Between a Rock and a Hard Place

by Jenna Galicki

  When Angel didn’t comment on the additional songs, Jimmy passed the sheet of paper to Tommy. “What do you think, man? Which two songs do you want to pull out of the set to make room for the new ones?”

  Tommy slipped out of the booth. “I’m fine with whatever changes you want to make with the set list, as long as Without You and Cyanide Sensation are still on there. Just run it by me when you’re done. I’ve got a guitar solo to work on,” he pointed toward the back bedroom, “and I’m staying holed up in there until I play something that’ll knock Angus on his fucking ass.”

  Angel scanned the paper again and forced himself to concentrate on the suggested new lineup. It included some of their older unreleased tracks that the band wrote before they were signed with Falcon. “I’d love to do Punk Rock Revolution and Infectious. They were big hits in Brooklyn, but I don’t know how the label would feel about us introducing new music without their consent.” He felt Jessi’s eyes on him like a heat-seeking missile, but he ignored her and continued. “I’d like to put these songs on the new album.”

  Damien threw his feet up on the bench seat facing him and crossed his booted ankles. “Don’t give that asshole, Angus, any reason to throw us under the bus. I don’t trust him. How’d we end up with such a dick for a manager anyway?”

  Jimmy took the list back from Angel. “I thought it was just temporary, while we were in Europe. He’s not coming back home with us, is he? He’s going back to London, right?” When no one answered, he looked at Jessi.

  Her gaze was still glued to Angel, but he couldn’t acknowledge her and purposely avoided eye contact. She had no idea that his heart was injured, fractured by her words and accusations. How could she think that he would ever do anything to jeopardize her marriage or make her feel threatened? The more he thought about it, the more it cut into him. He fell so hard for her when they were separated. She was always more than Tommy’s wife, more than just his “wifey”. She was part of his life.

  She accused him of seeking some kind of enjoyment out of the situation because it pushed him and Tommy together, without her. She was never more wrong. He brooded over her indifference and lack of reciprocation. His new found affection was deeper, more consuming and he expected her to return it, not push him away with hostile indifference.

  He thought their reunion would bring them closer together and make her realize how much they meant to each other. He wasn’t quite sure what gave her the idea that he was trying to take Tommy away from her. He would never ostracize Jessi from the relationship. He had genuine love for her. Now he wondered if she still loved him back. She had proclaimed to be in love with him once, and he wondered if this was how she felt, because he couldn’t return the same kind of love. He did love her, though, as much as a gay man could love a woman.

  Her accusations were unkind and they stung. He was hurt, and he was angry.

  “Well, is he?” Jimmy repeated.

  Angel wasn’t paying attention. “I’m sorry. What?”

  “Angus. I don’t want this guy as our full-time manager.”

  “I don’t know.” Angel automatically turned toward Jessi, expecting her to address Jimmy’s question, but her eyes were transfixed on him. They bore through him with their intensity. They were the color of steel and flared at him. They said a thousand different things, none of which he wanted to hear. He held her stare while silence fell over the table. They both waited for the other to break the mental hold, but neither backed down. Everyone was staring, their eyes volleying between Jessi and Angel, waiting for one of them to explode. Angel took a deep, calming breath and surrendered to the competition. “Is there something you want to say to me?”

  She spoke evenly, with calmness that didn’t match the fire in her eyes. “Were you glad that I didn’t go to Asia with you and Tommy?”

  Her words were probably received with more abrasion than she intended, but it grated against his already wounded heart. He pursed his lips, narrowed his eyes and shook his head slowly. “How could you say that? Did I ever once insinuate that I didn’t want you around? Do you have any idea how I feel about you?”

  Damien and Jimmy scattered, leaving them alone at the table. Jessi waited until they were fully out of sight before she leaned forward. Her voice was a raspy whisper, full of emotion. “I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

  He also leaned forward and countered her stance. “You have no idea how much I care about you, do you?”

  “It still doesn’t compare to how you feel about Tommy, which means given the chance, I think you’d relish the opportunity to have him all to yourself.”

