The Good, The Bad, and The Dirty - Brendon Urie

V. Cracked Childhoods

"Sorry," he chuckled. "Is that your guitar?"

"Yeah," I replied. "Is there a problem?"

"Actually, yes," he said as he reached for the guitar. "First of all, there's a huge crack on the back, and there is also a string missing, which makes it not fit to play at the moment." I blushed slightly, embarrassed. I hadn't looked at this guitar in years, my dad had gotten it for me when I was younger. The last time I saw it was when my mom almost slammed it into the wall when she was drunk and mad at my father. I guess she must have hit it on something else, because I don't know how else that crack would've formed in the guitar.

Brendon must have noticed my embarrassment, for he quickly set my old guitar aside and handed me his own.

"Now, this is Rita, and she's one of my favorites." he said as he handed me the beautiful light colored guitar. "She's a Fender DG-8S acoustic, one of my first guitars, so be careful with her." I looked as the guitar that was sitting in my hands and shook my head.

"No, I can't let you give this to me," I said in shock that he would trust me with something this important to him.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm not giving it to you." He chuckled. "But I am letting you borrow her until you can fix your guitar."

"Are you sure?" I asked, giving him one last chance to back out.

"Did I hesitate when I gave it to you?" he asked. I shook my head shyly. "Then yes, I'm sure." I smiled as I looked down at the gorgeous instrument, still in awe that he would let me use his guitar.

"So, what do you know about guitars?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said, giving a slight chuckle.

"Well, first of all." he said as he stood up from his chair and walked over to me. "You hold the guitar like this." He lifted to guitar from my lap and set it on my right thigh, and placed the guitar's arm in my left hand.

I sat for a few seconds, studying the details of the guitar. I realized that Brendon hadn't said anything for a while, and looked up to find him grinning at me.

"You know what," he said. "I can't teach someone to play guitar when I know nothing about the person." He grabbed his coffee that was sitting on the desk behind him and took a sip as he waited for me to start talking.

"What do you want to know?" I asked awkwardly.

"You know, who your friends are, what you do in your free time, just stuff about you."

"Um, well..." I started, but couldn't finish. Did I really want to tell him that my only real friend is someone I met only a week ago? "I like listening to music-"

"What do you listen to?" he interrupted.

"Um, pop punk mostly, but I listen to indie rock every once and awhile." I responded, not minding that he interrupted me because frankly, I didn't quite know what else I was going to say.

"Good," he said as he reached into his guitar case. "I think you might like my band then." He handed me a CD with no cover. "We don't have a band name yet, but we have some demos and I want someone's opinion on them." I nodded my head shyly and turned to place the disk on the table next to me, forgetting that I still had a guitar sitting in my lap. In one quick swift motion, the arm of the guitar bumped into Brendon's arm, which happened to be holding coffee, which caused the hot beverage to spill on his white dress shirt.

"Shit, I'm so sorry!" I said as I picked the cup off of the ground and set the guitar on the guitar stand where my old guitar previously sat.

"It's okay," he said as he examined the stain on his shirt. My mom hurriedly rushed through the door after hearing my panicked words to Brendon, and gave me a gasp.

"Kristine!" She shouted at me. I lowered my head in shame as she inspected Brendon's shirt.

"Thank you Mrs.Falls, but it's okay. I'll just wash it when I get home." Brendon reassured my mother.

"No, Brendon you need to wash this right away, but even then the stain might not come out." My mother stated.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not going to cut Kristine's lesson short." Brendon replied. I blushed slightly and looked up at my mom, who was rolling her eyes.

"Then give me your shirt, I'll wash it since it was my daughter's fault." Brendon hesitantly removed his vest and shirt and handed the shirt to my mother. I desperately tried to keep eye contact with Brendon to avoid being impolite as my mom walked out of the room, but I let myself catch a few glimpses, which eventually turned into staring.

"Like what you see?" Brendon asked jokingly. I felt my cheeks grow red as I looked up at the smirk Brendon had on his face. Secretly, I did like what I saw. He was far more muscular than I imagined he would be. "How about we start with the lesson?" he asked with a chuckle. I nodded and grabbed Rita.

I tried to keep myself from looking up at him for the rest of the lesson.

__________

Hello loves, I just had a quick question to ask you guys...

Is anyone seeing Panic! on July 19? Because if you are, I'll be there, and I'd love to meet someone new <3

Also, a big shoutout to my friend unspokenwxrds who helped me with some new covers <3 thanks fren

That's all,
I love you <3
- Alexa