Lead (28 page)

At any rate, I doubted they were getting a great amount of work done inside the recording studio. Everyone seemed distracted, acting either unnaturally chirpy or seriously subdued. Mal had just pounded on his drums for a while and everyone had left him to it. But it was nice they’d gathered around for Jimmy’s sake. I’d have been a bastion of strength and support too had he not insulted me and then abandoned me in the kitchen the day before. For the sake of the shit he was going through, I wanted to be all sweetness and light. Then I remembered him walking out on me not two minutes after having him inside me. He hadn’t yet said sorry. Therefore, I could not yet forgive.

I’d spent some of the day in the studio taking photographs of everyone (except for Jimmy) with Pam’s camera. Everyone loved the photos and Pam gave me lots of encouragement and helpful hints. She said some of them might even make it into the artwork for the next album.

Mine and Jimmy’s falling-out hadn’t been missed by a soul, certainly not Ev. She’d tried to broach the subject of her brother-in-law with me. I’d given her a grim smile and continued discussing logistics for the upcoming tour. Whatever was or wasn’t going on between Jimmy and I was our own business.

I still didn’t talk to him on account of cold war protocol.

“Lena, C’mon, take it,” he said.

My hands stayed attached to my iPad.

He sighed. “Ev, will you tell her to take the fucking thing?”

“Jimmy, I know you are not dragging me into this fight with Lena because that would be wrong.” With a steely smile, Ev crossed her legs. “Wouldn’t it?”

Much muttered swearing.

“Ooh, pick me! I’ll get dragged into it.” Like the loon that he was, Mal jumped over the back of the grey suede couch and sat beside me. “What would you like me to communicate to Lena for you, Jim?”

“Forget it,” he growled.

The parcel was retracted. Black ribbon and shredded glossy white wrapping paper started raining on my feet. I knew this due to still refusing to look up at him like the adult that I was. A camera was thrust in front of me, but not just any camera.

“Here,” he said again.

“Jimmy said ‘here’,” Mal reported beside me.

My eyes, they bulged. “That’s the same as Pam’s.”

“Lena said ‘that’s the same as Pam’s’,” Mal said.

Jimmy ignored him. “Yeah, a Nikon D4. She said that’s what you’d need if you were thinking of getting serious.”

Mal gave a low whistle. “Smooth move, Jim. I’m impressed. Nice work on the wooing.”

I stared up at him, my mouth wide open. Google had told me exactly how much such a beautiful baby with all the accessories cost. Google had almost made me weep. “But that’s thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth right there. That’s a really expensive camera.”

One of his shoulders hitched. “It’s for you.”

“I can’t accept it.”

“Pam said if you came on tour with us you can tag along with her some of the time. It’d be like an apprenticeship.”

Excitement at the possibilities boggled my mind. “Really?”

“Yeah.” With another of his patented pained sighs, Jimmy handed the camera to Mal. Next, he grabbed me beneath the arms and gently pulled me to my feet. “Look, I need you to stop being pissed at me.”

“So apologize. That’s what you do when you hurt someone’s feelings, Jimmy. You apologize.”

“I just did.”

“No, you just tried to buy me. It’s quite different. Saying sorry and meaning it would be an apology,” I said. “This is a bribe.”

“This gets the job done faster.”

My hands fidgeted at my sides. “I can’t accept it. I can’t allow myself to be bought by you.”

“But you want the camera?”

“Of course I want the camera,” I said. “But that’s beside the point.”

“No, Lena. It’s exactly the point.”

Hushed whispers surrounded us because of course we’d drawn a crowd. These people, being so overly involved in each other’s lives couldn’t be healthy. I also knew we were being watched on account of the way Jimmy’s body tensed up. Beneath the long-sleeved black Henley, his shoulders seemed to thicken.

“Trust me. Nothing about this is easy for me.” His gaze darted to either side of me. The hard line of his jaw shifted at what he saw. “Everyone’s watching and I’m doing this anyway.”

Ev rose to her feet. “Okay, everyone. Be elsewhere, give them a moment.”

“I’m the drummer for Stage Dive.” Mal set the crazily expensive camera on the seat beside him. “You can’t order me around, child bride.”

