Playing the Air
a throwback to a simpler time...
“Why are there no windows in this studio…” Nikki said, setting her coat over the back of a chair. “How very serial-killer chic.”
Matthew had looked up from the soundboard with that restrained half-smile of his. “Good thing I’m too busy fixing your levels to murder you.”
“Mhm.” She had glanced at the upright piano in the recording booth. “That remains to be seen.”
Now, three weeks later, the joke had become part of the room. It lived in the air between takes, in the way she looked at him through the glass when he adjusted a gain knob, in the way he never quite looked away fast enough.
The red RECORDING light glowed above the booth door.
Nikki sat at the piano, shoulders tight beneath the loose black blouse she’d worn that evening, dark hair spilling over one side of her face. The headphones covered her ears, but Matthew could still hear her frustration through the glass.
She stopped playing. Again. Her hands hovered above the keys.
“God damn it,” she muttered.
Matthew pressed the talkback button. “What’s wrong?”
She looked up at him through the glass, her mouth twisting with irritation. “That transition. It keeps sounding like I’m trying to force it.”
“It does sound forced.”
Her eyes narrowed. He lifted one hand. “You asked.”
“I did,” she said, though her tone suggested she regretted it.
Matthew leaned back in his chair, studying the waveform frozen across the monitor. The song had been beautiful from the beginning. Spare, aching, built around Nikki’s voice and the piano. But there was one section near the bridge where everything tightened too much. She was trying to make the song land instead of letting it fall.
“You’re thinking about the keys,” he said.
“I am playing the keys.”
“You’re thinking about them before you play them.”
She frowned.
He tapped the talkback again. “Come away from the piano for a second.”
Nikki slipped off the headphones and pushed back the bench. She stood, crossing her arms over her chest.
Matthew pointed toward the empty space beside the piano. “Play it there.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Play the passage without touching anything.”
Her expression went flat. “Like invisible keys?”
He nodded. For a moment, she only stared at him. Then a slow smile began to gather at one corner of her mouth. “You’re serious.”
“Unfortunately.”
“You want me to stand in the booth and play pretend piano.”
“I want you to stop trying to impress the piano.”
Her smile faded, not unhappily. She looked down at the floor, then at the silent instrument behind her.
Matthew watched her take a breath.
She lifted her hands into the air.
At first, it was almost ridiculous. Her fingers moved above nothing, tentative and self-conscious, her shoulders still carrying the tension from the last failed take. But then she closed her eyes.
The studio became quiet. Matthew could hear the faint hum of equipment. The soft hiss of the booth microphone. The gentle scrape of her sleeve as her wrists moved through the air.
Nikki played the passage without sound. Her hands moved more slowly now. Remembering. Matthew saw the exact moment something changed in her.
Her shoulders dropped. The invisible keys became real to her somehow, though there was nothing beneath her fingers but air.
She finished the phrase and opened her eyes.
He pressed the talkback. “There, that’s the version.”
“You can hear that from out there?”
“No,” he said. “I can see it.”
For one beat, neither of them moved.
Then Nikki looked down, suddenly shy in a way Matthew had never seen from her. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, nodded once, and returned to the bench putting the headphones back on.
Matthew rolled forward in his chair. The red light came on. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said.
Nikki rested her hands on the piano.
The first notes came soft, nearly fragile, and then gathered strength without losing their tenderness. Her voice followed, low and smoky, folding itself around the melody as though the song had been waiting for her to stop fighting it.
Matthew didn’t touch the console.
Didn’t breathe much either.
When the bridge arrived, Nikki’s hands found the passage.
The notes opened beneath her fingers, spacious and aching, carrying the kind of restraint that made a person lean closer rather than pull away. It was not louder than the rest of the song. It did not need to be.
It simply broke open.
Matthew watched the levels rise and fall across the board, watched her through the glass, watched the way her eyes stayed closed as she played.
By the time she reached the final note, the room felt altered. The sound faded. The last chord trembled in the air. Then there was silence.
Matthew waited a moment before pressing the talkback. “Nikki.”
She opened her eyes.
“That’s it,” he said.
Her face changed all at once. Relief. Pride. Disbelief.
She pulled off the headphones and laughed, breathless and bright. “That was it?”
“That was it.”
She stood from the piano and opened the booth door.
Matthew turned in his chair as she crossed into the control room, her bare feet quiet against the rug.
“You knew,” she said.
“I hoped.”
“No.” She looked at him then. “You knew.”
Matthew met her eyes.
The studio lights were low, softened by the amber lamp in the corner and the small blue glow of the equipment. Her cheeks were flushed. Her blouse had slipped slightly from one shoulder. There was a faint crescent-shaped mark from the headphones in her hair.
She looked like someone who had just given away a part of herself and wasn’t sure whether she wanted it back.
“You did the hard part,” he said.
Nikki’s gaze held his. “I played invisible keys, Matthew.”
“You played the air.”
Her lips curved.
“Sounds almost romantic when you say it like that.”
Matthew stood.
They were close enough now that he could smell the faint trace of her perfume under the warmth of the studio. His hand was still resting against the edge of the console.
Nikki looked at it. Then she looked back at him. “You know,” she said softly, “most producers just tell people to do another take.”
“Most producers are cowards.”
That made her laugh again, but quietly this time. The laughter faded. Neither of them stepped away.
Matthew had spent weeks learning the shape of her voice through headphones. He knew how she took a breath before a difficult line. He knew the small sound she made when she was about to swear. But standing there, without glass between them, without a microphone catching every breath, he realised he had not known anything at all.
Nikki reached for him first, one hand, resting against his chest. Her palm flattened over the steady beat of his heart.
“Thank you,” she said.
Matthew covered her hand with his. He looked down at her fingers beneath his, then back at her face. Her expression had gone still, the teasing edge gone from it. She was waiting, but not asking. Offering him the same thing she had offered the song: space.
So he gave her honesty. “You scare the hell out of me,” he said.
Nikki smiled, small and almost sad. “Good.”
Matthew laughed under his breath. “That’s your response?”
“I was hoping I wasn’t the only one.”
He lifted his hand to her face, slowly. Enough time for her to stop him. She didn’t.
His thumb brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek. Nikki leaned into the touch, eyes closing for half a second, and when she opened them again, there was no pretending left in the room.
No invisible keys.
No glass.
No red light telling them when to begin.
She stepped closer. Matthew’s hand settled at her waist, pulling her gently against him. Her arms slid around his neck. The first kiss was soft, almost careful, as though both of them expected the other to break apart.
Instead, Nikki deepened it.
Her fingers moved into his collar at the back of his neck. Matthew’s other hand found the small of her back. The kiss became warmer, slower, then hungrier, every quiet thing they had not said finding its way into the space between them.
Nikki made a sound against his mouth that nearly broke his restraint. He pulled back just enough to look at her. Her lips were parted. Her breathing uneven.
“Say the word,” he murmured.
She held his gaze. Then she glanced toward the recording booth.
“Come in with me,” she said.
The booth door closed behind them with a soft click. Inside, the piano waited in the dim light, patient and silent. Nikki turned toward him. Matthew’s hands found the hem of her blouse. Her fingers moved to the buttons of his shirt.
And somewhere beyond the booth, forgotten on the other side of the glass, the red recording light began to glow.
