✏️ Under One Roof

7. Three Days Later

This bonus chapter is dedicated to Dewayne. Thank you again for all your support!

After a few days in her new home, Tegan was slowly getting used to the rhythm of the place. She knew what time she could take a shower without getting in someone else's way, and she knew what time she could expect Logan to put dinner on the table. They had set up a whiteboard in the kitchen to track who was supposed to do which chores on which day, although she wished that she could have seen her own name on the list a few times less.

She barely got to know Ness. He came down for food if Logan called him, but his eyes would never leave his plate, and he would return to his room just as soon as his meal was gone. Aside from that, she didn't see him at all. Maybe that was better than the alternative, but it still made her uneasy. She didn't know what he was thinking, or what she could do about it. He could so easily have been making some plan to humiliate her. Or more likely, to try and put the blame on her for his first night here. And she couldn't allow that to happen if she wanted to remain in control.

This time, she wanted to be more careful. She bought a bottle of wine, to celebrate the family having moved into their new home, and shared it with everyone. It was stronger than the average wine, she knew, and that was even before she added a small amount of an over-the-counter sleep aid. Everyone would sleep deeply tonight, and there would be no possibility of the dads hearing her moving around, or of Ness waking up. She hated that she had to go so far, but it was the only way she could think of to prove her innocence.

She didn't refill her own glass all the way through dinner, and while they were passing the bottle around she was sure that nobody would notice. She took the glass up to her room after dinner, and resisted the temptation to drink any of it as she continued her research into Franklin's Muse. She knew that she should have been focusing on preparations for college; in the absence of a better option she had applied to the local place, the University of Moistville, and she had an interview next week about a last-minute place. But right now, learning more about a certain band seemed more important to her.

Gullielm Fulmini, she already knew, was a guitarist who had amused fans by learning quite a number of different instruments. The name seemed familiar because he had gone on to work on movie soundtracks, and had been nominated for a couple of major awards. He was the first one she had looked into. Tomas Gattac, of course, was now well known for Icon of Recurzion. And the more she looked into Franklin's Muse, the more Tegan came to realise that all the members had gone on to find success with other projects. The dissolution of the band, then, had come purely from financial troubles rather than any lack of talent.

Today, she was trying to track down Cynthie Vandeboom. The drummer; the one whose nails had made four distinct marks on the plastic parts of the frame as she drummed her fingers, waiting for the show to start. Tegan already had a vision of the woman in her mind, but no idea how accurate it might be. But she didn't expect to click on a link and see a profile on what seemed to be a social networking site just for Hollywood types. Vandeboom's profile picture showed her behind a drum kit, but her profile made it clear that she was more than a musician. She was a producer and an investor, one of the movers and shakers in the pop music scene. She was respected by everyone, it seemed. At least if her own page was to be believed.

Tegan hesitated, and thought about that for a while. A career progression from drummer to producer wasn't exactly the norm; but she could see it as a possibility for any musician who had the right business skills. Vandeboom must have been a smart woman, and that set Tegan back to wondering what kind of music she had played. And that was where the Internet was drawing a blank. She knew that Franklin's Muse had released an album, but that was in the days before streaming services were ubiquitous, and she might not be able to get her hands on a copy of a CD that had never sold any spectacular numbers. Just when she was about to give up, she realised that there was another option. It wouldn't be quite the same, but there were people who had put copies of the sheet music online. If she couldn't listen to the band, she could try playing it herself. And Tegan's curiosity by now was strong enough that she sought out the transcriptions she wanted, and set them to download. Of course, she couldn't try playing them right now. Everybody else in the house was trying to sleep; which was exactly what she had been waiting for.