Taste of the Guitar Strings
Chapter 4-Busted!
I stood in my room, looking at myself in the mirror, putting on my eyeliner.
When I was done, I again made sure that I looked good, and walked down the stairs into the livingroom.
Uncle Jepha, Bert, and Quinn were there, sitting down on the couches. Quinn and Jepha had their guitars in their lap, playing a few notes, as Bert sang a few words to the notes, then they would stop as Bert wrote down on the piece of paper in front of them on the coffee table.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
They all looked up and me as Bert answered, "Oh...nothing much, just trying to write a new song."
I smiled happily. "Really? Cool! Whats it about?"
They looked at each other, and then smiled. "It's just something we thought of.....and plus we haven't even finished it yet, so yeah.....it's not a masterpiece yet!" Quinn said to me.
They all laughed, and I laughed with them. "Alright, alright.....I won't interupt you three at work!"
"Good!" Jepha said, and I rolled my eyes.
Then, from outside, a horn blared from the car in front of the house.
"That's my friends....better get going!" I said, as I quickly grabbed my purse from the chair in the hallway, and walked to the door.
As I was about to open the door, Uncle Jepha exclaimed to me, "Hey!"
I thought I was in trouble or something, so I quickly turned around to him.
He looked mad at first, then smiled jokingly, and said, "Have fun Tibby!"
I sighed in relief. "Okay, I will! Bye guys!"
They said bye to me, and I went outside to the car.
I smiled as I saw my best friends waiting for me.
"FINALLY! What were you doing, giving them a goodbye farewell?!" Brandi, my best friend in the world, exclaimed from the back of the car.
I looked at her, blushing. "Maybe."
She just laughed. "You better have said hi to Bert for me!"
I rolled my eyes. You have to know, that out of all my friends who are BIG fans of The Used, especially fans of Bert McCracken, she was the one who had the biggest crush on him!
'Ohhh, he is sooo HOT!' and 'He has such a powerful voice!' are the kind of things I have to hear around Brandi!
But, I don't get on to her about it, because....who could blame her?
"Yes, don't worry, I did!" I lied, because accidently, I did forget to say hi for her.
Unknowing though, Brandi squealed in delight.
"Well, get in the car! We are going to have an AWESOME time!" she then said, as I ran to the car, and jumped in beside her.
The driver of the car turned around to me, and I saw that it was Jake. He went to me and Brandi's school, and I never really had the chance to talk to him that much.
I wanted to smack Brandi right then and there because she knew that I liked Jake, and she hadn't told me he was coming, but yet, there he was.
"Hey." He said to me, his black hair covering the side of his face. His brown eyes looked back at me, and
I screamed in my head. He was soo HOT!
I tried to say hi to him, but couldn't get anything out, until Brandi smacked me in the back, and I got out a squeaky reply out of me, "Hi!"
He smiled, and then turned back around to start the car.
In the passenger seat sat Riley, Brandi's boyfriend. He was cool, I loved him as a brother.
So, Jake started the car and we headed out.
For like 30 minutes, me and Brandi talked about different random things, most of them from her about Bert.
Our hair blew in each other's faces, since the top of the car was down.
After me and Brandi had calmed down, and sat quietly in the backseat, I asked, "Where are we going anyway?"
"The mall." Jake replied to me.
I looked at Brandi, who was looking around as if she didn't hear.
"Brandi, you said we were going to the movies." I said, looking suspiciously at her.
She quickly glanced at me, and said, "Change of plans."
"But....doesnt the mall close at 8? It's 9:30!" I said.
Then, Brandi smiled. "See thats the good part! Jake's dad is a janitor at the mall, and so he has keys to every door in the mall."
She didn't say anymore, but I knew what she was planning for us to do. "So we are breaking in?!" I exclaimed.
"No!" Brandi said. "I mean we aren't going to steal anything! We just want to know how it is when everyone is gone from the mall and it is just us."
I looked at her, panic rising in me, showing on my face.
"Oh my god! Oh my god, you are going to get me in trouble!" I said, and drummed my fingers on my leg, like I do when I am nervous.
"Don't worry!" Brandi said to me. "We won't get in trouble."
I just looked at her, and breathed heavily in and out.
From the mirror in the front, I could tell Jake was smiling.
