“I think it would sound better if you put on a voice for this bit,” Andrew, Alex’s producer said after he pressed his finger on the button to activate the microphone in front of him. After speaking, he let go of the button and rolled his Herman Miller chair up to the mixing desk. He reached both of his hands out to twist a few knobs and pressed a few buttons to redirect the audio from his headphones to the dozens of professional-grade speakers that were in the studio. When the light on the big button that was labeled as “Speakers” turned from red to green, he looked up from the rows of dials, buttons, and sliders, and at the tigress who was behind the multiple layers of glass that made up the soundproof window into the recording booth.

“What voice do you want me to do?” Alex gave the lion a confused look; which included a furrowed brow, a scrunched nose, and slightly turned ears. The tigress was in her iconic (or at least something that she wanted to be iconic as evidenced by how many times she wore it) fishnet top over her pink Calvin Klein bra, custom Adidas x Alex Marx the Spot sweatpants, and black toeless socks that she wore for comfort whenever she wanted to please the paw purists who wanted to see her bare beans and the freaks who were into socks at the same time. Who would be into sweat-soaked, marinated, and smelly post-concert Alex socks? Unsurprisingly, a lot of people.

Unbeknownst to the singer, her producer was one of those people. Not that he would ever admit to it. Paws? Ew. Andrew was into all things Alex; he had a massive crush on her. Ever since he first saw her and they worked on her first album together, he was smitten. When he heard her sing and play the piano, his smitten-kitten state turned into a full-on crush on her. And back then, he barely even knew her, having signed on just for the fat paycheck and producer credits on what the scary raccoon woman who was her manager said would be “the best debut album that would propel Alex into main pop-girl stardom.” Being a relatively new and fresh face in the music production scene, having producer credit on a massively successful album meant royalties up the wazoo. Andy had dollar signs in his eyes, but those dollar signs changed into hearts when he saw her. He still made bank off of the gig, but stuck around for her other albums, too, because he, really, really did like her.

If only he had the guts to tell her how he felt. He hated that he made the absurd portrayal of lions from The Wizard of Oz true.

“What about a sort of nasally, tipsy, but not-yet-drunk voice? The one you did when we worked on-.” the lion beamed at the tigress as he thought back to working on her first album with her but was interrupted by the tigress who finished his sentence for him.

“Tequila?” the tigress’s lips morphed into a smile and she let out a chuckle.

Andy wasn’t a big fan of being interrupted when he was speaking, but he didn’t mind when Alex did it – he found it charming how eager she was to talk, it definitely did not have anything to do with him being completely head over heels in love with her. The lion smiled at the tigress and nodded his head. “Yeah! Maybe not as drunk as in Tequila, but after a shot or two, y’know?”

Alex stared at her producer through the glass for a few seconds before she bit her lower lip and cleared her throat. She glanced down at her lyrics that were scribbled crudely onto two pages of a taped-open notebook and mouthed them to herself before she turned her head to the side to clear her throat away from the microphone. After her tiny cough, she looked up from her notebook at the lion on the other end of the recording studio and smiled.

“Can I hear what my vocal from just now sounds like with the track?” the tigress asked.

Andy quickly nodded his head and reached his hand out to press the button to send the audio from the mixing desk to the headphones on the tiger’s head. “Yep, was just going to play it.” He slipped the left cup of his over-ear headphones off his ear so that he could hear the music play through the much richer and louder speakers. With a flick of his thumb against the white Apple wireless keyboard he had on the desk in front of him, their progress so far played throughout the speakers and the tigress’s headphones.

The song was still a work in progress and there was still a bunch of cleanup for Andy to do to perfect the beat, but it was good enough for a demo that they could work on before deciding if the song would make the final cut or not. The song was very reminiscent of late 2000s to early 2010s pop, a genre that Alex missed hearing; and since no one was making music like that anymore, Alex thought a nostalgia-based record would be a great addition to her discography; if not for her fans, fellow millennials, or Gen Z’ers who thought they were better than their peers just because they were into older technology and music – then for herself.

