the wild one.

06 | rock n' roll

After being dropped off by Tommy at Warped Vinyls, Harley got to the usual routine of a shift there. This time, Avery was working, picking slow 70's music to play for the day. Once her shift ends, Harley goes over to Nikki's for rehearsal, where she leaves her guitar equipment there since they were over there pretty much every day.

Carrying an armful of records, Harley moves down the aisle to restock. She reorganizes them as she goes since some people couldn't be bothered to put them back in order. The bell rings above, and Harley moves on to the next section before her usual introduction.

"Welcome to Warped Vinyls! The records are not warped, I can tell you that. Let me know if you need any help!" She calls, only to hear loud voices in return. Glancing towards the door, Harley notices that the customers were Tommy and Nikki. Tommy waves enthusiastically at her once he notices her look over at them.

"What are you guys doing here?" Harley asks, leaning against the shelving as she walks towards them.

"Being the usual nuisances that we are. You get off in time for practice, right?" Tommy questions.

"I should, Avery said she'd cover closing for me," Harley responds, glancing at the clock as Tommy looks to check out Avery. "I'm almost done with my shift anyway."

"I got new songs written," Nikki adds. "We need to practice them for the show. No one's gonna want to see us again if we sound like shit cause we never practice."

"Already?"

"Yeah, dude, Nikki's a fuckin' wizard when it comes to writing new music." Tommy grins. She puts a few records away, as Avery curiously wanders over to the trio. Tommy grins at her, giving her a slight wave as Nikki rolls his eyes at him.

"Hey, guys. Who are they?" Avery asks, glancing towards Harley.

"Oh, right. Uh, they're my bandmates, that's Tommy and that's Nikki." Harley says. Avery smiles at them, and Harley sighs. As a reminder for Avery and Tommy, she adds, "Tommy has a girlfriend."

Nikki snickers to himself as Avery looks over at Harley. "If you wanna go, I can handle another ten minutes."

"Oh, really? Sweet, thanks!" She moves past Nikki and Tommy, setting the vinyl down in a safe spot before moving behind the counter to sign out. She hangs up her name tag for the day, before waving the boys out the door.

It was decently nice out, Harley smiles to herself as the sun hits her face. Tommy parked a block down, with the weird parking of the downtown area. Once to the van, Harley is forced to the back seat as Nikki claims he always gets the front seat due to being Tommy's best friend. Harley had called bullshit on that logic, and Tommy refused to get in the middle of it.

Arriving back at the apartment, Harley finds that Vince was already home, crashed on the couch, and watching the TV.

"We're starting practice whenever Mick gets here, so glad to know you showed up on time," Nikki tells him, and Vince only mumbles in response. Tommy sets up his drum kit as Nikki grabs the lyrics off the counter and hands them to Harley for her to read.

With her guitar strap on her shoulder, Harley shakes the sheet flat to read the lyrics and a few chords written alongside certain spots.

Frankie died just the other night,

Some say it was suicide,

But we know how the story goes.

With his six-string knife and street-wise pride,

The boy was a man before his time

Glancing at Nikki, Harley had a feeling the song was about him. It was obvious Nikki wasn't his actual name, but she couldn't imagine him as a Frank. Nikki just got his personality and attitude right. It made her wonder what he looked like when he did go by Frank, but she doubted he'd show her a picture if she asked. Nikki would probably laugh at her.