The studio always felt like a crypt when it was empty. The sound booth was dark. The blue light from his iPhone bouncing off the wall of glass in front of him barely gave life to the control room, but it was enough to live by at 3AM. He'd been drafting to-do lists again. The mixing board was dead in front of him and he felt a compulsion to turn it on just to have something to do. Being exhausted and being able to sleep had never been mutually exclusive. Drained and still awake had been the tagline to his life for the past two years.

He heard the door open and he leaned back in the recliner. He didn't have to turn around to know who it was. He just waited for the soft padding of feet before she crept into view. His arms uncrossed and his feet dropped to the carpet reflexively, making room for her as she crawled into his lap. She weighted herself against him, slid her slim arms around his neck and pressed her face against his throat. He grinned when he heard the peevish little grunt she made under her breath. She wasn't a fan of being left alone in bed. She was even less of a fan of leaving it to look for him in the middle of the night.

"You're gonna make yourself sick," he muttered, referring to her usual hatred of being overdressed paired with the chill in his studio.

"You're gonna make me sick." Half-awake but always smart.

He didn't argue with her.

The room went silent again. Her breathing was quiet. His knuckles rubbed along the length of her spine as she napped. The motion was so familiar that he felt his muscles start to go slack. He didn't understand the biology but she'd always had that calming effect on him. Except, of course, when she was making him mad. She had a real talent for that, too. At least no one could ever accuse them of being dull. It was surreal thinking how much they'd grown with and around each other.

When they'd been younger and he'd been modeling embarrassing Speedos and khaki shorts, he'd told her some truly ridiculous things. I'm gonna buy you a country and name it Raquel Land. I'm gonna build you a mansion of gold bricks. I'm gonna take over Hollywood and cast you in everything. Everything. Whatever that entailed.

I'm gonna marry you and have a bunch of kids.

And nothing would ever disappoint her again. Her parents would stop shaming her. His mom would be cured. His dad would move back. And they could leave. Just leave Toronto and go wherever she wanted to go and stop feeling obligated to these people, stop living their lives for everyone else.

But that had been a long time ago.

All the things he'd thought would set them free had turned into new prisons instead. Just bigger, more expensive ones. And everyone else had turned into an audience. Whatever happiness he felt towards being with her had to be set to private and hidden away because there was nothing, absolutely nothing, the public wanted to destroy more than real happiness. It couldn't be real. It was too offensive.

The constant scrutiny and pressure had turned him into someone else.

It was awhile before she sat up and leaned back to look him in the face. His eyebrows lifted and he gave her awhat's the matter look before her hands pressed to his face.

"Are you done?" she asked.

He considered the question before answering, "I wasn't working."

"Yes. But are you done?"