A month after the end of the vacation, Marcus is excited to share his new music with Ezra.

I forgot I never uploaded this one! Just a nice bow to wrap up the story
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One Month Later

It was the tail end of summertime. The air was still warm and the sun was still bright, but the humidity was dipping down and the wind had a little bit of a chill to it that warned of what was to come. Ezra was back in Moka, sitting in his favorite chair, and enjoying the idea of being able to wear sweaters and jeans again. It was still too hot for anything but the lightest of outfits, but he had hope for a fall that actual felt like it should.
His monthly meeting with Marcus was scheduled for 3:30, but Ezra had gotten there half an hour early to settle in with his coffee and to enjoy the vibes. However, only fifteen minutes later, the rabbit confidently strode through the door. The two of them met eyes, surprised to see one another, and Marcus waved excitedly. In spite of the weather, he wore a pair of dark skinny jeans that hugged his legs and a sea-foam green t-shirt from Hideaway Cove that seemed much tighter than how he usually wore his shirts.

“’Sup!” Marcus crossed the distance quickly and gave Ezra a quick fist-bump. This was a far cry from their last meeting. His eyes were bright and clear, his body language was relaxed and effortless, and his fur and hair had a healthy gleam in the afternoon sun. Clearly the vacation had done him much good. “Geeze, even when I’m early, I’m still late.”
“You aren’t late. It just takes me longer to settle in.”
“As long as you aren’t in a rush.”
“I’m never in a rush,” Ezra said with a wide, toothy smile.

Marcus was about to respond, but suddenly clamped his mouth shut. Putting a hand to his lips, he made an uncomfortable face and pointed to the back of the cafe. “Hey, I gotta run to the bathroom. Can you get me a hot decaf with simple?” He paused again, burping into his fist. “Nevermind. Green tea. Green tea with honey. Be right back.”
Dropping his bag in the opposite chair, Marcus scurried away and disappeared into the bathroom. With a frown, Ezra went to the counter to order his client’s drink, glancing over his shoulder toward the closed bathroom door the whole time. Just as Ezra received the drink, Marcus returned looking a little haggard, but in good spirits. He took the drink and flopped down in the armchair beside Ezra’s, digging into his bag.

“My sleeping is all fucked up right now,” he said. “I’m still getting eight hours, but I keep staying up way too late.”
“Yeah, I’ve met your kids,” Ezra chuckled. “That’ll happen.”
“No, they’ve been fine. I’ve been up late working.”
Marcus found his plastic bag of flash drives and found the one he was looking for, a sleek black one with 8TB of storage. Passing it over to Ezra, he continued talking quickly.

“It was like…as soon as I came home, I woke up in the middle of the night with ideas! I have ideas again! I’m not just iterating on the same shit over and over again, pointlessly tweaking what I’ve already done. And it feels so new. It’s exciting again! I didn’t realize how bored I’d been with what I was doing until I actually made myself stop. I can’t thank you enough for-”
Marcus suddenly made a gagging sound that interrupted his rambling, forcing him to slap a hand over his mouth. Ezra sat up, alarmed, but Marcus waved him away.
“I’m fine. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” he said, swallowing air. Standing, he pointed to the flash drive in Ezra’s hand and said, “I’ll be right back. Listen. Tell me what you think.”

The rabbit headed for the bathroom again, this time at a run, and slammed the door behind him. Ezra scratched his head for a moment, then sighed and took out his laptop. The contents of the flash drive were contained inside a single folder named ‘Horizon,’ inside of which were six audio files. Also unlike Marcus, each track had already been named: Solar Wind, Blue of the Eye, Archangel, Sea Foam, Inhale/Exhale, and Horizon Chase. After a moment’s indecision, Ezra shrugged and played the first track, Solar Wind.
No one knew Marcus’s music better than Ezra. He heard everything: demos, experiments, amateur work from high school, college projects, and finished tracks that would go on to sell millions of albums. He thought he understood well the kind of sounds that the rabbit liked, the personal fingerprint of his style. But that was until he listened to Solar Wind. This was nothing like anything Marcus had ever made. It was light and orchestral like none of his other songs had ever been, more cheerful and full of life. It was music that sounded like the feeling of sunlight on your face. The track had just ended and he was about to move onto Blue of the Eye when Marcus returned, wiping his mouth on the back of his arm.

“Sorry, I might be doing that a lot,” he said, offering no explanation as he sat down. “Did you listen?”
“Just to the first one. It’s…” Ezra shook his head in disbelief. “…You promise you made this?”
“I promise,” Marcus said, a smug look on his face.
“You didn’t get desperate and rip somebody off?”
“I haven’t even had the time to listen to anything I didn’t make.” Marcus upturned his hands and shrugged. “I just wanted to try something new.”
“It’s very new.” Ezra pointed. “And you already have them named.”
“Yeah, because they’re done. There’s nothing else I-” Marcus gagged again and planted his hands on his knees. With a sigh, he pushed himself upright, muttered, “Be right back,” and ran to the bathroom for the third time.