The song started with Alex’s chopped vocal repeating “Drop this track” over a bassline with synths and electronic whines and whirrs. Both the tigress and the lion started to move their heads to the song as it played. After the intro with the chopped vocal ended, the beat and synths continued, but the tigress’s vocal shifted to a lazy speak-rap.

He's a stereotype
He's got the baseball cap
And he's building the hype
As he's feeding me this hot track, oh
He's feeding me this hot track, oh, oh

Andy paused the song and pointed the index fingers on both of his hands up toward the ceiling excitedly. “This part. Wanna try doing a tipsy voice? I think that’ll solidify the 2010s feel.”

Alex paused for a moment to think and looked at her producer with a hint of doubt behind those green eyes. But after around 15 seconds, she shrugged her shoulders and nodded. “Yeah! We can do that.” The tigress’s voice cracked toward the end of her sentence and she felt a slight itchiness creep up her throat. She turned her face to the side, coughed, and grabbed her can of Liquid Death. She cracked it open and took a sip to soothe her throat. After swallowing the ridiculously branded water (yes, water), she let out a refreshed sigh, set the can down, and tested out her tipsy voice for Handy Andy.

“Let me know how this sounds, yeah?”

Andy nodded, slipped the left cup of his headphones over his ear, and quickly made sure they were recording; just in case the best take came from the tigress just trying it out. When he was sure that they were, he gave her a thumbs up to let her know that he was ready.

Alex took in a deep breath and cleared her throat again. After a few seconds, she did her thing, with a slightly smaller, tipsier voice; almost like a Valley Girl who had just finished her second Long Island Ice Tea.

He's a stereotype
He's got the baseball cap
And he's building the hype
As he's feeding me this hot track, oh
He's feeding me this hot track, oh, oh

The smell of cheap but delicious pizza slowly crept into the recording studio as Andy tweaked the tigress’s fresh tipsy vocal that they had recorded for all of the song’s verses. The lion tapped his feet against the floor in sync with the song and bobbed his head up and down as he went through and listened to the first cleaned-up draft of the song one more time as Alex went to get them some pizza. As the song came to an end, the lion had a massive smile on his face. The song was fire and he couldn’t wait to let Alex hear it.

Alex pushed the large and heavy soundproofed door of the recording studio open with her back as her hands were full. Two pizza boxes, a large bottle of Fanta Orange, and two smaller boxes that were labeled with “wings” and “baked mushroom pasta” respectively. The smell of melted cheese, lightly salted cooked pizza dough, and pepperoni filled the air so quickly that even though the lion did not hear the door open, he turned around to look at the tigress as she walked over to the table on the other side of the studio and set the boxes of food down onto it.

Andy spun around in his chair and watched as his fellow feline set the little coffee table in front of the super suspicious black leather couch up for lunch. Alex placed the boxes of food out neatly and flipped the lids on them open, releasing all the delicious food fumes into the air. She took in a deep breath through her nose and let out a hungry sigh that was closer to a moan. She licked her lips, put her hands on her hips, and bent over to pick up the biggest, oiliest, and calorie-densest slice of pizza. She pulled the Italian cheese triangle from the box and watched in awe as the mozzarella stretched out close to a foot in length. Steam floated from the slice in Alex’s hand, which prompted her to blow on it before she took a big bite out of the tapered end of the triangle. The slice was still piping hot, which made the tigress go wide-eyed and make weird noises as she tried desperately to chew the bite of pizza in her mouth while also blowing the hot air in her mouth out.

“HHHHHhhaaaaaaaaaa…. Hohry fhuck.”

Andy let out a chuckle when he saw Alex struggle with her hot slice of pizza and pushed himself up from his chair to grab himself one, too. By the time he got to the coffee table and grabbed himself a portion of pepperoni, the tigress had sat down on the couch to continue slowly chewing what was essentially lactose lava in her mouth. Andy blew on his slice for significantly longer than Alex did hers and joined her on the couch.

