“It is awesome. Maybe if all parents cherished their kids like he cherishes you, the world wouldn’t be so fucked-up.”
“Hmm. Good point.”
“So,” I asked, trying to be casual about it, “how long are you gonna be working here?”
She smiled at me. “A while. Can I play you something?”
“Uh… sure.” I was flattered she would even want to play me whatever she was working on. “Musically challenged” as I was.
“You can sit here,” she said, moving some things off a chair for me, right next to hers.
I sat down. Both were swivel chairs, and she spun hers to face me.
“You need these bad boys.” She slipped a set of headphones over my head, adjusting them gently to fit my ears. Then she took my hand and laid the headphone cord across my palm, pressing my thumb to the slider on the little control piece. “Volume,” she said. “I’d recommend it as loud as you can handle it. Find the sweet spot.”
“Okay.”
“Ready?” she asked me, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
“Yeah, babe.”
Music started playing, and I slid the volume slider up. It was electronic music with what sounded like real instruments mixed in, but I really couldn’t tell for sure. I couldn’t even pick out what instruments I was hearing. Sounded like keyboards, maybe, but the sound had all been… twisted.
Then a heavy beat kicked in, and everything started pumping, rising in intensity.
A man’s voice started singing. Maybe chanting would’ve been the best way to describe it.
Lift with me… lift with me… lift with me…
Gotta give it to me.
Over and over. The lyrics were simple, but clearly the song wasn’t about the words themselves, it was about the feeling in the words. The vibe.
Then the beat really dropped. It was heavier now… with a twisty groove. I didn’t even know how to describe it… I’d never been a musician or particularly understood music.
Like I’d told Summer, I knew what I liked when I heard it.
But there was so much energy and urgency in the man’s voice, like a tribal chant that was dripping with sweat, I could practically picture a guy onstage with a microphone jumping up and down and a whole stadium of people jumping up and down with him.
Give it to me
Give it to me
Summer was just sitting back in her chair, watching me.
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Start dancing? I wasn’t much of a dancer, and I really didn’t want Summer to have to see that.
So I closed my eyes.
And the pumping beat of the music, the other sounds that just kept winding and pushing everything higher and higher… it felt like it was lifting me right out of my seat.
Then Summer’s hand wrapped gently around mine and she moved the slider, and the music faded out.
I opened my eyes.
She smiled at me.
I slipped off the headphones. “Who’s voice was that?”
“That,” she said, taking the headphones from me and setting them aside, “was the vocal stylings of Ashley Player.”
“He’s a great vocalist.”
“Oh, I know. You think I’d let just any slob front my band?”
I chuckled. “No. I can’t imagine that.”
“Did you like it?”
“I liked it. But I can’t say I’m your target audience.”
She waved that off. “It’s not a finished song yet. I’m working it into my show when it’s done. I’ve been playing around with some vocals he’s laid down for me. I’m just having fun, composing, and maybe getting the world acclimated to the idea of the two of us working together forevermore. The girls go gaga at my shows when they hear his voice.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s gonna be off the hook when we hit the road with the Players and he walks out onstage.”
“You’re excited about it.”
“Hell, yeah.”
“Will you miss being a DJ and playing solo shows?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? In a way. But everything in me tells me I’m headed in the right direction with my music and my career. It’s visceral, the drive to do this. I can feel it, humming in my bone marrow.”
“Huh,” I said.
“What?”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted anything down to my bone marrow.” I was looking at her when I said that. She held my gaze, and slowly smiled at me.
My heart was beating harder, and it wasn’t the music. My whole body was pumping with warmth.
Her.
I wanted her like that.
“So,” I said. “Is this a good time to admit that I don’t totally understand what you do?”
She laughed. “You always get points for honesty, Ronan.”
“I mean, I thought DJs mostly remixed other people’s songs, and scratched records and stuff.”
“Oh, I do that. At my live shows. I have my own style of remixing, and I like picking songs that people might not expect and giving them the DJ Summer treatment. Live shows are a great place to experiment, try new things. Certain venues are excellent for it. It depends on the crowd and their expectations. And I love pillaging my vinyl collection and finding little gems, sampling music from old, old records, especially the really obscure stuff. But there’s a difference between what I do at a live show where people are expecting hot remixes, and the music I compose myself. I usually work both into my shows, especially when I’m headlining.” She smiled, almost shyly. “I really consider myself a creator. A composer and a producer. Even though I haven’t produced anyone but myself yet. I prefer building a song from the ground up.”
“That’s what you’ll be doing with the Players?”
“Definitely. We’ll be making new and totally original music. All of us together. Ash is really insistent on us not writing for our album until we’re all together in one room. That energy is important to him. And I’m really looking forward to that. Because as a DJ, it’s all about energy. When I’m onstage…” She got this kinda dreamy look in her pale-blue eyes. It was mesmerizing, like the state that came over her when she was onstage.
It was magical, for fuck’s sake.
I’d worked at a lot
