Sound Bites: A Rock & Roll Love Story

by Sound Bites (epub)

  “Yeah, it’s at the end of the month.”

  “How old are you going to be?”

  I sighed. “Twenty-five. I’m practically a senior citizen and I’ve just now finished college.”

  He started laughing. “Oh please, I’m thirty-three! And aren’t you a career student anyways?” Eddie referred to anyone that switched majors more than twice as a career student.

  “Can you please tell me what this has to do with Dylan?”

  “Okay, here’s the plan: I’ll have a little birthday gathering for you at my place and you can invite your friend. I’ll invite Justin and fill him in on what’s going on. Then, maybe Justin can convince him to come jam with them and see how it goes.”

  I buried my head in my hands. “He won’t go for it.”

  “Well, if he doesn’t, then he doesn’t. But if he does, then he’s one step closer to the real thing. Maybe we can get him a little liquored up and see if he’ll agree to it.”

  Figuring I had nothing to lose, I decided it was worth a try. “Okay. Name the date and I’m in.”

  ***

  After making sure the Blazer was nowhere in sight, I threw on a red low-cut shirt and a pair of jeans that made my ass look like you could bounce quarters off it, then moseyed up to Dylan’s apartment to propose my birthday invitation to him. He struck me as the type of guy who was a little on the antisocial side, so getting him to agree to spending an evening with a bunch of strangers was going to take some work. A cute outfit was definitely a start.

  Dylan wasn’t in the best of moods when he answered the door. I asked him if he wanted me to come back another time, but he insisted that my company would probably do him some good. I peered around his apartment, making sure there was no one else inside before entering. He caught my gaze and chuckled.

  “Don’t worry,” he assured me. “It’s just me.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I looked for the Blazer before I came up, but I was just double checking.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t think you’ll be seeing it around here anymore.”

  Ah ha. Now his brooding made sense. “Is that why you’re in such a bad mood?”

  He stood up and started pacing back and forth, staring at the floor. “She’s just such a lunatic. Every time I talk to a girl, she accuses me of cheating on her.”

  “Well, did you cheat on her?”

  Dylan sat down and tilted his head up at me, a faint hint of a smirk on his lips. “I did.”

  I shook my head, trying not to laugh. I didn’t want to condone his infidelity, although I did think his mischievous humor was sort of funny. I picked up the pillow next to me and tossed it at him. “Well, then obviously she’s going to act like a lunatic!”

  The left corner of his mouth curved upward into a crooked grin. “Hey, what can I say? I love women. It’s in my blood.” He picked up the pillow and tossed it back at me, but it missed and landed on the floor. I leaned over to pick it up, and realized that something was different about Dylan’s apartment.

  It was clean.

  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it the minute I walked in. The piles of clothing and magazines were gone. The table was wiped down. And I could’ve sworn that the rug was vacuumed.

  I wondered if he had cleaned it for me, but decided not to mention it. For all I knew, it could’ve been for the other girls he brought over when Christina wasn’t around.

  Dylan relocated from the couch to the middle of the floor while he strummed on his guitar. This had become a regular routine of ours: Dylan would play the guitar for me and when I was lucky, he would sing too. I was glad he was slowly warming up to the idea of playing in front of people, even if for now, it was just for me.

  “Okay, what’s your favorite song of all time?” he asked me.

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me. Tell me your favorite song. I want to see if I know it.”

  I fidgeted in my chair for a minute, debating on whether or not this was the right time to ask him about the party.

  “Well, about that,” I began. “I had something I wanted to ask you.”

  Dylan raised his eyebrows. “What’s that?”

  “My birthday is coming up, and a friend of mine is having a few people over. Some guys in his band are going to be jamming out with him, so I thought you might want to come since they play a lot of really good music.”

  Dylan scrunched up his nose like he’d just bit into a lemon. “When you say really good music, what exactly does that mean? If they bust out ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ I’m fucking out of there.”

  “God, no,” I said. “Jesus, Dylan, I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I would think you’d be able to tell by now that if there’s one thing I know, it’s music.”

