AN: Hello my lovely readers :D Before I get started with the story, I wanna say thank you to my awesome reviewers, who had reviewed the first chapter :D I do appreciate it very much. Every review I get, always makes a difference to me as a bit of support and motivation. This chapter is mainly a Elwood/Maria chapter so I apologize if it's somewhat boring, but the brothers are sure to interact with each other later on in story :)
So now, here is yet another installment of "Roadhouse Blues".
Many hours after they had left the truck stop in Dallas, the Blues Brothers' tour bus continued to drive along the long road in the chilly and wet East Texas climate. Driving during the Mid-fall always came with a caution to the truck drivers who would pass through the road, especially because of the risk of heavy rain. Even in the night, Maria looked outside the cool window and noticed grey skies as the rain pour outside the tour bus like a water faucet.
"Do you know if the rain is gonna continue all through the night?" she asked Elwood, who sat causally next to her doodling in his sketchbook.
He looked up at her from his drawing and then outside the window where the raindrops were hitting against it harder and harder.
"I don't really know" Elwood replied
"I hope so" she replied "I don't like it when it rains this much at night"
"Why?" he asked curiously "Scared of lightning?"
"I don't like what follows."
A sudden clap of thunder boomed and echoed across the sky, making Maria jump.
"If the rain and thunder don't stop at this rate, I won't be able to get any sleep." She complained "As it is, we have to deal with Jake's snoring!"
"Is my snoring really that loud?" Jake asked as he came from a separate room in the back of the bus and opened the refrigerator.
"You can wake the dead" Maria replied
"Well, hopefully we'll be able to book us a hotel room and stay the night there." Elwood said to his brother and girlfriend.
"If we stay at a hotel, we gotta hurry up and leave in the early morning" Jake said as he took a map that rested on the mini-kitchen counter
He opened the map up and pointed to a place that was a medium distance away from Dallas "Here we are and by night time, we'll be right on the outskirts of Texas"
He slid his finger from his current position on the map to the borderline that separated Texas and Louisiana. "If we leave in the early morning, we'll be able to reach Shreveport, Louisiana by noon."
"What's there in Shreveport?" Elwood asked
Jake shrugged "I don't know, but I want to stop in a city because..."
He dropped his voice after he turned around to see if Rita was listening and sounded uncomfortable.
"I wanna...uh.. surprise Rita with a date"
Maria smiled "Wow Jake, that's actually pretty sweet of you"
Jake still felt uncomfortable, but continued talking
"I haven't spent time with her ever since we went on tour and I know she's only gonna be with us until she has to go back to work, so mind as well take her out, right?"
"Sure" Elwood said with a shrug
"Just wear a condom" Maria added
"Oh ha ha" Jake replied sarcastically as he frowned at her
"I'm serious, dude." She replied with a wide-eyed look in her eyes "Unless you want a Jake Jr. inside of her...which I highly doubt you want"
"Shouldn't you be lecturing about that to your loverboy, here?!" Jake asked as he pointed his thumb at Elwood
Elwood shot a look at Jake while he turned a deep red
"I don't have to worry about Elwood. He's not a horn dog like you" Maria retorted
"He's not?" Jake asked
He turned to Elwood disappointingly "What the hell, man? You gotta give some lovin' to your woman!"
Maria began to object "It's not that, it's just..."
"Wait!" Jake suddenly interrupted with a smirk "So...he does "Give you some lovin'" then?"
"That's not what I said!" Maria argued as she turned pink
"Don't bullshit, Six Strings; you're turning red!"
Jake was being proven correct, as Maria's whole face began to turn a tomato red.
"You just admitted Elwood plows you!" Jake exclaimed with a laugh
Maria scowled in embarrassment as Elwood hid his face behind his hand and Jake continued to laugh
"Fuck you, Jake" Maria finally said
"No thanks, I have a girlfriend to do that for me" Jake joked with a sly grin as he walked back to the back of the bus with his girlfriend
"Ugh!" Maria complained as she plopped down on the couch with her arms crossed.
