A noise from that corner distracted him. Laying his pen down, Jake turned to stare back into the dark corner. It had been a small, familiar noise but not one he could instantly pinpoint. Feeling a little uneasy, he got to his feet and crossed the room to switch on the main overhead light. As his eyes adjusted to the bright lights, he gazed over at the corner. The chair that Rich used to sit on for rehearsal sat empty. Something lying on the floor underneath it caught his eye. It was a slide and a pick. Rich’s slide and one of his stage picks from the Bonded Souls tour five years previously.
Picking them up and turning them over in his hand, Jake’s mind wandered back to the song he’d been struggling with.
“Ricardo, you trying to send me a message?” he muttered half to himself.
An idea struck him. Slipping the glass slide over his finger, he reached for his resonator. It wasn’t a guitar that he used on a regular basis with Silver Lake but, suddenly, it felt right. Almost hesitantly, he played over the piece of music from Rich’s laptop and smiled. For half an hour, he messed around with it, adding embellishments to the structure. Once he was happy with it, Jake made a rough recording of the music on his phone then re-read the lyrics he had for it. Earlier, they’d felt ok. Now, they felt all wrong.
Slowly turning Rich’s old pick over and over between his fingers, Jake allowed his mind to wander back to the Bonded Souls tour. They’d done it in multiple short legs of no more than a month at a time in order that he could fly home for a few days to be with Lori and their baby daughter. That tour had turned out to be one of their best. His heart was full of countless happy memories of those shows. There had been a strong sense of family to everything. They had all watched out for each other.
An idea hit him.
Turning the page over in his lyrics journal, Jake lifted the pen and began to write. The words flew from his hand; the words flew straight from his heart. Less than an hour later, as he read over them, Jake knew he’d come up with something a bit special. The last words he scrawled on the top of the page were the title, Got My Eye On You.
Leaving the slide and the pick on the desk beside his journal, Jake decided to call it a night.
Over the next few days, the whiteboard in the live room slowly filled up. The band fell into a routine under the watchful eye of Dr Marrs. They would meet for a quick briefing over coffee and Danish or donuts first thing, rehearse the songs already on the board until mid-afternoon then spend the rest of the day either laying down pre-production tracks or writing new material to fill in the remaining blanks on the board.
Preferring to write alone, Jake frequently found himself sitting out the back of the studio on the plastic crate in the late afternoon sun. Still actively seeking ideas and themes, he drew inspiration from the world around him. A rather persistent hornet provided the inspiration for one of the heaviest songs he came up with. The bug wouldn’t leave Jake alone all afternoon, buzzing by his ear incessantly. Eventually, he surrendered and returned to the live room muttering under his breath.
“What’s up?” asked Paul casually.
“Damn hornet chased me back in,” began Jake, reaching for his Mz Hyde custom guitar. “Fucking thing’s been buzzing in my ear for an hour.”
“Looks like he followed you,” commented Grey, pointing to the large insect that was tangled in Jake’s hair.
“Oh, great,” muttered Jake as he tried to free the creature.
“Careful,” cautioned Dr Marrs from the control room just as Jake yelled, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
“It get you?” asked Grey.
“Bastard bug,” growled Jake, shaking his right hand. “Index finger. Hurts like hell.”
“Get that hand washed and under cold water,” ordered the producer sharply.
Still muttering, Jake stormed out of the studio towards the restrooms. Cursing under his breath, he washed the sting thoroughly then kept his hand in some cold water for a couple of minutes. The water wasn’t cold enough to be soothing. Opting for plan B, he headed out to the lounge in search of some ice.
“Afternoon,” came a familiar voice beside him as he rubbed an ice cube on the sting.
“Nicole!” exclaimed Jake looking up, genuinely surprised to see the music teacher back out at JJL. “What brings you out here?”
“Meeting with Dr Marrs,” she replied, stepping closer to him. “You ok?”
“Hornet sting,” replied Jake, showing her his red swollen finger.
“Oh, poor baby,” purred Nicole, reaching out to take his hand. Gently, she kissed his injured finger. “Does it hurt?”
“Hurts like hell,” said Jake, trying to pull his hand away.
“Keep rubbing it down with that ice,” advised Nicole, taking the half-melted ice cube from him. “Like this.”
Before Jake could stop her, Nicole pressed herself even closer to him and began to kiss him. He could feel her breasts against him.
“What the hell?”
“Sh, Jake,” she purred, backing him into a corner beside the large refrigerator. “Let me take your mind off that nasty stinger.”
Instead of rubbing his hand with the ice cube, Nicole slipped her hand down inside the front of his jeans, running the ice cube across his groin just above his pubic hairline. Her thigh was pressed against his as her hand slowly travelled down inside his boxers.
“Stop,” he said. “Just
