And I'm in the Bleachers

Part 5 - The First Week of July

On Tuesday, it's thunder storming at dinner time, and it's not supposed to stop until after six which is not ideal. Luckily, my dad gets home from work at five-fifteen.

"Hey, Dad," I say as he walks in the door.

"Hola, mijo!"

"Um, could you drive us to practice tonight since it's raining?"

"Oh," he says, "yeah, sure. Just give me a minute to eat something first, okay?"

"Awesome. ¡Gracias!"

"¡De nada!" he says and then he walks into the kitchen.

I text Felix to let him know we have a ride and then go to my room to get ready before coming back to the kitchen and filling my water jug in the sink. "Hurry up, I need to fill mine, too," Pilar says when she appears behind me a minute later.

"I can't exactly hurry the water flow, hermana."

"Yeah, yeah," she says, and she leans against the other counter between the fridge and stove to wait.

Just after five-thirty, we head outside to find Felix trying to stay under the tiny overhang on the front of our building. "You know, if you would've just waited for me to tell you we were leaving, you wouldn't be half soaked right now," I tell him.

He stares at me like I'm crazy. "Did you not read the handbook? Have you not heard them say it?"

"What?"

"'To be early is to be on time. To be on time is to be too late. To be late is unacceptable!'" he quotes dramatically. "It's like Fairchild and Garrett's mantra or something."

"Right, I should probably remember that," I say, and he laughs as we all run for the car. The doors are already unlocked when we arrive, and Pilar somehow makes it to the front door before me, so I'm stuck in the back with Felix as my dad takes us over the giant hill on the short drive to the school.

"Look who it is," Felix says as we pull in, and I glance toward the overhang where there's various other band students standing and talking.

"Huh?"

He points. "Your future girlfriend, waiting for you." I roll my eyes.

"What's this now?" my dad asks, turning around in his seat suddenly interested. I groan.

"This girl, Mia, she likes Victor," Felix says, and I give him a death glare. Pilar cackles in the front seat as we wait in the line of other parents dropping kids off for practice.

"Oh, oh," my dad says, and I sigh. "Alright, who is this girl? Is she cute?" He looks toward the overhang.

I'm seriously about to kill Felix. "Dad, don't be weird," I plead.

"Oh, she's gorgeous; kind of like a young my mom," Felix says.

My dad and I both stare at him with raised eyebrows, but then someone pulls out so my dad pulls forward right next to the overhang. "Alright, Macho," he says. "Well, you go to practice and show this Mia girl a good time, okay?"

"Dad, it's literally band rehearsal."

I get out of the car before he has time to say anything more embarrassing. As we're walking toward the school, Benji and Lucy get out of a car with a driver I don't recognize, but I assume is Lucy's mom and join us. Lucy immediately starts talking to Pilar, and it sounds like the guard already knows their plans for the evening because they're walking inside and heading toward the gym before I can even follow two sentences.

"Hey," Benji says as he walks up next to me.

"Hey," I say, and I can't help but turn and smile at him. That's when I notice Mia and Lake are there, too, and Mia smiles at me, too, so I smile at her, and Benji chuckles as he walks in front of us toward the drum closet.