Everyone seemed more tense than usual at band rehearsal on that Friday afternoon, buzzing with nervousness due to their first gig coming up on Sunday. Kiersan propelled her drum sticks between her fingers as they waited for Matthew Harding, their lead singer, to arrive.
"It's been four fucking months of being together and we still don't have a band name?" Olivia Heel rambled, pacing around with her electric guitar slung over her shoulders.
"I suggested 'Slick Clit', but still haven't received any feedback." Kiersan piped from her place sat behind the drum. Olivia rolled her eyes at Kiersan, feeling agitated.
"Did you put it in the suggestion box?" Olivia asked, to which Kiersan nodded, "Good, I burned that fucking box, how's that for feedback?" This prompted a hearty laugh from Kiersan.
"Will you guys relax? It's my uncle's wedding, not the second coming of Jesus Christ." Kiersan said, beginning to play a beat on the drums. Evan Tatcher, the bass player, joined in with Kiersan's harmony as he laughed.
"We have to take it seriously though. You never know who might be at that wedding."
"Simon Cowell's not coming to my drug-lord Uncle Jim's fifth wedding, ya'll." The pianist, Sophia Rockwell, snorted at this, joining in on the melody that Kiersan and Evan had begun.
"Where in hell is that bastard? He can barely carry a tune and thinks that excuses him from arriving on time?" Olivia asked, causing everyone to laugh.
"Wow, harsh." Matthew feigned offense as he appeared at the doorway, placing his right hand over his heart as he took his place at the front.
"Truth hurts, huh?" Olivia snapped, getting her guitar in playing position as Kiersan, Evan, and Sophia stopped their tune. Kiersan cleared her throat as her huge basement grew silent.
It was rather sudden when Kiersan exclaimed, "We are Slick Clit here to rock your motherfucking world, and a 1, a 2, a 1,2,3 go!"
Noise issued. They were nothing but a bunch of noises which created a giant incoherent noise in return. They sucked, and they knew they did, but for people who wanted to get discovered, they really didn't give a fuck about how bad their music was. Their main motto was always to have fun as it was why the band had started in the first place. The five of them had gathered with their mostly minimalistic music knowledge, and just played together with nothing good truly coming out of it besides awesome memories and many laughs together. They would humiliate themselves this Sunday, and they knew that very well, but at least, they would humiliate themselves together.
As practice finished about two hours later, Olivia removed the guitar from around her neck and placed it on its stand before going up to Kiersan and looking her firmly in the eyes.
"We are not Slick Clit, and we will be never be Slick Clit because we sound like a joke, and honestly we already sound like a joke enough without that ridiculous ass name." Kiersan laughed, placing her drumsticks on the ground as she prepared to stand.
"You guys know Seraphina Jones?" She asked her four friends. There were a few hums of confirmation as Kiersan stood and walked over to sit on the lounge chair in front of the T.V.
"Isn't she the one dating my brother?" Matthew piped, "She is so unbelievably gorgeous. And she must be nice to agree to reenact Beauty and the Beast with my brother."
"Didn't know you had an identical twin," Olivia chuckled as Matthew turned and sent her the middle finger. He rolled his eyes, fixed his hair, and patted his shirt down, metaphorically regaining his dignity.
"We're fraternal twins. We look nothing alike." He said, toggling the microphone stand between his two hands, "Anyways, why'd you ask about her, Kier?"
"We had an altercation? I don't know, is that even a word? Anyways, we had an..uh..an argument in the hallway during second period intermission, so I pushed her back into the classroom and blocked the door so she couldn't get out and go to her next period, then she told on me and I earned a fat ass detention that I only served half of since Sloan fell sleep. Unfortunately, I had to see her again there since she got detention for being late." Kiersan explained.
"What was the argument even about?" Sophia asked, sitting down besides Kiersan on the lounge chair and slinging her arm around her friend. Matthew joined them and sat on the other lounge chair to the right and Evan followed suit as Olivia simply stood, her back against the wall next to the T.V. Kiersan shrugged lightly.
"Fuck, I don't know, I checked out after a bit because her voice is so damn annoying, but I think she said something about me being a whore and checking Jake out or something."
"If she called you a whore, we're riding into battle." Olivia said, not a single hint of being comical on her face. Evan laughed suddenly, causing everyone to shift their attention to him.
"I-It's just, like, the irony. Whore? Riding? No? Okay." He said, deflated. Kiersan rolled her eyes at him.
"There will be no need to ride, I already got her detention so we're good." She said.
"Is detention enough though? Cheerleaders get away with everything, I mean, what else has she done to you and never been punished for?" Asked Olivia. Kieran shrugged, pursing her bottom lip slightly.
"It's always about Jake when she speaks to me. She's always like 'Get away from my boyfriend' or 'I'll ruin your life if you don't stop looking at my man'. Shit like that."