Ezra shook his head and played Blue of the Eye. This one sounded a little more like the Marcus he knew, but it was still a wild departure. There were notes of vaporwave, of lo-fi hip hop, of city pop, genres that he’d never previously dabbled in. He was nearing the end of the track, but stopped it and took his headphones off as Marcus returned. There was a more pressing issue.
“Are you alright?” Ezra asked, his voice serious. “Do I need to take you to the doctor?”
“I told you, it’s fine. Just listen to the music.”
“Three times in a row you’ve gone off to puke.” Ezra’s eyes widened in horror. “Did you catch something at the resort? With all those people around…”
“Ezra, calm down. I didn’t catch anything. I mean…I technically…I’m not sick.” Marcus let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. Leaning across the distance between the two chairs, he mumbled something under his breath.
“I’m pregnant again.”

Ezra’s heart stopped. He froze, jaw open, hands hovering above his keyboard. His laptop nearly slid off his knees and he was forced to catch it before it hit the ground. Setting it down, he put a hand against his forehead.
“How far along?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“Not very. Only a few weeks. But uhh…” Marcus smiled bashfully and patted a beat against his still mostly-flat stomach. “There’s definitely a-something brewing in there.”

“A few weeks means…Oh my God, your vacation week.”
“Oh yeah. No question.” Marcus snickered. “The first night, too.”
“I…am so sorry.”

“Sorry? We got drunk and had sex without a condom. Why are you sorry?”
“You wouldn’t have gone on that trip if I hadn’t pushed you too. It’s partially my fault.”
“Okay, maybe, but why are you sorry?” Marcus smiled. “I’m not.”
Ezra stared at the rabbit, who looked radiantly happy in a way that simply early pregnancy couldn’t fully explain. “So…you’re okay with it?”
“More than okay. I didn’t not want another baby, y’know?”
“Right before you had the twins, you told me you’d rather eat a hot coal than get pregnant ever again.”
Marcus blew a raspberry and waved his hand dismissively. “That was the third trimester talking. After I had the twins, I pretty much immediately wanted another one. It’s like that old Pringles ad. Once you pop, you can’t stop.”
“Well…as long as you’re happy about it,” said Ezra, his head still spinning. “Who’s is it?”

“Oh, Nick’s. No question. We were the only ones that did it bare-back.” Marcus leaned back and rested a hand on his stomach. “That’s why I’m not so worried. He probably won’t give me eight pound chonkers like Eddie did. It’ll be easy.” He paused, a thought crossing his mind. “…As long as it isn’t twins again.”
“Congrats, then. When are due?”
“I dunno, nine months from now.” Marcus shook his head. “Listen, I’m not here to talk about the baby. Tell me what you think about the music.”
“It’s good. It’s really good. But it’s so different from what you normally do.” Ezra paused before asking a test disguised as a question. “What will you do if your fans aren’t into it?”

Marcus pursed his lips and frowned for a moment, then shrugged. “Guess I’ll just make new fans, then.”

Good answer. Ezra put his headphones back on and prepared to listen to the next track, Archangel.
“You’ll like that one,” Marcus said with a smile.
Archangel was a faster, a more drum-and-bass kind of track. Ezra nodded his head, enjoying it, but couldn’t shake a feeling of deja-vu. It wasn’t until he stopped the song and started it over that he realized what it was.

Boom-bap-boom-bap boomboom bap-bap-bap crash. Boom-bap-boom-bap boomboom tink boomboom tink-tac-crash.

“Is that-” Ezra began to ask, but Marcus’s smile answered it.
“I’m calling it a collaboration,” he said. “I’m gonna do more. I’ll have Olive write up some lyrics. And when this little wiggle is big enough,” he said while prodding his stomach, “I’m gonna buy a doppler wand and use their heartbeat as a backing beat. I’ll call that one Utero.”
Ezra nodded, paused, then shot Marcus a look. “…You can come up with a better title than that.”
Marcus rolled his eyes. When Ezra was done listening to the song, he said, “Hey, thank you. You really helped pull my head out of my ass. I thought I was gonna have to give up music for good. I didn’t realize how important it was to just stop and take a breath. That’s what this album is about.”

“I like that. But don’t thank me too much. All I did was make you take a vacation. The rest of the work was all you.”
“True. But you hadn’t, I would’ve just burned out for good. You made me take that breath.” Marcus took in a big inhale, filled his chest, then slowly let it out. “And after it was done, I decided it was time to make something new.”

Marcus smiled again and clasped his hands over his belly.
“Maybe even a few things.”