I smiled since he was, but I was still nervous.
'Lets just hope Uncle Jepha doesn't find out.' I thought to myself, as we kept on driving.
When we finally got there, Jake stopped the car in front of this door on the side of the mall. He got out of the car, got out the keys from his pocket and opened the door.
He told us to wait in the car as he went inside.
We all waited for a while, until finally Jake came back out, and nodded.
"Okay, good! I had to turn of the alarms inside the mall. We don't want them going off when we go inside."
Then we parked in the front where the front door was.
We all got out of the car, and walked to it.
You could tell the lights were out inside. The only lights on were the ones in the parking lot.
Brandi and Riley walked hand in hand. I always thought that they were a cute couple.
When we got to the door, Jake fingled with the keys on the door, and after a few seconds, it opened, making all this cold air from inside blow on us, giving me goosebumps on my arms.
Jake let us all in, then went in himself, and we were in the large lobby of the mall.
All these stores that were obviously closed stood on each side of us.
"WHOO!!!!" cried Riley, and he ran ahead of us, the the stairs as he planned to go upstairs.
"Riley, wait!!!" yelled Brandi from behind him, and she ran too.
Which left me and Jake by ourselves.
He just looked at me, and then stuck his hands in his jean pockets.
My face started to blush because I didn't know what to say.
After a few seconds, I finally gained the courage to try to start a conversation, when before I said anything, Jake says, "I will be back." then leaves, me just standing there not knowing what to do.
I then walked to one of the benches in the lobby and sat down.
Brandi finally walked to me and sat down.
"Soooo...." She said, nudging my shoulder. "how is it going?"
I looked at her sadly. "Not so good! Where is Riley?" I then asked.
Brandi just waved her hand. "Oh they went somewhere in the mall together."
Then, Brandi smiled, and out of her pocket, she swung in my face, a key.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Oh nothing." she said. "I just asked Jake if we could....you know....look through Hot Topic, and he gave me the key."
I looked at her, stunned. "Really?!" I asked, excited.
She nodded happily.
"Well then we shouldn't waste any time!" I exclaimed as we got up from the bench and ran to Hot Topic.
As we ran, our feet echoed all around. But we didn't care. No one could here, 'cept Jake and Riley, but they weren't going to stop us.
So we ran until we finally got there.
We squealed in delight as Brandi unlocked the chained net that hung down in front of the entrance.
When she finally got it open, we ran inside.
We literally looked at everything, squealing at what we thought was awesome, and groaning at what we thought was ugly. Unfortunately, we couldn't take anything, no matter how much we wanted, but we still had an oober fun time, looking at all this stuff. Plus, now we knew what we would get the next time we did come to Hot Topic to shop.
After we were done, we locked the store back up again, and continued to walk around the store.
After a few minutes of laughing and walking around, me and Brandi stopped walking and sniffed the air.
Brandi turned to me. "Do you smell....smoke?" she asked.
I nodded, and we searched for what was the cause of it.
When we couldn't discover what it was, I said to Brandi, "Let's just hope it was nothing."
"Yeah." she replied.
As we continued to walk, we could still smell the odor when we heard footsteps behind us. We turned around to see who it was when we saw Jake and Riley walking towards us.
"There you two are!" Brandi exclaimed. "Where were you?"
"Just looking around baby! That was the plan wasn't it?" Riley replied back.
Brandi looked at Riley curiously because he had never called her baby before, only when they were making out, but she just shrugged and went over to hug Riley.
When she did, the smell came to her again, stronger now this time, and as she embraced Riley, she sniffed his shirt.
Brandi eyes widened, and she quickly got away from Riley. "Riley....you.....you smell like weed!"
I looked at Brandi, bewildered. "What?!"
"Don't worry girls, there is always an explanation for everything!" said Jake, sound as high as ever.
Brandi crossed her arms. "Okay, then tell us! What did you two do?" she said, now sounding furious, like a mom with a child who had just gotten in her make up.
"Me and Jake here just went to go walk around, and we were bored! There is nothing to do here, so Jake took out the weed, and we smoke a few!" said Riley, as if it didn't mean anything and people did it all the time.
Me and Brandi's jaws opened wide in surprise.
"I can not believe you two!!!" Brandi started to scream at them. "We are leaving....now!"
