Chapter 7

The compact kitchen added to the layout of EG (Eclectic Generation) would prove to be almost as vital to its inhabitants as the studios, Jude eager to take advantage of this on the label's first day of business. One elbow was on the island countertop for balance while her other hand slowly stirred the fourth cup of coffee she had poured that morning.

Mornings were not Jude's forte. To her "the early bird gets the worm" was an old and outdated expression, and she felt better off believing that 'the owl gets the last hoot.' Jude was definitely a night owl, hence the caffeine overload and slumped demeanor on this particular morning. On average, she never chose to wake up before noon. Nevertheless, the night before she set her alarm to buzz 15 minutes before Jamie's for the first time since college. However, those 15 minutes did not give Jude enough time to get ready and eat before Jamie wanted to leave—boys are always faster when it comes to grooming—so she skipped breakfast to make sure she could get a ride with her husband to work.

Which is how Jude got to where she was now. A quart of coffee and a bowl of honeydew melon was not Jude's ideal breakfast—though she did love her fruit—but it was all that she had at the moment and her eyes had trouble staying open long enough to discontinue the French roast I.V. that was quickly becoming her life supply.

So why did Jude wake up at dawn when her first recording session wasn't till 2pm? When Jamie asked her that same question, she simply told him how excited she was for her first day of work and about wanting to meet the other people who didn't make it to the party last night. At least she wasn't completely lying to her husband because she honestly was thrilled about not having to work as many hours at Bath & Body Works and finally being able to lay some songs down. And Jude really did want to meet the new employees because living in a new town doesn't afford as many acquaintances as Jude thought it would. She had to grab at every chance of making new friends. Jamie hounded her about that on a daily basis.

All of this being said, Jude knew deep down that it wasn't the real reason why she wanted to show up to work before everyone else. Truthfully, there were only two words floating around in her head: Tom Quincy. Who would honestly guess differently if they noticed how cozy the two were in Studio B the night before. They had spent almost an hour locked up alone, the general crowd obviously enjoying themselves too much to even realize the two were missing. They didn't spend that hour christening the soundboard or studio couch—like you'd think. Instead, they talked about anything and everything. To Jude, last night was utter bliss, and she couldn't wait to see him again.

Daydreaming about the party, Jude was unfortunately brought down from her cloud when someone waltzed into the kitchen. All morning she acted like a radar, focusing her efforts on the doorway whenever someone so much as passed by the kitchen. This time, and like the many before, it wasn't the person she was looking for.

"Oh, hi Mrs. Andrews." The petite brunette looked up at Jude with childlike eyes and an effortless smile. Bailey was EG's youngest client, barely 15, and portrayed that perfect innocence that Jamie was hoping to market.

"Hi, Bailey. I'm kinda surprised to see you here." Jude looked at her watch thinking it was later but it read only 9:37 a.m. "Don't you have school?"

"Yeah, but I didn't have any like big tests or projects or anything so my mom called me in sick just for today since we were both so excited for the opening!" It almost sickened Jude to see Bailey's early morning enthusiasm, but she promptly reminded herself that tolerance was essential for survival in this business.

"Oh. Well, alright then." She went back to playing with the few pieces of melon left in her bowl, but it didn't stop Bailey from talking.

"So, I was passing the studios this morning and noticed the recording schedules were taped up for the day and I was like 'when does Mrs. Andrews have studio time?' cuz at the party you were so nice to me and I thought you were totally cool. Anyway, I looked at the schedule and what do you know, I see your name right above mine and I thought 'what a coincidence', you know?"

"Yeah." Just keep smiling, Jude silently instructed herself. "That's really neat, Bailey, but I thought I mentioned yesterday that I didn't take Jamie's last name. In fact, don't even worry about those technicalities and just call me Jude. 'Mrs.' makes me sound old and teacher-like."

Bailey looked at Jude nervously. "I'm sorry, I forgot. I should've remembered since the roster said 'Harrison' and not 'Andrews'. And the 'Mrs.' thing was just because old habits die hard when the only twenty-somethings you really spend time with give out test scores and lame lectures on our history."

