Disclaimer: These characters belong to me. Though they are based on real people. The story is fiction and is not based on anything but dreams and imagination, no real events occurred unfortunately. Please enjoy and judge my story accordingly.

He strolled into a small music store on the corner of Madison. He had heard friends talking about the great acoustics you could get from renting one of the sound proof rooms. He had a Friday night to kill and wanted to try out playing somewhere different.

He walked up to the crowded counter. It was covered with different promotional pictures and colorful flyers. From hip hop to blues, seemed to have it all. There was an interesting redhead girl sitting behind the counter. She had mega headphones on and seemed into her music, while reading a teen magazine with Buffy The Vampire Slayer special edition posted on the cover.

"Excuse me," he said quietly not really sure what to do or say.

The girl just kept listening to her music not even looking up to notice him. She had on large headphones and head jamming to whatever it was flowing into her ears.

"Umm...," he looked around and no one was there. "Excuse me," he asked a little louder, but yet the girl just kept on jamming away, fully into the music, eyes closed.

"OK...EXCUSE ME," he yelled, throwing his hands up a bit, hoping to cause some disturbance into being noticed.

"Oh," she answered looking a bit surprised and embarrassed. Her eyes shifted from her magazine to her CD player and to this guy. "Sorry about that...do you need something," she asked sweetly, trying to regain her embarrassment. Her face was bright red, she was sure of it.

"Oh yeah. My friends told me about this place and the great acoustic rooms. So could I rent one?"

"Sure," she gazed at him, not realizing till now how unbelievable cute this guy was. She quickly typed something in a computer. "So I'm going on a guess here, but this is your first time here."

"Yeah. I taught myself how to play guitar and I really need somewhere better than my room to practice writing. There's too many distractions there," he held up the case for her to see over the counter.

She leaned over and took a peek. This guitar case had millions of stickers covering it. Some were of radio station logos and others were just clever sayings. "It's not in the policy, but the new customers get to rent the room on the house."

"You sure? I don't mind paying or anything."

"No, you seem harmless," she stated right back at him.

"Promise, I don't have any weapons."

She laughed at his little joke. "I'm Katie," she reached out her hand to his.

He put down his guitar and returned the shake, "Tyler."

"How'd you get into playing?"

"People have always told me that I looked like Elvis. I even won the award for it in school."

"The looking like Elvis award? That's a special one." Katie said, teasing him a bit.

"Yes, and it's a prized award, many children become victims of stage mothers during the process. It was the Elvis lookalike contest of 2001. It included pies and ribbons."

"You can't go wrong with pies or ribbons."

"So one day I got bored and picked up my father's guitar, then I dropped it. I bought a new used one just for myself and it came with this case, decorated it myself."

"Martha Stewart would be jealous."

He returned a half heartened smile.

She continued ,"awesome, well here's the key to the room, and I'll bring you something to drink...you want anything."

"You don't have too."

"Oh I was going to go get myself something, so hey why not, no one else is here to buy for."

"A water would be great...thanks"

"Not a problem," she said, returning her gaze to his eyes. He had on dark thick glasses which brought out the color in his eyes.

Their eyes met and they smiled. Katie came out of her daze first.

"Here let me show you where it's at."

She led him through one door labeled 'Special Only.'

He pointed at the sign, "so only special people allowed?"

"I was bored and 'employees only, so get out if you aren't' sounded much more harsh."

Katie tried the first key and didn't work. She jammed in the second one and laughed at herself, but surprisingly the door sprang open. She looked at it awkwardly. "There you go."

She opened the door wider and turned on a floor lamp that soon flooded the room with a soft light. She walked over to a speaker and flipped the off switch to read on. Then went out of the room and came back with a stool. "Is this ok?"

"Yeah that's fine." He smiled at her.

"All right, I'm going to go get the drinks."

"K, I'll be right here."

"Of course you will." She walked away and then stood in the doorway watching him set up. First unlock his guitar case and pick it up. Then plugging the guitar in, and turning around and seeing her watching him. He fiddled with his glasses before seeing Katie standing still in the doorway.

Katie realized this. "Ok I'm going to go." She waved quickly and left.

She closed the door that had "Special Only" appearing on it and pushed up against a wall. She had to count and remind herself of how to breathe, in and out. Music started flowing from the walls so she left to get the drinks.

About 15 minutes later, Katie came into the music shop carrying cold waters in her hand and opened the unlocked door. A bell jingled when the door swung open..

She was muttering to herself, "cold, cold, cold." She closed the door with her leg and threw the drinks down on the counter. One of them burst open. She tried to catch it and stop the massive flood but unfortunately the water spilled on about a fourth of the promo flyers. "Crap."

Tyler came walking through the door to the rooms. "Hey, let me help you out."

"Oh how much more help you would have been if you got here a minute sooner."

"Well let me help you clean up," he insisted.

Before she got a word in, he'd found a washcloth and started throwing soaked flyers away. She picked up a cloth from under the counter and began moving the two categories into piles, keep and throw away. Also wipping down wet counters. Tyler added his keep stack to hers.

They continued talking during their cleanup.

Katie began with a question, "So are you in high school or college?"

"I hope to go to college sometime, unless something better comes up, but right now just a high school student. I go to Santa Barbara High. And how about you? Any college in you."

"Oh no, though like you I have goals and ambitions to attend college in my life unless something more important happens to come up before then. I go to Moore."

"Oh, we're rivals you know."

"Yes, someone please pass me the knife so I can cut some tension. I'm running low on cutlery."

He looked up from sorting piles and set them aside. Leaning over the counter he asked her, "Truth or dare."

She sat her's down and leaned over to him."Ok, I might be in high school but that doesn't mean I play games." She sat back up and went back to sorting piles.

"It's a simple question, truth or dare?"

"You make it sound easy," she contemplative and replied back with a ,"truth," with a serious one tonal voice.

"See now all of the safe people choose truth, just so they don't have to accomplish the wacky dare."

She interrupted him, " I thought you were going to give me a question to answer truthfully and not just analyze my choice between the two. Because yes, unlike some I don't like doing wild and crazy things that usually leads to more embarrasment than you walking up on a girl into her music."

"Why does that have anything to do with picking a dare?"

"You might have asked me to run outside in the rain and scream something that's funny to you, making me look like an idiot...so just ask me my question and I promise that I will answer the truth."

"You promise?"

"Have I ever lied to you?"

"Well, for the long hour of knowing you, no you haven't lied to me."

"And what an hour it's been. I should write a book about it. That's what all the cool kids are doing."

This time he did the interrupting ,"do you want your question or not?"

"Just ask me."