Lead

by Kylie Scott

  "Great."

  "Awesome."

  He just glared at me.

  Therefore, I got the last word in and I won. Take that, you god damn arrogant tyrannical shithead. I didn't know if he was jealous or what, but perhaps he'd snap and fire me this time. He certainly seemed angry enough, his eyes promising all sorts of damage. Part of me almost hoped he would, my heart hammering inside my chest. Do it, do it, do it.

  "That's enough," he snapped.

  "I didn't say anything."

  "You didn't need to."

  True enough. We could read each other far too well at times.

  Everyone had frozen sometime during our verbal combat, all the better to watch the carry-on. Even Liv the movie star seemed discomforted by the scene. Her head turned this way and that, eyes wide with obvious confusion.

  Then Mal let out a loud wailing noise. "I hate it when mommy and daddy fight!"

  The crazed drummer barreled up the stairs in a dramatic exit. If Dean and I hadn't flattened ourselves against the wall we'd have been knocked over. David choked on a laugh, Ben at least had the good grace to turn his back before he cracked up, and behind them, Taylor and Pam said nothing. The movie star still had the oblivious thing going on. Then her hand crept beneath Jimmy's arm, her fingers wrapping around his strong bicep and squeezing before her fingers dropped away.

  "Jimmy?"

  He sort of started, the anger dropping from his face. "Yeah, Liv. Why don't we go out?"

  I could see why the woman had made millions, her smile lit up the room. Fortunate for me and my sensibilities, Jimmy's face remained more reserved.

  "Can I have a word with you first?" I asked him. We needed to clear the air about this handholding business. That, and I couldn't stand the thought of him leaving with her, of what might happen between them next. I just wasn't ready. Another minute or two maybe and I'd be fine, if we could just fix this latest fight.

  "Not now," he said.

  "But--"

  "Not now." His voice was a whip and it cut through me sure and true.

  The guys amusement cut off dramatically.

  "Jim," said David, face serious.

  "Stay out of it, Dave." Jimmy held out his hand to Liv and she took it. Apparently, the matter of me had been closed.

  "We'll head off," said Ben, giving me worried looks as he passed me on the stairs.

  I smiled back determinedly. "Later, guys."

  God, did everyone know about my great unrequited love?

  Or no, my boss's sweet words had gotten them worked up. Perhaps they thought I'd burst into tears. Like hell, it would take more than harsh words from Jimmy Ferris to do that. Dean now stood apart from me, concerned for his job no doubt, which was fair enough. We'd gone on one whole date, not enough to throw your career away over. When David went past, he reached out, grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I don't know how Jimmy reacted because I followed his brother straight up the stairs without looking back. Didn't mean I wouldn't make him regret the put-down later, however.

  Liv said something down behind me and Jimmy answered in a suitably subdued voice. I didn't want to know what.

  I'd asked for this, told Jimmy to date, pushed him into it even. But then he'd made me date too and then torn into me for daring to hold someone's hand. Rage boiled up inside of me, an inferno's worth. I didn't need to fetch shit. Jimmy was going out, he didn't really care about the interview info. Instead of doing my duty, I power walked my fine self up to the second floor. I didn't run, because to run would insinuate I was some sort of coward making an escape. I didn't slam my bedroom door shut either, calmly locking it instead.

  Everything was fine.

  I was okay.

  And Jimmy Ferris could go fuck himself.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  My bedroom door handle started rattling just after five, waking me from my afternoon slumber. Three hours I'd been holed up in my room. A lesser mortal might have cried themselves to sleep, but I'd had a nap with a slight amount of tear duct drama attached to its beginning.

  Whatever.

  I was over letting Jimmy Ferris turn me inside out. It was time to start acting like a grown woman and put the nonsense behind me.

  "Lena." More rattling.

  I raised my weary head off the pillow, rubbing at my sore eyes.

  Some thumping. "Open the door."

  "Have you come to apologize?" I asked.

  "What the fuck do I have to apologize for?"

  Slowly, I sat up. "Oh, I don't know. Try being a hypocrite, yelling at me, and embarrassing me in front of other people for starters."

