The Prince of Punk Rock (34 page)

Six hours later,
Without You
was their new track.
 
Tommy was
exhausted, but he was running on an adrenaline high.
 
Everyone believed the song would be an
instant hit, and they credited him with its future success.

Angel popped a bottle of champagne
and overfilled four glasses.
 
They
toasted the future success of the song and thanked Tommy for writing it.

Tommy drank his champagne and
thought about the emotional tidal wave that inspired the song.
 
“I couldn’t have done it without Angel.”
 
He put down his glass, cupped Angel’s face in
his hands and gave him a long, passionate, open-mouthed kiss.
 
He felt the smile on Angel’s lips, happy that
their love no longer needed to be obscured.
 
For a second Damien and Jimmy’s eyes glared into Tommy from behind.
 
He imagined their shocked faces and he
stiffened.
 
But Angel’s warm lips,
accompanied by the flick of his fiery tongue, made Tommy’s hormones soar and he
forgot anyone else was in the room.
 
He
held Angel in his arms and squeezed his body close, offering a series of long,
lush kisses, until Damien’s gruff voice uttered a teasing, “Get a fuckin’ room,
already.”

Angel laughed softly against his
lips.
 
“That was a nice surprise.”

“I got one more surprise for you,
but you have to wait until we get home.”

Tommy put a small velvet box on the
dining room table and pushed it toward Angel.

 
Angel tentatively picked it up, slowly opened
the box and stared at its contents.
 
His
mouth twitched and his eyes glistened.
 
“Mi amor, I don’t know what to say.”

Tommy took the plain silver band
from the box and put it on Angel’s shaking left hand.
 
Since the three of them couldn’t be legally
married, this would have to do.
 
“It’s my
commitment to you.
 
I want people to know
where you stand, in my heart and in my life.”

“In
our
life,” Jessi held up
her left hand.
 
So did Tommy.

“Now we all have the same wedding
band.”

Jessi placed the palm of her hand
down in the center of the table first.
 
Tommy put his hand on top of hers, so their rings touched.
 
Tommy looked to Angel, but his eyes were
barely visible behind the pool of water that hung on his lower lids.
 
His hand trembled as he slowly added it to the
pile, so their rings were in perfect alignment forming a trinity of pure love.

Later that night, as they lay down
in bed, they recreated their pyramid of wedded hands.
 
This time it was on Tommy’s chest.
 
The silver of their rings clinked together
like exquisite crystal, and Tommy drifted off to sleep with the hands of the
two people he loved most in the world, pressed firmly against his beating
heart.

Chapter Thirty

Jessi had a design for custom made
guitar straps in her head for a long time. She gathered her tools on her work
table and used a rotary cutter to follow the pattern she made.
 
The supple leather cut easily under the wheel
of the knife.
 
Her stud setting machine
was an expensive purchase, but she needed it, pressing studs by hand was too labor
intensive.
 
The hardest part was
stenciling and spacing the lettering before setting the studs. Once that was
done, the studs were easily applied with the machine.

She held the strap up and admired
it.
 
Immortal Angel was written on the
back of the black leather guitar strap in a double row of bright chrome pyramid
studs.
 
She turned it over to check to
make sure all the studs were secure, but one little pointed prong wasn’t flat
and threatened to fall off. She tried pressing it closed but couldn’t find the
proper tool.
 
She tried hammering it, but
the force of the mallet made everything on her work table bounce so she moved
to the floor.
 
That one little prong was
defiant against the blow of the mallet, but she was determined to secure it.
She drew her hand back to strike it again, but Tommy pulled the mallet out of
her hand.

“What the hell are you doing?
 
The walls are shaking downstairs.”

He was fresh out of the
shower.
 
His hair was still damp and a
few droplets of water fell onto his shoulder. His jeans were unbuttoned and
hanging off his hips and his shirtless muscular chest was beaming down at
her.
 
It was a sight that took her breath
away.

He was focused on the guitar strap
that was splayed on the floor in front of her.
 
“Did you make that for me?”

“Yeah.”
 
She turned it over so he could see the name
of the band in studs. “Do you like it?
 
I’m going to make one for Damien too.”

He took it out of her hand and
scrutinized the lettering.
 
“This is
gorgeous, hon.
 
Every letter is perfectly
aligned.
 
The studs are brilliant.
 
They look like rhinestones.
 
