The Singer and The Songwriter

Chapter Two

This chapter contains some language. I find it really odd that I don't cuss, but yet my characters do...haha Anyway, the song Ackton plays is to the right, if you want a video of my friend drumming what Aimee drums, then click the external link. Well. Have at it. 

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Chapter Two

          School the next day was normal, thank god. I didn’t want Ackton to think we were friends or something, just because I’d agreed to this bizarre arrangement. I drove to school in the snow, cursing the annoying Ohio weather.

          You’d think we’d get cancelled for this snow, but no, we go to the shitty public school that never cancels. I walked to my locker, and struggled opening it, just like always.

          I heard a fist bang on my locker door, and I looked up to see Ackton walking away. At least he didn’t take the time to talk to me. I grabbed my stuff, and went to class.

          The day moved all too quickly. After school, I drove to work, knowing I’d have to deal with Ackton. He was just a pest. I don’t even know why I agreed to helping him write songs.

          I clocked in, and Ackton was right behind me.

          “Can we start tonight, or are you busy?” he asked.

          “Tonight’s fine,” I said, then added, “Look, just because we’re doing this doesn’t mean we’re friends, okay?”

          “Right,” he nodded. He walked off, and then I heard the loud blast of a guitar. I listened, it was actually a song this time.

          “She’s got you high, and you don’t even know yet. She’s got you high and you don’t even know, yeah. The sun’s in the sky…,” he started singing Mumm Ra’s song.

“I’ll take it!” a woman’s voice squealed. Well, this has got to be the first thing Ackton’s ever sold.

“Excuse me, do you know anything about drums?” a young man, probably only twenty two, asked Ackton.

          “I can help you,” I said, and the man looked surprised. He mumbled something under his breath, and I led him to the drums.

          “What do you need them for?” I asked.

          “Well, I’m in a band, and our drummer’s drum set got ruined when we were travelling. He can’t be here, and I don’t know anything about drums.”

          “These are probably your best bet,” I said, and sat down, drumming to Mayday Parade’s Kids in Love.

          “Thanks! You know, when you offered to help, I doubted you even knew anything about drums.”

          I rang up his drums, and sat on the counter. Amp’d wasn’t a very busy place; expensive instruments aren’t exactly impulse items. Ackton walked up and sat beside me.

          “I didn’t know you could drum.”

          I didn’t say that my dad taught me how to drum when I was five. I didn’t say that my dad was in a band. I didn’t mention how he died in a plane crash with my mother.

          “Yeah.”

          “Hey Budd, can we stay after tonight? We’ll lock up,” Ackton asks Budd.

          Budd hesitated, “Just use protection, and do it where the cameras aren’t, I don’t want to get busted for underage porn.”

          “We’re not fucking!” I yelled.

          “Sure, sure,” Budd laughed.

          “Oh my god,” I groaned.

          “Save those moans for later, babe,” Ackton winked.

          “Fuck you,” I growled.

          “You will, later,” he winked.

          “Oh, you two are so cute together,” a lady, about thirty says, and rings up a set of drumsticks.

          “We’re not together.”

          “But we could be,” he mused, and kissed my cheek. I rolled my eyes. I was starting to regret my decision to help, and we hadn’t even started yet. The rest of my shift was filled with perverted jokes aimed at me.

          “Do you like pop? Cause I’d like to Mountain Dew you.”

          “Stop with the jokes or I’m out. I swear,” I said harshly.

          “Okay,” he agreed.

          Closing came all too soon. Budd left, and we locked the doors. I texted my brother saying I’d be late again.

          “Where do we start?” Ackton asked.

          “A melody is better than words,” I say, “What can you play?”

          “Anything, you name it, I play it.”

          “Alright, well, what do you have in mind?”

          And so it started; our odd little partnership, dysfunctional in every way, but that’s what made it work. What made us work together. Ackton was talented, I have to admit it.