by Brooks, Tori
He pushed the view aside for a moment, it wasn’t going anywhere. Jess took a seat where he could watch his friends on the other side of the glass, but not be in the way of the sound tech in the hoodie doing his blushing best to ignore Erika’s nipples. If the tech sat back, Jess would act as a barrier and give the poor guy a break. Not surprisingly, the tech didn’t sit back.
“I’m just glad I wasn’t late,” Jess answered her.
One of Erika’s eyebrows twitched in amusement. “You are late. And yet you’re right, you’re not. You’re not even supposed to be here.”
“I’m the cheerleader.”
“Dev needs a cheerleader?”
Jess shrugged. “Need is such a strong word. And how do you know I wasn’t referring to Kenny? He’s not used to being on his own. Bryan has Brenda, Dev’s away at college, Kenny gets lonely. He likes to see familiar faces.”
Erika smiled and pointed to the glass separating them from the band. “There are two other familiar faces in there right now.”
“Forgot about them. Guess I didn’t need to bother.” Jess grinned. “Oh well. I’m here now. Might as well stay.”
“Jess?” Dev called from the studio floor. Jess and Erika both turned to look at him. “No offense, but why are you here?”
Jess shrugged. “I found all these water balloons and didn’t know what to do with them.” Jess held up the bucket. When he put it down again, Erika looked alarmed. Dev too, which gave Jess a better idea for an excuse for being there. An excuse for Dev anyway. Until that moment, Jess couldn’t care less what he told Erika. Maybe he should make the kid think he was there to pick up Erika. That should calm him down about associating with her too. Especially considering how she was dressed. Erika didn’t dress like that for Jess, she didn’t know he was coming. She was clearly after Dev.
“In the studio? Even you aren’t that idiotic,” Dev said, shaking his head.
“True, although it’s nice to hear your opinion of me is soaring.” Jess grinned and leaned over to Erika. “Of course he has to leave the studio at some point. Want to bet on how long it takes him to figure that out?”
Erika shook her head and laughed softly.
Jess turned back to Dev. “When we’re at the studio, I only get to hear you sing back-up. How could I miss the opportunity to hear you fly solo?”
“You’re that bored?” Dev asked.
No, Jess thought, but I’ll be a pal and help you out. He’d get to know Erika and see if she was possibly better for the kid than Lindsay. Not that it would be a hard sell.
“I’m being supportive,” Jess answered, keeping his true motives private.
Dev looked at him a moment as if trying to read his mind. Jess wasn’t the least bit concerned. Genius or not, Dev was never good at figuring out how Jess thought while Jess could usually lead the kid to the wrong conclusion with little effort. Jess gave Dev an over-the-top grin and Dev nodded as if on cue.
“Then by all means, Jess, hang around,” Dev said.
Jess nodded and turned his attention back to Erika because he knew that was what Dev expected – hoped – to see. Dev played the guitar and Jess played Dev. Sometimes it was too easy. Sometimes. Occasionally. Except where Lindsay was involved.
He really should have recognized the writing on the wall and played that hand differently. It was too late now and a hard lesson learned for the future. Once he got rid of the blond bitch, he’d keep a closer eye on the women that came within striking range of their dear, tender-hearted little bassist. But first he had to get rid of Lindsay.
“Here to be supportive? Anything to do with his extreme shyness and the fact that I’m an unknown?” Erika asked.
“Something along those lines,” Jess agreed. “Although I wouldn’t pitch it like that to him.”
“Male ego?”
Jess considered that. Dev might be a pain in the ass, but he wasn’t delusional. Not about women. Dev wasn’t comfortable around Erika, and he knew his friends knew it. They also didn’t discuss it. Was that to preserve Dev’s ego? In Jess’s opinion, it was closer to self-preservation. When they forced Dev out of his comfort zone, bad things happened. Jess knew it better than anyone because he baited the tiger on stage regularly. But Jess was experienced in playing with fire and Dev was always expecting it and prepared. And everyone had fire extinguishers. God he was good. Kenny would love that metaphor. This situation was different, but Jess didn’t know how to explain that to Erika, or if he even should.
