Chapter 4

Jude spied the longish shaggy brown locks a few classrooms down and quickened her step. "Hey." She grinned as she joined Spied as he headed for his locker.

"Hey…." His returning grin was instant and infectious at her unusually airy mood. "Why are you all smiley?"

Jude shrugged nonchalantly. "I have been asked to fill in for a real signed band." She failed to notice his smile slip a notch and turned to face him, walking backwards. "And the best thing--I'm getting paid for it." Jude felt herself bumping into someone and turned her head to apologize. "Oh…sorry…" The tall bespectacled, brown haired boy said nothing, simply giving her a glare before hurrying on.

"How long has it been since you've talked to him?" Spied referred to Jamie Andrews, Jude's next door neighbor and one time best friend.

"I don't know…Couple of years I guess." Jude forced herself to forget him and get back to the previous topic. "So the only bad thing is the band works for G-major."

"Uh huh," he commented noncommittally, feeling something gnawing at his stomach. He wasn't sure if it was jealousy or anger he was feeling. He had stopped asking her to join his band long ago, not that he hadn't tried his best to change her mind.

"But hey, no one's likely to remember me." He was silent for a long moment, knowing her sensitivity to that long ago subject, although even he did not know the whole story.

"So how much they paying?" They stopped in front of his locker and his hand went automatically to the dial.

"Dunno."

"How'd you get the gig?"

"Uh…" She shrugged uncomfortable. "Just a friend of a friend of Walt's." Her friends still had no idea how she had been spending her time almost every other weeknight, and she was hesitant to tell them. Although she trusted them with her life, she wasn't sure how they would react or if they would accidentally blab. This was one secret it felt almost nice to keep.

"Ah." Spied ducked his head into his locker to shield his conflicted face from her view.

"Where are you?" Tommy snapped into his cell phone as he glanced at his band, Cipher Saints, idly joking in the sound booth. He had promised them a guitarist even though they had been skeptical of anyone he could find. It had been a hard road to earn these guys respect and he wasn't about to lose what ground he had gained. Fucking musicians could be such prima donnas. He shook his head as he paced the small area in front of the soundboard.

Jude had just stepped off the bus onto the sidewalk and was simply standing there staring at the building in the distance that she had been in, so long ago. "I had school Quincy! I'll be there soon," she replied just as tetchily before forcing her reluctant legs to carry her towards G-Major.

"Well how much longer?" he growled back, watching that sullen expression building on Bodie Sikes face, Sikes the co-founder of the group, the injured guitarist and the biggest ego Tommy had yet to encounter in the biz. He even rivaled Shay, Tommy's boss Darius's rapper nephew, for sheer arrogance, even though the Saints were still relatively unknown.

"I'll be right there Quincy! Don't get your panties in a twist!" Jude flipped the phone shut, knowing that would piss him off and grinned to herself as she opened the glass doors.

.

Jude hurried through the hallway, remembering the way even without the helpful twenty something woman at reception. She found herself running her fingers through her long windblown hair and then stopped abruptly realizing what she was doing. She did not care how he thought she looked, she told herself and instead grabbed the strap of her book bag, before walking towards Studio Two. Apparently they had renamed them at some point in the last two years. She stopped abruptly in the doorway, her mouth opened in shock as she stared into the room.

"Finally!" Tommy said loudly, causing her to wake from her slight daze. She glanced briefly at him and shrugged before her attention became once again riveted past him into the other room. The man she was looking at finally turned his head and saw her, his face breaking into a huge grin.

Jude almost dropped her bag onto Tommy's foot before practically running through the next doorway. Tommy watched as she launched herself at JC, the lead singer of the band. He moved to the doorway himself, wondering how they could know each other, but then remembering that JC's family was originally from this area.

"Holy shit! Jules fucking Harrison!" He had picked her up in his arms before Tommy could blink and Tommy could hear her musical laughter as she kissed his cheek enthusiastically.

"Chris? What are you…?"