Jude laughed. I don't think this girl has actually taken a breath yet. "Don't sweat it. So, did you want some coffee or something? The kitchen isn't well stocked yet but I just made a fresh pot. We also have this chocolate hazelnut blend that I'm frankly a little hesitant to try."

"No, I'm good thanks. My mom says too much caffeine makes me hyper. I really just came in to talk to you about the roster thing. You see," oh god, Jude thought as she looked around the room for a chair. She figured she'd be here for a while. "When I noticed your name on the 2 o'clock slot I thought 'here's someone I can really learn the ropes from' since you said you've been playing the guitar since you were 12 and I was hoping…"

As Bailey continued her lengthy prose, Jude abruptly shifted from the girl's attention to whatever her eyes briefly glimpsed at by the doorway. Someone was standing there, causing her radar to go off and her instincts to give into the distraction. She was immediately transfixed by the tall, muscular man in a leather jacket, staring at the two women—well, one in particular. He was finally here and Jude was giddy with relief.

Tommy let an amused grin form on his face which made Jude wonder how long he had been standing there watching them. Bailey's sprightly blabbering must have diverted Jude from her main purpose of searching for Tommy which allowed him to find her first.

As the slow seconds passed, Bailey continued to run her mouth off while Jude and Tommy only had eyes for each other. Tommy's smile weakened as he focused more on Jude instead of on the trap the 15 year-old had got her in. He noticed her wavy golden hair, still slightly tousled from the cool morning breeze. He noticed the dark circles under her eyes, wondering how early she got up to get here, but never thinking the fatigue detracted from her beauty in any way.

They both felt like teenagers, engulfed in this ridiculous puppy love that left them with butterflies in their stomach whenever their eyes locked. Jude was ready to abandon Bailey's one-sided conversation to see if Tommy had some free time before he had to devote himself to his many artists. Within moments of this plan, however, Tommy was snatched up by someone else. Kwest approached him on some subject or other, and before long Tommy gave a quick apologetic glance at Jude and left with his friend.

Perfect. I dragged my ass out of bed for fleeting glances. Jude turned her attention back to Bailey just as the young girl concluded, "So, do you think that would be cool?"

"Huh?"

Bailey was pleading sweetly. "I promise I won't bother you. It'll be like I'm not even there."

Jude thought about asking for clarification again because thanks to her 'Tommy' radar she completely missed the last minute and a half of Bailey's proposal. She also considered how pathetic it would look to admit her ignorance in front of this girl who clearly looked up to her.

"Um…yeah, sure. That should be fine, I guess." I hope. Whatever Bailey was asking Jude couldn't have been too extreme so she decided to blindly go along with it.

Bailey's face beamed. "Really? Oh my gosh, Jude, you seriously rock! Okay, well I'm gonna try and do some more writing so I'll see you in a couple of hours." To Jude's relief, Bailey was finally bouncing her way out of the kitchen. Yes, she literally bounced. This gave Jude a chance to slow down and collect her thoughts after chugging way too much coffee and spending over five minutes with a chatterbox teen. It was making her nerves twitch madly. She dumped the remaining contents of her coffee cup into the sink. She didn't need any more artificial pick-me-ups after seeing Tommy.

Seriously, when does that man not look good? His brown leather jacket and tan cashmere v-neck couldn't have looked better on anyone else. Accept maybe Chase Crawford. With that in consideration, she was determined not to spend the majority of her day coming up with ways to get him alone somewhere. It was stupid to obsess over Tommy this way, so she had to make productive use of her time until her session with him at 2pm.

It was 1:45pm and Jude was wiping away the tiny drops of perspiration from her forehead. Jude's version of productivity was apparently much different from the others since she spent nearly three hours running errands for anyone with special requests. If clients didn't like the coffee, she went out and bought them Starbuck's. If the tech-hands were hungry, she drove through Portillo's for hamburgers and Italian beef sandwiches. What Jude saw as a thoughtful gesture for hardworking individuals, Jamie saw as a weird fascination of keeping herself busy. He claimed these duties were "what we hire interns for so don't feel like you need to done an apron to help out the company."