“Ah – I’m not sure how to answer that. I’ll take the easy way out and say sure, but it’s not entirely accurate.”
“I’m curious now.”
“Go find a cat and ask it how that worked out.”
Erika laughed and watched as Bryan left his drums and Kenny and Dev set aside their guitars. “If you’re going to threaten him with those balloons, you’re running out of time,” she prompted.
Jess nodded. They’d be set up to start laying down the vocals in a few minutes. Perhaps they’d take a break first, but it wouldn’t be long. “The balloons are a pretense. Although I should warn you the cabbie was concerned I might be a terrorist.”
Erika gave him a look he couldn’t read.
“I’m serious. He grilled me the entire way here. Don’t be surprised if the NSA or some other acronym shows up in the next few minutes to cart me away,” Jess assured her.
“I take it he hasn’t seen your shows.”
“I promise I tried to explain, but the thought of one grown man throwing water balloons at another for the entertainment of thousands of young adults was beyond his grasp. To tell him people paid to see such things probably would have made him turn the cab around and haul me to the loony bin, so I didn’t bother.”
“And to think, he’s probably going to go home to his wife and teenage children tonight and relate this tall tale, and his kids will bring up your website . . .”
Jess laughed. “I hope so, I really do. The staff at the hardware store got autographs and helped me fill the balloons. They took pictures too. There’s proof theses little dramas go beyond the stage.”
Erika smiled. “Tell me something that happened that isn’t on your website.”
Jess grinned and his eyes traveled over her shoulder, meeting Bryan’s eyes as he came in the door. The others would follow.
“Kenny will kill you,” Bryan cautioned.
“Depends.” Jess shrugged.
Erika looked back and forth between Jess and Bryan.
“Fine, forget Kenny. You’re taking your chances with Dev.” Bryan passed by and sat down across from them on a long sofa.
“Chances with Dev?” Kenny said, walking in. He gave Jess a curious look, one eyebrow twitched upward, but he didn’t seem concerned. Actually, his curiosity seemed more for Jess’s proximity to Erika than over anything he might say.
“Don’t worry about it,” Bryan waved him off. “Handled.”
“That concerns me more,” Kenny said and gave Jess a second look.
“What’s a concern?” Dev walked in last, almost running into Kenny as he loitered.
“Nothing,” Kenny and Bryan answered in unison.
Dev immediately turned his attention to Jess.
“You heard them,” Jess answered. He fished beside him in the bucket for a water balloon and held one up. “Want a traditional greeting?”
“You usually save those for my homecomings,” Dev answered.
“Hey! You can’t throw that in here!”
“No water balloon fights around the equipment!” the studio’s engineers protested.
Jess looked at them in amusement. “Really? They let us in Seattle. Are you sure?”
“Don’t tease the techs,” Kenny said with a sigh and took the water balloon away from him. He returned it to the bucket, then took the bucket away as well.
“You better not give that to the brat,” Jess warned him.
Kenny made a show of passing it to Bryan for safe keeping. “Happy?”
&nbs
p; Jess shrugged. “I want it back before Dev leaves.”
“What?” Dev looked at Bryan, Jess, then Kenny in alarm.
“Relax. I’ll give you a head start,” Kenny told him.
Jess caught Kenny’s eye briefly as he turned to join Bryan on the sofa. The single glance the passed between the two long-time friends said everything. Kenny understood Jess’s modified plan involving Erika, and Jess understood Kenny’s impromptu water balloon fight later. Water balloons were within Dev’s comfort zone, and anything they could do to keep Dev partially distracted was probably a good thing.
○ ○ ○
Erika wasn’t thrilled with how the studio session went. The single was going to be great, she didn’t have any complaints there. Kenny was incredibly talented when they worked together to mix it. Mark tried to warn her. They all knew their stuff, as she was aware going in. Their image just made them seem like novices.
