June 20th, 1991
8:12pm
"Oh shoot, someone is here. Can you hold the fort for me? I need to go to the bathroom. " Miriam stopped me.
"Uh.. Yea, I got it. " I nodded and went to serve a guy sitting at the table in the back corner. The man was huddled up in the corner reading something, well it looked like that anyway.
"Hey, are you ready to order?" I discreetly walked to his table, with my hands folded in front of me. His eyes met mine, and then drifted to my name tag.
"Annahlise Quinn..." He muttered under his breath, as if he was trying to recall something.
Okay... It's not creepy at all.
I pursed my lips and looked around to try and make things less awkward, but it wasn't helping at all. Even though he was acting a bit creepy, he was incredibly soft-spoken and shy.
"Um... That's me...!" I tried to stay enthusiastic.
He began tapping his fingers on the table and nodding his head, "Are you related in any way to the Quinn that works at London Bridge Studio? Oh, and Laura?"
I was officially weirded out. Even if I was trying not to show it, it was still very obvious.
"I am Laura's sister. I don't know about the guy at London Bridge, though..." I forced a smile because I was actually getting really frustrated, always being referred to as Laura's sister.
His demeanour picked up slightly, and he raised his head a little.
"I'm Eddie, not sure if you've heard of me, but I'm a friend of Laura's," He held out his hand.
Is it customary here to shake?
"Ohh, so you're one of those guys... I hope you're not as mean as Stone. " I shook his hand and grinned.
He chuckled and shook his head, "Nah, I'm too shy to be mean."
The awkwardness returned once again as I stood beside his table meaninglessly. I had no clue what to talk about with him, I had only heard about him once, when Laura was talking about him coming up from San Diego like, last year,"
His head perked up once again, "Oh! Chris told me you play? Do you wanna go over to his place and jam after your shift?"
Is this what real friends do? Casually invite someone over to jam within the first 3 minutes of meeting? I wish there was a book on this.
I checked my watch and then looked back up at Eddie, "Okay, just wait until 9, and then we can walk there. It's only about a 10 minute walk from here. Not even,"
He nodded, and I slowly walked away, only as soon as I got to the counter, I realised I didn't even take his order.
"Hey... Is that one of your other boyfriends? He's cute. " Miriam popped up behind me.
I turned back to her and shook my head, "Nah, but if you wanna go take his order..?" I held up the notepad for her.
9:00pm
"Are we allowed to be here after hours?" Eddie turned to me, concerned.
"Oh yea, we'll be right, we're going in a second anyway," I assured him, while trying to scrub a stain off the counter.
"I can't believe your sister is getting married, I don't even know her too well, but I do think it's a bit soon." Eddie propped himself up on the counter.
I shot him a death stare, "Oi fucker! I just cleaned that!"
He rolled his eyes and shuffled in his spot.
"Anyway, Chris and Laura have been together since '89, so I guess 2 years isn't so bad. And plus, I've had to crash dates with them, they look pretty smitten to me" I mumbled while tidying up the last bit of cleaning supplies.
His combat boots were leaving a mud trail on the counter, but I couldn't be bothered to clean up, so that's just Miriam's problem for tomorrow.
I changed the subject, "Okay, we better get going now. It's not too much of a walk from here"
Eddie grinned, "Too bad Jerry isn't here with his brother's motorcycle"
"Heh... You know about that?" I smiled, embarrassed.
"Stone"
"Dear God, It's always him," I giggled.
"I'm not sure if all of us could fit on anyway, you'd probably have to sit in his lap" He laughed.
9:13pm
We had made it to the palace and I performed my signature knock on the door, which was basically just me nearly breaking it down.
"Jesus. What did that door ever do to you?" Eddie crossed his arms and leaned on the supporting beam.
The front door slowly crept open, and Laura's head popped out from behind.
"Well well well... Look who has met! Doing my job for me!" She squealed, I have no idea why she was so excited. "Come inside!"
As soon as we entered, this disgusting noise filled our ears. The sound of someone dragging their pick along their strings repetitively, with the amps bumped up all the way. I know this, because I used to annoy the shit out of my sisters with this technique.
