So I Married a Rockstar

Chapter Thirteen

Ch.13: Going Public

The studio was in Notting Hill, in a nondescript brick building wedged down the side of a narrow alley, and if Jude hadn't pointed it out to me, I'd never have noticed it. Maybe that was the point. It was easier for the band to slip down this easy-to-miss alley than it was for them to stride into somewhere more obvious, and the last thing they wanted was an onslaught of screaming fans.

Jude put his hand on my back again as he guided me into the studio, and I found myself leaning into his touch for reassurance. The fear of the stalker was still there, an icy chill wrapped around my bones, but now that we were away from Brentford, the excitement of meeting Angels & Demons was starting to kick in.

It wasn't the original line-up, but Jude always made sure he picked his members carefully, even if they weren't permanent, and together they still created that Angels & Demons magic.

The recording studio was as unremarkable as the façade – leather sofas and a rack of guitars occupied one side of the small space, while the lion's share was dominated by a huge mixing console in front of a glass window that looked into the live room, which was filled with isolation booths, microphone stands, guitar amps, and other pieces of equipment that I couldn't identify.

Carlos Ramirez and Franky Clark, the current bassist and guitarist, sat on one of the sofas, quietly arguing over sheet music. Eric Ward, the drummer, stood in a corner, idly spinning a drumstick across his knuckles, watching his bandmates and nodding his head to a beat only he could hear.

None of them had Jude's presence or raw magnetism, but they still took up space in a way that ordinary people didn't, and I found myself suddenly breathless.

Franky looked up first, from under a thick fringe of shaggy black hair. His eyes widened a little as he saw me and he nudged Carlos, who looked just as surprised. Eric dropped his drumstick.

Way to make a girl feel welcome, I thought, stifling a nervous laugh.

Maybe this had been a mistake, but it was too late to change it now.

"Sorry we're late," Jude said, blithely ignoring the way his bandmates were staring at me. "This is Camden."

"Uh, hi," I said, giving a small wave.

"Hi," Carlos said, recovering himself.

Franky and Eric were still staring at Jude, as if waiting for him to explain why he had a girl with him when he'd previously refused to give his girlfriends studio access. Jude ignored their stares.

"Ready to get to work?" he said.

I remembered the first time he'd referred to making music as work, when Angels & Demons had soared to the top, and almost overnight, everyone knew their names. Some people had criticised his choice of words, claiming that dry-humping a microphone and screwing fangirls was not, and would never be, work.

Others had complained that he couldn't compare it to a nine to five job.

Still others had said that making music was meant to be a vocation, not a job, and if Jude saw it as work, then he was doing something wrong.

I'd never had much opinion on it until now, because now I could see how wrong all those people were.

Jude's playful teasing, his rockstar smirk, the swagger and the magnetism – that was gone, and in its place was a man utterly absorbed in what he was doing, completely lost to the music.

This was in his blood, and even though he loved doing it, he worked hard. Every note, every drumbeat, every possible lyric was carefully considered, and even though he'd always insisted that Angels & Demons was his band, he treated the others like equals in this studio, listening to their suggestions, or if they objected to one of his suggestions. Maybe it wasn't the same as putting on a suit and going to an office every day, but I knew from experience that he sometimes stayed in this studio far longer than anyone in an office.