The large pillow was so plump and plush. I smacked my lips, and I half moaned, looking at it. I'm a pillow person and a solid pillow fort is almost always my choice. If I could replace my bed with simply a pile of pillows and jump in, I'd be a happy woman for all time. Asher motions at the chair, but I pull over the big pillow and plop into it.

"Oh yeah, Baddie Prince of Hip Hop and Rock." I sleepy giggle. I felt too good. Sleep for a week kind of good. Making fun of him was so much fun.

"Don't start!" He gets everything ready for a live listening party for one. Namely, to me! I liked Asher like this. It's ok if this is just a rock star hookup. Maybe for a second in passing, he could be mine for a little while.

"You forgot about Queen Latifah, Lauryn Hill, Left Eye, oh and Missy had some bangers. She was a good MC, too." He one-ups me rapping out in flow snippets of their songs together in a mash-up. I sing rap back to him and we go back and forth. My laugh had a snort to it as I laughed my head off because he's good. His flow style has that natural brokenness of Mac Miller to it. But it's his own thing.

He throws me a third huge white fluffy pillow and I'm in fucking heaven.

"Hmmm," the moan was lustier than I thought, but it's a good pillow! The white pillow swallows me up in the best possible way. Asher sits back in the chair in front of his computer, picking up his guitar.

"Ready Birdy?" No, I wasn't ready at all.

"Are you sure it's ok to listen to your album early?" The art of the album is pretty much dying. Most people don't care about an album with a concept and story anymore. The way he explained it to me was so compelling that I couldn't leave his tour bus without listening to it. Even if his tour bus was a white stranger danger van with a sliding door, my mom always told me about I'd have stayed with him to hear this album. But it's almost like intruding.

"The album is short. I have almost everything but... It needs..." He left it open, but the yearning in his voice was obvious. Asher was shirtless in a pair of first button open jeans. His dress pants and coat jack on the back of the chair and his dress shirt on the desk from the show. The fancy tie was discarded on the ground like a plague. His hair was long and messy in the rock star fashion. The messy hairstyle looked more like Asher than the corporate slick back one he wears at work. Plus, with his tattoos and somewhat shy smile, he had that reformed Baddie looked down pact. But at the same time, he looked ready to go back to his ways at any second vibe. He takes a drink from the tumbler of whiskey with the amber bottle half full behind it. Then Asher blows out his breath and the sharp smokey scent catches my nose. I nod my head at him in a show of support.

In the tiny studio, it becomes like a cocoon of sound. The beats of Dustin Kells and Asher Kells' guitar join together. Maybe Dustin's drums are only the laptop's demo version, but it's almost like he's alive. I've never heard Asher's brother play live before only on TV, but the two songs of the album were classic Kells. exuberant manic life distilled through the music. The kind that makes you want to be where ever these two men were and made their careers. That without a genre sound but with a rock edge to it.

The tone slowly shifts and it's as if the music is trying to enclose me and take me to the edge of a feeling. As if Dustin's drums are taking me off the cliff and I do not know what's below a vast pool of water to dive into or rocks. Those were the next seven songs on the album until you got to song ten and you realize it was rocks blow.

The tenth song on the album and with my eyes tightly shut, I knew from the first note the realization it was only Asher. The loneliness of it cut deeply. Tears rolled down my cheeks, listening to his cover of "Hurt by Trent Reznor." With no band backup no Dust Kells. It felt like I was looking at the living from the viewpoint of the dead. That I was broken and bleeding on the rocks and Dustin didn't make it. Dustin was gone, and it hurt. His version was different from Trent's, it was different from Johnny Cash's version. It found a way to be more lonely and so goddamn young at the same time. Not all the notes were there on the piano. It was a more stripped-down version of it, but his voice was a mix of rock and old school rock to pour whiskey into the wound. I'm not even sure it was whiskey to help it heal or whiskey to prove that maybe Asher could hurt a little more after all. The tears wouldn't stop, they couldn't stop. I'm not even sure if I was crying for him or because I couldn't hear the pain anymore.

With the last note, Asher reaches out to me. His hand is hesitant, and then the tip of his finger touches my wet cheek. He touched the wetness on my cheek like it was a foreign concept. His expression, his eyebrows high in surprise. The contrast of his fingertip against my dark cheek is striking, but no matter how much I cry, it keeps hurting. It's an open wound without treatment and it burns deep in my chest. I cried for all Dustin's tomorrows he'll never get to see. My tears rolled down my dark brown cheek in the soft light of the little studio for Asher. The album told a story, but he's right, it was missing something closer. Because going by the album, Asher had not even started to move on. I needed to stop crying. I need to stop crying. I can't...

I stand up from the pillow and do the thing I've wanted to do from the first time I saw him on stage live. That awful performance after he was gutted by Pauly. I did the thing that I thought just maybe he needed most. I moved the keyboard to the side next to the laptop and sat in his lap. My arms wrapped around him with my head tucked into his neck and I held him. He was stiff in my arms. Time stretched and Asher didn't lift his arms to wrap around me. I didn't let him go, even though he was still stiff in my arms. Everyone wants something from Asher. I felt like he needed someone to give him something for once. Finally, I feel his large body relax one muscle at a time. First one hand and then the other touches my back. The only thing I could do was give him the time no one else seems to want to give him. The same gift Noah, Maurice, and Zo gave to me. I held on. When I felt the gentle sound of his breathing, I tried to move away without waking him. But his arms tighten around me. Ideas about the end of the album and what it needed moved through my mind until I stumbled on it. It was two covers in a row, but it would be better this way. What was needed was a forward movement, the first step forward after grief. My mind flashes to my final project and the arrangement I already made in my journal. I'm going to rip out that page and leave the song on the desk before I go.

I've never ripped a page out of my journal before. It always felt like cheating. As if I was trying to make a mistake that never existed, which wasn't true. I make mistakes all the time. The rip of paper was loud in my ears, but I didn't stop until the tear was done. I scrolled a quick note on the paper. Hopefully, Asher ignores the doodles stars, and nebula I drew in the bullet journal. The lyrics and everything else was fine. Plus, the arrangement is cool.

Dear Asher,

This is song 11 if you want to use it. It's a cover, but it's perfect.

My pen hovers over the page as in my mind I cross out the words.

Your friend. No.

I don't put that in because that would be too much. It felt a little too close, even though we had sex together. I didn't use it sincerely because it felt too distant. After some thought, I leave it like that. Then I tiptoed past Asher asleep on the large pillow that was huge for me but looks almost normal size under him. His big body was so peaceful.

A/n: I always said there is no Noah without the Tour. B and Asher are the beginning of all of it. They spawn a whole mini-universe. It was mostly written first in snippets and bits and pieces. B & Asher don't jump in the same way as Tari and Noah. Yet, something about them I do really like. Heart to heart-wise for me there's a click moment.

#backoffice - I'm currently working on sleeping the correct time. I am staying on track on the Tour due to watty's and hopefully when this comes watty times you'll remember to shout out my work. Thank you for the support it means the world. I wish I could get back to my vampire sleeping habits quickly.