"Dinner's ready!" Mrs. M calls.
"Saved by the dinner bell," I mutter.
"Tonight?" Tera asks, hesitating.
I nod. "If you're sure. There's no need to rush if you're not ready, T. I'll wait forever for you."
"I know. It's surreal and it's wonderful and I am so completely crazy for you, I feel like I'm going to explode and all that will be left of me is glitter confetti floating around—and you know that shit sticks aroundforever."
I laugh again. "See? Told you you were crazy. You just admitted it."
She nods. "I totally am."
"Me too, baby. Me too."
After a quick kiss it's dinnertime.
* * *
Band practice is awesome. We're playing a song we wrote the other day, tweaking it as we go, but it sounds fucking amazing. I pound the last beats and then silence.
"Fuck yeah!" Jesse shouts, fist punching the air.
"Oh, hell yeah," Ethan agrees.
"This is the one," Kennedy nods.
Ben plays a mean riff, grinning like a motherfucker.
"We're going on that show. That's it," I say. "I don't give a fuck if you guys think we're not ready. We. Are. Ready. That song right there, that proves it. We're gonna go on there, we're going to rock our asses off, and they're gonna love every second of it."
Everyone looks to Jesse. We always look to Jesse for the final say. It's always been that way and I have a feeling it's always going to be that way. I'm cool with that. He's never steered us wrong.
"Let's do it. We need a video of us playing something. I don't think we should use this song…" he trails off, thinking. I can see his wheels turning.
"That gerbil's getting a workout," Ben teases.
"It's a hamster, fucker," Jesse mocks.
I laugh.
"We do a cover. Metallica or something heavy. Something that shows off our talents—not just one of us, all of us," Jesse adds.
"This is it," I tell them, standing up from behind the drums, sticks in hand. I start pacing across the garage floor, spinning the sticks in between my fingers. All the guys are watching me closely. I'm fucking inspired. I need to share that. "Iknowthis is it. We're going to take this thing. The winner gets a contract with one of the top labels in the business. I'm not sure which one. I didn't read the fine print, but who the fuck cares who it is? It's acontract.If we don't like it with that company, we decline a second contract, and move on to someone else."
The guys are nodding in agreement.
"We can get someone from the camera club or video or some shit to help us. They'd be down, I know it. They'd get credit, you know? Then we need to make sure the audio is killer. The commercial said they don't want professional quality. They want it raw and real. We can do that," I declare, then tap my sticks together.
"It might take a ton of takes to get it, but we can do this," Kennedy agrees.
"Let's do it," Jesse says again, this time with a shit-eating grin.
"Dude, we're gonna be big time," Ben proclaims, and damn if I don't think he's right.
"Let's find a song," Ethan instructs.
A couple hours later we've got the song and we've found a cameraman. We just need a location and I can't think of a better place than in the school auditorium. The acoustics are killer. All in agreement, we call it a night.