“It’s so cute that you think that’s still funny, calling me child bride.” From her back jean pocket, Ev pulled out her cell. “Am I calling Anne to tattle on you for refusing to give Jimmy and Lena some privacy or not?”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Her finger moved across the screen. “Oh, I think I would.”

David and Ben chuckled in their manly way, but did as told and went back into the recording studio. They clearly weren’t messing with the girl.

A second later, Mal followed. “I do not like you women all being friends. This is not okay.”

“And you should tell your girlfriend all about it when you see her tonight. I’d love to know what she says.” With a final wave, Ev followed him back inside the mixing room or whatever it was called.

It didn’t matter.

Jimmy and I stood almost toe to toe, watching each other warily.

“I bought it for you,” he said. “You don’t accept it I’m throwing it out. You wouldn’t want that would you?”

“That’s blackmail.”

“Yeah. So sue me.”

I crossed my arms. “Say you’re sorry.”

He groaned. “Lena.”

“You had sex with me and then you were horrible and you hurt my feelings. That’s no small thing. It’s actually, in the scheme of things, pretty damn big.” My fingers tightened around his strong wrist. “And two orgasms beforehand doesn’t make up for it. Apologize and mean it.”

“It just … wasn’t what I expected.”

“The sex?”

“Yes,” he said.

“What did you expect?”

“I dunno.” His forehead went all crinkly. “Something less good.”

“It was only good? I thought it was great.”

He rubbed at his face with his hand. “Fuck. Fine, yeah, it was great. Your pussy feels perfect and I can’t think about anything else, all right?”

I had to smile. “Well, at least you’re enamored of one part of me.”

“That mean you forgive me?”

“No, not even close.”

“Damn it, Lena.” His arms went around me, pulling me in tight against him. My face was all mashed up against his chest. His hard, unyielding chest on account of the fact I’m reasonably certain he’d stopped breathing somewhere during this process. Thick steely arms froze into position around me.

“Jimmy, are you actually hugging me?”

A grunt.

“Okay, you’re doing very well.” I set my chin on his chest and looked up at him. “I’m proud of you.”

“You’ll stop ignoring me now, and we can go back to being … us?”

“Yes.”

The air rushed out of him. “Good. That’s good.”

I wrapped my arms around him as tight as I could. He was my Romeo in black jeans and this story had just as much a chance of dying as tragic a death as the original. And still, all of the love I had for him in my heart spilled over, filling every part of me with those familiar warm fuzzy feelings. I’d been ‘in love’ before, sure. The difference here was, I loved him, all of him, and there’d be no easy getting over it this time. Every part of me wanted him, I yearned for him on the cellular level. There could be no escaping emotions of this magnitude. His good and bad, dark and light, his nice parts and his nasty.

Everything he was, I loved, and it left me feeling utterly helpless.

Because if he knew it, if he ever suspected the entirety of the truth, that this wasn’t just some passing fancy? Well, I’d be out on my ass so fast I wouldn’t even hit the ground for three blocks. So I loved him in silence.

In return, he patted me on the head.

“Glad we got this sorted,” he said, his arms falling back to his sides.

I squeezed him tighter.

“I should get back to it. The guys’ll be waiting. But Lena, can you do me a favor?””

“What?”

“Keep the camera. Please. I want you to have it.”

“But it’s so expensive.”

“It’s just money, Lena. Relax. I’ve got more.”

“Well, I’m finding it harder and harder to resist.”

“Then don’t.”

I sighed deep, ever so surreptitiously rubbing my breasts against him (don’t judge me). “Okay, but only because it would be terribly rude not to accept such a generous gift.”

“It’s nothing, really. With my kind of money, it’s a drop in the bucket.”

I studied his face and sure enough, his usual calm, no care demeanor had returned. “Oh.”

“All right?” His feet shuffled, the connection between us suddenly severed. “We good?”

“Twenty G,” said Ben’s deep bass voice softly from somewhere behind me.

“I’m not taking your money again,” answered Mal. “It’s too easy.”

“Fine, forty thousand says they’re through by Christmas.”

“Why are you always betting against true love, Benny? What’s with that?”

“It’s all bullshit,” Ben muttered.

“Ben,” said Jimmy. “Watch your fucking mouth.”

“Sorry.” Some grumbling from Ben. “Didn’t realize they could hear us.”