After blowing on his slice of pepperoni pie for approximately ten seconds, he took his first bite out of the cheap, nasty, and delicious pizza. He let out a happy sigh, too, and chewed on his pizza happily, letting the taste of Italy splash around in his mouth.

It took Alex around ten seconds to finish chewing her too-hot bite of pizza – by the time it was cool enough for her to swallow, it had become mush. A gulp and a clear of her throat later, the tigress grabbed the two red solo cups that came with their pizza order and poured Fanta for the both of them. She slid one cup to the lion, brought hers to her lips, and took a big gulp of it before she sighed happily.

“Ahhh… Nothing like good cheap pizza.” Alex cooed and looked at the lion as he chewed.

“Mhm,” Andy smiled at Alex as he swallowed his bite. He grabbed his cup of Fanta and took a sip. Once the fizzy drink sloshed down his throat and settled in his stomach, he suppressed a big soda burp and turned it into a throat-clearing cough instead. “I can’t believe it; Alex Marx the Spot enjoys a cheap dirty pizza that will probably give her food poisoning… She’s just like the rest of us. We shall spare her from our campaign to eat the rich…”

Alex was in the middle of taking her second bite but stopped to look at her producer when he claimed that she would be spared the guillotine whenever the next revolution came around. She chuckled, scoffed, and rolled her eyes. She then took a second bite out of her slice of pizza, chewed, and didn’t even wait to swallow before she spoke.

With a mouthful of an Italian-American man’s meat, sauce, and cheese Alex said with a muffled voice. “You’re one to talk, Mister Producer of the Year, Non-Classical, for three years in a row. You know I see the royalty splits, right? You’d be right there on the guillotine with me.” The tigress continued chewing her mouthful of pizza after she was done and swallowed it a few seconds later once it had become soft and mushy enough.

“Uh-huh, after the label takes what, 70 percent?” Andy rolled his eyes and took another bite out of his slice. He maintained eye contact with Alex throughout their entire conversation, even as he took bites out of his pizza, which Alex thought was a little bit funny, but paid it no more mind than normal. As the lion chewed his pizza with his mouth closed, his eyebrows slowly crept into his forehead as he waited for the tigress to reply.

“Pfft. As IF Logan would let me anywhere near inking a deal like that.” Alex chuckled and set her half-eaten slice of pizza down in her lap to hold her red solo cup with both hands and downed the entirety of her orange soda. “I started with a 50/50 from the get-go, with an option to go to 80/20 if my debut album sold more than a mil.” Alex let out another refreshed sigh as she set her cup down and picked her slice of pizza up from her lap to continue eating it.

Andy almost spit out the pizza that he was chewing when he heard the specifics of Alex’s deal with the record label. He went wide-eyed and hurriedly chewed and swallowed the food in his mouth. After a loud gulp from food that wasn’t properly chewed sliding down his throat, he spoke. “Holy. Ack!” he coughed. “Holy shit, Miss Hall does not play around does she?”

Alex shook her head as she reached the crust of her slice and folded the entire thing into her mouth. She wasn’t normally one to talk with her mouth full of food, but she liked talking to Andy, and she figured with how many years they had known each other, a little lack of manners wouldn’t be so bad. As she tried to chew with her mouth closed while also talking, her words came out muffled again.

“She does not,” the tigress paused to chew a few more times before she continued. “I don’t know how she does it.” She chuckled and shook her head. “What would I do without her?” After a few more seconds of chewing, the pop star finally swallowed. She then licked the pizza dough dust off of her fingers and smacked her lips.

Normally, Andy (and probably a majority of people) would have considered talking while chewing to be rude. But when it was Alex talking to him, he didn’t mind it as much – it felt good to know that she was excited to talk to him, so excited that she risked choking on her food if God forbid it ever fell down her windpipe. The lion was pretty good at the Heimlich maneuver, however, so he was content to let her keep doing what she was doing.

