They were playing one of Jay's old songs when he realized Silvia was singing the background vocals. He looked up at her and raised one eyebrow, both mocking and questioning. She raised both—what?—and nodded for him to keep playing. He did.

"Well, what about those BG vocals?" he said when the song was over.

"Oh, I love their arrangements. If you can take it, I'd rather go for that."

"Be my guest."

But he still couldn't bring his inner bastard to behave, so he picked Save Your Soul. And she sang the higher voice along with a contagious spark of joy in her eyes. Jay leaned a little forward to sing:

But who are we supposed to be?

She smiled in the following pause and leaned a little forward too, chuckling when he sang, like asking her:

And who am I supposed to be today?

Her lips pursed in an ironic smile as he charged on with the chorus, nodding for her to join him.

I give back all that's been given
I take back all that's been taken
I could never go on this way again...

She hit all the right notes, and he kept playing and singing as a contradictory feeling grew inside of him. He just wanted to kill time and not get bored, but his inner bastard kept pushing. And he found himself trying to catch her imitating him, because he hated it when people tried to own his songs. Yet, to his inner bastard's exasperation, she didn't.

She wasn't trying to own them, or outshine him, which fell in his impossible category of things. Because according to his own experience, everybody always ended up trying to outshine him.

Even against his will, that made him feel better around her. On that stormy night, stranded in the flooded fields, with this woman so blind she couldn't see who was right before her nose, he was just fine. And he frigging hated it.

They decided to go back in time for some more classics, and Jay played them as he kept studying her from under his cap.

She was in her mid-thirties, like him, and he could picture she'd been a hot teen. She was still pretty, in her own soccer-mom way. However, she was the least sexy, insinuating thing he'd found in ages.

She wasn't trying to make an impression or seduce him, which was sort of a first for him over the last ten years or so. Her head and her heart were somewhere else, on whatever had gotten her crying like that at the hall.

If there was something Jay wasn't used to, it was indifference. Maybe he was too aware of how hot he was for his own good, but he didn't take it well. 'Cause nothing worked on her. She seemed immune to looks and smiles that had brought the most coveted women to their knees before him. Literally.

She didn't even seem to wonder why he knew so many of his songs. She did, so why wouldn't he?

He hated her guts.

At the same time, her polite, nice indifference made her treat him like they were old friends, making the whole situation a lot easier and more comfortable for him. He had room to be who he really was, when the lights went off and he was able to close the door on the crazy industry of fame that ruled his life. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten that chance outside his tight inner circle.

And he loved her for that.

**CHASING AVALANCHE - Save Your Soul**