Here's chapter 3 (the first two chapters are below, of course)! This is the last one I have fully written, so they might be a little slower from here on out, but be patient...It's going somewhere, I promise!
At 2:14 sharp that afternoon, there was a knock on the door. Startled, Louis struck a particularly discordant note, grimacing at the growl issuing from the amp as he made his way across the living room to the door. He opened the door with a grin, afternoon sunlight finally finding its way into the apartment.
“You’re early,” he teased.
Maddie smiled sheepishly as she glanced at the clock on her phone. “Hey, I’m only fourteen minutes late. I think that might even be a personal best for me! I couldn’t find a cable, I looked everywhere at my place.”
“I’ve got an extra one,” Louis said, grabbing a cord from the coffee table and plugging it into Maddie’s mini-amp. “Actually, I think this might be yours.”
“Probably. How’d practice go this morning?”
“I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Oh, that good, huh?” Maddie joked. “C’mon, they’re 9- and 10-year-olds. How bad could you have screwed them up?”
“Hey, it wasn’t a matter of me screwing them up. Well, yeah, partially. But, uh, I got blocked by a 9-year-old.” It was Louis’ turn to smile sheepishly.
“No way! Let me guess, you just wanted to build his confidence a little, right?”
“Yeah, I wish. This kid needs no ego help. I don’t think I can ever show my face there again.”
“Oh, damn, you can’t go back to
“Yeah, yeah. I’m starving, you want something to eat?” Louis asked as he wandered over to the kitchen.
“No, thanks. I ate before I came over. Hurry up, though, I want to play!”
“Alright, alright. I’m still working on lyrics for the song you gave me.”
“That’s cool. You’re singing, yeah?”
“Right. And I don’t think I can sing and play yet. I can barely play, period.”
“Oh, stop it, you’re fine. But please tell me that note you hit right before I came in was an accident,” Maddie laughed, strumming absentmindedly.
“The knock startled me!” he protested, his mouth half full of a turkey and cheese sandwich. He plopped down next to her with his sandwich on the old sofa—and promptly lost the sandwich over the side of the couch as the legs collapsed under him.
“Aw, dammit!” he groaned as he jumped up, grabbing a napkin to try to mop mayo and mustard off of the carpet and managing only to turn the beige carpet a brighter shade of yellow. Maddie had tipped over onto her side in the middle of the couch, laughing so hard she was crying.
“Maybe you didn’t need that turkey sandwich after all, huh?” she managed to choke out in between fits of giggles.
“Great, I’m down a couch and a damages deposit,” Louis lamented, giving up the carpet as a lost cause.
Maddie straightened up, laughter finally subsiding. “Oh, come on. It’s just a couch.”
“Yeah, but…”
She leaned over the arm of the couch, still smiling, her forehead against his, her auburn hair curtaining his face. “It’s a couch, not a metaphor for your life.” She laughed again, “Now come on, let’s play some music.”
“Eh, I dunno, I’ve been playing since I got back from practice. My fingers are sore.”
“Well, then we can just write today.”
“Alright.”
“And then we’ll play it.”
“But I…yeah, okay, fine,” Louis sighed.
“So what do you have so far?”
“Well,” he said, grabbing a small spiral notebook from the table, “what rhymes with orange?”
She stared at him, one eyebrow arched.
“What?” he said, his face splitting into a grin.
“That’s the best you got? ‘Nothing rhymes with orange’? Wow, you weren’t kidding about the writer’s block,” she said, returning the smile.
“Dammit, why can’t we just play covers?” Louis sighed in mock exasperation.
excellent story. why'd you stop posting?
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