  A moment of silence. "Don't be ridiculous, open the door."

  "No."

  "Open. The. Door."

  "We can discuss this tomorrow, Jimmy. Good night." So I'd go to bed with no dinner. For once, my belly didn't mind and my heart was too torn up to care.

  At which point, Jimmy went off. "It's my fucking house and you work for me. It is not okay for you to be carrying on with him during business hours. Where the fuck is the respect? You're on my time then and you damn well know it. It's absolute bullshit. You're both completely out of line. I pay you, you're my assistant, and he's got the fucking gall to try something with you behind my back in my house. He has no business touching you ever. I don't want to see that shit happening again, he's to stay away from you. The pussy didn't even stand up for you, Lena. Did you notice that? I don't know what the hell you're thinking of having anything to do with the little dickhead."

  I gaped at the door. Clearly, the man had lost his ever-loving mind. He wasn't making a single lick of sense, but he kept on keeping on. Apparently the fact that he'd set me up with Dean in the first place had been completely forgotten. Amazing. I had to tune out for the sake of my sanity. I crossed my legs and leaned back against the headboard, waiting him out.

  *

  Eventually, the silence was deafening on both sides of the door. I strained to hear something, anything.

  Then the crashing began.

  Boom!

  The first bone-jarring noise made my whole body jump. Second time around wasn't much better. My bedroom door smashed open and Jimmy strode on, seeming twice as tall as normal, putting most mountains to shame. Righteous indignation blazed in his eyes, red tinged his skin. Maybe I should have been afraid, but I was too busy being pissed.

  "Did you just kick my door down?" I shrieked the obvious. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

  "My door, yeah." He marched on over to the bed, seeming ten foot tall. Then suddenly he stopped. "Have you been crying?"

  "Nope. I'm all good. Thanks for asking. My door on the other hand, not so much!" I'm sure my most likely red-eyed, blotchy-skinned appearance told a different tale. But screw him. Such was the beauty of the ugly cry, its legacy lasted for hours no matter some beauty sleep. I probably looked like road-kill, slammed down by the semi-trailer that was rock 'n' roll legend Jimmy Ferris.

  He sat on the edge of my bed. His broad shoulders seemed to have fallen by half a foot at least. "You have, you've been fucking crying. I don't believe you."

  Give me strength, like it was some crime against him and I should be the one to apologize. "My eyes were allowed to do what they want, Jimmy. Nothing in the employment contract about that."

  Meanwhile, the poor door was damaged beyond repair, he had actually kicked it in. Insane. How the hell this day had taken such a turn for the overly dramatic, crazy-town worse, I had no idea.

  "Lena." His voice was a soft command. "Look at me."

  I exhaled "What? What do you want me to say, Jimmy?"

  He turned away, pinning his lips shut.

  What a mess. I grabbed a pillow and hugged it to my chest.

  There seemed no obvious telltale signs of his screwing around with Liv Anders, no bites on his neck or what have you. Not that it would be screwing around on me, it just felt like it. A faint headache from all the tears lingered behind my sore eyes. We'd started the day out laughing and teasing each other. How
sad to have ended it this way.

  Jimmy crawled onto the bed, sitting beside me with his back against the headboard. The heating clicked on, just about the only noise in the entire house.

  We sat side by side, saying nothing.

  I studied him out of the corner of my eye, hands fidgeted in his lap, picking stray bits of lint off his black jeans, smoothing them down. Once he was done with his preening, he crossed his arms over his chest. But his fingers kept stretching out, then curling, over and over again.

  "You hurt me," I said, because one of us needed to be brave and fess up.

  His chin jerked upward.

  "Don't do the chin thing, say something." I waited a moment. My patience was not rewarded. "Why'd you kick my door down?"

  He turned toward me, eyes tortured.

  "Jimmy?"

  "I couldn't stand it, you locking me out." The words sounded dragged out of him, kicking and screaming. "You should have answered me. You shouldn't have ... you shouldn't have done that."

  "Why not?"

  His eyes narrowed. "What the fuck do you mean why not?"

  "Why should I open my door to you if you're yelling at me? If you've been acted like a complete bastard and hurt my feelings? Stop for just one minute, put yourself in my place and tell me, why should I let you in?"

