"You on a call?" Billy tentatively poked his head into his own office.

I'd been with him for months, working remotely. If the kids were home, I nearly always had an assistant in Viv while Billy would take Jackson to the barn studio. It was rare that Billy had to go into the downtown studio when the kids were home, but he'd head in when it was just him and me. As expected, he'd always check with me first, adorably attentively.

"Nope. You just get home?" I glanced at the clock to see it was well after 5 pm.

"A few minutes ago. What are you listening to?" He settled on the couch that Viv would frequently nap on.

"Buddy Holly."

He gave a silent nod.

"You okay?" I added.

"Yeah." His eyes fixated on a pen on the desk. "You ever listen to my stuff?"

"You know I've heard some of it and love it, but we work because I know you for you, not your music."

"What if I asked you to listen?"

"Depends on why you're asking." I should've been paying more attention and not so focused on shutting down my computer.

"Because I don't want any secrets."

I missed his tone. I was distracted. Any warning he was giving, I didn't hear.

"Then I'd stay up all night listening."

"Come find me in the studio when you're done here." He pulled himself up and left without another word.

I paused in the doorway when I got to the studio. He was playing a song that was vaguely familiar and humming to himself.

"Hey, handsome."

As he turned, a smile filled his face; he still had enough chub to make his cheeks puff childish when pricked by his dimples. "Hey, you, come sit down." He scooted over on the piano bench, and I slid in as instructed.

"You gonna play me a song, piano man?"

The song was beautifully simplistic, with a melody akin to a nursery rhyme. His voice came softly, as though he were singing a lullaby. Two childhood friends that grew together from childhood to old age, depending on each other. When he gazed at me, I saw my tears reflected in his eyes.

"That wasn't the reaction I expected." He tucked my head into his chest. "You've always known I love you."

"I have; you've never been shy of showing me that, making sure I felt it. I didn't make it easy since I muted your music."

"You make me work for it. I like that. Would you like to hear more?" There was a twinkle of hope in his eye.

"Play one of the angry ones."

He looked at me with surprise. "Why?"

I let out a laugh. "So, you admit they exist."

Billy sighed. "I fell right into that one. I couldn't muster what you're looking for today." He added as he slid from the bench. He shifted through a few records until he found what he was looking for and dropped the needle.

It started with a deep bass drum that pounded into my chest, commanding attention. Once the guitar began, words weren't even necessary to feel the heat from the emotion. Billy hadn't joined me on the bench again; he left space between us as he settled on the broken-down couch, his eyes dipped to his clasped hands.

I didn't hear any of the words during the first pass; all I could hear was the screaming from his guitar. I could close my eyes and witness the fight of him playing and feel the burning anger in his eyes that I had seen only a few times. I replayed the song a second time to hear the words. Billy didn't move.

The words were direct and unforgiving. A condemnation of my faults, my weakest moments, the moments that I thought had been long forgiven but suddenly came so raw and present in the song. It was all so thinly veiled, having lived through it. The wounds were deep, and this music came from them. I feared when it was written. Even as I tried to focus on the damning words, the guitar pulled my thoughts; it was exquisite and terrifying at the same time.

After the second playing, I didn't adjust the needle to hear it again; twice gutted me enough. The next song quietly started, a tender voice, but the words were equally brutal in their description of love. Billy got up quickly and pulled the needle from the record, causing a screech to echo around the room. He picked the album up and slammed it against the table corner in a swift movement, shattering it. Our eyes watched the pieces rain down to the floor as silence filled the room.

"I'm sorry," Billy murmured without lifting his face.

"You're sorry. I'm horrible." My voice came hoarsely.

"That's not true. An angry man inflamed the exaggerated characteristics of the person in that song." He couldn't acknowledge that I was the person.

"When did you write that?"

Billy uncomfortably shifted. "The week I married Sarah."

"You wrote that when you married Sarah?" Shock filled my tone.

"See, I'm sorry, not you." His head fell to his hands as he slumped back to the couch. "I had to give up on us to give her a chance. I needed to focus on..." his voice gave out.

As loneliness took hold, I felt my arms tightly wrap around me. I always thought I had Billy's support, even when we were fighting. But that one song stripped away that feeling. The level, calm, sensitive man I knew was replaced with a blistering public conviction of all my faults and insecurities. My mind whirled to more; there must be more. Billy was known for scorching emotional work that a person could only get to through tapping into the most challenging parts of life, and I was the most vicious part of Billy's life.

I had thought the scorn I'd witnessed in Billy when he was in the hospital wasn't real. I had pushed it away. He could never feel that way toward me. But the song, the words; that man was in Billy, and the anger he had towards Sarah was nothing compared to what lurked within him towards me.