  It infuriated him that after all this time together she thought he viewed her as a byproduct of the relationship, that she was simply part of a packaged deal, mere baggage that came with having Tommy in his life. He pulled at his hair and growled. “¡Me vuelves loco!”

  Jessi scowled at him and crossed her arms. “English.”

  “I said, you drive me crazy.” He stood up a little too quickly and bumped his thigh against the table. It gently rocked on a loose bolt that fastened it to the floor.

  Jessi stood tall and challenged him.

  He reached across the table, grabbed her by the back of the neck with one hand and held her chin in the other. She winced and hunched down, but he pulled her toward him and placed an unbreakable kiss on her mouth. She struggled, tried to turn away and wouldn’t open her mouth, but he held her face steady between his hands and kept his lips on hers. He wasn’t going to force her to kiss him back. He wanted her to be the one to deepen the kiss.

  They stood with the table bridged between them. Her hands gripped his wrists, weakly, as she attempted to remove them from her cheeks with feeble effort. She slowly stopped struggling and her body relaxed. She parted her lips and her tongue found its way into his mouth before he pursued the rough, passionate kiss.

  He pressed his lips against hers so hard it hurt. His tongue tasted every bit of her mouth, swirling and lapping up the flavors she had to offer. She melted into him and let out a small sigh. The emotion behind his kiss wasn’t fabricated or manufactured. It was pure and unadulterated, borne from the heart, and he knew she felt it. Her hands left his wrists and her fingers found their way through his hair. He wondered how far the kiss would have gone if the table wasn’t between them, but now wasn’t the time to experiment with the newfound passion spurred on by the heat of an argument. He broke the kiss with the same intensity in which it started, and roughly pulled away from her.

  Jessi was flustered. Her cheeks were deep pink, almost the same color as her hair. She started at him with her mouth partly open, either from surprise or because she was inviting him back inside.

  “Now do you know where you stand in my life?” Angel asked.

  She closed her eyes for a second, took a deep breath and regained her composure. “That kiss doesn’t change anything. I still don’t spend any time with my husband anymore . . . and you do. It isn’t fair.”

  The conversation with Jessi stalled. Angel didn’t really know if she was convinced that he never had any ulterior motives, but she seemed satiated and at least he knew that she still loved him.

  He went to comfort her with a hug, and to be sure that she wasn’t still upset with him, but she braced her hand on his chest and kept him at arm’s length.

  “Please, Angel, not now. I don’t think we’re entirely done and I don’t need my head screwed up any more than it already is with physical contact.”

  It wasn’t exactly the response he hoped for, but it was a step forward from where they started.

  He left Jessi at the table and went to sit on the couch in front of the TV with Alyssa. Damien, Jimmy and the dancers were still hiding in their bunks waiting out the storm, but nothing ever fazed Alyssa. She was unflappable. She never averted her eyes from the TV as Angel sat down next to her.

  “What the fuck was that?” she blurted out. “It sounded like something out of a bad soap opera.”

  Her coolness and indi
fference in a tense, awkward situation brought the tiniest smile to Angel’s lips, but it quickly disappeared when he realized Jessi was still sitting at the table.

  He thought Jessi would join him, but she remained stationed in the booth, sketching on her Tablet. A dull ache filled his chest and he let out a deep breath. She could have sat with him or next to Alyssa. They could have shared each other’s company, but she chose solitude.

  After a few minutes, Damien and Jimmy ventured out of their bunks and headed toward the lounge area. Jimmy sat next to Angel, but Damien stopped to talk to Jessi. Angel couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he assumed Damien was asking her if she was OK, since she was nodding her head while she answered him.

  The faint strum of Tommy’s guitar filtered through the air from the back of the bus, but the noise of the TV prevented Angel from clearly hearing the masterpiece Tommy was working on. The flimsy bedroom door wouldn’t have filtered much from the vantage point of Jimmy’s bunk, so he sought Jimmy’s opinion. “How does the new guitar solo sound?”

