"Hey, do you want to come over to my place today? I just wrote a new song on my bass guitar."

Todd looked cocky and self-satisfied as he bragged to Ramona.

"You play bass?" Ramona asked, surprised.

"Yeah. Since I was twelve."

"Wow. This may sound weird, but I actually thought you were a lead guitarist kind of guy."

"Bass gives you more control. I mean, yeah, guitar is flashy, but bass is like...like more uh...you know...dundundunduhduhduhdundun...with like...yeah."

"...Does your song have words?"

"Yeah. I wrote them myself."

"Great."

"I'd like to think I'm pretty elegant and poetic with words."

"Well then, let's go right now."

Todd's house was a little roomier than the others on the street. The basement was finished and furnished, and the kitchen looked like it came straight from Better Homes and Gardens. It was absolutely completely silent when Todd and Ramona walked in. Ramona was ill at ease, despite the cheery surroundings,

"Hey Todd, you got any parents here or what?"

"Yeah," Todd replied, his tone bitter, "my dad. Probably out somewhere right now, though. We don't really get along." Ramona and Todd continued down the hallway, until finally stopping in front of a door, which was ordinary and almost exactly like all the other doors in the house, except for the bolt that secured it shut. Ramona looked at the bolt skeptically. "Pest control, or something?"

"Or something," Todd snorted, "more like dad control." Todd unbolted the door.

The room was decorated around a single theme- Todd's bass. Posters of bass guitars and bass guitarists covered every square inch of all four walls. The shelves were stocked with books about music theory and biographies of bass players, all the furniture was arranged in a circle around the centerpiece of the room, the bass itself.

"Wow," Ramona said, drinking in her surroundings.

"Uh, yeah, wow. Ramona, do you see these guys on the wall?" Todd gestured to the posters that loomed over the pair like guardians. "I am already better than all these guys. Except for that one. And maybe that one. But everyone else."

Ramona raised an eyebrow.

"Don't believe me? Listen to this, babe." Todd strut over to the center of the room, picked up the bass and flung a strap over his shoulder. Ramona walked to Todd's bed and sat down, cross-legged. Todd sat in one of the nearby chairs and closed his eyes.