Brandi stomped towards Riley and grabbed his arm and walked him menacingly to the parking lot, where the car was.
I just looked at Jake disbelievingly, and followed Brandi and Riley.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Jake exclaimed as he ran from behind to me.
I didn't acknowledge him, so he grabbed my arm and pulled me so that I was now facing him.
"I need to talk to you alone!" He said with this smirk on his face.
I rolled my eyes. "Then hurry up and say it, we have to go!" I said angrily.
He just smiled, and then put his hand on my back, and pulled me closer to him.
"You......are hot!" He said.
I tried to pull away from him. "Let go of me!" I said.
He didn't say anything, but instead, pressed his lips onto mine, kissing me hard, making it awkward since I was trying to pull away.
I then slapped his face, and he quickly let go of me, letting out a cry as he held his right cheek.
"Brandi!!!!" I screamed as I ran to the front door.
As I ran, I made a turn and saw Brandi running towards me.
We stopped in front of each other. "What is it?" she asked concerned.
I turned around, to see Jake running towards us, obviously furious at me hitting him.
Me and Brandi just stood there, not knowing what to do, when Jake finally got to us.
His face was red with fury as he looked down on me. "Now you are going to get it!" He yelled as he raised his arm to smack me, when we heard from behind us, "HEY!"
We all looked behind to see one of the security officers running towards us, with a gun in his hand.
When he got to us, still pointing the gun, he yelled, "Put your hands up!"
We all did, as he pushed us to the side of the wall and handcuffed us.
"Are there anymore of you?" He asked.
"Y-y-yes sir! One in the car outside." Brandi cried, tears in her eyes.
"I will get him later." the officer said, as he finished cuffing us.
He then led us outside to the police car, where we now knew we were going to be arrested.
Beside me, Brandi sobbed uncontrollably.
We couldn't believe we were being arrested.
I didn't cry, but I knew that by the time I got home, Uncle Jepha would already know what happened, and I wouldn't be crying, but instead, dead meat.
'Oh, god! I am sooo dead!' I thought in my head. 'Uncle Jepha is going to kill me!'
As the officer led us to the car, I looked at Jake who furiously stared back at me, the mark from where I slapped him still visible on his right cheek.
When I was done, I again made sure that I looked good, and walked down the stairs into the livingroom.
Uncle Jepha, Bert, and Quinn were there, sitting down on the couches. Quinn and Jepha had their guitars in their lap, playing a few notes, as Bert sang a few words to the notes, then they would stop as Bert wrote down on the piece of paper in front of them on the coffee table.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
They all looked up and me as Bert answered, "Oh...nothing much, just trying to write a new song."
I smiled happily. "Really? Cool! Whats it about?"
They looked at each other, and then smiled. "It's just something we thought of.....and plus we haven't even finished it yet, so yeah.....it's not a masterpiece yet!" Quinn said to me.
They all laughed, and I laughed with them. "Alright, alright.....I won't interupt you three at work!"
"Good!" Jepha said, and I rolled my eyes.
Then, from outside, a horn blared from the car in front of the house.
"That's my friends....better get going!" I said, as I quickly grabbed my purse from the chair in the hallway, and walked to the door.
As I was about to open the door, Uncle Jepha exclaimed to me, "Hey!"
I thought I was in trouble or something, so I quickly turned around to him.
He looked mad at first, then smiled jokingly, and said, "Have fun Tibby!"
I sighed in relief. "Okay, I will! Bye guys!"
They said bye to me, and I went outside to the car.
I smiled as I saw my best friends waiting for me.
"FINALLY! What were you doing, giving them a goodbye farewell?!" Brandi, my best friend in the world, exclaimed from the back of the car.
I looked at her, blushing. "Maybe."
She just laughed. "You better have said hi to Bert for me!"
I rolled my eyes. You have to know, that out of all my friends who are BIG fans of The Used, especially fans of Bert McCracken, she was the one who had the biggest crush on him!
'Ohhh, he is sooo HOT!' and 'He has such a powerful voice!' are the kind of things I have to hear around Brandi!
But, I don't get on to her about it, because....who could blame her?
"Yes, don't worry, I did!" I lied, because accidently, I did forget to say hi for her.
Unknowing though, Brandi squealed in delight.
