GUYS THIS IS FROM DALLAS' POINT OF VIEW OKAY. DALLAS. DALLAS. DALLAS. ITS RANDOM, I KNOW, BUT JUST GO WITH IT.
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Weekends are pretty much like a huge slide. You start at the top and you're having fun, but as you start to reach the bottom, you realize that you're going to fly into a pile of shit called Monday. Luckily, it was still Sunday for a few more hours, which meant that we were once again in my basement attempting to make music which 75% of the time just consisted of my dumbass brother trying to tune his bass.
Have you ever sat in a room full of people and listened to the conversations around you and realized that you are the smartest person in the room? That was how I felt right now. Seth and Sammy were draped across the cracked leather sofa, talking animatedly about, of all things, chapstick. I kid you not.
Tristan, on the other hand, was sitting cross legged on the floor in front of them, trying to figure out how to order pizza off of the Domino's website. My mom had texted me her credit card details so I could order “a few small pizzas” for us. So much trust.
So much misplaced trust.
“Have any of you guys been able to get a hold of Quinn? Its kinda hard to practice without a lead singer.” Travis pointed out as he fiddled with the pegs on his bass.
“He isn't answering. I literally called him like 30 times in a row. I guess we'll just have to wait for Lacey to get back and see if she knows anything.” Seth yawned, apparently still tired from our outing last night. We hadn't gotten home until 2 am, so I really didn't blame him.
“Did you try calling her too?” I asked, and Seth nodded.
“Line was busy.”
Lacey had been sent out to get candy for us almost an hour ago, which meant that technically we were down a lead singer and a drummer. It was looking pretty grim for us so far, considering today was the day we were supposed to be recording a demo to send out to a few small record companies.
“What's the latest news about our pizzas?” I asked Tristan, who had been silent pretty much the entire time. He was holding up pretty well around us, I noticed. A lot better than I would've, at least. Usually whenever a girl broke my heart (which was basically every week), I just lost it. It was pretty embarrassing since I'm the ugliest crier in the entire world. There was always a lot of snot and sometimes it got in my hair and I bawl and make noises somewhat like a beluga whale try to attract a mate, and my mouth is usually open the whole time. I put Kim Kardashian's crying face to shame.
But Tristan saved all of that for when he was alone, I was guessing. Unless he was like, the emotional Hulk. But I doubted that.
“This site is ridiculous, so I sorta kinda ended up ordering six large pizzas since I couldn't figure out how to go back and change the order. If your mom asks why there's 100 bucks missing from her bank account, blame Seth.” he said, without the usual smug tone he got in his voice whenever he realized that he had found yet another way to potentially screw over his sibling. He was taking the whole Hartley thing pretty badly, even if he wasn't showing it. I knew him well enough to know that, at least.
Seth opened his mouth to protest, but stopped when Lacey suddenly burst into the room hauling a plastic bag full of candy behind her. She was on the phone with someone, chatting excitedly. I gave her a questioning look, and she mouthed “Aubrey” to me, looking smug. It was no secret that I really really, like Aubrey, but it still made me incredibly embarrassed whenever someone mentioned it, which is probably why I immediately turned the colour of an apple. I liked Aubrey almost as much as Tristan liked Hartley, although I wasn't sure that “liked” was the right emotion. What he felt was more like infatuation, or love.
Lacey laughed at something she'd said, before hesitantly telling her that she'd call her back later, before hanging up.
“What was that about?” I asked innocently, and she smirked.
“Wouldn't you like to know. Aubrey was just sexily telling me about how intense her case of pinkeye is and yelling at her cats. You sure have a great taste in women, kiddo.”
I felt myself turning scarlet, and pulled my head into my sweater to hide it, turtle style.
She flopped down onto the couch beside Seth, and nodded at him in greeting. “I saw your mom at the store. She was definitely judging me.”
“I'd judge the hell out of you too, ugh. Wine gums and Twizzlers are like the literal worst things you could get at a candy store.” Seth said, poking around in the shopping bag with an unhappy look on his face.
“Shh, it was and under stalked London Drugs. They didn't give me much to work with, and if you're going to complain, then you get to pay me back.” she fished a crumpled receipt out of her jeans and passed it to him, and I saw his frown deepen.
“Why does all the good stuff in life cost so much?”
“I didn’t know happiness and love had a price,” Sammy piped up sweetly, and Seth rolled his eyes.
“Calm down, Gandhi.”
“Guys. Guys seriously. Seriously you guys, we have bigger problems.” I reminded them, trying to get their attention off of each other, and on to the fact that Quinn was missing. To my surprise, it actually worked.
