Diluted

~4~

Jim woke up to the sound of people moving around.
He looks around and realizes he's still at Mick's house.
He's head is pounding.
Sid decided that everyone should play beer pong. Jim lost.

Jim looks around Mick's house and sees Sid and Chris talking loudly.
Everyone seems hungover. They all got pretty trashed.

"Will you shut up. My head hurts," Shawn groans.

"Aww your head hurts," Chris teases.

Shawn gets up and gets in Chris's face.

"Alright calm down," Mick says as he walks into the room.

Jim chuckles, never a dull moment with slipknot.

Mick tosses a bottle of aspirins on the table.

Everyone reaches for it but Sid snatches it and sticks his tongue out.

After Sid's taken some Jim gestures for him to throw it to him.

Jim takes a pill and then stands up.

"I'll see you guys later I'm going to head back home," Jim tells them.

The guys wave at Jim and Mick walks him out the door.

"See yeah," Mick calls when Jim gets on his motorcycle.

"Bye," Jim smiles as he revs up the engine and takes off down the path that leads out of Mick's secluded property.

Jim hums the melody of a song that's playing in his headphones.

Jim thinks about the part that Corey assigned him and Mick.

He wants to get started on it soon but he figures he should go burn off some steam. He's not ready to be home.

Jim pulls up at a record store Corey told him about, he figures he might as well find some music to inspire him.
He parks his bike and walks inside.

When he walks in he moves automatically to the back.

He starts going through some records, picking out the ones that he loves.

Jim finds some new albums that have interesting covers and decides he'll check them out.

When Jim is walking to the front he gets a glimpse of familiar Orange to red ombré hair.

He stops and realizes it's Ember.

"Ember?" He questions as he approaches the register.

"Jim," Ember says in a surprised tone as she raises an eyebrow at him.

"Hi," Jim chuckles.

Ember smiles.

"What brings you in?" Ember asks as she begins scanning Jim's records.

"My friend Corey suggested I come here," Jim shrugs.

"Taylor?" Ember questions.

"You know him?" Jim questions in a confused tone.

"He came in yesterday. He said he recognized me from when he was over at your place," Ember shrugs.

Jim nods and hands her his credit card.

"I didn't know you worked at a record store," Jim chuckles as he studies Ember.

She looks tired and sad.

"Yeah, this is one of the places I work," Ember shrugs.

"You work another Job?" Jim questions curiously.

"Yeah. I work at a dance studio on the weekends," Ember tells him.

Jim nods.

"That's cool," Jim smiles.