  Jimmy looked back toward the bedroom. “That’s why I’m here, man. He’s been playing Enter Sandman and Nothing Else Matters for the last half hour.”

  Angel knew that when Tommy sat alone and played Metallica, something was bothering him, but nothing ever got in the way of writing music before. “Did he play any guitar solos at all?”

  Jimmy scratched his long sideburns. “He only experimented with a few really short ones. The rest of the time he’s been fucking around.”

  Angel headed for the bedroom, and it wasn’t long before the familiar melody of Enter Sandman filled his ears. He knocked on the door and opened it. “Why are you playing Metallica? Are you done with your guitar solo?”

  “No. I can’t concentrate and I don’t want anyone to hear me play them. They’re not good.”

  Angel huffed. “Since when is Tommy Blade anything less than spectacular on the guitar?”

  “Since today.” Tommy stared at his fingers cradling the neck of his guitar, questioning their betrayal. There was genuine fear in Tommy’s eyes, fear that he lost his star power, his gift, his blessing.

  Angel went to him and rubbed his shoulders. “Don’t worry, mi amor. You just need to relax a little. We’re working too hard.”

  Tommy pressed his cheek to Angel’s hand and kissed it. “Yeah, I know. I’m not used to being under so much pressure. It’s a lot to handle.”

  Angel displayed a worried frown. His tiff with Jessi wasn’t over, and it was about to add a shitload of pressure onto Tommy’s shoulders.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  After Angel left him to work on his piece, Tommy couldn’t do anything except stare at the strings of his Fender. He swapped it for his Les Paul. Maybe his affection for the instrument would bring new life into his fingertips, but it didn’t do anything except solidify the fact that he was tapped out. He played the same steady melody of Enter Sandman, over and over until he was too tired to continue. He put the guitar back on its stand. The Les Paul stared back at him, wondering why he didn’t bring new music to life. He had no answer.

  Defeated, he walked to the front to the bus and sat with everyone else in the lounge area. Jimmy was in the middle of a story and laughter punctuated a high point in the tale. Tommy noted that Angel and Jessi appeared to be getting along better. They were sitting next to one another, not touching, but in close proximity with only a slight hint of trouble on the surface.

  They all quieted as soon as they saw him.

  “Did you write a hit song, man?” Jimmy asked. “You were in there long enough.”

  Tommy pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I’ll figure it out.” He could see the disappointment and the concern on their faces. He had never faltered before. Music came naturally. This pause in creativity, lack of inspiration and ingenuity, was new to him and it raised a mass of doubt inside him.

  He sat in solemn quietude without much participation in the conversation. Eventually, everyone went off to their bunks to get some rest before the bus pulled into Amsterdam and another day of sound checks and performances ensued.

  Tommy hated the small cramped bed and missed the luxury of sleeping in the hotel. He was already feeling crowded and claustrophobic sandwiched between Angel and Jessi, but he couldn’t push either one of them away.

  He just wanted to rest and clear his head so he could come up with a fresh guitar solo.

  Some of the stress finally started to dissipate, and the white noise of the expressway and the gentle rocking of the bus calmed him.

  Jessi’s hand on his inner thigh pulled him out of semi-consciousness. As absurd as it sounded, sex was the last thing he wanted. He took her hand and moved it up to his chest. Her finger circled his nipple. Angel’s lips went to his neck and delivered soft kisses. He stilled Jessi’s hand. “I’m tired. I just want to nap before we get to the hotel.”

  She got up on one elbow so she could look at him. “Are you serious? After everything, you’re pushing me away?”

  “I’m not pushing you away, hon. I’m just too tired.”

  Angel bolted upright at the waist. “You mean the great Tommy Blade isn’t interested in having sex?”

  Angel joked to lighten the tension, but Jessi was upset. She buried her face in the pillow and gave Tommy her back. He apologized with a soft stroke down her arm. “Don’t be mad. I’m exhausted, that’s all.”

  Jessi turned toward him and snuggled into the pit of his shoulder. She held onto him, tighter than usual, and he kissed the top of her head. After a few minutes, the only sounds in the room were of Jessi and Angel’s deep, even breaths, blowing onto Tommy’s chest.