"I think that's reasonable though..." said Sophia, "Imagine a super pretty girl looking at your boyfriend all the time?" Kiersan rolled her eyes.
"I don't ever look at Jake like that, oh my God, he's pretty, but I can't say I'm attracted to him at all, he's not my...type. She's paranoid."
"She's insecure," Evan corrected, leaning back, "Sophia's right, if I were a girl and another girl even hinted at being interested in my man, I would put up barriers around a bitch. It's a risk."
"Risk for what, you can tell Sera's barely into Jake, though?" Said Olivia, as if it were obvious. Everyone stared at her blankly, not comprehending what she was entailing.
"What? Is it not as clear as I thought?" She said, raising an eyebrow at her friends.
"What do you mean?" Replied Matthew crossing his arms.
"Seraphina looks like a corpse when they kiss. She either was never into Jake, or whatever they had is gone because, trust me, I know how girls are when they're dating someone they're tired of. And have you seen Jake? He's so plain and boring, like, what would lead someone to want to stay with a guy like him?"
"Hey relax, it's my brother we're talking about, okay? Jake's not that bad, I can promise you."
"yeah-uh, sure Jan'"
****
"Kiersan Blake," Seraphina said, rolling onto her stomach as she held her phone between her shoulder blade and her jawline, "She is so annoying, I swear." She continued, laying all of her annoyance upon her friend. Jamie laughed from the other end of the line.
"Again? Why do you keep stirring things with her, she's not usually someone who gets agitated easily."
Seraphina sighed, tapping her pencil lightly atop of her homework when another point of irritation returned to her, "I know, but I agitate her somehow. Like, we were in detention and she kept fucking tapping her pencil on the desk and I wanted to blow my brains out."
"Isn't she a good drummer?"
"Not from what I was hearing. It was a hot mess. Even with two pencils in her hand she couldn't keep up a tempo. Just terrible. You should have seen her deny that she was checking Jake out, please. There's a mirror in our first period and I caught her staring at his ass while we walked in hand in hand."
"Maybe she was staring at yours. No homo, but you do have a really nice ass."
"Ew, imagine if all this banter is just the way she expresses her sexual frustration towards me or something." Seraphina said, answering the final question on her AP Calculus homework.
"Hmm,"
"Honestly, though, it can't be that. As irritating as she is, she's, like, Goddess-tier good-looking and could probably get with anyone she wants."
"See how the homo jumped out?"
"Bye, she's gorgeous, you can't deny that." Seraphina said, a small smile playing on her lips as she stood and placed her finished work in her backpack.
"I guess, I'm not really an expert on good-looks or anything."
"That's because you only have yourself as a template." Seraphina joked, as Jamie audibly feigned offense.
"Well, you're not exactly a good-looks connoisseur yourself, you're dating Jake Harding of all people on Earth."
"Why does everyone keep calling him ugly? He's handsome to me, and anyways, it was never about looks with him. It was his personality...but can I confess something?"
"Yeah, sure,"
"He's been boring as hell lately. I honestly want to break up with him but he's so sickly in love with me now and I don't want to break his big heart, you know? But we keep doing the same things over and over again and I'm so tired of it."
"You want my advice?"
"Of course," Seraphina responded, sitting down at her desk and lifting the top of her laptop up as the light flicked on and a Pornhub video begun playing, way too loud for Seraphina's liking, "Oh my god."
"I-"
"It's not what you think, oh my God, I think one of my brothers came in my room and messed with my laptop." Seraphina quickly interrupted, clicking out of the inappropriate page. As she did, however, another one popped up and instantly begun playing and the cycle repeated as she continuously attempted to click them off.
"Sera, should I hang up and let you have your 'you' time or-?"
"I swear I'm not, like, watching it, it's like a virus on my computer," Seraphina said, lowering the volume of her laptop as she heard knocks on her bedroom door. Seraphina's face flushed in embarrassment as she shut her laptop off and turned it back on again.
"Your dumbass has brothers like, Hayden, Xavier, and Arkham and you didn't think to put a password on your Mac?"
"I'm usually at home when they are, I guess one of them snuck in and decided to prank me while I was at detention. Anyways, what should I do about Jake?" Seraphina asked, going into her laptop settings and setting up a password.
"Honestly, I think you should tell him. Maybe he'll try to spice things up a bit and if that doesn't work then break it off."
"I guess that's pretty practical." Seraphina said, going into google and clearing her history.
Upon hearing the typing, Jamie quickly threw suggestions. "Make your password 'tities69', you will be my hero."
"I-No, I already chose a password. It's someone's weird ass name." Seraphina said.
"Jake is more of a basic ass name than a weird ass name if you ask me." Jamie responded from the other line. Seraphina laughed, scratching the nape of her neck before unexpectedly stretching into a yawn.
"That would be too easy and my idiotic but genius brothers would figure it out in a heartbeat." Seraphina said, laying back on her computer chair, "It's Kiersan Blake."