They were novices by comparison. She had more records and more hits behind her than they did, but it made little difference. They met her as an equal and she underestimated A Thousand Words. Erika hadn’t listened to Mark when he tried to warn her about setting her sites on Dev. The whole band sheltered him much more than Erika expected.
She barely had a chance to get to know him at all. Oh, sure, Erika got to know Kenny after they finished recording the voice tracks and Dev all but sprinted from the studio with Jess practically on his heels. She even got a bit of a feel for Bryan’s role in the band’s dynamics when he lingered, chuckling slightly after the two troublemakers left. But Dev hardly said an unnecessary word to her.
Jess did though, Erika mused. More than a few, and that was interesting.
Mark was waiting for her in her New York apartment when Erika walked in, still thinking about her conversation with Jess. He looked up from his bottomless email inbox when Erika sat down across from him.
“Tell me about Jess Baxter,” Erika ordered. Mark looked up at her and blinked.
“Changed your mind?”
“No. He showed up when he wasn’t expected. Sort of taking that sheltering his best friend to extremes, don’t you think? The media wasn’t there. Just me. And I’m not convinced Jess is Dev’s best friend. I’m not entirely sure what the deal is, but I think it’s a smokescreen. You’re right that Kenny holds the leadership role, but he seems to bow to Bryan sometimes. They have a sort of unspoken agreement and Dev and Jess are aware of it.”
“Okay,” Mark said slowly. “So what about Jess do you need to know? Keeping in mind of course that I have little legitimate reason to hit up Alec Franke for more information.”
“I’m not sure. I want more information about Dev’s girlfriend too.”
“There’s no good way to get that, angelfish.” Mark shook his head.
“What’s she look like? I want a picture.”
Mark shook his head again. “You don’t want to go there. We’re talking stalker-territory. If Dev finds out, there’ll be hell to pay.”
“Then don’t let him find out,” Erika said. “Besides, it shouldn’t really be hard. You know very well everyone in our generation is connected and the Internet is eternal. Find someone to mine her accounts and learn everything about her. I want her posts, her pictures, information she thought she erased, all of it. And most importantly, whoever you find has to be really good and can’t be traced back to me. Dev is at MIT and computers are his thing. I have no idea if he just likes computers or programming or even if he’s any good at it. Still, I really don’t want to find out he’s a world-class hacker because he has safeguards on his girlfriend’s computer and caught us with our hand in the cookie jar.”
“An excellent reason to not slip our hands in there to begin with,” Mark reasoned.
“An excellent reason for it to be someone else’s hand you mean,” Erika corrected him. “Find someone from China or Russia or something. No, wait, somewhere A Thousand Words has a big fan base so it would be reasonable that they were looking at Dev’s girlfriend.”
“A fan would be looking at Dev, angelfish.”
Erika smiled. “Great idea. Do that first. If they can dig up info on him, she should be easy. Just tell whoever it is to tread lightly. It’s more important that they’re not caught than to get information.”
“You’re crossing lines,” Mark warned.
“But no one knows that.”
With a nod and a resigned sigh, her manager changed the subject. “What about the sudden interest in Jess Baxter? Where did that come from?”
Erika thought about how to articulate her suspicion. “At first when he showed up, I thought he was there to offer support. Then I suspected he was onto my plan and was trying to shield Dev from me. I mean he wasn’t trying to pick me up, but he led Dev to believe that was why he was there.”
Mark held a hand up to stop Erika. “What makes you say that? Did Jess say something?”
“No, not exactly. It was the way he behaved when Dev was watching versus when he wasn’t. Jess plays the media, but he plays Dev too. We decided before that he couldn’t really be the idiot he pretends to be for the cameras and fans, but kind of thought he was probably just a playboy. I think he might have an agenda; strangely, it plays more toward my goals than Dev’s.”
It was difficult to wait while Mark stared at her, frowning, shaking his head softly in denial.
“Fine,” Mark finally said. “I give up. Tell me your reasoning and spell it out.”
“For all the world, I swear Jess was vetting me to make sure I was acceptable for Dev. He was subtle, I’ll grant him points for that. Amazingly so. He’s really good, but then, when you consider his history with women, I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything less of him.”
