“What are you doing home?” Cheyenne asked. She flipped her crazy red hair over one shoulder and cocked an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be in the throes of passion or whatever?”
I rolled my eyes and kept walking toward my room. “What? Just because I’m home early one morning, I haven’t been in the throes of passion? Jeez, I don’t see you and Vin together every morning.”
“Whoa! Chill. Vin and I aren’t even dating.”
“That’s because he’s a douche bag.” I pushed open the door to my room and leaned against the doorframe, waiting to see Cheyenne’s response.
Cheyenne shrugged. “Well, yeah.”
“Would the both of you shut it?” Shelby asked. “This feels like last semester all over again with you two bickering like an old married couple.”
“We do not!” I said defensively.
“She doesn’t like to give us the goods,” Cheyenne complained.
Shelby looked at Gabi for backup, but she had her nose buried in her laptop while dripping milk from her cereal onto the table.
“Gab?”
“Oh. Huh?” Gabi asked.
“Never mind,” Shelby said.
“You guys can’t sit there and act like you don’t want to know what’s going on with them.” Cheyenne threw her hand out at me.
“Actually, since she’s never home, I assume that the sex is pretty amazing,” Gabi said, looking at her computer screen.
“I never thought she’d be the one to go from proud holder of her V-card to sexpot living at her boyfriend’s house in a matter of a couple of weeks.”
I huffed at Cheyenne’s comment. “I’m still standing right here.”
I hadn’t even considered what my roommates might be saying about me while I was away. I knew that I’d made a drastic change in my life by agreeing to date Grant, but I’d thought they would be happy for me. Maybe they were, and this was their backward way of showing it.
“Anyway, I have to get ready for class.”
I disappeared into my room and changed into a purple V-neck sweater and jeans. Instead of taking the time to straighten my hair, I pulled it up into a tight ponytail at the nape of my neck. After applying some mascara and baby-pink lip gloss, I made a hasty retreat.
“You know,” Cheyenne said when I walked back into the living room.
“No, I don’t.”
“You’d think you’d be in a better mood with how often you’re getting laid.”
I slung my backpack over my shoulder. “I probably would be if you stopped badgering me about it.”
“Yeah, Cheyenne. If she wanted to tell you how big Grant’s dick was, she probably would have already,” Shelby cut in.
“Grant would probably show you before I’d tell you,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Noted,” Cheyenne said with a wink.
“Cheyenne!” Shelby cried. “You’re not going to ask Grant to show you his dick.”
“You’re right. That doesn’t sound like me at all.” Sarcasm dripped out of every word.
Laughter bubbled up out of me. I couldn’t help it. I’d been on edge all morning, and now, I was clearly losing my mind. I was sure that it all had something to do with my crazy course load and the issues with Grant. I wished I knew why Grant and I couldn’t work out our problems. When we had gotten back together on the beach, I’d thought the worst was over, but I had a feeling that the worst was yet to come.
“Dude, I got that track from last week,” Corey called out.
His hair was spiked up into a fauxhawk with a backward trucker hat resting about halfway back on his head. He wore black shades at all times, even in the studio, and alternated between different colored deep V-neck T-shirts underneath loose plaid button-ups.
I’d been working for Corey for almost two months now, and I still didn’t know what to make of him. The guy was a genius in the studio, but his social skills were limited to which obscure band he was into that week.
“Can I listen to it?”
Corey shrugged. “Yeah, man.”
He fiddled with the controls as I walked into the sound room and crashed back into one of the plush leather armchairs. A few seconds later, “Life Raft” filtered in through the speakers. I sat forward in the chair as the guitar riff picked up, and I belted out the first verse.
It was…perfect.
Our shit demo that thousands of people had listened to was nothing compared to this version. A real studio made a hell of a lot of difference. That fucking meant I’d get the talk from Miller again today at rehearsal.
I hadn’t told Ari yet, but Hollis—the Pacific Entertainment manager for the popular rock band, The Drift—had called Miller to try to recruit us. This was despite the fact that I’d managed to piss off Hollis after storming off stage on New Year’s Eve before proceeding to get into a fistfight with Donovan Jenkins, the lead singer of The Drift.
Apparently, the success of “Life Raft” had jolted ContraBand into the spotlight, but part of me didn’t want it to be a reality. I fucking liked waking up to my beautiful blonde every morning, going to the studio, and playing local gigs. But the guys weren’t content with playing at The Ivy League, a local Princeton bar, and I knew they weren’t fucking going anywhere without me.
“This is the fucking shit. Can you send it to me?”
Corey nodded. “I had extra time.”
He popped a disc out of the network of computers, dropped it into a case, and passed it over to me. It had a black cover with the band name, ContraBand, slashed across the front in lime green. The words Life Raft EP were scrawled underneath.
“EP?”
“I couldn’t get ‘Hemorrhage’ out of my head, so I put together the other tracks you were working on.”
“Fuck, man. Thanks.” I reached my hand out and shook Corey’s.
“Sure thing. Just get me tickets to Madison Square Garden when you guys make it.”
I laughed. Madison Square Garden. Yeah, right. “Will do.”
Once I reached my blue truck, I stuck the CD into the player and listened to our music on the drive home. Corey deserved a fucking medal for this shit. Every song was flawless, so clear and crisp.
It was exactly what I’d needed after Ari’s mad dash out of my apartment this morning. Work had kept me from thinking about her, but “Life Raft” was her song. I couldn’t keep my mind off of her with those lyrics pouring through the speakers.