Rum and Coke

“Whew! I need a fucking cigarette break!” Ellie said as she bounced out of the sound booth. They nailed the song the first time through and Ellie was high on the adrenaline.

“I’ll help you. It’s easy to get lost in here, and I really need a cigarette, too.” Brian said, pushing himself off of the wall.

Ellie shrugged, not really caring about this new Brian who actually sounded like he gave a fuck about her. “Sure, whatever.”

They easily navigated their way outside and leaned up against the brick building before casually lighting up their cigarettes. “So, how’s your mom?” Brian asked, breaking the awkward silence.

“Good. Why do you want to know?” It was a rather decent response given the current situation, and Ellie didn’t feel as if she was completely lying to him.

He shrugged. “I knew her once,” he replied, flicking his cigarette.

“Oh.”

“I also know who you are,” he said, glancing over at her to gauge her reaction.

“That’s good, I know who I am to,” She replied sarcastically. She wasn’t sure where this conversation was going.

“No,” he said, putting out his cigarette. “I mean, I know that you’re my daughter.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ellie feigned ignorance as she stamped out her own.

“Bullshit. It’s as plain as day that you’re keeping something from me.”

“Again, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have no father. My mom was right, he doesn’t exist,” It took everything within her to keep herself from punching his lights out.

“What did that whore say about me?!” Brian seethed as he stood intimidatingly in front of her.

The next thing Ellie knew was that she was on top of him and punching him with all of her strength. Someone pulled her off of him before she could do a lot more damage.

“That’s enough.” the voice said, it was rough and vaguely familiar to her.

She got up and wrenched herself out of their grasp. She glared daggers at the man that was wiping the blood away from his mouth. “Sie schmutziger Bastard! Keiner nennt sie eine Hure, besonders nicht Sie. Wann sind Sie dabei zu lernen?” She seethed before kicking him in the side for good measure. She stormed over to the car she came in and tore off through the parkinglot.

“What the fuck?” Brian asked as he watched her disappear. “All I got out of that was bastard,” he added as he slowly stood up with the aid of Jimmy and Mark.

“Try inconsiderate bastard on for size.” Bailey said, leaning against the door frame with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Great. And what was the rest of it?”

“Well, from what I could tell, was that no one is allowed to call her mother a whore. She also wonders when you’ll learn…learn what, I don’t know. You’re lucky she just yelled at you in German. If it were in Italian than I would advise you to get the hell out of the country.”

“She speaks Italian, too?” Johnny asked.

“Yea, and sign language, and Gaelic, and a little Spanish …and she wants to learn Chinese, too.”

“How the hell did she learn all those?” Jimmy asked, scratching the back of his head.

Bailey shrugged. “She basically grew up in a theater. There's all sorts of people that walk through it. All you have to do is listen, and you instantly pick it up.” She looked back out to the blacktop. “Well, I guess I’m going to have to call my aunt to pick us up. C’mon, Mark, let’s go find Ry and assess the damage.” She grabbed the bassist’s hand and walked away.

“Good job, Gates, really,” Jimmy said, applauding slowly.

“I didn’t do anything!”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Seriously, all I said was that I knew who she was and that I knew her mother. That’s it.”

“And where does calling her mother a whore fall into?” Johnny asked. “Seriously, I know you have major issues with Danni that you two never did get settled, but don’t take it out on Ellie. She isn’t the one who left your miserable ass…twice.”

“Shut the fuck up Christ.”

“Whatever. If we’re done here for the day, then I’m going to go.”