She reached for her acoustic guitar and began strumming a fast riff with a sneer on her face, relieving her frustration
"Your brother really knows how to irk me, doesn't he?" she asked Elwood, not looking up from her guitar
"I know he can go overboard at times" Elwood began as he sat next to her and extended his arm around her, trying to be reasonable in hopes of calming her down "But I know he means well"
"I just don't want him to know about our...um...intimacy" Maria added with a blush on her cheeks
Elwood adjusted his tie uncomfortably "I see what you mean"
"As it is, I don't want the audience or the public to know about us!" she exclaimed "The press will be all over us!"
"I know, but look on the bright side." Elwood assured her "At least we know Jake won't go blabbing to the press about the both of us"
Maria shrugged and nodded her head in reluctant agreement.
He's right... Jake kept his word when I told him not to tell Elwood about me being a virgin at the time...
Elwood hugged her tightly and kissed her cheek, making her smile "Everything will be alright"
She sighed and turned her head to face him, still keeping the smile on her face "You always know what to say to me."
Elwood smiled as she kissed him and he happily returned it. After the kiss stopped, Elwood spoke up again.
"Y'know, there's something about you I've always been curious about"
"What's that?" she asked
He looked over her shoulder to the acoustic guitar she had put down next to her and now lied across the couch vertically. She turned her head in the direction he was looking at and noticed the guitar. She turned back to face him
"My guitar?" she asked
"How you learned to play it"
"Well, I learned how to play it during my time at the orphanage" she told him
"I remember you telling me that.." He began
"Here, let me show you what I had to learn."
She reached for her acoustic and put her fingers on her left hand into position onto the strings and upper fretboards.
"At first, I only learned the simplistic chords like the E minor"
She strummed an E minor with her thumb in a smooth motion of her wrist
"And then an A minor"
She strummed the A minor chord in a similar fashion.
"But then I learned the harder ones soon after like the G minor major 7th chord"
She positioned her fingers in an awkward looking position on the strings and fretboards and strummed the G minor major 7th chord.
She looked up at Elwood and handed the guitar to him eagerly. "Here, you try it"
He raised his eyebrows in a surprised manner
"That chord?" He asked, being doubtful he could position his fingers into a chord like that
"No, I mean playing the actual guitar" she replied with a chuckle "I'll show you the basics"
"Uh...sure" He said awkwardly as Maria placed the guitar on his lap.
He held the guitar up and positioned it with his right arm and places his fingers on the top fret.
"What do I do first?" He asked
"Well, before any guitarist starts playing, he or she needs to learn the names of the six strings the guitar has" she instructed
Maria pointed to the thick, lower string "That's an E and the top string is an E. The difference is, is that the last one is an octave lower than the first one. Try playing them and hear the differences"
Elwood played the lower string, but heard a muted sound.
He narrowed his eyebrows in confusion "That's not what it's supposed to sound like"
Maria chuckled and gently removed his right hand and fingers from the fret board, which caused the muting sound. "That was the problem"
"Oh" Elwood replied, feeling stupid.
"It's a common mistake, it's no problem" she reassured
Elwood tried again with playing the string and played it successfully. He strummed the top string and noticed the high and low sounds of the octaves
Ohh, now I see what she means..
"You see?" she asked "Those are your beginning and ending strings. The names of all the strings are E, A, D, G, B, E."
Elwood played each string carefully and noticed their sound changes.
"There you go" she said happily
"What about some of the chords?" he asked
"Here..."
Maria lifted Elwood's right hand to the fret board again and placed his index and middle fingers on the A and D strings on the second fret. "Hold those strings down with those fingers"
Elwood did as he was told
"Don't press down too hard or else your fingers will start to hurt" She advised "Since you're a beginner, you haven't developed the calluses on your fingertips yet"
She lifted her fingers up, to show her boyfriend the rough patches of skin on her fingertips.
"So, that's why your fingers are rough..." he wondered.
"Exactly"
Elwood turned back to the guitar and strummed all the strings carefully.
"And that is how you play an E minor" Maria told him
Elwood smiled gently to himself, feeling somewhat proud of himself for learning something new.
"So you learned stuff like this since you were 5?" Elwood asked her
"Yes, indeedy" she replied proudly "My dad, showed me some of the easy chords on his guitar and bought me a small one for me to play with."