"Holy shit! What the hell is Chris doing?" Eddie covered his ears and made the funniest, sour face I have ever seen.
Laura shook her head, "If I had to guess, I'd bet It's Jerry doing that,"
I was confused on what she meant by that, but the confusion disappeared as we entered the lounge-room.
While Chris was laughing his ass off in the corner, Jerry looked at me with guilty eyes as he finally stopped abusing his guitar strings.
"Uh.. Hey Annie. Didn't expect you to be here" He pulled his guitar off and dug into his pockets. After rummaging around for a couple seconds, he walked up to me and handed me two pairs of ear buds.
"One for you and one for Ed. I don't want you guys getting brain damage from my heavenly sounds" He chuckled.
Chris propped up on the lounge, "Hey! Where are my ear buds?"
Eddie made his way to the corner of the room, and pulled out a stratocaster from behind the couch.
"Shit. I need to get my guitar!" I slapped my head, as I should've stopped at my apartment on the way over.
"I'll go with you!" Jerry caught up to me on my way out of the flat.
I crossed my arms and sneered, "Why do you want to come with me? I'm only going like, three places down, I'm sure you won't miss me that much"
"Well everyone has been to your apartment except me! And also, It's probably not the best idea walking around here alone at night" He pleaded.
I rolled my eyes and sighed, "I do it all the but... Okay... You can come I guess"
"Fuck yeah!" He celebrated and without realising how close he was to the wall, slammed his entire body into it, shaking the entire flat.
"Let's go before you destroy this place" I grabbed his wrist and dragged him out before he did anything else dumb.
He stumbled his way out, still a bit drowsy from his knockout and escaped my grip. I couldn't even imagine how awkward this would be, as I'm not really the talkative type, unless I'm being mean.
"How's the big city life treating you?" He crept back up beside me, with his smug little look.
I looked up at him, slightly confused that someone was actually curious about how I was feeling for once. I didn't get paid enough attention as a child okay?
"It's okay. Although I hate how everything is so much busier here than it was back in Olympia" I said in a boring tone, as I wasn't really used to talking about myself.
"I'm not sure why you'd wanna come here out of all places. Seattle's a shit hole" He chuckled and dug his hands into his pockets.
"It wasn't really about the town, I only came here because I had some issues and I wanted to start over. Laura offered for me to move here so I accepted" I said nonchalantly.
"This is it right?" We stopped in front of my apartment, when Jerry made his way to a flower shrub.
"What are you doing?" I raised my eyebrows and snickered while he picked a white flower. He maliciously grinned, while holding the flower behind his back, he walked up to me.
"Here, to new beginnings" He brushed my hair behind my ear and slid the flower stem behind my ear.
A romantic gesture or not?
I adjusted the flower and looked up at him playfully, "Thanks Romeo, now let's get my guitar before they think we've been kidnapped"
"Right... Beat you there" He hastily started making his way up the stairs.
I scoffed and followed swiftly behind him, "Get your ass back here Cantrell!
"Ooh this is it!" He abruptly stopped and caught his breath.
"How do you even know where I live? Wait, let me guess... For a change, Stone told you?" I walked past him to unlock my front door.
"You know too well" He grinned and followed me inside.
I had a bunch of shit sprawled out in my living room, because very commonly, cleaning wasn't something that I enjoyed doing.
"What hurricane passed through here?" Jerry inspected the piles of junk.
"Just about every single one" I mumbled while lugging my guitar out of my room.
He noticed my family portraits in a moving box and picked them up, "Aww.. How cute you guys were. I bet you were a little shit"
"Did Laura tell you one time I cracked her head open on concrete while we were playing wrestling? And that was my third time putting someone in the hospital" I said, as if it were nothing.
"You know... The worst part is, I'm not even surprised at this point. She has really been through the wringer with you," He leaned on my door frame and waited for me to get my pick. "You really do seem like the type to crack someone's head open,"
"Okay... Now let's go before I crack your head open. " I joked, and he put his hand to his heart and pretended to be thoroughly hurt.