She was prone to agree with her husband and honestly intended on stopping…right after she quickly popped into the convenience store for items to stock the fridge with. She convinced herself that this would actually help their situation temporarily until Jamie found a suitable intern to carry on Jude's servitude.

Once Jude looked at her cell phone and saw how late it was, she barely had enough time to run to the bathroom and fix herself up before recording with Tommy. Looking into the mirror, she was completely mortified. Tiny hairs around her face were drenched in sweat and clung to her skin. Her cheeks were bright red and her lips were slightly chapped from dehydration. She couldn't sing in front of Tommy like this. Jude let the faucet run as she cupped the water in her hands and splashed it upward onto her face. The cold water felt strangely comfortable as it sent chills up her spine. Even though the Chicago weather had dropped into negative numbers today, the building's heater must have been on high to put Jude in this flushed state.

Since agreeing to unofficially date Tommy while remain a married woman, Jude had reached an all-time high level of anxiety. She knew she couldn't ignore her feelings for Tommy, but a small part of her still felt wrong about it all. Two opposing elements were sitting on her shoulders bickering back and forth like old ladies and the only way Jude thought she could ignore these hallucinations was to continuously occupy her free time—hence the nonchalance of being dubbed 'errand girl'.

Jude pat-dried her face and hurriedly applied some lipstick and mascara. As she continued to stare at her reflection a smile appeared on her face at the thought of spending a full hour with Tommy. She hadn't even found a chance to speak with him all day other than asking him if he wanted fries with his burger. Now she could be alone with him and say what she wanted without fear of others listening. She knew no one else would be in the room with them because Kwest left at noon.

What made Jude most excited about this rendezvous was that, for some reason, whenever she was alone with Tommy, the quarreling voices in her head ceased. Being with him made everything easier to understand and accept, and she didn't feel the need to worry about the consequences. She liked it when she didn't have to worry about something; it honestly wasn't good for her skin.

Finally pleased with her appearance, Jude left the bathroom and headed toward Studio B, grabbing her guitar and two bottles of water along the way. The butterflies in her stomach returned as she stood in the doorway of the studio Tommy occupied. It was like a complete role reversal from this morning. Jude watched, smiling, as Tommy looked beyond frustrated trying to help the guy in the sound booth fix his song.

Jude shifted her guitar to the other hand, causing Tommy to notice her presence. He let his eyes drift to the clock to his right and let out a visible sigh of relief. "Alright, Terrance," Tommy began while pushing the intercom button, "that's it for today, but keep working on the song on your down time. The lyrics are good. I just still think you should put it in a different key." Terrance came out and grabbed his things off of the couch. "We'll talk more tomorrow."

Terrance walked out, discouraged with himself. "Yeah, whatever." For the life of Jude, she didn't understand why Tommy and Jamie drew up so many contracts with teenagers. Granted they are a large market right now, but having to deal with their emotional baggage or excessive perkiness was like running a daycare.

They were finally alone. Jude made her way into the studio and sat in the chair next to Tommy, eyes locked and both grinning like bobcats. For both parties, it had been an extremely long day, prolonged even more by their separation.

As luck would have it, Jude couldn't even get out a "hi" before another voice interrupted.

"Oh, Jude!" Speaking of excessively perky. "I almost thought I wasn't going to make it," Bailey stammered as she barged in and flopped on the couch. "I was waiting in line at that sandwich shop down the block and this awkward, geeky guy with huge glasses kept changing his order so they'd remake it for him and, well, it just took forever."

Jude looked at Bailey dumbfounded. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Speaking of which," Bailey continued, pulling out a wrapped up sub from her bag, "is it cool if I eat this in here? I'm starving!"

Neither Tommy nor Jude understood why this teen was acting so casual about interrupting their session. Jude remembered Bailey mentioning how her time slot was after Jude's so there shouldn't have been confusion.

