I kept driving, and the air in the car changed. I felt Julian watching me, and then he started to sing — low, in a deep register, not Prince’s falsetto but a registerbelowthe lead,withit, somewherebetween harmony and counter-melody. He sang the first line like he was trying it on.
It fit.
His voice filled the lower half the way Prince’s filled the upper, and the two of them were singing this song to me. Prince and Julian.
I had to keep driving. I gripped the wheel and kept my eyes on the road, and I felt the first tear come up in the corner of my eye and refused to let it fall, because I was driving, and because if I cried now he might stop, and I did not want him to stop.
I glanced over at him. He was watching me try to keep the tears in as I gripped the wheel tighter, and his eyes lit up.
He looked younger. Not younger in age — younger the way a person looks when they stop holding themselves up for a minute. Nothing in his face was carrying anything. His shoulders were loose. For the first time since I’d known him, he wasunburdenedin a way I could see from the outside.
He smiled into the next line, embellishing a word in the chorus, singing it straight into my face.
I almost had to pull over. Iwantedto pull over and climb across the center console and into his lap and put my mouth on his — but I couldn’t, because if I pulled over he would stop singing, and I needed him not to stop.
So I drove.
He lifted my hand. Brought it to his mouth. Kissed the back of it without breaking eye contact or missing a word, and held it against his lips for another beat of the chorus before he set it back on the wheel.
I made a small sound. It came out like a laugh that didn’t quite make it.
I had never been sung to in my entire life. I wanted more of it. I wanted to find every excuse to put this man in cars with me forever, to learn what else he could sing. I wanted to see his face look like that more often.
The song ended and he kissed my hand one more time.
I was going to cry. I’d held it the whole song. I felt my eyes go.
He saw it. “Alyssa? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m fine, Julian. Drive my car. I mean — let me drive my car.”
He squeezed my thigh. “Pull over for a second.”
“I’m not pulling over. I’m fine.”
Then the radio rolled into the next one. I knew the opening. The slow synth, the patient build, the dirty soft pulse of it underneath.
A.D.I.D.A.S.by Ro James. I looked at Julian then looked back at the road.
Ro James started in, spelling out exactly what those five letters stood for, and I had to laugh. Julian chuckled too.
“Julian. Is this on apreset?”
“It is.”
“Did you know what was going to come on after Prince?”
“The shuffle picks.”
“The shuffle ismessy.” I laughed.
“Alyssa. Let’s go home.”
I made a U-turn in the empty lake lot and pointed the car back toward town — but I didn’t pull out. He sang along to one line under his breath. Just the one.
My whole body was pointed toward what was waiting for me on the other side of the front door.
He looked at me. He didn’t say anything. He turned in the seat so he was facing me, and reached over with the hand that had been on my thigh and put it on the back of my neck, and pulled me toward him across the center console, and kissed me. Soft. The kind of kiss that wasn’t going anywhere and didn’t need to.
