Melody 5 - Rising Stars

11 (ii) - Jadine

--- JADINE ---

"She's asleep now," said Jadine as she quietly closed the door to Lyric's bedroom and plonked herself on the sofa with an exhausted sigh.

"What possessed her to record with Psylence?" asked Lyric, as he handed her a coffee.

"She was obviously desperate to make more music," said Jadine. "At least it shows she's keen, even if her musical choices are dubious!"

Jadine took a sip of the coffee. "Thanks for this."

"No probs," smiled Lyric.

"And thanks for coming with me tonight."

"Anytime," said Lyric. "Although, hope I don't have to do it again in a hurry."

"Me too," added Jadine wryly. "I always knew Psylence was a lowlife scumbag but I never thought he'd force himself on a girl."

"I can't believe Rhian thought it was a good idea to be on her own with him."

"Are you saying it was Rhian's fault?"

"No," said Lyric. "But that girl needs to get some street smarts and fast."

Jadine decided not to push it any further with Lyric - after all, he was one of the good guys.

"So how have you been?" she asked. "We haven't seen you for a while."

When the girls had got day-jobs to contribute towards the rent, Lyric had taken that as his cue to move out of the makeshift-studio above Amy's dad's garage and back to his own place in Hackney. Plus Lena had insisted that the girls had enough recorded material for now and wanted them to concentrate on playing live gigs to hone their performance skills.

"I've been keeping busy," smiled Lyric.

"Doing what?" asked Jadine, genuinely interested.

"This and that," said Lyric vaguely.

"Why are you being so mysterious?" said Jadine. "You're not working as a secret agent are you?"

"I can't say," said Lyric.

"Oh?" smiled Jadine, intrigued.

"I've been working on a project but I can't talk about it," squirmed Lyric uncomfortably.

So that was why Lyric hadn't been in touch much recently - he wanted to keep this project secret but knew Jadine had a knack of wrangling the truth out of him somehow.

"Okay," breezed Jadine, changing tack. "If you don't want to tell me, one of your oldest, most trusted friends, what you've been up to, that's fine."

"Ohh, come on Jay," sighed Lyric. "I can't."

"Well, I'll head off to bed then," said Jadine as she stood up. "You don't mind if I share with Rhian and you take the sofa? You can curl up with your retro cushions and your little secrets," she teased.

"I'm working with The Aura Kicks," sighed Lyric.

Jadine was taken aback. The Aura Kicks? They'd pretty much provided the soundtrack to her and Lyric's teenage years. They were a respected rap duo from South London who'd managed to bridge the gap between critical acclaim and mainstream success.

"What do you mean - working with them?"

"Producing with them, in the studio. A proper studio."

"Lyric, that's huge!"

"I know!" he said, finally revelling in the enormity of his announcement. "I was at a party with Neo and they were there. I gave them your demo and they really liked the production on Same Star and..."