Tommy headed the line of questioning this time. Jude could tell he was eager to get the teenager out of here. "Food is allowed, Bailey, but why do you have to eat it in here now? This is Jude's recording time."

Bailey took a bite out of her sandwich, not pausing to chew before replying. "I know. That's why I'm here. Jude said I could sit in."

Tommy turned his head back to Jude, eyebrows raised. "Really? Jude said that?"

Jude didn't remember anything of the sort, but she did suddenly remember completely missing a chunk of what Bailey was saying to her this morning. Damn Tommy and his elusive power to make her blackout any distractions in his presence! "Oh. Oh! I did, uh, say that, didn't I? It must've slipped my mind since I was so busy today."

Leaning back in his swivel chair with his arms crossed, Tommy looked too smug for his own good. "Right. Busy taking lunch orders. You know, if only Bailey caught you in time, then she wouldn't have had to deal with that indecisive customer."

"Uh, don't even get me started on him again." Bailey was picking an unwanted tomato out of her sandwich.

Jude and Tommy continued to stare each other down, unbeknownst to Bailey. "Yes. Please, Tommy, don't get her started." Jude had enough of the petite brunette's blabbering for one day. "So, who wants to start putting down some rough cuts? Everyone? Great! I'll set up then." Jude unlocked her guitar case, putting the acoustic guitar in one hand and music sheets in the other.

"So, you brought Davies with you, huh? What's wrong, don't like what we provide?" Tommy gestured to the guitar in the corner.

Jude rolled her eyes. "Oh, it's fine for a novice." Glancing at Bailey, Jude could see the girl sheepishly sink down into the couch. "But mainly I just like to bring him as my good luck charm." She caressed the spine lovingly. "Davies and I have been through a lot together."

"So what's the significance behind calling it, or him, Davies?" Bailey finally asked out of curiosity.

Jude looked back at Tommy. "You wanna take this one, Tommy Q?"

Tommy glared at Jude for using his old nickname before going into the explanation. "Alright, you know the band The Kinks?"

Bailey scrunched up her forehead. "Um…no."

"Okay, how about the song 'Lola'?"

The teen's face contorted even more as she shook her head. Tommy looked to Jude for help, who put down her notes and placed the guitar strap around her neck.

"You need to think earlier, bud. Like this." She played the first few riffs of "You Really Got Me" on her guitar repeatedly until the light bulb went off in Bailey's head.

"Well," Tommy continued, "Ray Davies is the genius behind that band. Jude idolizes him for his fearlessness toward corporate thugs who try to take over the music industry."

"Oh, I see. I haven't named mine yet but I was thinking of something like Vader or Stone."

"Stone? Is that supposed to be a metaphor for something?" Tommy asked curiously.

Bailey laughed. "No. Peter Stone's a character on Degrassi. He's my favorite."

Jude decided to be big and not respond to that comment, because it would probably get her into trouble. She found her way into the sound booth, eager to jump into it since Bailey's unexpected arrival already wasted some of her time. "Okay," Jude spoke clearly as she leaned in toward the microphone, "since this is the first day I just want to get some rough demos recorded. All acoustic for now but we'll obviously change things as we see them later."

"You got it, boss," Tommy joked. "Recording…now."

"Alright, this first one's called 'Just the Beginning'. One, two, three, four…"

Less than 2 hours later Jude was beat. She successfully recorded most of her songs in one take, but a few of her tricky ones needed minor adjustments. Overall, both Jude and Tommy were happy with the progress they made in such a short time.

It kind of surprised Jude how serenely quiet Bailey was throughout the whole session. Sometimes Jude actually did forget she was even there, like Bailey promised. Even Jamie made an appearance to see how things were going, but he didn't want to disturb her long.

Once it was Bailey's turn to borrow Tommy's producing talents, Jude had to make her departure, even with Bailey's persistent pleading that she stay and watch her. Jude only had one thing on her mind, and, surprisingly, it wasn't Tommy. Right now nothing sounded better than laying in bed with a pint of Ben & Jerry's and a couple of Gene Kelly flicks. Granted the sun hadn't even gone down yet, but with the days being shorter in the winter and the fact that she actually woke up in the a.m. made her bed look all that more appealing.

