The mixing board's LED lights blinked like distant stars in the darkened studio, their rhythm matching the pulse of the track I couldn't stop tweaking. Three days had passed since the Columbia meeting, and sleep had become a distant memory, replaced by an obsession with perfecting what I knew would become Beyoncé's breakthrough crossover album – if I could just get the timing right.
*Time keeps slipping through my hands
Like grains of yesterday's sand
But the future's got a funny way
Of dancing to yesterday's plans*
The lyrics had come to me in that grey space between consciousness and dreams, where memories of two timelines bled together like watercolors. I'd scrawled them on the back of a McDonald's receipt at 4 AM, my handwriting a confused jumble of teenage impulse and adult precision.
"You're doing it again," Rico's voice cut through my concentration. I hadn't heard him enter, too lost in the layered harmonies that would define 2006's sound – or at least, the version of 2006 we were creating now.
"Doing what?"
"That thing where you produce like you've already heard the song a thousand times." He dropped into the chair beside me, his usual swagger tempered by genuine curiosity. "It's like you're remembering instead of creating."
A chill ran down my spine despite the studio's warmth. Rico had always been perceptive – in both timelines – but lately his observations were cutting closer to the impossible truth.
"Maybe some songs exist before they're written," I offered, adjusting a frequency that wouldn't be popular for another decade. "Like they're just waiting to be discovered."
Rico snorted, but his eyes remained serious. "Yeah? And what about that contract you negotiated? That was waiting to be discovered too?"
Before I could formulate a response, my phone lit up with Beyoncé's message: "Studio free. Need to talk about that bridge section. And other things."
The "other things" hung in the digital space like a prophecy. In my original timeline, our professional relationship had maintained careful boundaries for years. But now, with each creative session blurring the lines between collaboration and connection, I felt time's currents pulling us toward something new.
"You should go," Rico said, reading the message upside down with practiced ease. "But Marcus..." He paused, choosing his words with uncharacteristic care. "Whatever's going on with you – these changes, this new confidence, the way you seem to know things you shouldn't – just remember that some opportunities only come once."
The irony of his warning wasn't lost on me. I'd lived through these opportunities twice now, watching them unfold like origami creatures taking different shapes from the same paper.
"Trust me," I said, saving the session one final time, "I know exactly how precious opportunities can be."
Outside, Manhattan's summer air hung thick with possibility. A passing cab's radio played a hit that, in my previous life, wouldn't be released until 2010. Small changes, rippling outward. Every decision I made was like dropping a pebble into time's ocean, watching the waves distort familiar reflections into new patterns.
As I walked toward her studio, my phone buzzed with a text from Mom: "Don't forget – dinner with the family on Sunday. No excuses this time."
Family dinner. In my first life, I'd missed too many of those, chasing a future that seemed to always hover just out of reach. Now, armed with the wisdom of decades compressed into borrowed time, I understood that some anchors aren't meant to be lifted – they're meant to keep you grounded while the world spins faster around you.
The security guard at Beyoncé's studio nodded as I approached – he'd grown used to my late-night arrivals over the past months. Inside, the air hummed with the kind of quiet that comes before something significant shifts.
She sat at the piano, fingers tracing melodies that seemed to float between moments. When she looked up, her expression held something I'd seen before – twenty years from now, in another life.
"I've been thinking," she said, her voice carrying the weight of decisions not yet made. "About time, about music, about the way some things feel inevitable even when they shouldn't."
My heart stuttered. In my pocket, the USB drive held songs we'd written together – both in this timeline and the other. But sitting there, watching the studio lights play across her face, I realized that some moments transcend time itself.
"So have I," I replied, taking my seat at the board. "Maybe that's what the best music does – makes us feel like we're touching something that exists outside of time."
Her smile held secrets I'd known before and was discovering again. "Then let's make something timeless."
The night stretched ahead of us, full of possibilities that neither timeline had predicted. And somewhere, in the space between seconds, tomorrow's songs waited to be born.