Dazey Records

It was Friday afternoon and the record store had been open for nearly three days now. In this time, I was still unable to deduce why the previous store had closed down, business wasn't exactly booming but it wasn't dead either. Nick had reassured me that once his friends played on the weekend that business would pick up a lot more, apparently his friends' band was pretty popular not only in the United States but overseas as well. I was counting on this band to bring in the big business.

Since I wanted to make the store completely available at all times to attract customers, I was considering hiring another staff member to run the store on weekends. I designed a sign to put on the door, hoping to attract someone young on the weekend.

I had messaged Nick asking what time his friends were turning up to set up, but he hadn't replied. Since last week he'd been acting kind of weird towards me and I was 100% sure it was because of the kiss.

My phone starting ringing, Nick's name coming up on caller ID. I answered it quickly, trying not to seem too eager to talk to him.

"Hey Nick, how are you?"

"I'm good. I got your message about tomorrow and I decided that you deserve a morning off so I'll open up the store tomorrow and you just come in before we open the doors to the flock of teenage girls that will be here," he offered.

"Nick, I can run the store, it's only been three days."

"No, you'll want a break before you try deal with some of these girls. Besides, we'll probably be annoying you by coming in and out of the store with gear and making noise and stuff, you deserve the break after how hard you've been working the last few weeks."

"Alright then, thanks Nick. So if they're playing at 2pm I'll try and come in at like 1pm? And you should come in this afternoon so I can teach you how to work the register and give you the key to open."

"I'll be over as soon as possible. See ya Daze."

Nick was walking in the store within fifteen minutes and he started picking up the registers pretty quickly. As I was explaining how to put through credit card sales, a couple of teenage girls walked into the store. They looked over at the counter, saw Nick, and started giggling and whispering fervently between themselves.

I ignored it and continued showing Nick how to work things. The girls came up to counter with a couple of CDs, still giggling and looking at Nick.

Nick really plastered on the niceness. "Hey, girls, how are you?"

"I'm good, how are you Nick?" the blonde one answered.

"I'm pretty good. You like the store?"

"Yeah, it's really cool. Are you going to be at The Maine's performance tomorrow?"

Nick shot them a smile. "Hell yeah I am! This is my friend Daisy, she owns this store."

I rolled my eyes at the attention and put through their CDs.

"Oh my gosh, I love your daisy tattoo!" the blonde one exclaimed. I lifted my arm slightly to look down at it, peeking through the baggy singlet I was wearing.

"Oh, uh, thanks?"

"Daisy is my favourite song by The Maine," she gushed and I frowned. Did I miss something?

"Uh, I'll see you girls tomorrow, yeah?" Nick said nervously. I handed the girl a bag with her CDs in it as she handed me the cash to pay for them.

"See you then Nick!" They left and Nick rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

"So, who were they?" I asked him with an eyebrow raised.

"Just some fans. You'll get to know a few of them now that they know you're friends with me, they'll spread the word and soon this place will be infested with teenage girls."

"That's a good thing, right?"

Nick nodded his head vigorously. "They're very passionate about bands they love, they'll buy anything that has the band's name on it."

I gave Nick the spare key to the store and within another hour I was on my way home, excited to enjoy my first morning off in a while.

* * * * *

I gave myself plenty of time to get ready the next day, thankful for Nick insisting on opening the store for me. I wore makeup for the first time in a while, since I was usually too tired or running late most days.

Driving down the main street, there was a line of girls and I chuckled, thinking of the poor bastard who had to deal with them all. It wasn't until I got closer to my parking spot that I realised the line began outside the door of my store. I felt my heart accelerate as I got out of the car and neared the door. I excused myself and went upstairs, walking straight up to Nick with wide eyes.

"How the hell are supposed to fit that many people in here?" I began to panic.

"Chill, Daze. We're gonna move some of those stands towards the back so there's more room and we're going to move the middle ones outwards some more so they don't block people's view. Don't you worry your pretty little head, we've got it all under control."

I moved the smaller stands to the back of the room while Nick, Halvo and a long-haired guy moved the bigger stands outwards, making the room look bigger already.

We were set to open the doors in five minutes, however the band was freaking out since their lead singer hadn't showed up yet.

"This is the worst possible thing that could happen, oh god there's going to be a bunch of pissed off girls in here soon and they'll all blame me since it's my store and-"

"Sorry I'm late," came a husky voice from the door. I turned to get a look at Halvo's infamous roommate and the lead singer, however he had already headed for the stage area to set up and I needed to start getting these girls in ASAP.