Her voice was raspy from singing too long—nothing a little ice cream couldn't cure. She felt bad for not wanting to spend more time with Tommy but there would be plenty of time for that in the future.

"Alright, you two," Jude started as she was packing up all her stuff, "have fun." She winked at Tommy when she knew Bailey's back was turned, then abruptly left. Jude stopped by Jamie's office to tell him she was going home. He said he shouldn't be too much longer, but they both knew that was a lie. Jamie Andrews was bread to be a workaholic.

Ah. Home. Opening the freezer, Jude knew exactly what home meant to her. It was in the form of a carton of New York Super Fudge Chunk. All it needed was a spoon.

Jude did exactly as she promised herself. She popped in Singin' in the Rain, changed into a pair of comfy sweat pants, and nestled under the covers with her favorite ice cream in hand before pushing play. She was completely content until she heard a knock at the door just before Jude's favorite part in the movie. The only people it could be were either a neighbor—which was highly unlikely since she still barely knew anyone in the building—or Jamie. Chances were that he forgot his key at the office and needed her to let him in.

Finally crawling out of bed to open the door, she was surprised to find Tommy standing there instead.

"Hi."

"Hi."

They both faced each other silently, the door frame acting as a magical barrier between them. "Do you want to come in?"

Tommy smiled. "Yeah, sure."

"Do you want anything to drink? I could make a quick pot of coffee if you like."

"No. I'm good. Thanks." Tommy stuck his hands in his front jean pockets, rocking on his heels nervously.

Jude pursed her lips. "So, how much longer are we gonna go through this awkward first date stage?"

Tommy let out a big breath after firmly planting his feet on the ground. "As long as it takes, I guess."

"And you're willing to go through that just for me?"

He replied without hesitation as he stared into her big, beautiful eyes. "Of course."

Jude stepped closer until his large, jacket-encased arms enveloped her. She looked up at him, wrapped tightly in his embrace, and smiled.

"Is it weird to admit that I missed you today?" Tommy asked, loosening one of his arms from their hold on her to brush away a few strands of hair from her face.

Jude quivered. "Not at all. I actually agree whole-heartedly."

He loved being this close to her again. "This may sound a little juvenile but it felt like being in the same building with you all day wasn't enough." Jude was about to add on to his comment when he cut in. "And I'm not just saying that in a sexual context."

Jude laughed at his insecurity. These past few months Tommy has tried so hard to convince Jude that he's not the playboy he used to be. She nestled her head against his chest. "I know what you meant. And I think that's what made it so difficult. I mean, we hardly got a chance to talk to one another, yet walking by the studio door every 20 minutes didn't help me forget you were there."

"Speaking of studios," Tommy added, finally pulling away from Jude on the off-chance that her husband was on his way home, "we need to talk to Jamie about the current producing arrangement going on. I was in that studio from 10am to 6pm today. Either he finds an additional producer or we start dropping contracts with some of the artists."

Jude was particularly interested in the second option. "Ooh, I vote Bailey!"

Tommy shook his head. "You need to give the kid a break. She's just…"

"On so many uppers that Thorazine couldn't take her down?"

Tommy was lost. "What's Thorazine?"

"It's a highly lethal sedative used to treat psychotic disorders."

"I'm not going to even ask you where you got that information, but just remember how important she is for the company. She's got a powerful voice. I'm sure you'll get used to her eventually." He held her face in his hands. "I should hurry and get home before I end up passing out at the wheel."

Jude pouted her pink, glossy lips. "Must you go?"

Tommy was ready to give into the puppy dog expression on Jude's face, but didn't want to take any chances when neither of them knew exactly where Jamie was. "You know I must."

Deep down, Jude knew it was the right decision, but knowing didn't make it any easier to let go of him. Without releasing her face, he slowly bent his head down and tenderly kissed her forehead. She closed her eyes to memorize the full sensation of his lips on her skin.

"Mmm, that was sexy," Jude purred.

"I'll see you mañana, mamacita."