"Tell me you love me like a star, tell me you want me wherever you are." Jude sang, her eyes closed as the music swept through her and out into the microphone.
Tommy's eyes were fixed on her, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Here, with her voice in his headphones, their lyrics in his mind, he could almost forget himself, get lost in her. He allowed himself to briefly indulge the fantasy that never really left. Let himself remember how her lips had felt under his, the way she just got him.
Screw Speiderman, screw Darius, screw the damn age difference, he and Jude just... clicked. They had this chemistry that he was so sick of ignoring. As hard as they both fought it, there would be times like her 17th birthday when they were writing, and he opened himself up to her, to her music, and ended up opening himself up to the feelings he'd been afraid to act on since she first walked into the studio.
They could run away together. She was 17 now, and wiser than any adult he'd ever known. They could climb on his motorcycle, ride off into the sunset. They could be happy, just the two of them and the music. His skin burned with the thought of hers.
He'd thought these things before, so many times, but something was different today. Today, when she finished singing, he stopped the recording and said "Hang on." He opened the glass door that separated the studio in two and said "I want to show you something."
"Time for another teaching moment from Little Tommy Q?" She asked sarcastically.
He smirked. "I've been doing this a lot longer than you have, Harrison. You're losing breath support, and it's making you go flat. Come here."
She looked wary, but walked over to him anyway. He stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her, placing his hands on her stomach, over her shirt. "What are you doing?" she asked nervously, and he whispered "Trust me."
His lips brushed her ear, and he felt her shiver. "Relax. You're not engaging your breath muscles low enough. Try breathing against my hands. Try to push them out." He pressed lightly on her abdomen as she breathed. "Feel that?" he whispered. She nodded mutely. "Do that when you sing." He turned his head and kissed her softly on the temple.
"Tommy, what are you doing?" she asked, breathless.
She turned around in his arms, so that his hands were at the small of her back, and her face was just inches from his. He could feel her breath, and it drove him crazy. "I don't know." he said softly, and pressed his mouth to hers. At first she was surprised, pulled away, but something in his face must have gotten to her, because she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back.
"Leave with me." he whispered when they broke away. Her eyes widened. "Tommy..."
"Tommy? Hellooo? Producer person?" Jude was saying in his headphones. "Was that better?"
He realized with a jolt that he'd been daydreaming. "Uh, yeah. Still watch that you don't push. We'll do it one more time."
"Again?" She asked, incredulous.
"Don't whine, Harrison. Or don't you want your album to be on pitch?" She stuck her tongue out at him and he just laughed. "Again." He started the music, and she complied and started to sing again. He watched her and sighed, shaking off the wisps of fantasy, knowing he'd have to be content with this, at least for now.