  “Okay, good. Do they play any Buckley?”

  I nodded. “Not nearly as good as you do, but they do.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.” Dylan stood up and disappeared into the kitchen. “You want a beer?”

  “Sure.” I normally wasn’t a big beer drinker, but judging from the initial condition of his apartment, I knew there was a good chance that beer and condiments were the only items existing in his fridge.

  He reappeared a minute later and tossed me a bottle of Newcastle, then sat down on the floor again, took a swig of his beer and began pricking the ends of his fingers with a tiny tube.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the tube.

  “Superglue. Helps the calluses.” He blew on the ends of his fingers until they dried, then picked up his guitar. “Okay, I’ll make a deal with you. Tell me your favorite song of all time, and if I know how to play it, I don’t have to go. If I don’t, I’m in.”

  I was almost positive that there was no way in hell he would know how to play what I was about to propose.

  “‘Let Down.’ Radiohead.” I smiled with confidence ay my choice. It was undoubtedly the most underrated track on OK Computer. I had yet to meet anyone who even knew the damn song, nevermind how to play it.

  I watched Dylan’s eyes go wide with admiration. “Renee, I am impressed. That is a great song.”

  “I know. The first time I heard it, I…” My voice trailed off as soon as Dylan struck up the first few chords of the song. His blank expression waned as he glanced up at the ceiling playfully like he was fighting back a smirk.

  I wasn’t sure if it was the song choice or the way he sang it, but something happened to me during that song that I couldn’t explain; something that had never occurred during any of his other performances. As his voice grew louder, I felt a stinging sensation shoot through me, and the truth that had been lurking in the back of my brain slowly made its way to the front row.

  I was falling for him.

  I tried to convince myself that I was only thinking that because he was singing a song that tore through my heart. It was a song that, no matter how many times I listened to it, still made me feel the same way I did the first time I heard it. But something was different when Dylan sang it. Something powerful. Something real.

  I couldn’t be falling for him, I thought. It was just the emotion of the song that was playing with my head. He was a narcissistic, ostentatious prick with a giant chip on his shoulder. Not to mention, he was a cheater.

  But as much as I tried to convince myself that I just got caught up in the moment, I couldn’t shake the sudden impulse to hurl the guitar across the room and pull him on top of me.

  “You’re surprised I knew the song, huh?”

  Dylan’s voice snapped me back to reality, reminding me of the fact that I’d lost our bet. I crawled across the floor and sat as close to him as I possibly could without physically becoming a part of him.

  “That was incredible,” I said. “Honestly, I don’t give a shit if you come to this party with me because hearing you play that song was so worth it.”

  I saw a faint smile appear on Dylan’s lips, but as fast as it appeared it was gone. I had a feeling that my compliments meant more to him than he l
et on. He placed his hand on my knee and turned to face me.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Even though you agreed to my little proposition, I’ll be a good sport and go with you anyways.”

  I grinned. “Excellent. I’ll make sure I tell Eddie to rehearse ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ just for you.”

  Chapter 9

  Eddie’s house was a one-story ranch that was located a block away from Davis Square in Somerville. It wasn’t exactly the roomiest space to throw a birthday shindig, but the basement was its greatest selling point. Eddie had furnished it last summer, so it now consisted of a newly implemented bar, a forty-two inch flat screen TV, and lots and lots of band equipment. Parking in Davis was always a bitch, so I opted to drive so we didn’t have to spend half the night looking for a space to squeeze in Dylan’s beast on wheels.

  As soon as we stepped foot inside the front door, Eddie handed me a mixed CD with the words “Renee’s 25th Birthday Medley” scrawled on the disc (the same birthday gift I got every year), and then led us down to the basement. Eddie graciously took Dylan under his wing and introduced him to everyone while I fixed myself a celebratory cocktail, a coconut margarita lined with a caramel coated rim. In the midst of the introductions, Eddie took a detour over to the bar and peer pressured Dylan into taking several tequila shots with him. I winked at him discreetly, knowing our secret plan. He winked back, but much more obviously than I had. Eddie wouldn’t know how to be discreet if he tried.