“I think she just intimidates everyone… I mean, have you ever seen her in anything other than a pantsuit and resting bitch-face?” The lion said with a chuckle. He chuckled a little too hard and shook some of the specks of oregano on the top of his pizza onto his black leather jacket and red t-shirt that he wore so often that Alex once had to ask if he ever washed them. He broke his eye contact with the tigress momentarily to brush the crumbs off of his clothes and returned his gaze to her just five seconds later. When his baby blue eyes locked to the tigress’s green ones, he noticed that she was looking at him somewhat funny, to which he reacted with an eyebrow raise. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Are you STILL scared of Logan?”

“…Yes?” Andy gulped after he answered the tigress. He was never personally on the receiving end of the raccoon manager’s scolds, but he had been on the sidelines of many and had seen how scary she could be when things weren’t going the way they were supposed to. Her job required her to be vicious; which she was. Come to think of it, the lion wasn’t sure if he ever saw her smile outside of that one picture of her college graduation that she hung quite prominently on the wall of her top-floor office at Hall of Fame HQ. The thought of that woman alone was enough to make the lion tremble in fear. Normally, he’d be embarrassed to admit that he was afraid of someone he could easily overcome in a physical altercation, but there was no shame in being afraid of Logan, no shame whatsoever.

Alex stared at her producer intensely as he explained nothing of his rationale on why he was scared of her manager. The pause that came after his one-word response was a lot longer than Andy realized and Alex thought that he was going to elaborate further – when he didn’t, Alex raised her brow at him and started to chuckle.

“And? That’s it? Hahaha! I thought you were going to spill the beans on WHY she is so scary to you.” The tigress waggled her eyebrows at him and chuckled a little more.

“Pfft, and have you tell on me? No way. She’s scary enough when she isn’t scolding anyone, and when she is scolding someone, I pray it never be me.” Andrew smiled and took his eyes off Alex’s again, this time to look at the open boxes of pizza on the coffee table in front of them. He debated internally whether he should grab another slice, but the debate didn’t last long and he leaned forward to grab a slice with a happy little purr. With a fresh slice in his hand, he leaned back against the couch and took a big bite.

Alex looked offended at the lion’s assumption that she would tattle on him to the raccoon, but after she gave it a bit of thought, she concluded that his assumption wasn’t baseless and that she probably would tell her manager that Andy was scared of her eventually. Whether she told her willingly or with some encouragement was uncertain. With a shrug of her shoulders, the tigress leaned forward and stretched her arm across the coffee table to grab herself another slice of pie, too. When Alex’s back smooshed into the squeaky leather couch cushions, she brought the slice of pizza to her mouth and took a large bite out of it.

“Soooooooo, Andy, what’s new with you? Why has it been so hard to get you in the studio with me?” The tigress turned around to sit with her back against the armrest of the couch and her paws up on the couch. She wiggled her toes once they pressed into the couch, which caught Andy’s attention – being the paw fetishist that he was, he, of course, stared for a little bit. A small smile crept onto his face when the tigress wiggled her toes, and that was when he realized that he had been staring for far too long for him not to come across as a creep. He redirected his gaze back to Alex’s and took another bite out of his pepperoni pie as he thought of how to answer the tigress’s question.

“Well…” the lion spoke up after a brief pause, only to pause again immediately. After around a minute this time, he continued, to the bewilderment of the popstar tigress sitting across from him. “Not much new! Working a lot, making beats and all that. Hahaha.” The lion’s laugh was dry, so dry that Alex could almost see sand coming out of his throat as he did it. He cleared his throat after his laugh and took another bite of his pizza, this time shoving the whole half that was left into his mouth as a way to delay having to reply to the tigress’s vague, yet somehow invasive question. The truth was, he didn’t have much new going on other than his work – and even that was more of the same thing over and over again just with different artists, labels, and songs. That wasn’t to say that his dating life was uneventful, there were happenings here and there. But no matter how hard he tried; he couldn’t shake the crush that he had on Alex off of him – not even for the duration of a date.