I tried to forget about the hottie next door and get some sleep. I had a big day the next day, and that was the thing that I needed to focus on first and foremost. I could worry about the rest of it afterward.
Still, the silence suddenly seemed almost too loud. I rolled over again, pulling my pillow over my head as though I wanted it to be that quiet. Eventually, I drifted off to a night of restless sleep.
3
Jayson
I gritted my teeth in frustration as I watched Mark flirt with the ladies he had brought with him, telling them some made-up story about how he had written the lyrics to the song that we were practicing. I tuned out the story, but I couldn’t ignore what he was doing.
We were here in Luke’s garage trying to rehearse. It was one of the few times we had all managed to be there nearly on time, and I had hoped we would rehearse a few things and then maybe get to work on something new. Finally.
Of course, as soon as I saw that Mark had brought companions, that idea went out the window. They were just here to watch, he had promised. But it was only a matter of time before he got distracted. As he always did.
We had been practicing here in Luke’s garage for all the time we’d been a band. The house used to belong to his parents, until they had passed away suddenly in a freak car accident when he was just out of high school. It was the perfect space to rehearse in, somewhere far enough away from neighbors (and soundproof enough, anyway) that we didn’t need to worry about interruptions.
Today, I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about the fact that my place was no longer in the same class. I hadn’t encountered my new neighbor in the few days since she had chewed me out for drumming late into the night. Nor had I played my drums late at night, though.
I wasn’t caving to what she wanted. It wasn’t that. I just had drummed it all out during the day.
That was what I was telling myself, anyway.
I was trying to focus on right now, though. This disastrous practice. It wasn’t just Mark that was a problem. Carter was no better. He was either so hungover or so blitzed that he kept messing up his chords. Luke and I were the only people who were keeping a beat, and it was starting to piss me off.
“Can we get started already?” I finally snapped. “Look, I’ll forget about working on anything new today because I can tell that’s not going to happen, but we should at least rehearse ‘Maggie Ann Says Goodbye’ if we’re going to play it at our next show.”
Mark stared at me, his eyebrows rising. “Are you trying to tell me that we’re not working?” he said. “We’ve already been through four of our songs and they’ve been fine. We know ‘Maggie,’—I don’t know why you’re acting like we’re suddenly not going to be able to play it. We wrote it.”
I stared at him. There was a part of me that knew he was just trying to put on a show in front of the girls, but that didn’t make it any better.
I exploded.
“Fine?” I shouted. “You think that the other songs have been fine? You forgot half the fucking lyrics of two of them, or made up stupid versions of your own, and neither you or Carter were on beat. You’re wasting our time dicking around when we need to work. There’s a reason that we haven’t debuted ‘Maggie’ yet. I don’t think we’re ready to play it in front of people.”
“Oh, that’s it?” Mark snarled. “You act like you’re the only person in this band who has any say in it.”
“I am, if I’m the one who wrote the song,” I said flatly.
“You didn’t write that song, not on your own,” Mark said. “It belongs to all of us.”
“Name one thing that you added to it,” I said through gritted teeth, even though I knew that this wasn’t what we needed to argue about. “And if you try to play it with the way that we’ve been sucking lately, you can do it without a drummer.”
“The band isn’t all about you,” Mark said, rolling his eyes. “As for sucking, you could try playing on beat sometimes. That would help. Have you even been practicing lately?”
I nearly threw my sticks at him. But we were both interrupted by Carter, who suddenly went over to the fridge and grabbed a beer.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, throwing my sticks down. “Everyone in this band had better pull their heads out of their asses if we’re ever going to make it.” I couldn’t keep myself from storming out of there. We needed more practice, but clearly it wasn’t going to happen now.