"Why are you so desperate to hire new song writers? Ally said she'd still write songs for us," Austin said, while walking around Starr Records.
"Because, Austin. She has a life now, we can't keep pestering her," Trish muttered.
Clearly, she didn't know anything. About how Ally loved to write songs, and how she loved to write songs for people to perform because it gave her a tinge of pride. Ally had actually already sent them three songs, but Trish hadn't heard them.
"You're not pestering me," Ally said, coming into the entrance.
Austin grinned and gave her a short side hug. "No work today?"
She shook her head. "I got the day off. You act like it's been forever since we've seen each other."
"It has been!" Dez whined.
"It's been two days, Dez. She's been at Clef for two weeks," Trish cut in, rolling her eyes.
"So how is it?" Austin asked, pulling out a chair for her to sit in.
"It's fun. I even made a friend," she said, writing in her memo pad. "And I got this cool little pad thingy to jot down lyrics on, isn't that cool?"
Austin laughed at her dorkyness. It was cute. "Wait, you made new friends already?"
"Just one. You know I couldn't replace you guys, it'd be impossible," Ally said. She wrote something down into her pad.
"Hey, do you think these pants make my ham look big?" Dez said, holding up a ham. Ally rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, it'd be pretty hard to find someone like him, anyway," Ally said. Austin chuckled, looking at her pad.
"Uh, Ally, what are you doing?" he said. On the pad, there was a bunch of scribbles. Literal scribbles, just all over the page.
"I just like writing in it. It feels so cool!" Ally said, grinning with excitement.
"Weird use of the word cool, but okay," Trish said from behind the counter.
Ally gave her a smug grin before flipping the pages in her pad. Not all of them were scribbles. There were actually some pretty decent lyrics in here, but they were all incomplete. She made a mental note to try to finish them later. Realizing she still had the pad, she flipped the paper over and wrote it down there. Done. Feeling content with herself, she stood up, slinging the bag back over her shoulder. Austin grabbed at her hand.
"You're going? You just got here. I thought we still had the pancake lunch thing going on!" Austin whined, pouting.
She grinned. "I'm just going to put this back at the office," she said, pulling a manila envelope out of her bag. Trish laughed as Ally made her way out.
"Dude, could you be any more obvious?"
He wrinkled his brow in confusion. "About what?"
"That you like her!" Trish said.
Austin scoffed. "Psh, whaaaat?"
"Even I got that, Austin," Dez replied.
"You guys don't know what you're talking about," he said, shaking his head.
"Mmhm," Trish said. "Just remember, I bet there's someone out there that's gonna sweep her off her feet at that school if you don't hike up your shorts and make a move."
She crept around her office quietly, trying to slip the envelope into the box with the lights off.
She felt a familiar hand on her shoulder.
Aaah!
So much for quiet. She spun around to find Jo, resisting the urge to laugh.
"We have gotta stop meeting like this," Jo said, still suppressing her giggles.
Ally nodded, biting her lip to hide hers as well. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you. Did you still wanna grab that lunch?" Jo asked.
Ally looked around nervously. "Well..I kind of had plans."
"Oh, okay," Jo said, turning around to leave.
"No, no, no! You can come with! It's just me and my friend Austin!"
"Okay, but I'm buying."
The lunch was pretty much eventless, aside from Jo nearly having a heart attack when she realized Austin was the Austin Moon. Austin, who had devoured nearly three stacks of pancakes already, kept asking them questions about Clef Records.
"Is it safe?" Austin asked, on his fifth stack.
Ally rolled her eyes. "Of course it's safe, Austin."
"Yeah, as long as you ignore the rumors," Jo said.
"What rumors?" Ally said, a confused look on her face.
"Yeah, what rumors?" Austin said, mouth full of syrup and pancakes.
"Last year there were two incident reports about girls getting harassed at Clef. Both cases were dropped, though. People play jokes like that all the time, but it doesn't stop the media from assuming it," Jo said, sipping at her coffee.
Austin immediately stopped eating. "Girls getting…harassed? Like, by other girls?"
"I wish. I think one of the incident reports I read up on was a girl by the board director Mr. Smith. But like I said Aus, they're probably just rumors," Jo said.
"Exactly, we can't jump to conclusions. And plus, Mr. Smith seems like a really nice guy," Ally said.
Austin hunched an eyebrow. "Just be careful, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Ally said. "I'll be careful."
And with that, Austin went back to engulfing his pancakes in syrup and swallowing them whole. Ally rolled her eyes.
"Isn't that too many pancakes?"
Austin gasped. "There's no such thing as too many pancakes!"
"Whatever you say."
"Progress Report, Mr. Smith? How is the new girl I recruited doing?"
"Very well, actually. She's most bright, and beautiful."
"Do you have the new music finished?"
"I do."
"Good Job, Smith. I hope you'll keep her on your team."
"I'm determined to do so, sir."
"Don't let this one slip away like the other two, Smith. What ever happened to them?"
"They were uncooperative. This one is different."
"Okay. I'm leaving her in your hands, understand?"
"My hands."