  As tired as he was, Tommy couldn’t sleep. Too many things weighed on his mind. He lay awake and stared at the ceiling, wondering what the hell was happening to his life.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  At least they had been able to have breakfast and spend the morning together before the band went off to the studio in Amsterdam. They even had time to take a short boat tour on the Emperor’s Canal. It could have been so much more romantic if Jessi had settled things with Angel. Instead, they were aloof with one another.

  She was trying to let go of the festering resentment she had about the time Angel and Tommy spent together, but it kept gnawing at her. She knew Angel’s feelings were hurt. He was sensitive and had a soft caring heart. It was one of the things she loved about him, which made her ambiguous feelings all the more confusing. No one made her as conflicted as Angel. No one drew out the strong emotional highs and lows like Angel did.

  She loved Tommy with all her heart. There were never any other sordid feelings that challenged her love for him. He meant everything to her, but Angel, she pressed her lips together and shook her head. Her feelings for him were all over the place and ranged from love and intense desire to resentment and jealousy.

  She hated that she was jealous of Angel. It was an ugly, vile emotion that was borne by circumstance, not by hard evidence.

  Conflicting emotions aside, she loved Angel, and she wanted him to be part of her life and her marriage.

  She leaned back on the couch in the hotel room. Is this the way she was going to spend the rest of her life? Segregated from Tommy and Angel while they spent all their free time working together and she did her own thing? She had more than enough to keep her occupied. Too many things, in fact. She was supposed to be designing a new fall line, but she barely had time to sketch it on her Tablet.

  There was no use dwelling on circumstances that she couldn’t change. She knew that she still needed to clear the air with Angel. Time alone wasn’t exactly abundant and she hoped that the length of time it took for them to talk didn’t damage their relationship. She ran her hand through her hair. This European tour wasn’t what she expected, and she hated it.

  She scrolled through her Tablet at the half finished design she started yesterday. She had so many ideas but they were all jumbled inside her head, lost in between worrying abo
ut the store back home, dealing with the inadequacies in her personal life and juggling her job for Falcon Records.

  Before she had a chance to sketch anything, her cell phone rang. It was Ella. Usually when there was a problem at the boutique, Rachel, the store manager, called, so Jessi was expecting a pleasant call from her sister. She knew that wasn’t the case as soon as she heard the tone in Ella’s voice. “What’s wrong now?”

  “I don’t like what’s going on at the store,” Ella sad. “Something doesn’t seem right with the new merchandise that was replenished on the shelves. Something looks wrong, but I can’t put my finger on it. Neither can Rachel.”

  “Did you ask any of the dressmakers?”

  “I tried but they gave me the brush off. They told me to talk to Martha, the head dressmaker. They said they’re following the design pattern. And Martha refuses to answer any of my questions. She said you’re the boss, not me, and you put her in charge.”

  “She won’t talk to Rachel either? She’s the manager.”

  “No. Martha’s very protective of her position. I think she’s afraid we’re trying to steal her job.”

  Jessi was puzzled. Ella had a good eye for fashion. If something was amiss with the designs, she would spot it. “Can you take a photo and send it to me.”

  “Can I mail it to you so you can see what I’m talking about?”

  “You’re one step ahead of me, Ella. Fed Ex it to me in Frankfurt, so it’ll be waiting for me when I get there next week. I’ll text you the address of the hotel. Thanks for handling things for me. I might have to put you on the payroll.”

  She ended the phone call a little more confident now that Ella was keeping an eye on things. But now she was distracted from her design and lost the vision that was in her head. It was coming back to her. She needed to add a classic Jessi Blade jacket to an outfit. The jackets were becoming her signature pieces, especially with Angel wearing them on stage. Angel. Her thoughts drifted back to him and their confrontation. When did their lives get so complicated? She needed to concentrate on her sketch so dismissed it for now. She barely drew the outline of the jacket when her phone rang again. This time it was Marissa.