Page 21 of Behind the Lights

They nodded to one another before Lucas turned, and said, “See you tomorrow,” swishing his cute ass from side to side as he walked away.

“So, that was Lucas?” Stoli seemed less than charmed by his presence.

I however, was done for. I was caught, hook, line and sinker. “Yeah…” I all but drooled.

“Let’s go,” he snapped. “We have band practice at my house.” He stormed off ahead of me.

“Dude, wait up.” I jogged, catching up to him, “What’s up? Why are you pissed off?”

“Nothing, I’m fine. Just hungry is all,” he assured me.

We only lived a fifteen-minute walk away from school, so we never had to take the bus. But today Stoli was quiet for the entire walk. Something that never happened. Not sure what he was pissed off about, but I wasn’t buying the hungry bit and I didn’t want to ask again. I knew once he grabbed his guitar, he’d be lost to its melodic harmony so the quicker we got to practice, the better.

Mary made us each a sandwich and once Mickey and Diamond arrived, we got to it. Brett had insulated the garage walls with a foam egg crate material for us in the hopes that the neighbors wouldn’t complain. We did odd jobs for most of them, so we figured we’d be good to go if we stopped by ten p.m. on band nights.

We would be losing our space in a couple of weeks temporarily, so they could start storing everything for Mary and Brett’s wedding in here which was happening in March. The talent show wasn’t until the beginning of May, so we had time to get Social Sinners primed and ready. But we still hadn’t decided what song we were going to play.

Chapter

Six

Mary and Brett kept their wedding simple, but we still had to wear nice black pants and a white button-down shirt. It was the middle of March in Seattle, so the wedding had to be held indoors due to the rain. The guest list was purposely kept to a minimum, so we cleared all the furniture from their living room, storing it in the garage in order to put up the arched altar they were going to stand under as well as the chairs and tables for the wedding and reception.

Neither of us really understood what was taking place, so imagine my surprise when my dad came walking down the aisle with Mary on his arm. He was cleanly shaven, and his usually messy brown hair had been cut and styled and he was wearing an identical outfit to mine. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized outside of my eyes, I was the spitting image of my father.

When they reached the makeshift altar, he kissed Mary on the cheek and shook Brett’s hand before taking his seat beside me in the front row. Stoli sat on my other side while Uncle John stood beside Brett and Mary’s mom stood beside her. Mary was beautiful in her cream and lavender dress and Brett looked sharp in his black suit and tie.

The ceremony went rather quickly and after congratulating them and snapping a few pictures, they ran upstairs to change before coming back down to have dinner and cake with everyone. The kitchen had been set up with the food served buffet style, so we lined up to fill our plates.

They’d decided to take a long weekend honeymoon to Las Vegas. Since we were almost eighteen, they told Stoli he could stay home, but to let my dad know if he needed anything. I figured we’d be hanging out together anyways like we always did so none of this deviated from the norm for us.

After they left for the airport, everyone else stayed behind to help us get the living room furniture put back in place and my dad was taking care of getting the rented stuff returned to the stores the next day. I felt kinda bad because my dad was all alone, but he seemed happy enough. Who knew, maybe someday I’d have a stepmom.

Brett had long since stopped our guitar lessons, saying Stoli surpassed his playing skills after a few months like he was some sort of guitar playing protégé. Occasionally he would join our band for jam sessions out in the garage and I had moved into the role of our band’s lead singer. I still played guitar, backup that is, but preferred to sing. Stoli and I were even dabbling a bit with songwriting, but for now, we stuck to playing cover tunes.

The weekend after the wedding, we were having our usual band practice in the garage but needed to pick a song for the talent show so we could get it down before then.

“Well, we know we can’t sing anything with cussing in it.” I felt the need to point out the obvious.

“True, so maybe we should look to do a classic rock tune. Crowd probably wouldn’t appreciate or understand metal,” Stoli added.

“Zeppelin?” Mickey offered.

“Too controversial with the whole ‘stairway to Heaven’ BS,” Stoli said.

“How about some Doors or Hendrix?” Diamond asked.

Stoli laughed. “Ha, thanks for your vote of confidence, but I don’t think I’m anywhere near Hendrix level of playing. Let me get Brett, he’ll have some more fitting suggestions I’m sure.”

A few minutes later, he returned with Brett. “I hear you guys entered the school talent show?”

We nodded.

“We’re having trouble picking a song,” I told him. “We want something that’s not lame, but gets the crowd involved without busting their ear drums.”

“Here’s how I see it, you’ve got a lot of great options out there. I’ve been listening to you guys and you’re not half bad. Van Morrison’sBrown Eyed Girlis good, Bob SegerOld Time Rock and Rollis an option to consider too,” he suggested.

“I’m not feeling any of those,” Stoli told him.

---