I'll admit, I didn't think Moe would ever have the ability to make me text Brendon back. But here I am a week later, waiting for Brendon's knock on my front door.
"Kristine, couldn't you have cleaned up the living room a little bit?" My persistent mother whined.
"I was going to have him give me lessons in the office anyway, so what does it matter?" I asked, annoyed. She frustratingly hurried to pick up as much junk off the end tables as she could while trying to lecture me at the same time.
"Because, Kristine, he has to go through the living room in order to make it to the office, am I correct?" She sassed.
"Right," I said as I rolled my eyes. "How could I forget."
The doorbell rang as I finished my last remark, causing my mom to swirl into an immediate panic.
"Oh god! Kristine, distract him at the door while I finish cleaning the rest of your junk up!" She screeched as she rushed into the kitchen to grab the trash can. I sighed as I slowly got up from the couch and made my way over to the front door. My heart pounded from anxiety as I opened the door and was greeted with a grinning Brendon.
"Hello Kristine! It's nice to see you again," Brendon beamed as he stood with his hands folded in front of him. He looked so civilized in his vest and little red bowtie. I concluded that he must dress like this every day, which I found adorable.
I gave him a small smile and nodded, instead of actually saying hello back to him. I stood awkwardly at the door for a few seconds as I waited for my mother to give me the signal for Brendon to come in.
"Mom!" I shouted in an attempt to break the silence. "Brendon's here!" My mom rushed to the door and greeted Brendon with shaky breaths.
"Hello Brendon, it's great to see you again." She pushed me out of the way to shake his hand. "Come in, come in!" she said in an over-friendly voice. He grabbed his guitar case that was sitting on the pavement next to him and walked politely into our home. There's no backing out of this now. I didn't want to ruin the excitement that had built up in his eyes.
"Follow Kristine, she'll take you to the office where her guitar is." My mom stated.
I led Brendon up the stairs and down the hallway that led to the bedrooms. I pondered running quickly into my room and locking the door to get out of the awkward situation ahead of me, but decided that would be unfair for him and led him to office like I was supposed to instead.
"This is a nice home you have," Brendon said to break the silence.
"It's alright," I shrugged, realizing this was only the second thing that I have ever said to him.
"This room isn't used much, is it?" He asked as he ran a hand along the old mahogany desk.
"Not really," I said as I shook my head. "It was supposed to be my little brother's room but, he, um..." Brendon raised an eyebrow, genuinely concerned about what I was talking about. "There was a miscarriage." His eyes grew soft suddenly as he looked down slightly.
"I'm very sorry to hear that," he said as he gave me a small smile in an attempt to comfort me.
"It's alright, that happened a few years ago," I replied. "Um, you can set your case next to that chair over there." I said in an attempt to change the subject.
"Alright," he said as he made his way over the the chair and started to open his guitar case. I sat in the chair across from him and went to grab my guitar, but saw he was staring intensly at it. I waved a hand in front of his face jokingly to get his attention.
"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