Thank you.”

She never thought of setting
rhinestones.
 
Too bad Angel didn’t play
guitar.
 
He would have loved a rhinestone
embellished guitar strap.

“Angel!” Tommy called toward the
open doorway.
 
“Come up here!
 
Look what Jessi made!”
 
Tommy turned the strap over in his hand several
times. “How long did it take you to make this?”

“Not that long.
 
I want to hand tool a pair of angel wings
around the band’s name, but that’s going to take a while.”
 
She draped it over his shoulder and chest.
“Feel how soft the leather is against your bare skin.”

Tommy rubbed the strap between his
fingers.
 
“This is high quality.”

“It was hard finding the right
grade of leather.
 
If it was too soft,
the leather would pucker or wrinkle when the machine pressed the stud into
it.
 
I think this one worked best.
 
It’s more supple and won’t dig into your
shoulder by the end of the night, but still rigid enough to handle the metal
and support the weight of a guitar.”

There was something on Tommy’s
chest, concealed under his hair.
 
He kept
pulling his hair forward to hide it.
 
It
looked like a bruise. She moved the strands of his hair out of the way and
studied the purple mark. She squinted and looked closer at it.
 
“Is that a bite mark?”

Angel strolled into the room before
Tommy had a chance to answer.

“What did you make, sweetheart?”

“Did you do this? Did you make this
mark on Tommy’s chest?
 
Did you
bite
him?”
 
The skin wasn’t broken and it was
relatively small, but it was a nasty bruise and she was angered by it.

Angel and Tommy exchanged a nervous
glance, before Angel shrugged with an innocent smile. “I guess I got a little
carried away.”

“It’s not funny, Angel.
 
That looks painful.
 
Why did you do that?”

Angel scooped her into his arms and
sunk his teeth into her neck. Her legs turned to jelly and she let out a long
sigh as he shook her flesh between his teeth.

“Do you like that, sweetheart?
 
Doesn’t that feel good?” He gave her another
harsh nip.

She was so overwhelmed that she
couldn’t speak.
 
His demonstration left
her breathless.
 
First Tommy showing up half
naked, then Angel aggressively nibbling her neck – she was a lucky girl.
 
It was a wonder she was able to get any work
done around those two.

“Now, can I see what you made,
sweetheart?”

It took her a second to remember
about the guitar strap.
 
Tommy handed it
to Angel, and another unspoken exchange passed between them.

Angel inspected it carefully.
 
He turned it over several times in his hand
and put it to his chest.
 
A proud smile
adorned his face as he stared at the name of the band brandished across the
back of the strap.
 
“Jessi, you’re a
genius.
 
This is perfect.
 
And it’s so soft.
 
This could be very lucrative.
 
I bet both me and Tommy know a lot of guitar
players who would buy these and want them personalized.”

“I thought about that.
 
I’m going to display a few at the merch table
at our next show.
 
A lot of your fans are
also musicians.”

“There’s only one thing you need to
do.”
 
Angel turned the strap over in his
hand and tapped it with his finger.
 
“You
need to emboss your name into the leather on the back.”

“My name?
 
Why my name?”

“It’s your brand, Jessi. You’re a
designer.
 
Your name needs to be on
it.
 
Nothing fancy or cutesy, just Jessi
Blade.
 
Your name is your brand.”

He was adamant about name
recognition and she wondered why he never chose his own name for the name of
the band.
 
“So why didn’t you name the
band The Angel Garcia Band instead of Immortal Angel?”

“My dad wanted something like that,
but it’s boring and I wanted Damien’s name represented, too.
 
Even though I had the idea for a punk rock
band in my head for years, it didn't start to come together until I met
him.
 
For a long time it was only me and
Damien and I wanted the name of the band to reflect the both of us.”

Jessi let out a small chuckle.
 
“So, Damien's immortal?”

“Sometimes I think he is.
 
I swear the man has nine lives. Immortal was
the exact opposite of everything he suggested.
 
Everything he wanted to use referred to death.
 
He had a very morbid and dark perception of
himself back then.
 
I suggested something
that meant life.
 
Immortal.
 
We toyed with the idea of Angels & Demons
for a while, but I knew it would eventually be reduced to an acronym.
 
A&D.
 
I didn’t want my band to be synonymous with an antibiotic ointment, so
we settled on Immortal Angel.”