I grabbed the 20% off coupons I had made before heading to the door, dragging Nick with me.

"Hand one of these out to everyone that comes in, I need to make money from this somehow."

We opened the doors and handed out coupons as quickly as possible, the line never seemed to stop.

Once we were certain that there was no line left, we went back upstairs into the store where the boys had just begun their first song.

I must admit, they were a pretty good band, definitely something I could enjoy in the right atmosphere.

The song finished and the girls all clapped and cheered for them.

"So, we didn't really write a huge set list for this since it was pretty last minute, and also because it's so intimate we wanted to give you the power to decide what we play," the lead singer said in his beautiful Arizonian accent.

"Daisy!" I heard someone yell out in the crowd and I looked to see who was calling my name.

The lead singer chuckled. "Of course you wanna hear Daisy. Well, since we're in Dazey Records, I guess we could give it a shot."

They started playing and I zoned out again until he reached the chorus.

"All for you, my Daisy."

I looked up towards the stage and my eyes widened in shock as I saw who was singing. I never knew John O'Callaghan had it in him to sing.

I quickly walked down the stairs to catch my breath and try to stop the tears building in my eyes from falling in front of people I didn't know.

I sat on the bottom step for a few minutes until I caught my breath and my tears had stopped. Once I headed back upstairs, Nick was standing by the door watching as I sneaked back in.

He moved over to me, speaking lowly as not to attract attention. "Hey, you okay? You disappeared for a moment there."

I nodded. "Started getting a little stuffy in here, I just needed to get some air."

For the next half an hour I listened to the band play while serving a few customers who decided that they were sick of craning their heads to try catch a glimpse of the boys.

Once they had finished playing, Nick and Halvo began to quickly move the stands back to their original places so everyone could move around the store with ease.

Between girls milling around with their phones getting photos with the band and the sudden influx of sales, the store was busy for the next hour and while it was exhausting, I was very glad Nick had talked me into it. He was right, girls would buy anything with a band's name on it and I could see that I was going to need to do a serious stock order after the weekend.

Once the crowd started to die down, the band packed up their instruments ready to leave. The long-haired guy that was helping to move the store around came up to counter after I had finished serving more customers.

"Hi, I didn't get a chance to introduce myself before. I'm Pat." He stuck his hand out for me to shake.

"I'm Daisy," I said, shaking his hand.

"Nick's told us so much about you," he said as he was joined by another taller guy from his band.

"I hope he hasn't embarrassed me too much," I joked.

"Don't worry, we have plenty of embarrassing stories to tell about him," the other guy joked. He stuck out his hand for me to shake, "I'm Jared by the way."

"Daisy."

"John had to run back home to start packing for our trip, so I'm gonna go and join him," Halvo said as he approached the counter with Nick.

"Daze, do you want me to stay back and help you pack up this afternoon?" Nick asked me. I looked around the store, seeing stock where it shouldn't be and shelves that were emptier than usual, and nodded.

"I'm going to have to do a stocktake and big clean up. Those girls are like a hurricane, but damn was it good for business."

"What did I tell you? Now that they know you're associated with me, they'll be in here any spare moment they get," Nick said.

Together we got the store tidied up and I began a list of what I would need to order in. I had already begun to plan out more events in my head and I made a mental note to pick up a black book on my way home.

"Okay, let's go through the closing check list. Stock tidied?" I questioned.

"Check."

"Till emptied?"

Nick held up the bag with today's takings in it. "Check."

"All power is turned off?"

"Check. Except for the lights which I'll hit on the way out."

"Okay. I think that's it. Thanks for your help Nick."

He gave me a smile. "No problem, Daisy. I'm glad today was big, hopefully it means you'll get a lot more business in the future."

I nodded. "As crazy as it was, it was exciting. I'm definitely going to run more of these things in the future."

Nick flipped the light switch and I locked the door behind us, heading down to my car.

"So, what did you think of the guys?"

I hesitated, not sure what to say that wouldn't give too much away. "They were really great. I only met a couple of them, but their music is really good and you can tell they love it."

Nick nodded. "Yeah, we're all pretty passionate about what we do. I think that's the best part about it. None of us are in it for the money, just the joy of making music and making other people happy."

We were silent for a moment before I decided to ask the question that was really bugging me. "So where are Halvo and John headed?"

"They're heading out to LA for a few weeks, Halvo has friends out there that they're going to stay with."

I internally breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that I wasn't going to have to deal with unexpectedly running into John in the next few weeks. It would give me some time to explain everything to Nick so he could help me figure something out. I just hoped that it would end better than I was expecting.