“What kinds of problems?” Lacey asked suspiciously, having missed out on the fact that her brother hadn't bothered to show up to the most important band practice in the history of forever.
“Do you have any idea where Quinn is?” I asked, unable to hide the anxiety in my voice. This was not looking good.
“I dunno. He said he had a date with like a... Beth, or... a Brook, or a Betty or something like that. I don't know if he meant today though.”
I was forever confused about how some guys got girlfriends so easily. Like, did they create them in their basements or something, Frankenstein style? They must.
“Wait, is it Brooklyn?” I asked, figuring that this was probably something Hartley would want to know.
“Yeah, probably. Why?” she asked, shaking her white-blonde bangs out of her face.
“Isn't Hartley dating her ex boyfriend or something?” Seth asked, and I was surprised he actually knew so much about the situation.
“I wouldn't know.” Lacey said in a monotone, and I saw her clench her jaw, “She's completely blown me off every time I've asked her to hang out. I guess now I know why.”
“Wait, Hartley has a boyfriend?” Sammy asked, his voice cracking in alarm.
Tristan raised and eyebrow at him, and asked, “Why, do you have a crush on her or something? If you do, give up now. Trust me, it'll hurt less.”
“Well I... yes. I left her a note in her desk, telling her I did, but she never talked to me about it. Well, not really. On Halloween I finally got to talk to her, and she said she'd come over one day so we could talk about it, but I think she's avoiding me.”
“Just consider yourself lucky you've only liked her for a little while. I'm already ten years in over my head with her.”
I could sense things were getting really emotional, really fast, so I decided to step in, by doing the only thing that I could think of: I sneezed really, really loudly into my microphone, and it was great. The sound of air whizzing out of my nostrils at 100 km an hour was immediately broadcast across the entire house, and they all turned to stare at me. Being able to sneeze on command was one of my two talents. The other was being able to find the silverware drawer on the first try whenever I walked into anyone's kitchen. Neither were particularly useful, though.
“Guys. We have to get to work if we're going to get this sent in on time.” I said, and Lacey grumbled something under her breath as she relocated to the stool behind her drum set.
“How are you supposed to do this without Quinn?” Seth questioned, picking absently at a hole in the couch where stuffing was poking out.
“OOH! OOOOOH!” Sammy exploded, jumping to his feet, “I can sing! I sing in the church choir all the time, I'm good, I swear. Puh-leassseeeeee?”
Travis and Lacey turned to look at me, and I realized that they were waiting for me to make the decision. I guess that made me the second in command, next to Quinn. Cool.
“Alright.” I shrugged and he bounded over to the microphone, smoothing down the front of his plain white button down shirt. His light blonde hair was cut shorter on the sides then it was on the top, styled in one of those purposely messy hair do's that guys get sometimes. If Aubrey was here, she would have called it “tres chic”. She liked to throw French phrases into English conversations, probably for the sake of making her seem more cultured. I liked it.
“Okay, what are we playing? Are you guys thinking of something, soft, or like, more hardcore? How about we cover The Maine? Do you guys listen to them? Or are we going to do one of your own songs? That'd be cool.” Sammy babbled on, and I laughed slightly. He was like a puppy dog, full of energy and always happy. I wondered how he did it.
“The Maine is good. How 'bout we play Misery?” Lacey said innocently, and I gave her a knowing look. It was her favourite song to play, probably because the drum part didn't come in until a minute into the song.
Sammy bounced around excitedly the entire time Tristan was setting up his mic, and waited for the cue to start. I strummed my guitar twice to make sure it was in tune, and nodded for Seth to start recording.
Normally when our band played together, it was horrible. It wasn't that we all sucked, because it was quite the opposite. We were all good at playing our instruments, it was just that we were bad at playing them all together. Quinn usually found it hard to keep up with Lacey, who found it hard to keep up with me, and everyone basically just ignored Travis. I don't even think he actually even followed the music, to be honest.
But Sammy? This kid was good. Good to the point where you were so fixated on his voice, you hardly even noticed the fact that Travis was just playing the same three wrong notes over and over, and Lacey was supposed to have started playing 30 seconds ago.
Quinn was not going to be pleased, but lets be honest. It was his own fault for not showing up. Besides, we might actually have a chance at a record deal if we had Sammy as our singer.
The song ended quickly, and Seth clapped. Tristan had somehow managed to take my phone out of my pocket without me noticing while I had been performing, and was now looking at the screen with a strange look on his face. I tried to remember what I had on there that could have possibly made him look so horrified, but by the time it hit me, Tristan had already grabbed his jacket and fled from the room.
My cellphone lay face up on the floor, revealing the picture of Seth and Hartley kissing that I'd secretly taken in hopes of one day using it as blackmail against her.
Oops.