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I was folding the last of the laundry when I heard it: That low, warm thunk that meant someone had dropped a coin into metal. The sound cut through the flat’s late-afternoon quiet like a secret being told aloud. I paused, socks in hand, and followed the noise down the hall.
Jayce and Mel were in the living room like it was their own private stage. Jayce’s fingers were on the jukebox’s chrome rim, his smile half-boyish, half-conspiratorial. Mel stood beside him with a glass of red wine, her head tipped back just enough to catch the light in her lashes. The jukebox itself looked like it had been lifted out of a 1950s diner and placed in our middle-class living room: Rounded glass top, cheery red panels, rows of tiny, numbered sleeves behind the glass, and a warm, amber glow from within. It hummed softly, lights pulsing as if it had lungs.
“Hey,” I said, trying to keep my voice casual but failing. “When did you two get a jukebox?”
Jayce flashed me that grin that usually made me melt instead of demand answers. “Today,” he said simply. “Found it at a flea market.”
Mel set her glass down and opened her arms, palms up. “We thought you’d like it,” she said. “Isn’t it… Perfect?”
Perfect. The word sounded ridiculous — and somehow exactly right. I crossed the room and ran my hand along the chrome, feeling the coolness under my fingers. Up close, it smelled like old vinyl and lemon oil, like something that had been loved and then put on a shelf and forgotten for a while. The little brass coin slot glinted.
“Why a jukebox?” I asked, because sometimes questions need to be direct. “You both know I can control a playlist — even if all my songs are instrumental and free — with my phone faster than either of you can say "nutmeg latte".”
Mel laughed, the sound soft and easy. “It’s not about convenience. It’s about the ritual. Pressing a button, waiting for the needle to find the groove… It’s tactile. It’s theatrical. And it’s loud, in a way your playlist never will be.”
Jayce nodded, and this time his grin was edged with something like fondness. “Also, we wanted something that felt like an event. You know how our Saturday nights can blur together — dinner, a show, collapse on the couch. With this, you choose a song and the whole room obliges. It’s a promise: Tonight is the kind of night that deserves a music.”
I watched him, noticing how his jaw softened when he looked at Mel, how Mel’s fingers curled around the stem of his shirt when they talked about the things they planned. It felt like they’d built a tiny stage between them and invited me to stand in it. Still, practicality — which until recently had been my default — nibbled at the edges. “Where did you put it? In here?” I gestured.
Jayce’s hand spread, including the rest of the living room. “Yeah. We cleared the shelfs. It fit nicely. And—” he leaned in, conspiratorial again, “—we tested it on the neighbors last night. They hummed along.”
My eyebrow lifted. “Tested? Does that mean you played it loud?”
Mel’s smile went sheepish. “We might have. Slightly. But only soft rock. No heavy metal. Promise.”
The jukebox brightened as if to punctuate her promise. I moved back and finally let myself flop onto the couch, pulling my knees up beneath me like a kid settling in for a story. The light from the jukebox washed over my face in honeyed strips. I felt ridiculous and delighted at the same time — like a child who’d just been told that a holiday had come early and the whole thing was inexplicably theirs to keep.
“So,” I said. “You bought an antique because you wanted to make Saturday nights theatrical and also raid my playlist like it’s 1955.”
Mel snorted. “Pretty much. Also because we wanted to buy something that would outlive our cheap Bluetooth speaker.”
“And because we love you,” Jayce added, voice quiet now. “We wanted to do something that felt… Big. You deserve that.”
There it was — the simple truth that made the decision understandable, even inevitable. I looked at them both, at the little ritual they’d created without asking me, and felt the warm tether of their intentions pulling me in. The jukebox flickered, waiting to be commanded.
“What song are you going to make me pick first?” I asked, unable to stop the smile.
Jayce’s eyes danced. “Whatever you want. But if you pick something slow, I’ll make you dance in the kitchen.” He reached out and, without asking, hooked his thumb in the back of my jeans, tugging me partway up. Mel rose and offered her hand like a partner in a heist.
I took it, letting myself be pulled to my feet into the glow. Between the two of them, with the jukebox quietly promising music and mischief, the flat felt rearranged — not because the furniture had moved, but because everything in it had shifted by a degree toward something more deliberate, more deliberate and loud and beautiful.
I chose a song — one of those velvety numbers that starts slow and then opens like a flower. Jayce tucked his hand at the small of my back, Mel hummed the opening line under her breath, and when the needle landed and the first chords filled the room, it sounded like a decision I’d make over and over again: Messy, extravagant, and entirely mine.
It was a great time, enjoyed by two women and one man.