Thomas couldn’t help worrying that Sparrow’s head was not in the game. Ever since Jazz the Rat had crawled back into her life, Sparrow was always distracted. Two week ago, she got a WhatsApp from Jazz, asking her to have lunch with him. She’d said yes. And during lunch, they spoke of getting back together again.

“I made a mistake, babe. I want you back,” Jazz had said, looking into her eyes.

She had looked down at her plate, unsure. “But you broke my heart, Jazz. You broke it to pieces and left me …”

“I know, and I’m sorry about that. I was young and stupid.”

She wanted to believe him, but something told her she shouldn’t. It was Thomas’s words coming back to her.

“He’s playing you,” Thomas had said. “He just wants to use you to be famous!”

Sparrow had been in love with Jazz all her life and she really wanted him back. But she just couldn’t shake what Thomas had said.

“If you get back together with him and he breaks your heart again, that’s on you! I won’t be around to pick up the pieces again. You’ll be on your own,” he had said with a grim expression.

Sparrow couldn’t imagine her life without her best friend. And he was really the best manager anyone could ask for. He was family.

But she loved Jazz and wanted to be with him more than anything. She believed him when he said he was sorry. So she took him back, against Thomas’s advice. Juggling a relationship and a music career was proving difficult, though, especially when the career was so new and the relationship so …

She couldn’t find the word to describe what she and Jazz had. It was definitely not what they had had before. They did the same things they always did – they went to dinner, to gigs, to parties. The only difference was that she was the one getting Jazz in and he was the one following her around.

This was not enough for Jazz, though. He wanted her all to himself, even talked about writing songs together and singing together.

She told Thomas about it while they were preparing for an interview for a glossy magazine. Thomas made it clear that if Sparrow wanted to date the rat, there was nothing he could do to stop her. But he drew the line at the two of them working together.

“If you even think about it, then kiss my ass goodbye,” he said sternly, his arms folded.

She couldn’t let that happen. Thomas meant so much to her. He was everything to her, he was part of her. They were a team and Thomas would never lie to her or hurt her. She loved him more than anything, but right now he was working on her nerves, constantly checking in on her. She wanted to shove him in a corner and strangle him with his own dreadlocks.

“Just get this interview over, then you can do whatever you decide after that,” he said and walked off.

***

Tell us: Is it fair of Thomas to make Sparrow choose between Jazz and him?