  I grabbed my drink and walked to the other side of the room to find my friend Kat, who I hadn’t seen since I’d moved back home. Kat was the abbreviated, Americanized version of her Greek name, Ekaterini. She was the perfect poster child for Greek culture with her elegant beauty and rambunctious personality. When she looked up and met my gaze, she screamed at the top of her lungs and barreled towards me like I had just risen from the dead.

  “I missed you!” she yelled, wrapping her arms tightly around me.

  “Me too,” I choked. “Is Christos here?”

  She nodded and pointed to the corner of the room. When I first met Kat, I was convinced she was a vampire because the girl could stay out all night, every night, without so much as an eye bat or a yawn. But once she met her Greek god boy toy, Christos, she officially disappeared into the land of the “we” people. Not that I could blame her, considering his perfectly sculpted bod and spell-binding blue eyes would’ve captured my heart, too. It was just depressing to watch my once-fun friend vanish before my eyes. Her conversation pieces used to start with either her most recent one-night stand, most recent drug of choice, or if I was lucky, sometimes both. Now all she talked about was cooking and their new pug, Winnie.

  While I listened to Kat ramble on, my eyes kept darting around the room, searching for Dylan. I wanted to make sure he was enjoying himself and didn’t feel like I had abandoned him. I cringed when I saw him in the corner talking to Beth. Most of my ex-boyfriends hated Beth because she was so outspoken and if she didn’t like them, she made no attempt to hide it. I studied his facial expressions, trying to decipher if he was annoyed by her or not, but he actually appeared to be enjoying the conversation.

  “Renee, are you listening to me?”

  I focused my attention back on Kat. “Sorry, I just want to make sure Dylan is having a good time. I feel bad because he doesn’t know anyone here.”

  “Oh, he seems to be making friends just fine,” she assured me, glancing in his direction. “So what’s up with you guys anyway? Are you dating?”

  I shook my head. “No, we’re just friends. He lives upstairs from me.”

  Kat raised one eyebrow and gave me a knowing smile. “Just friends, huh?”

  “I’m serious,” I said. “To be honest, he’s a really talented musician but he doesn’t like playing in front of people. I brought him here so Eddie could try to bring him out of his shell and convince him to jam with Justin’s band.”

  “Well, if anyone can bring someone out of their shell, it’s Eddie.”

  She had a point. Eddie was such a goof he could make an ex-con feel at ease.

  I looked up and saw Eddie hunched over the bar, wearing a Prince t-shirt that was about two sizes too small for his tall, chubby frame. He was carefully pouring a line of tequila shots for the boys, including Dylan, which Beth dutifully took as her cue to leave. She walked over to our side of the room, plopped down next to me and leaned in close so no one else could hear.

  “I like him,” she whispered. “I really like him.”

  “You like who?” I asked.

  “Dylan. I like him.” Beth had a habit of constantly repeating herself, not because she didn’t think you heard her the first time, but because she thought a lot. Aloud.

  “Really?” I asked. “I’m surprised.” Beth hated every guy I’d ever been even remotely interested in. She was like an overprotective parent, and none of my exes had ever lived up to her expectations. The fact that she took a liking to Dylan almost made me choke on my margarita.

  “Yeah, I mean, when we first start talking, he seemed like he had a bit of an attitude,” Beth said. “But after a few minutes, he grew on me. He’s very honest. He’s not one of those macho guys that act like they have something to prove, like those other jerk-offs you’ve gone out with. He’s… different.”

  “Beth, we’re just friends,” I reminded her.

  Beth rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, you know you have the hots for him.” Her eyes drifted over to the bar as she studied Dylan. “He has this sort of intense, hypnotic sexual aura about him. Like the way he looks at you. It’s like his eyes are saying ‘I can do anything I want to you’ with this unspoken confidence. You know what I mean?”