“Oh, I don’t know –”
“A man can get a lot of women based on good looks and a fun personality, Mark. Jess’s success rate suggests he can use his brain when motivated.”
“If you say so.”
“I’m a woman, trust me on this.”
“And you propose he’s showing you this fabulous brain of his – why?” Mark asked.
“A very good question. Dev has a girlfriend and Jess didn’t mention her at all. Or Dev in romantic terms, actually.”
“Then how do you know he’s looking to replace the girlfriend? Maybe Kenny’s interested.”
“Kenny and I mixed the single with the techs after everyone else left. He didn’t express any interest. Kenny confirmed Jess is available, but warned me he won’t commit if I had any ideas. I alleviated his concern on that point. Dev is technically single – as Kenny said it – which I thought was interesting. I mean why not tell me he’s got a girlfriend? And Bryan is married to his high school sweetheart, which of course we already knew.”
“So maybe the rumors that Dev’s gay are true. Maybe the girlfriend’s a beard.”
Erika shook her head. “Jess told me it wasn’t true. They used to worry, but apparently that isn’t the case. Besides, it’s not like that’s a big deal. From what I’ve seen of them professionally, and now working together, I really think Dev would just come out of the closet if that were the case.”
“Fine. And?” Mark prompted. Erika shrugged.
“Dev didn’t come up otherwise. Neither did Lindsay. That’s why I want more information. I can’t say for sure Kenny’s playing games, but Jess is. I can only assume that he doesn’t like Lindsay.”
“You think Jess wants to see his friend’s affections wander a different direction,” Mark said.
“He knows what’s on my mind and didn’t try to dissuade me, yet Dev’s got a girlfriend already. If you add all that up, what does it mean to you?” Erika asked.
Mark hesitated longer than Erika liked before answering. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll play along for now and see what I can find out from interesting people we don’t technically know. For your part, angelfish, stay calm and try to find out where Bryan’s loyalty is in this. You said yourself that you didn’t think Jess was really Dev’s best friend.
Aligning yourself with him and his plan may not be your best chance for success.”
○ ○ ○
Relieved to be done recording the single, Dev left the mixing and marketing details to Kenny and returned to school. Jess and Erika didn’t start dating, to his annoyance, and he decided not to mention it to Lindsay. No point even bringing the subject up.
Thankfully, Lindsay didn’t mention the studio time with Erika Atlas – until he went home for Christmas. Dev didn’t have anything to hide, so he didn’t mind answering her questions. He still didn’t bring up his hopes for Jess and Erika, however. It was over, it didn’t matter.
What mattered to Dev was Lindsay’s casual reference to Brenda’s frustration over her quest to have children. Dev didn’t even know Bryan and Brenda were trying to have kids. The thought of his best friend being a father disturbed Dev. Worse, usually Dev turned to Bryan for advice when he was upset about something, but this time Bryan was the source of anxiety. How could he approach Bryan and tell him he’s what Dev was concerned about? It wasn’t even Dev’s business, but it would change everything.
The thought weighed on Dev through the winter break. He did his part helping Jess avoid Cassie, but he had new insight on the traditional plot. Nightmarish daydreams of Jess finally getting Cassie, marrying her, and having children, ambushed Dev whenever he spent time with his sister. Jess was a friend, but he wasn’t right for Cassie. He wasn’t good enough, although Dev felt guilty about the opinion.
Mostly from guilt, Dev decided to approach Jess instead of Bryan with his troubles.
“Jess, can I talk with you a minute?” Dev asked. Jess, Kenny, and Sophie were watching TV downstairs when Dev got up the nerve to talk to him. It was strange, having difficulty talking to his friends.
Jess stood and followed Dev into his room with no concern showing at all, like Dev wanting to talk was an everyday occurrence. Behind him, Dev caught a glimpse of Kenny – turned in his place on the sofa and watching Jess and Dev, analyzing. Dev couldn’t help that. Kenny was who he was – always watching and making mental notes, trying to figure him out.