Punk Rock-A-Bye Baby(26)
There was a knock on the door. “Um, excuse me. Mrs. Blade? We’re waiting to lock up for the evening. When you’re . . . um . . . finished, we’ll be waiting at the front desk.”
Chapter Eight
Angel gazed at Jessi’s silhouette in the full length mirror and ran his hand over her growing belly. The transition of her body was amazing. The only knowledge or experience Angel had with the birth process or pregnancy was in the movies. Living it on a day-to-day basis was like watching a miracle unfold. He was amazed by the changes in her body. Her belly was getting bigger and rounder each day. Her breasts were fuller and harder. And she glowed with happiness. They all did.
He left her with a small kiss and walked across the hall to the nursery. It was still under construction, and he wanted to go over the design plan again. Actually, he wanted to add a mural on the wall above the baby’s crib. It would make a nice backdrop to the elaborate mobile he had designed. What was once a simple nursery was turning into a playground.
Jessi left construction of the nursery in Angel’s hands and gave him free rein. She asked him to handle it under the pretense that she was overwhelmed with designing a new fall line of outerwear, and preparing for Immortal Angel’s North American tour. But he knew it was her way of directly including him in the birth of the baby. Naturally, he would be in the delivery room, but she knew he felt left out at times.
The hearty congratulations and doting on the parents-to-be didn’t include him. The unintentional secondhand felicitations felt like an afterthought rather than those befitting a parental figure. It broke his heart because he loved that baby as if it were his own son. Although there was no biological connection, there was a spiritual one that tied them together with bands of steel that could never be broken. The commitment ceremony that he, Tommy and Jessi shared didn’t carry an ounce of legality, and technically left him without any rights to the baby, and Jessi knew that it weighed on his mind and on his heart. That’s why she tasked him with the intimate details of the baby’s room. She was an extremely perceptive person, especially when it came to the people she loved.
He felt a presence behind him and turned to find Tommy watching him from the doorway.
“What are you up to now? Are you sketching a carousel in the corner?”
Angel rolled up the design plan and returned it to the work bench, still covered with bits of fabric samples and power tools. “More like sketching a diamond crown for our new little prince.”
Tommy stepped closer and circled his hands around Angel’s waist. There was apprehension and worry behind his soulful blue eyes. “I’m worried about being a good father. I’m worried about Jessi working too hard and doing too much. I’m constantly trying to get her to slow down. I’m worried about the upcoming tour and spending so much time on the road, before and after the baby is born. I’m scared about the birth and—–”
“Shh.” Angel silenced Tommy with a kiss. “Every new parent is scared. Don’t you think Jessi is worried, too? And me?”
“I know every parent makes mistakes, but I want to do the right thing.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. His brow wrinkled, and his hands balled into fists.
“Are you okay?” The pained look on Tommy’s face was more than just worry.
It took a few seconds before Tommy pulled his hands away from his forehead and nodded. “I’m thinking about everything too much, and it gave me a headache. I need to take some aspirin.”
“We could cancel rehearsal if you’re not feeling well.”
Tommy smiled under his pained brow. “Don’t worry about me, A. I’ll be fine. We’re leaving for the tour in a few days. Gotta rehearse. The guys are on their way over.”
“Who keeps turning down my amp?” Damien complained. “And why is everything so low? This place is soundproof.”
It was Angel who kept the volume down. Loud music accompanied by a headache wasn’t a good combination. “I turned it down. Tommy wasn’t feeling well earlier. I thought we’d lower it a decibel tonight.”
Damien jutted his chin in Tommy’s direction. “He looks fine to me.”
Tommy actually did look much better, and he wore his usual happy-go-lucky smile. “He had a headache before,” Angel explained.
Damien snorted and chuckled. “Maybe he was just looking for an excuse because he didn’t want to fuck you.”
“Hey!” Jimmy shouted. “Watch the language in front of the kid!”
Everyone’s eyes shifted to Mason, who, luckily, was wearing a set of hearing protectors and banging away on the pint-sized drum kit he kept at the home studio.