"Well, get in the car! We are going to have an AWESOME time!" she then said, as I ran to the car, and jumped in beside her.
The driver of the car turned around to me, and I saw that it was Jake. He went to me and Brandi's school, and I never really had the chance to talk to him that much.
I wanted to smack Brandi right then and there because she knew that I liked Jake, and she hadn't told me he was coming, but yet, there he was.
"Hey." He said to me, his black hair covering the side of his face. His brown eyes looked back at me, and
I screamed in my head. He was soo HOT!
I tried to say hi to him, but couldn't get anything out, until Brandi smacked me in the back, and I got out a squeaky reply out of me, "Hi!"
He smiled, and then turned back around to start the car.
In the passenger seat sat Riley, Brandi's boyfriend. He was cool, I loved him as a brother.
So, Jake started the car and we headed out.
For like 30 minutes, me and Brandi talked about different random things, most of them from her about Bert.
Our hair blew in each other's faces, since the top of the car was down.
After me and Brandi had calmed down, and sat quietly in the backseat, I asked, "Where are we going anyway?"
"The mall." Jake replied to me.
I looked at Brandi, who was looking around as if she didn't hear.
"Brandi, you said we were going to the movies." I said, looking suspiciously at her.
She quickly glanced at me, and said, "Change of plans."
"But....doesnt the mall close at 8? It's 9:30!" I said.
Then, Brandi smiled. "See thats the good part! Jake's dad is a janitor at the mall, and so he has keys to every door in the mall."
She didn't say anymore, but I knew what she was planning for us to do. "So we are breaking in?!" I exclaimed.
"No!" Brandi said. "I mean we aren't going to steal anything! We just want to know how it is when everyone is gone from the mall and it is just us."
I looked at her, panic rising in me, showing on my face.
"Oh my god! Oh my god, you are going to get me in trouble!" I said, and drummed my fingers on my leg, like I do when I am nervous.
"Don't worry!" Brandi said to me. "We won't get in trouble."
I just looked at her, and breathed heavily in and out.
From the mirror in the front, I could tell Jake was smiling.
I smiled since he was, but I was still nervous.
'Lets just hope Uncle Jepha doesn't find out.' I thought to myself, as we kept on driving.
When we finally got there, Jake stopped the car in front of this door on the side of the mall. He got out of the car, got out the keys from his pocket and opened the door.
He told us to wait in the car as he went inside.
We all waited for a while, until finally Jake came back out, and nodded.
"Okay, good! I had to turn of the alarms inside the mall. We don't want them going off when we go inside."
Then we parked in the front where the front door was.
We all got out of the car, and walked to it.
You could tell the lights were out inside. The only lights on were the ones in the parking lot.
Brandi and Riley walked hand in hand. I always thought that they were a cute couple.
When we got to the door, Jake fingled with the keys on the door, and after a few seconds, it opened, making all this cold air from inside blow on us, giving me goosebumps on my arms.
Jake let us all in, then went in himself, and we were in the large lobby of the mall.
All these stores that were obviously closed stood on each side of us.
"WHOO!!!!" cried Riley, and he ran ahead of us, the the stairs as he planned to go upstairs.
"Riley, wait!!!" yelled Brandi from behind him, and she ran too.
Which left me and Jake by ourselves.
He just looked at me, and then stuck his hands in his jean pockets.
My face started to blush because I didn't know what to say.
After a few seconds, I finally gained the courage to try to start a conversation, when before I said anything, Jake says, "I will be back." then leaves, me just standing there not knowing what to do.
I then walked to one of the benches in the lobby and sat down.
Brandi finally walked to me and sat down.
"Soooo...." She said, nudging my shoulder. "how is it going?"
I looked at her sadly. "Not so good! Where is Riley?" I then asked.
Brandi just waved her hand. "Oh they went somewhere in the mall together."
Then, Brandi smiled, and out of her pocket, she swung in my face, a key.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Oh nothing." she said. "I just asked Jake if we could....you know....look through Hot Topic, and he gave me the key."
I looked at her, stunned. "Really?!" I asked, excited.
She nodded happily.
"Well then we shouldn't waste any time!" I exclaimed as we got up from the bench and ran to Hot Topic.
As we ran, our feet echoed all around. But we didn't care. No one could here, 'cept Jake and Riley, but they weren't going to stop us.
