Worlds Apart

Chapter Fourteen

I started up a round of applause when Manny finished the bass track. We’d had him play it countless times, but this time I knew that this was the one.

With my feet propped up and me leaning back in the chair dangerously, it didn’t take long for me to realize how sarcastic it sounded. It wasn’t purposeful, I truly wanted to applaud him for what he’d just played, it had been brilliant – and not just because I’d written it. I suppose that most things I did seemed sarcastic now. It was just so habitual.

So I quickly pushed up into a straight sitting position, noticing that Manny was eyeing me almost warily through the glass as the chair fell onto all four feet. Trying to dispel the notion of sarcasm, I sent him a grin and thumbs up.

Seeing that his shoulders slumped in relief, I turned my gaze to Cash who had been sitting beside me. There were three other people in the studio beside us and Manny, but at the moment all that mattered was Cash.

And when I met his eyes, he made the most subtle of nods and I found a grin blooming broadly across my mouth.

“We got it,” I announced. I swear Manny looked as if he was about to faint in liberation now.

Was I that demanding?

Actually, I didn’t want to know the answer to that.

At my words, there came a spattering of rather sarcastic cheering from behind me. Giving a split second to be thankful that I was sitting up straight, I swivelled around in my seat to stare at them in surprise, placing my hands on the back of the seat.

However I found their gazes weren’t fixed mockingly on Manny but on me. Quite pointedly on me, in fact.

Apparently I was just that demanding.

My surprised expression morphed into something that was much more experienced on my face, almost disinterested amusement. It was common with me. Slouching into the chair, I raised one eyebrow at them idly, giving them that cool stare down that I’d managed to perfect over the years of angry and violent crowds.

“Sonny, you can’t say a word,” I observed lazily, eyeing him up lazily, from his naturally tan skin tone to the beers he held in hand. “You’re not contributing; you’re not even a musician.”

His amber eyes twinkled at the words despite the slight accusation they held. He knew I didn’t mean it nastily, rarely did I mean anything to be nasty or hurtful. “But I just love you so much,” he said, stepping forwards to hand me the beer bottle he’d snagged for me. “It’s all about being part of the party, Jude.”

Although I rolled my eyes, I took the beer all too willingly, noting that it wasn’t my first since this lot had come, but that was alright. I’d been friends with them for so long, met the lot of them of them right after Red Riot released their first EP. And these people could make a nun drink. Not that I was putting up that much of a fight.

“You lot are always at a party,” I returned, twisting off the cap, “Don’t you blame it on me.”

Raising her beer in a mocking toast, Gloria sent me a smirk before she spoke in her deeply masculine voice, “But you’re the best out of us all.”

“You know the way to my heart, my dear,” I replied with a cheeky smile of my own, watching as she burst out laughing, her Adam’s apple bobbing with the motion.

All through the exchange, Jane was keeping quite silent, but I noticed that she was smiling into the bottle she was nursing. It was hard with this lot around, they so easily distracted me. It was worth it when I got back the singular tracks of their instruments, even if it took a while to pry it out of them through all those commotion. They came in like a whirlwind, to be sure. Carl had always said meeting up with them were his favourite nights on any Red Riot tour.