Nico glanced at the clock again, tapping his foot. Will should've been there twenty minutes ago. He knew he shouldn't worry, but he couldn't help himself, and his mind jumped to the worst immediately. Maybe Will had decided not to come. Maybe he decided he didn't like Nico. Maybe he never planned on going through with this, anyway, and only said yes to make fun of Nico.

That last idea made an uncomfortable lump grow in his throat. He should've known it wasn't going to end any different than the other times he'd futility tried to make friends. Why would Will even want to be around him, anyway? He shouldn't have gotten his hopes up. He shouldn't have-

Finally, he heard a knock on the studio door. Jumping up, he almost knocked over a stray can of soda hanging around. He dashed over to the door to reveal Will standing there sheepishly.

"Sorry," he told Nico. "Traffic was just terrible. But I'm here now."

Nico stepped aside to let Will in, now suddenly ashamed at how quickly he'd assumed Will would abandon him. Will was nice. Will wouldn't do that.

Still, now that the thought was there, it wouldn't leave him, making itself a comfortable nest in the back of Nico's brain. You don't even know him, it whispered. How do you know he's nice? How do you know he's not about to split at any moment?

Shut up, Nico told it. Also, no one uses split anymore. Get a new slang word.

Nico lead Will over to a comfy chair near the back of the studio, and he flashed a grin at Nico as he sat. Nico had come to learn that these dazzling grins were part of Will's trademark, as ever present as his sparkling blue eyes.

Nico froze. Nope. No. There would be no talk of sparkling blue eyes in these parts, no sir. Absolutely not.

Still, Nico remembered how he had covered the table at the coffee shop with papers he didn't use, over preparing for even the casual meeting. How he'd avoided making contact with Will's skin even the slightest bit. How, hell, he didn't even know this kid, and yet he'd offered him a spot on his album. His music was the second most important thing to Nico in all this world, and he'd let a person he barely knew into it. He was pathetic.

"Would you like something to drink?" Nico asked, figuring it was a good place to start. "I've got coffee, water, soda…"

"A cup of coffee sounds amazing, actually." Nico nodded, walking over to the little coffee machine next to the mini fridge and microwave in the back. He spent more late nights in here than he probably should have, so this little mini kitchen came in handy surprisingly often.

"How would you like it?" he asked.

"Black."

"Like your soul," Nico mumbled, and Will laughed out loud, despite Nico not realizing he could hear. Nico busied himself with the coffee maker, not wanting to think about the way Will's laugh made him feel. No, Will couldn't be further from a darkblack soul. Not when his smile was so bright, it made everyone else in the room grin, too.

As he was making the coffee, Will took a deep breath, then let it out, looking around the studio. "I have a question," he said finally.

"Yeah?"

"How are we doing this? Don't you need to book a studio, like, months in advance?"

"Normally, yes. But I own this studio."

"What?"

"I paid six months rent down a few months ago. And since I mix everything myself, I don't need to line up scheduling with anyone else. Usually I just come here by myself whenever I feel like it and make stuff."

"Wait, you do everything yourself? The mixing and the instrumentation and everything?"

"Well, yeah. You'll be the first person I've actually worked with to make a song."

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait." Will seemed really caught up in something. "Y-you're telling me, that guitar solo after verse two in 'Write It On My Neck' was you? You played that?!!"

Nico was done with the coffee now, but stopped, looking at Will. "That's a pretty obscure song of mine to know for someone who's supposedly only listened to a couple."

Will went red. "Well, I might've- I might've heard a few more than I let on."

Nico had to turn away so that Will didn't see how thrilled that made him. To be perfectly honest, he was kind of disappointed when Will said he hadn't heard very many of Nico's songs. Not that he had expected more, but still. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't ectatic now that he knew Will had listened to more of them- even some of the really obscure ones, it seemed.

"Yes. I played that."

"Whoa. Dude. That was amazing. Could you give me the music for that? I wanna play it so bad."

"Sure." Nico handed Will his cup of coffee. "But how about we get started on this song first?"

"Oh, right. Good idea."

Nico made his way over to the entrance to the recording booth and opened the door. "Go on," he said. "You can bring your coffee in as long as you promise not to spill it. Let me start the recording."

"Start it now? But we haven't even practiced yet!"

"Right, but what if our practice is better than what we recorded? I usually record the entire session, and then just… crop it to all hell."

Will laughed. Seriously, did this guy ever stop smiling? "Sounds good. Can I start picking around your instruments?"

"Go for it."

Will disappeared into the recording booth as Nico fiddled with the huge mixing console, starting their first recording together. Then he, too, slipped into the booth, and the real work began.

A/N Sorry I haven't posted in a while, it's exam week. This will probably be the only chapter this week because of that, but this weekend I'll upload another one again! Thank you for reading!