The sudden memory of her playing along with her dad on guitar appeared in her head and her mood and tone changed. Her smile disappeared and her voice sounded sullen "It wasn't until after my parents died, that I began to take music seriously and began wanting to play it for a living."
"Because of your Rock N' Roll records that you played to annoy the nuns?" Elwood asked
"Not only that" she began "But the music reminded me of the good times I had with them"
Elwood sighed "It's a shame"
"Yes it is" she agreed quietly
The couple remained silent with sadness until Maria let out a sigh and hand a hand through her hair "I'm so sorry for putting the mood down! I didn't want to steer away the happiness of you learning about guitar!"
Elwood chuckled as he set down the guitar "It's alright"
"You did a good job" she said with a smile and a kiss on his cheek "If more students were as cooperative as you, I wouldn't mind teaching guitar to kids"
"If only I had teachers like you growing up, I might actually pay attention in school" Elwood joked
"Teachers like me how?" Maria asked with a wink of her eye
Elwood was about to answer but then Harv interrupted him
"Hey guys, I'm gonna head to a truck stop; this thing is getting low on gas and the rain is pouring even harder"
Maria turned her attention to the window behind her and saw the many raindrops land rapidly against the window.
Shit, he's right...
"We'll ask for the nearest motel once we park at the truck stop" Elwood said to his girlfriend
"Alright, I'll let Jake and Rita know" Maria replied as she stood up and made her way to the back of the bus.
"Hey, Sonny and Cher..." Maria joked as she approached the door to Jake's little room.
She opened the door to the little room about to tell them what Harv had told she and Elwood, but when she did, she paused at what she saw. There laid Rita resting her red- haired head on Jake's chest, in a peaceful and cozy slumber. Jake wasn't any different. He too was fast asleep in a peaceful slumber, and had an arm snugly around Rita's waist as he snored. Maria smirked at the sight of the couple and gently closed the door to let them be. She walked back to the front of the bus and approached Elwood with a finger to her lips and a jerk of her thumb to Jake's door, indicating that they were asleep.
"I didn't want to wake them up" she whispered
"Alright" Elwood said quietly "Let's just park the bus and sleep in it for the night"
"Okay"
Later, Harv parked the tour bus at a truck stop after filling up the tank and fell right asleep on the pull out sofa near the front of the bus. Maria, meanwhile, yawned as she removed her outfit and got dressed in her baggy tshirt and pajama pants.
Thank god I didn't wear make up today...too much of a pain to take off anyway
She climbed into bed and got under the snug covers right before Elwood joined her, having to have changed from his black suit outfit to some boxers and a white undershirt.
"Tomorrow's going to be a busy day" Elwood said to her as he removed his shades and laid them on the nightstand by his side. "For Jake and Rita, anyway..."
"Yup" Maria agreed "But that's gonna leave us with nothing to do"
He turned his side to face her and smiled "How about I give you a little lesson in drawing? Seeing that you showed me the basics of your talent..."
She smiled back at him "I'd like that"
Maria leaned forward and gave Elwood a small but still sweet kiss against his soft lips
"Goodnight, Elwood" she whispered "I love you"
"I love you too" He whispered at the same volume as he stroked the side of her soft cheek with his hand
With those words, Maria closed her eyes and rested her head against her boyfriend's chest as Elwood wrapped an arm around her and joined his girlfriend in slumbers.
AN: Maria teaching Elwood guitar, Jake and Rita cuddling against each other, and then Elwood and Maria cuddling together as well...
I know it's sorta sappy...but it was cute right? ;)
But don't get too cozy with the sweetness...that's all I'm gonna say.
I had some fun with this chapter :) Believe it or not, a dream I had recently and the band Van Halen gave me inspiration for it. I had a dream that The Blues Brothers came to my theater class because my teacher said "They're gonna be our guest mentors and they will teach you individually" So of course, I hoped that my mentor was Elwood but I got Jake, which is ok because either way, I'll be mentored by a Blues Brother! :) So Jake taught me how to do facial expressions onstage which is funny because he and John Landis did something like that on the set of "Animal House".
Also, my dream reminded me of "Hot for Teacher" by Van Halen because...let's face it, the Blues Brothers are damn good looking guys and I wouldn't mind staying after school for them ;)
