Oozing Chemistry

6th Thing's 6th

"Yeah," Reggie agrees, nodding his head and pointing at me with his thumb. "We need to play wherever we can, whenever we can."

"No, you're right," Luke suddenly changes his demeanor, a sly grin on his face. "Let's rock those kids' faces off and then play the clubs."

"And then record a single that gets a billion streams?" Julie joins in, dropping her watering can.

"I don't know what that is," Luke confesses quietly, "but hopefully it gets us a manager and a tour."

"Then we release a bunch of hit albums..."

"Put out a country album that does surprisingly well," Reggie cuts me off, getting way too excited and ahead of himself, but what can I say? It's adorable. "I shred on the banjo, so..."

"And me on acoustic," we fist bump, and I lean in to whisper, "We can boot Luke out." 

"I'm wounded, Izzy, truly." Luke laughs and holds his hand over his heart. "And before you know it we're being inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame!"

"But one of us isn't there. Because we had a blowout in 2032!" Reggie shouts before mumbling slyly to me. "My money's on Alex. He's just so sensitive." I shrug. He's not wrong.

Julie skips out, and Luke follows her, the two talking quietly about what I assume to be songwriting. Before they disappear through the garage doors, Julie glances back and winks my way, Luke toward Reggie, and the air suddenly thickens.

"That was really great what you wanted us to do for Julie," Reggie says, filling the silence with his voice. He walks over to his bass, lifting it off the stand and wrapping the strap around his neck.

"What are you doing?" I ask as he starts strumming lightly, taking a seat beside him.

"Playing bass, clearly," he rolls his eyes playfully. "It's not something a piano player would understand."

"Oh?" I laugh, slightly taken aback, a devious idea swarming in my head. Luke and Bobby taught me how to play guitar, but Reggie had no part in it. How different can they be anyway? "Teach me then."

He raises his eyebrows at me, as asking if I'm sure, and I nod, repeating myself. He shrugs his bass off his shoulders and rests it around mine, hovering behind me and holding my hands in the right places as if worried I'd drop it.

He stands behind me, almost hugging me, and presses my finger down on one of the four strings, taking my other hand and plucking strings on the body of the bass. I bite back a smile, finding it kind of cute that he's doing this.

I zone out, shivers creeping up my spine when he pulls away and my back is hit with a wall of cool air. His mouth moves, but I can't hear a thing.

"What?" I breathe, my mind wandering back.

"Try playing what I just showed you." His smile is small, kind and humble, and I can't bring myself to tell him I wasn't paying attention to a single thing.

I look down, the instrument feeling foreign in my arms, and I cringe, bracing for disaster as I pluck a random string and fill the studio with a horribly off-key note.

"Oops..."

Reggie throws his head back and bursts out laughing, "That's not anywhere near what I showed you. What we played was a C. That was... Maybe if a G and a B had a baby or something?"

I huff and cross my arms, not having the reaction I hoped for. "How about this," I start skeptically, trying to flip this over. As far as Reggie knows, I've never played electric before. "I'll take Luke's, you keep yours. Pick any song from Luke's songbook and if I can keep up, you give up whatever you're trying to make me do. Lemme play music how I want to, when I want to."