  He made some snarly noise.

  "And don't give me any of the I'm-your-boss, it's-my-house, I-pay-you shit," I said. "Yes, it's all true. No, it doesn't actually matter in this circumstance, we're beyond that."

  "But--"

  "No."

  His nostrils flared and emotion shone bright in his eyes. "You shouldn't have locked me out."

  I just looked at him.

  "I needed to ..." A hand gestured aimlessly in front of him while he searched for words. "I needed to be able to talk to you, face to face, all right?"

  For him, that was all. There was nothing else to it.

  Words sat on my tongue, desperate to get out. It took me a moment to clear my head, form a coherent sentence. "You needed to talk to me so badly that you kicked my door down."

  Nothing from him.

  "Jimmy, does that sound like a normal friendship to you?"

  "I know. I fucked up," he said, voice rough.

  "What did you do?" Fear filled me. Apart from the paleness he seemed okay, pupils normal. Please god let him not have taken anything.

  "You."

  "Me?"

  "You. Today. I fucked up. I'm sorry, Lena, I just ... I'm sorry. Shit just came out my mouth and I knew it wasn't right." He winced. "I'm sorry."

  "Honestly, Jimmy, the words just aren't cutting it for me right now."

  "What do I do then? Tell me. I don't know how to do this stuff," he said. "React right."

  "What did you mean to do?"

  "I wanted to fix things, but I just broke them more." Eyes agitated, he gritted his teeth. "In the band, there was always the music to smooth things over if shit got out of hand. If the music's going right everything else just falls away. But there's nothing like that here with you. I don't know what to do when it gets messed up."

  "You talk to me, Jimmy. You don't go crazy yelling and you don't get mean. You just come and you talk to me about it," I said. "It's that hard, and that simple."

  He made no reply.

  "Why did you flip out when you saw me holding Dean's hand?"

  "I don't know." He gave a low growl and drew back, staring me in the face. "Just tell me what to do to apologize. What do you want? I'll buy you whatever."

  "I don't want you to buy me anything."

  "Well, what can I do?"

  "Nothing," I said, because asking for him naked was probably out of the question. Begging him to never again have anything to do with Liv Anders probably ran a close second. "You can fix my door. That would be nice."

  "Of course I'll fix the door, but you've gotta want more than that." He seemed so adamant, eyes alight with fervor for the idea of making reparations. Problem was, I couldn't have what I really wanted. We'd already established that.

  "Fine," I said. "Let's go for a drive in the Barracuda to my favorite ice cream parlor."

  He shrugged. "Sure."

  "But." My pointy finger of doom hovered in front of his face. "I'm driving."

  His mouth opened.

  "Non-negotiable. You just asked how you can make it up to me and I'm telling you how. I'm driving the Barracuda and you're riding shotgun. You don't make comments about my driving and you act happy."

  He gave me a snotty look. "Fine. But just to get ice cream."

  "Absolutely, Jimmy."

  # # #

  "You think you're clever, don't you?"

  I smiled and huddled in against his side, using him as a buffer against the wind. His big hard body had to be useful for something. It was so damn cold, my teeth were chattering. "Who me?"

  He raised a brow and licked at his waffle cone, topped with pistachio icy goodness. I didn't stare at his tongue. My gaze just so happened to wander in its general direction is all, not the least bit my fault.

  "Isn't the salty ocean air bracing, Jimmy?"

  "Yours is melting."

  "Oh." I dealt with the triple caramel delight before it could drip off my fingers. "Mm, yum. Best ice cream ever. Didn't I tell you they had the best ice cream here?"

  "Yes you did. Many, many times on the hour and a half drive out here."

  "Hey, I could have taken us to Seattle." I shrugged down deeper into my coat. "Be thankful. I let you off easy."

  "Right."

  "You're having fun, aren't you?"

  He gave me a look of much judgment.

  "Admit it."

  The faintest of smiles passed over his lips.

  "Can we sit in the car already, I'm freezing?"

  "No. You're not dripping ice cream in my car, Lena. That's all leather upholstery, a classic automobile, have some respect."