"It's JC now," he warned as she gave him a questioning look. He gestured at where Bodie lounged on the leather couch. "That's Bodie, our regular guitarist." Her eyes widened in understanding.

"Oh…So do they know what the J stands for?" she teased mercilessly and he glared down at her causing her to laugh.

"You got your contract already huh? I can't say I'm surprised."

Tommy and the rest of the band listened to them unabashedly.

"No--I--I don't do that anymore. I'm just filling in as a guitarist for Tommy's band." JC let her go and looked her over appreciatively, taken in the tight ripped jeans and tiny vintage concert T.

"Well Jules looks like you're all grown up now." She blushed, having once had a major crush on her best friend's older brother. And if he hadn't left town for college she still might.

"What did you do to your hair?" she asked as he put her down and she ran her fingers through the stubble that had once been a luxuriant brown.

He shrugged and grinned at her warmly. "I haven't seen you in almost three years and that's what you ask me…Typical." She smacked his arm at his teasing before he laughed and threw his arm around her shoulder.

"That's your replacement for me? You can't be serious," Bodie said oh so sarcastically causing Tommy to clamp his fingers, already tense from the scene playing out before him.

When they finally rejoined the group JC's arm was still firmly around her shoulder's and she was leaning into him looking happier than Tommy had ever seen her outside of when she was playing.

"Quincy you should've told me you knew Jules."

"Jules?" Tommy asked, guessing that was the safest question.

"Oh yeah…What was his name? Andy Brewster?" He looked over at her.

"Baxter."

"Yeah anyway Andy Baxter told her Jude was a boy's name in third grade and teased her mercilessly about it." Tommy winced remembering that he had thought Jude had been a guy. No wonder she'd been so snotty about the whole thing even though it had been an honest mistake.

"Well I was named after a song about a boy!" Jude defended herself.

"Yeah and after she nailed his boys with a dodge ball we decided it was a good idea to keep her happy, so we started calling her Jules." Being guys they all winced in sympathy for that long ago kid.

"Why Jules?" Tommy's eyes once again wandered to the tight hold JC had on her and the way she leaned into his side contentedly, like a stretched out kitten.

Jude sighed and rolled her eyes. "Well you know Hey Jude was written by Paul McCartney for Julian Lennon when his parents were getting divorced. So Julian…Jules…"

"So you already know JC."

JC interrupted, angling her to face his band. "Yeah that's Bodie, our defunct guitarist and can I say I would much rather stare at you." Jude laughed. "That's Justin and that's Trey."

Jude nodded her head at them, getting greetings in return, yet feeling a tiny bit uncomfortable at the way Bodie was watching her.

Tommy said. "We should get started and see if you work out."

JC looked at Jude in amusement, remembering how good she had been at fourteen. She could only have improved. "If she's our new guitar player I don't need to hear her. Let's go. We have catching up to do." JC steered Jude away and they stopped only long enough for him to grab her bag.

They walked away leaving, the band whom also looked a little confused, and Tommy watching them in surprise.

"What the fuck?" Bodie commented loudly, unused to being ignored.

Tommy feared this might be the biggest mistake he had made to date as a producer. Bodie's relationship with his band-mates was already volatile at the best of times.

"Tom is she really good?" Trey, the drummer asked. He was the mellowest of the group and of all the band members Tommy got along with him the best.
Tommy nodded and cleared his throat. "I guess you guys can get going. We'll do a run-through tomorrow at 3."

"That little girl can't replace me!" Bodie complained to Justin, their bass player.

"Hey if you decided not to be a dumbass and screw-up your wrist we wouldn't have needed her!" he snapped back before gather his equipment together. Although Justin had always been the quiet one in the band he had been put through a lot by his old friend and even he wasn't cutting Bodie that much slack anymore.

Tommy sighed as he watched the guys walk out, wondering if they would manage to stay together the way they were bickering and with the album not nearly close to being finished. And he really didn't know how he felt about Jude knowing JC.