"It's okay," I murmured to myself. I didn't know if I was soothing him or myself. "I just need..." My mind couldn't settle on what I needed. "I just need to be alone for a minute."

I stumbled from the studio. The cold bite of the late fall air did nothing to sober me. I made it to the house and found myself standing in front of the jukebox in the basement. I scrutinized the songs. My ten were there as they always had been, followed by Mary's. I scanned through the rest, looking for personalities. They had been changed; I knew they had. The next dozen or so were clearly Viv and Jackson. Then Tim's character beamed through with hints of Tess' warm kindness seeping into the selections. The rest were Billy. There was little to no order to an outsider, but the progression of songs was straight from Billy's mind. A trigger in one song led to the next regardless of artist, period, or even genre. Of course, Black Jack Davey would lead to Party of Special Things To Do. They fit unexpectedly and perfectly at the same time.

"Hey, there you are."

The voice was so close to Billy's, but not as rough. If Billy hadn't beat on his voice for ten years, would this be how he sounded? I knew the answer; Billy's voice had a ten-pack-a-day rasp from the day he was born.

I didn't lift my head from the jukebox to respond. "You got here fast."

"Mmhmm, I was having dinner at Mary's." Tim halted next to me. "You okay?"

"No." Tim was like Billy; I didn't need to be careful. At least, I hadn't thought I needed to be cautious around Billy. "How's Billy?"

"A mess." Tim's voice was low with sincerity. "Can I ask you..." his voice dropped.

"Yeah," I knew what was coming.

"What are you upset about? You knew, right?"

"Yeah, I knew, but that's different from hearing it and..."

"The timing. The bastard can over share. I'd have kept that in the pocket." Tim was in his thoughts.

"I asked him when he wrote it. It was my fault. I didn't realize how much I didn't want to know." I sighed and lifted my face to Tim. "Was it like that? Was he that..."

"Yeah," Tim shrugged. "Every time, it was that bad. First, it was anger, then disbelief, then anger, then sadness, then anger, and then you'd show up again."

"That's a lot of anger."

"Yeah, he's a pretty even dude. His music is usually the only way he lets his temper out. Well, and a few unlucky inanimate objects that get tossed around from time to time." Tim let out a snort. "He destroyed an entire living room set when you got married. That ugly couch in the studio is the only thing that survived, and even that has some scars."

"But he was married already."

"Mmhmm, we just called it demo to get it out of the basement, but Sarah knew. She always knew."

"Knew what?" I needed to hear it.

"That she was never gonna be tops."

"Because of me," I finished.

"At the time, yeah. But it's different now, with you not being tops. I mean, you can still make the man bleed with a look, but I don't think you'll gut him; only Viv and Jackson can do that now."

"How can you love someone that you also hate so much?"

"That's not a question for me, Lil." Tim looked down at me with apologetic eyes.

"Are they all like that?"

"No, he has a couple of songs about cars."

"Great." I sighed.

"Look, they aren't all bitter. If you listened to the entire catalog, there are just as many love songs and songs where he shoulders his share of the blame. And look, they aren't all about you. He's had other girls."

"That's right." I nodded to myself.

"But, yeah, most are about you." He recognized my wince and added a "sorry."

I let my eyes fall back to the jukebox. "Where's Sarah?" I said as my fingers floated over the keys.

"She never picked any songs. I asked her a couple of times, but she didn't have anything come to mind." He shrugged. "That should've been a sign."

"He's a mess?" I asked.

"Lil, he hurt you; he knows it." He slung an arm around me. "Tess is with him."

"Is he still in the studio?"

"Mmhmm, you sure you want to do this right now? Things are kinda raw still."

"No, they aren't. I knew all this. I just needed a minute to swallow it. And he needs me."

I had known he had written about me. I knew he wrote when he was angry and sad and happy. I knew they were all out there, and the raw emotion made people gravitate to his work.

Billy's back was to the door while he swept up the record when I entered.

"Billy," I barely got his name out before he was crashing into me, the dustpan and brush clattering behind me. "I love you," I managed from his clutches.

"Lil," my name came breathy and urgent as he pulled away to clutch my face in his hands. "What can I do?"

"You don't need to do anything." It was hard to speak with his hands holding my face. "I love you. I just needed to digest."

He pulled me to his chest again. "I love you, Lil. Every song, every lyric, every chord, I love you."

"I know, Billy."

"Do you?" He pulled away and clutched my face again. "Do you understand?"

"I think so."

His urgent eyes were bowling over me. "What can I do?" He offered again as his shoulders released a small amount of tension.

"Come to bed. I know it's early, but I'm tired and want to fall asleep in your arms."

Without another word, he lifted me into the cradle of his arms and carried me to bed.