  "I can't believe you care more about a thing than you do for my comfort." My cell buzzed silently in my pocket. "Three missed calls."

  Jimmy leaned over, getting in my space. Pity I liked having him there so much. "You meant to be doing something with Dean tonight?"

  "I forgot." I flicked through the voice to text messages. "Crap."

  "He seems a bit pissed in the last one."

  "Says the guy who kicked in my bedroom door." I texted Dean back a brief apology.

  "Don't think he'll be pleased. That didn't sound very sorry."

  "Yeah, well, you confused the hell out of that situation with your carrying on earlier. And it could have occurred to Dean that I might be just a little upset after that scene with you."

  He stared out at the black expanse of the ocean. Waves crashed on the shore. "Said I'm sorry."

  "Saying your sorry isn't an immediate fix all, Jimmy. Actions have repercussions, you of all people should know that."

  A pause. "You haven't asked about Liv."

  My whole body tightened, I'd been trying damn hard not to think about Liv. Actually asking about her seemed plain suicidal. "Should I have? I guess I figured that was none of my business."

  "I took her to a hotel and we talked for a while. I called just to check in with you." He wandered a few steps over to the trashbin, dumped his ice cream cone. The broad expanse of his back in the black woolen jacket a sharper shadow against the rest of the view.

  "You did?" I asked, surprised.

  "Yeah. You didn't answer."

  "No, I was asleep."

  He turned around, the wind blowing his hair in his face. With a hand he held it back. "I started worrying you'd gone. That you'd quit me and left like you were going to."

  "I wouldn't do that without talking to you first."

  "I wasn't sure." He avoided my eyes. "After the way I treated you, thought you might have just taken off."

  "That's what got you so worked up?"

  He sucked in his cheeks, nodded. All of a sudden, the ice cream lost its flavor for me too. I likewise chucked the res
t of mine, licking my sticky fingers clean. Jimmy watched all the while, face wiped of expression. This conversation was a minefield. All I could do was to tell the truth, do my best by us both.

  "I was jealous," I admitted, putting it all out there. "That's why I wanted to talk to you, to ask you not to leave with her. I just wasn't quite ready."

  "Yeah, I know."

  I nodded, put my hands in my pockets and waited. And then I waited some more.

  Nothing.

  I held in my groan, but only just. "Jimmy, now's your turn to admit that you were jealous when you saw me holding Dean's hand. Relationships are kind of a give-and-take thing, you know?"

  He snorted. And then he scoffed. Then he kind of turned in a circle, his mouth wrinkling like he'd tasted something foul. I half expected him to bolt and run given all of the avoidance tactics previously displayed.

  "Anytime you're ready," I said.

  "I ..."

  "Yes?"

  He winced. "I guess, I didn't think about what it'd be like if you really liked one of them."

  "Even though that was the entire point to my dating other men? To like one of them more than I like you."

  A shrug.

  "You over it now?" I asked.

  "Yeah." He chuckled. "'Course, its fine. Won't happen again."

  Oh, the dubiousness, it filled me right up. But I couldn't make him admit to caring about me more than he liked. I couldn't make him do shit. "All right, one more go. I did enjoy going out with Dean and I was looking forward to seeing him again."

  "Okay. Good."

  "On one condition."

  He gave me a wary look. "What?"

  "You meet Tom."

  The regal chin rose to unforeseen heights. "That replacement guy? No. Fuck no. We talked about this, you have to commit, Lena."

  "This was always meant to be temporary gig. Given how much we push each other's buttons, I think it might be wise to have a backup plan in case I can't continue." I squared my shoulders, standing tall.

  "I don't think we should do that."

  "Jimmy--"

  "If you just tried, Lena."

  And this was about the point where realization struck home, tough love was tough on everyone involved. Sometimes, however, you just had to. "Jimmy, I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. You're going to talk to the man."

  The surprise in his eyes, I wish I'd taken a picture. His jaw moved, face tensing. "Fuck, all right."

  I held his car keys out to him, moonlight glinting off them. "Do you want to drive us home?"

  He snatched them out of my hand. Something told me it was going to be a long and painful journey.