Chequered Nettle

I held it for as long as I could. My throat burned, but I held it. At this point my lungs were beginning to run out of air, and the music never seemed to stop. Then I heard Seth hit the drums and I knew it was time to start the bridge. I cut the note awkwardly, but I was a pro, I shifted tones expertly. Only a musical genius would be able to hear it.

Quickly glancing right to see Alice's reaction to my impressive transition, I saw her checking her nails looking very bored. Maybe I wasn't as amazing as I though I was? But I continued none the less. The final musical notes began and I finished in a powerful and perfect belt. A bit more showy than normal.

"That was great guys." Duke was the first to say anything.

"Way to show off there at the end there Ira." Seth quipped from behind his drum set. "Any particular reason why?"

"I'm just that awesome." I replied giving the wink and the gun.

"Your last transition was sloppy." Duke reflected. He was the only one who would be able to tell. I knew exactly what he was talking about. That song, I had shared it with Sonny. He sang lead while I did background. With him gone I should've gone to lead and Alice background, but he was set that he wanted me to do by myself now. Alice got a few 'ohs' and 'las' here and there.

"I would probably nail her - it! Nail it, if I don't know, Alice took over my old part." I said nervously shifting the attention to her. Thank god her nails seemed to be more important than our conversation at the moment.

"She's fine where she's at right now." Duke said quickly. "I'll rewrite the song to give you more bars." But that comment hadn't gone unnoticed. All fascination she had held for her nails vanished and I could feel her cold stare slowly etching itself into my soul.

Then the awkward silence followed. I felt frozen by her disdainful glare, nothing came to mind in to try to lighten the mood. I could try a gay joke, but I could already feel them getting old with this bunch. Ezra seemed to be the only one who appreciated gay jokes lately, but it was mostly because they were about him.

"Woah, it got real quiet." Blu pointed out coming out of his semi-trance and noticing the silence. Seth elbowed in him the ribs and Blue shrugged, honestly confused.

"It did. Didn't it. Well since you're almost done, I'm going to take off early." She said putting her bag over her shoulder.

"Wait! Duke I really don't mind sharing with Alice. Just give her something to do. She's great, you've just got to give her a chance." I tired putting an arm over her shoulder and giving her a light squeeze.

"Hand off." she snapped and I was quick to comply. Duke ran his hand through his long hair - a nervous habit I had noticed recently - then checked the time on his wrist watch.

"Alright." He replied curtly. "But I'll still rewrite incase it doesn't work out. I have to go secure our spot at Delane. Teach her the other part then I'll decide what to do." He said before walking up and out the stairs. Alice was quick to respond.

"You get to leave early but when - Wait. Delane?" Alice asked suddenly horrified. Which was surprising.

Delane. A run down plantation that doubled as a bed and breakfast that was desperately trying to compete with the more luxurious hotels. The only thing it had going for it was that it was incredibly old, impossibly huge and somewhat historical.

"That's where they're hosting the preliminary round." Seth explained. "The crappiest places usually go first."

The expression on her face remained the same, but the color in Alice's face drained to a pale grey. For a moment I thought she would hurl. She looked away briefly and I could see her chest heaving with deep breaths. Up, and down, up and down. I made a mental note to remind her to wear a v-neck next time.

"You look sick." Blu pointed out, he was the first to approach her. He was too clueless to be intimidated, a trait I sometimes admired.

"What's wrong?" I asked, and Alice came back with a lingering horror still in her eyes. Somehow the color had returned to her face.

"Nothing." she replied then demanded me to teach her the song.

We did as she asked. First we replayed the song, with me in the sideline trying to pinpoint her errors and correct her. Duke was always a lot better at this than I was, but I found Alice correcting herself whenever I missed anything. Even things I hadn't noticed were wrong with the song to begin with.

She suggested that we speed up the tempo and add the bridge to the beginning of the song to solidify the theme and to save the chorus for the climax and keep the song strong after that. Lastly to end suddenly instead of just fading out.

I knew I was right to chose her. She learned very quickly. And she sounded awesome. Better than when I heard her at the karaoke bar. I just couldn't believe it. It looked like Duke would to have some stiff competition, or at least a match musically.

"It's all nonsense. Why add it if it's he's just going to forget about completely." Alice said looking at the music sheets for the bass. We were sitting down on sofa, music sheets spread out on the table. "It's completely narcissistic, this band hardly needs a bass and he knows it. Thats why he added this part."

"Duke does more than just play bass." I said not even sure why exactly I was defending him. I wanted Alice's good side, not his. "He plays the keyboard sometimes. . ." and other things, but I couldn't tell her that.

"Wow, the keyboard that's impressive." She said clearly not amused. She dropped the bass sheet and picked up the guitar. Try all she could, as weird as Blu was, he was incredible at the guitar.

"Where are Seth and Nathan?" she asked looking around. It took me a while to register that she had meant Blu. But when I looked around the room was empty. We had been looking over the music sheets for a while now. It looked like we took longer than we thought. Seth and Blu had probably gotten impatient waiting, or just left. They had that obnoxious habit of ditching me constantly.

"They must have left." I said standing up. "We should get going too. You were in a hurry earlier." I reminded her. As soon as I she seemed to remember something very important. She suddenly stood up and collected her bag.

"I have to go." she said quickly. But there was something I had to know first.

"Wait!" I said and she stopped halfway up the stairs and looked back. "Why do you call him Nathan?" I asked collecting some of the sheets. "That's weird, everyone just calls him Blu."

"I don't know him that well."

"But you will. Might as well get started now." I said giving her the wink and gun before putting the paper over a strange coaster, or what looked like a coaster. It might've been a burger patty at some point.

"What the hell was that?"

"A patty I think." I replied thoughtlessly. Holding the patty/coaster up so she could see.

"No not that. This," she said and pointed a finger gun and contorted her pretty face into a very odd wink. A weird clicking noise came from her mouth as she did it.

"The wink and gun. You haven't heard of it before?" I asked surprised. Who didn't know what the wink and gun was? That wasn't even possible.

"No I have. You just look like an imbecile when you do it."