So we ran until we finally got there.
We squealed in delight as Brandi unlocked the chained net that hung down in front of the entrance.
When she finally got it open, we ran inside.
We literally looked at everything, squealing at what we thought was awesome, and groaning at what we thought was ugly. Unfortunately, we couldn't take anything, no matter how much we wanted, but we still had an oober fun time, looking at all this stuff. Plus, now we knew what we would get the next time we did come to Hot Topic to shop.
After we were done, we locked the store back up again, and continued to walk around the store.
After a few minutes of laughing and walking around, me and Brandi stopped walking and sniffed the air.
Brandi turned to me. "Do you smell....smoke?" she asked.
I nodded, and we searched for what was the cause of it.
When we couldn't discover what it was, I said to Brandi, "Let's just hope it was nothing."
"Yeah." she replied.
As we continued to walk, we could still smell the odor when we heard footsteps behind us. We turned around to see who it was when we saw Jake and Riley walking towards us.
"There you two are!" Brandi exclaimed. "Where were you?"
"Just looking around baby! That was the plan wasn't it?" Riley replied back.
Brandi looked at Riley curiously because he had never called her baby before, only when they were making out, but she just shrugged and went over to hug Riley.
When she did, the smell came to her again, stronger now this time, and as she embraced Riley, she sniffed his shirt.
Brandi eyes widened, and she quickly got away from Riley. "Riley....you.....you smell like weed!"
I looked at Brandi, bewildered. "What?!"
"Don't worry girls, there is always an explanation for everything!" said Jake, sound as high as ever.
Brandi crossed her arms. "Okay, then tell us! What did you two do?" she said, now sounding furious, like a mom with a child who had just gotten in her make up.
"Me and Jake here just went to go walk around, and we were bored! There is nothing to do here, so Jake took out the weed, and we smoke a few!" said Riley, as if it didn't mean anything and people did it all the time.
Me and Brandi's jaws opened wide in surprise.
"I can not believe you two!!!" Brandi started to scream at them. "We are leaving....now!"
Brandi stomped towards Riley and grabbed his arm and walked him menacingly to the parking lot, where the car was.
I just looked at Jake disbelievingly, and followed Brandi and Riley.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Jake exclaimed as he ran from behind to me.
I didn't acknowledge him, so he grabbed my arm and pulled me so that I was now facing him.
"I need to talk to you alone!" He said with this smirk on his face.
I rolled my eyes. "Then hurry up and say it, we have to go!" I said angrily.
He just smiled, and then put his hand on my back, and pulled me closer to him.
"You......are hot!" He said.
I tried to pull away from him. "Let go of me!" I said.
He didn't say anything, but instead, pressed his lips onto mine, kissing me hard, making it awkward since I was trying to pull away.
I then slapped his face, and he quickly let go of me, letting out a cry as he held his right cheek.
"Brandi!!!!" I screamed as I ran to the front door.
As I ran, I made a turn and saw Brandi running towards me.
We stopped in front of each other. "What is it?" she asked concerned.
I turned around, to see Jake running towards us, obviously furious at me hitting him.
Me and Brandi just stood there, not knowing what to do, when Jake finally got to us.
His face was red with fury as he looked down on me. "Now you are going to get it!" He yelled as he raised his arm to smack me, when we heard from behind us, "HEY!"
We all looked behind to see one of the security officers running towards us, with a gun in his hand.
When he got to us, still pointing the gun, he yelled, "Put your hands up!"
We all did, as he pushed us to the side of the wall and handcuffed us.
"Are there anymore of you?" He asked.
"Y-y-yes sir! One in the car outside." Brandi cried, tears in her eyes.
"I will get him later." the officer said, as he finished cuffing us.
He then led us outside to the police car, where we now knew we were going to be arrested.
Beside me, Brandi sobbed uncontrollably.
We couldn't believe we were being arrested.
I didn't cry, but I knew that by the time I got home, Uncle Jepha would already know what happened, and I wouldn't be crying, but instead, dead meat.
'Oh, god! I am sooo dead!' I thought in my head. 'Uncle Jepha is going to kill me!'
As the officer led us to the car, I looked at Jake who furiously stared back at me, the mark from where I slapped him still visible on his right cheek.