“Of course we can hear you, you idiot. We’re not deaf. Enough of this.” Jimmy stepped back, hands gently but firmly disentangling me from him. My grabby hands never stood a chance. He was just too strong, damn it. “Time to get back to work.”

“Wait.” I wrapped my hands around my sides, so they’d feel less bereft. “Did you mean it, what you said before about me maybe trying being Pam’s apprentice on tour?”

“Yeah. She suggested it, so talk to her. She said you had a natural talent and could do with another pair of hands helping her out.”

“But I thought you wanted me to keep working for you as your assistant?”

He drew his lips to one side, in query almost. “Figure you’re gonna probably get sick of that eventually. You’ll get bored. You work with Pam, then you can still work for me and do other stuff as well.”

“So it’ll be like a second job?”

“Sure. Why not.”

“I’ll give it some thought and have a talk to Pam.”

“You do that, and then take the opportunity. It’ll be a great experience for you.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“What about sex?” he asked.

“What about it?”

“I want to have it again. With you.” his voice dropped low. “What do you say?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

He stared into my face, saying nothing for a good long while. Agitated fingers started tap, tap, tapping against the small of my back. Eventually, he said, “We still haven’t gotten each other out of our systems yet, have we? So the original reasons still hold.”

My heart stopped. “We, huh?”

“Yeah.” He paused, sighed. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“I guess it is. It’s nice to hear it.”

“So, I think we should do it, try some different positions, and mess around a bit. Might fix things, you never know.”

“You genuinely believe that giving scissors, the butterfly, or dragon a whirl is going to fix things between us?”

His eyes glazed. “Lena…ah, man.”

“What?”

With the motion of his hand, he directed my attention downward. Huh, things were definitely happening in his pants.

“That’s not my fault if you can’t control it. It’s not like it’s attached to me.”

He groaned. “Well, us having sex’ll definitely fix one thing.”

“True.” Whoa, there really was a hell of a bulge behind his fly. And there went my panties. Cold thoughts. Boring thoughts. “But you didn’t react well to good sex with me last time.”

“That won’t happen again. I promise.”

“You do, huh?”

“Absolutely.” He stepped closer. “Boy Scout pledge and all that.”

“You don’t strike me as someone who was in Boy Scouts.”

“I wasn’t. But I can still tie a hell of a knot.”

My mouth opened, but yeah … nothing. Oh, the evil dirty thoughts dancing behind his eyes. I longed to hear all about them in detail.

He grinned. “That’s about the first time I’ve ever seen you lost for words.”

“Shut up.” My face, it felt flambéed. I cleared my throat a few dozen times. “Anyway, I’d just like to take this opportunity to say how awful I personally feel that you enjoyed having sex with me. No really, Jimmy. I’m sincerely apologizing on behalf of my vagina, here.”

“Yeah, okay.” He turned his face away, trying to repress a smile. “Now you’re enjoying this a little too much now.”

“Impossible.”

“And I know about the flowers you sent to Liv from me.”

“You do?” My ecstatic fell back a few notches to something more subdued.

“She called, sounded pretty damn happy about them. How much did you spend exactly?”

I forced out some laughter. “You said money wasn’t a big deal, you’ve got lots more.”

He gripped my shoulders. The harsh line of his mouth suggested much crankiness in the immediate future.

“Hey, I did a nice thing for another human being to help her feel good about herself. I just happened to do it with your money. But Jimmy, you were not nice to her when she left, and I felt … you know, you invited her up here and then …”

He just looked at me.

“Can we go back to the part where I’m in the right and you’re in the wrong? Personally, that was more fun for me.”

Footsteps sounded, coming down the stairs behind me.

Company would save me, hooray!

But Jimmy didn’t seem to care if there was an audience to his throttling of me or not. Instead, he wrapped his hand around my ponytail, tugging gently until I tipped my head back.

“I don’t care about the flowers,” he said, leaning in and pressing his cheek against my forehead. Damn that felt good, I had no idea foreheads were so receptive to sensation. My body went weak, awash with good vibrations. It was basically like having one big happy spot smack bam on my face, mildly embarrassing but ever so rewarding. Imagine if he’d actually kissed me there, I’d probably have come.

“It was a nice idea,” he said. “You did the right thing. Thanks.”