"It's hard to remember how it felt before / Now I found the love of my life... / Passes things get more comfortable / everything is going right"
"Jude," Tommy interrupts, "I'm not feeling your tone, it's still a little flat. Do it again."
"Okay," I grunt, finally starting to get a little frustrated. It is take number twenty something. I'm starting to think this is a little personal; it never takes us this long to get a song down and packed.
"Okay, Tom, play it back for me, but I think it sounds good the way I'm singing it," I smile, sweetly.
"Who's the producer, Jude," he rolls his eyes. I watch him lean back in his chair crossing his arms over his chest.
Asshole!
He gives me the signal and music immediately starts flooding through my headphones. "And after all the obstacles / It's good to see you now with someone else"…shit. I know I messed that last line up, I look up at him briefly, but he's signaling for me to continue. I shrug, continuing softly.
"And it's such a miracle that you and me are still good friends / After all that we've been through / I know we're cool" crap. Last word was a little on the sharp side again.
"Jude! What the crap? Are you not feeling well? Do you need to take a break," he yells.
"Would you calm down," I yell, sliding off my headphones before he blows out my eardrums. I make my way out of the sound booth, stomping towards him. "My god, you've only had me singing for the past two hours! What do you expect? It's late and I'm tired."
"Well, if you would give me something I could work with, Jude, we could get out of here. Do you want to call it a night and go home?" he questions, clearly annoyed.
"No," I mumble, snatching the water bottle from its spot on the floor. "No, I don't want to go home. But you really do need to calm down. Are you missing a booty call or something?" I ask.
"No," he replies, quickly, narrowing his eyes at me. "Aren't you missing a call from Jax?"
"Actually, yes."
"Then would you like to take a break, so you can talk to him, and perhaps come back with less flat notes…"
"Screw you, Tommy," I snap, heading towards the door.
"No, maybe I should screw you. Then perhaps I could get a good note from your vocal chords."
Oh.
No.
He.
Didn't.
I can't believe he just said to me, but through my exasperation and shock, I manage to throw my water bottle at him.
I was truly sorry for a minute there. I didn't mean to hit him. I anticipated him moving before it actually hit him.
Damn his slow reflexes!
My hand clamps over my gaping mouth and I stand there staring at him.
"I am so so--"
He silences me with his hand, not saying a word, but his eyes are glazed over like that time when I pushed him in the hot tub.
And he still hasn't said a word, as he points toward the door with his left hand and rubs the back of his head with the other. I begin to slowly walk backwards out the doorway, just in case he decides to throw it back at me—or something more drastic.
I find solitude in Darius's office once again and take the opportunity to call Jax as Quincy suggested.
I no longer feel any remorse about hitting Quincy.
He deserved that.
He did.
No, he deserved worse that.
As if he could make me belt out any notes at all.
I bet he could—that time in the elevator in Miami.
But that's really not the point.
And the bottle was only half full, it slipped out of my hand really.
I drum my fingertips on the desktop as I listened to well—me. His ringback tone this time is my single first "24 hours".
Good times recording that song.
Or not.
I remember when we first started recording it how I wanted to punch him, but his blue eyes, gelled hair and bad boy reputation clouded my better judgment.
It's really ridiculous how we keep doing our little routine, even after 6 years. We fight. We get over it. We record. And then we usually kiss or have some kind of awkward moment with one another. But a good record usually comes out of it.
It's rather sick when I think about it, but if we didn't do it then we wouldn't be Tommy and Jude.
And plus, at least a good song comes out of it.
"Hello," he finally answers.
"I like your ringback tone," I smile, leaning back in my seat.
"I thought you might."
"I do, I do," I laugh, propping my feet up on D's desk.
"Do you realize we're going to be saying that at the altar in 8 weeks?" he asks, bringing a smile to my face.
Its good to know that he's thinking of things like this.
"Yeah, I know," I sigh, "You'll be proud of me, I picked out a china pattern today and I got the final, well I hope it's the final guest lists finished. I emailed you a copy."
"Okay, I haven't got a chance to load up my laptop yet," he says in an apologetic tone.
"It's okay, whenever you get a chance to." Maybe he'll forget…and then he won't get a chance to add more names to the list.
There's an audible silence on the line and he immediately discovers something's wrong because we usually talk about the stupidest but oddly entertaining bits of information from our day.
"What's the matter babe? Having a bad day?" he asks.
"Nothing really," I reply, trying to sound more upbeat.
"Yeah. Right," he laughs, softly. "No really what's the matter? Bad day in the studio."
"Mostly, Tommy's just being a dick," I grumble.
"What was that babe?" he asks.
"Yeah, tough time recording this one song…" I sigh, clutching the phone closer to my ear.
"Ah. I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault. Anyway, mostly, I'm just missing you."
"I miss you too," he says in the little baby voice he does.
I'd like to strangle him when he does that, and then revive him so I can strangle him again.
"I'm sitting here watching the sunrise…wishing you were here."
"Yeah, me too." I whisper.
I'd much rather be in Australia than here, fighting with that overzealous pompous idiot AKA Tom Quincy.
"I'll see you next week though, right?" I ask, starting to slowly spin in my chair.
"What do you mean see me next week?" he asks, perplexedly.
"Oh my gosh, Jax," I groan, abruptly stopping my spinning. "You did not forget Shay's wedding."
"No! No, I didn't forget babe," he tries to lie.
He's not a good liar.
"Yes, you did," I grunt out, placing my forearms on the desk.
"Not purposely."
"So, there's no way you get off?"
"I doubt it…" he trails off. "If I take a little time off right now, we won't be done filming in time."
"It's okay," I sigh, trying to be understanding about the whole thing. "I'll ask Mason to be my date. It'll be fine."
I hear someone in the background calling out his name.
"Ugh, I got to talk to you later Jude. I have to get to wardrobe," he sighs, sadly. "And I'm sorry about the wedding, really I am."
"I know, it's okay."
"Okay, we'll talk later?"
"Of course."
"Bye. Love you."
"Bye," I say, hanging up.
I sit there with my head in my heads in for a while letting self-pity sink in a while. Too bad my sulking fit is interrupted way too early with a knock on the door.
"Come on in," I say.
I just see the door open enough for an arm to sneak through between the door and the frame, a white napkin waving around.
"You don't have a handgun out or anything do you?" Tom asks, opening the door a little more to slip his head in.
"Possibly…" I sigh, putting my head back down on the desk. "I wouldn't risk it if I were you."
"You're worth a risk," he replies, walking towards me. "Here you go."
I glance up to see a wonderful cup of coffee from the café across the street. "Thanks." I grumble, accepting the peace offering.
He could apologize, but that's not apart of routine.
He's not sorry about what he said anyway.
And I'm not sorry for chucking that water bottle at him.
"Welcome," he nods his head, sitting in the chair in front of me. "So about this song…"
Couldn't I have gotten two more seconds of silence?
No, of course not.