Sing Your Pleasure. A.C. Arthur

now as he watched her he felt there was something else—something more to her that seemed to touch him. That touch was both alarming and unwanted, new and familiar in a way that again scared him. Akil wasn’t afraid of anything. He’d grown up on the drug-infested streets of east Baltimore and didn’t flinch at the sight or thought of death. How could he when it was an everyday possibility where he’d lived? Those streets had made him the man he was today—the one who wasn’t afraid to take risks, to reach for what he wanted then hold on tight when he got it. Nothing tripped him up, nothing made him think twice about his goals, his aspirations. For as long as he could remember it had been that way, for better or for worse.

      Until now.

      Until Charlene.

      He had realized that the moment she began to sing yesterday. She’d rehearsed the song, that was the first thing that surprised him. For a woman who had buried herself in a school, surrounded herself with aspiring singers but hadn’t chased the dream for herself, she was surprisingly professional and on cue.

      She’d known the exact pitches to hit, even though this was her first time singing the song with music. Normally he had to rehearse a song with an artist for at least a day before they could begin recording anything, but at midnight last night he and Jason were remixing her voice over the music, blending the two together until they almost had a perfect recording.