  Kat and I collapsed into a fit of giggles. Beth’s favorite pastime was to overanalyze anyone and anything until she felt she had it one-hundred percent figured out.

  “You’re so neurotic,” I said, still laughing. “You and your observations.” I had to hand it to her, her first impression of Dylan couldn’t be more right, but I’d be damned if I admitted that out loud.

  “Okay, everyone,” Eddie announced, stepping up to the microphone. “First off, I want to start by wishing Renee a happy birthday.” The whole room burst into applause while I sulked in the corner. I hated making a big deal out of my birthday. “And second, Jesse, Adam and I are going to play a couple tunes for you. Do you guys have any requests?”

  “Will you guys play the airplane song?” Beth asked in that whiny voice she always used when she wanted something. Eddie looked over at his band mates, who both nodded in approval.

  Their lead singer, Jesse, had written a song about his recent red-eye flight home from Chicago, when he’d gotten a blowjob by some random cougar who was seated next to him in first class. They called it “Generosity.”

  Dylan reappeared and took a seat next to me as the boys rocked out “Generosity,” followed by a few more shout-out requests. Once they were about halfway through the set, Eddie announced that they were going to take a quick break to grab a few drinks. He ran over to the bar and sucked back a few more shots, motioning for Dylan to join him.

  “You want to do a shot?” Dylan asked me before heading over to the bar.

  I considered. “Sure.”

  I followed Dylan over to the bar, where Eddie introduced us to Justin. Justin looked more like someone’s dad than an aspiring rock star, with his worn out work boots and tiny beer belly, but I liked the way he repeatedly bobbed his head like he had a built-in radio playing at all times. After sucking back a tequila shot, I politely backed away to study their conversation, trying to gauge Dylan’s level of intoxication. I figured the more drinks he consumed, the more likely he’d be to drunkenly agree to any newfound band opportunities.

  After Dylan disappeared upstairs, Eddie snuck over to me, looking guilty. “I got the ball rolling and mentioned the fact that Justin needs a new singer in front of your friend. So I figured I’ll give him a few more shots and then we’ll bring it up again and
see what he thinks. It’s worth a shot.” He threw his head back and laughed uncontrollably. “Get it? A shot!” Eddie thought he was hilarious sometimes.

  Nearly two hours passed before the party started winding down. At the end of the night, Beth and Kat were the only ones who stayed to keep me company while the boys continued to jam out in between tequila sessions. I could sense that Dylan was not only getting comfortable around my friends, but he was also getting very drunk. A hopeful thought occurred to me that Eddie’s plan just may work.

  “You were right,” Dylan slurred, sidling up to me at the bar. “You’re friends are pretty cool. And they have kick-ass taste in music, too.” He pointed to the back wall, which was mounted with hundreds upon hundreds of CD’s from Eddie’s collection. “He’s got some good shit back there. Tons of bootlegs I’ve never even seen. And Mad Season covering the Beatles… how badass is that?”

  “Well, speaking of music,” I said, ever-so-casually. “Since it’s just us, how about you go up there and sing something with Eddie’s band?” I smiled innocently. “Just one song?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Renee, you’re like a whiny little kid. How many times do I have to tell you, I’d love to but…”

  “You’d love to what?” Eddie interjected, sneaking up behind us.

  “Eddie, help me out here,” I told him. “Dylan has this ridiculous voice… it’s like Thom Yorke meets Freddie Mercury meets Jeff Buckley. But he won’t sing in front of people. I’m trying to convince him to cut the shit and just go for it.”

  Dylan shot me a look that could’ve sent lions running. “It’s not that simple,” he explained. “I love to play music, but I just get really nervous when I’m in front of people. My voice gets shaky, my palms get sweaty and I sound like shit.”

  Eddie feigned the most obviously fake surprise face I’d ever seen. “You don’t say! Dude, why didn’t you say something when we mentioned that Justin needed a singer? You should jam with them sometime. Jeff and Christian are great guys, too.”