Fuck!
    She was off me, and moving toward the door.
    “I have to go,” she said, her voice shaking.
    “Julia, wait!”
    “No!” she shouted. Her eyes were watering and she said, “Why the hell did you have to say that, Crank?”
    And then she opened the door and ran out.
    I followed, running down the hall after her and grabbed her wrist. Jesus, I had to stop her.
    “Julia, stop! Just wait a second!”
    “Let me go!” she screamed, yanking her arm away from me. “Why do you have to ruin it? Why? I’m done here.”
    I reached for her again, and she slapped my chest, pushing me away, and then slapped harder, backing away from me.
    “Julia, please!”
    “Don’t you ever say that to me. We aren’t … whatever you think we