Chapter 3: Duets

After school, I went straight to my bedroom to practice my audition song. I grabbed my acoustic guitar and perfected everything. The evening passed quickly and Before I knew it, I was in Brittany's car, on our way to school. I walked into Mckinley with my acoustic guitar strapped to my back. Rachel introduced me to Mr. Schuester, the glee club's teacher and asked him if I could store my guitar in his office until after school.

Here I am now, standing in front of a room of high school students, nervously tuning my guitar. Everyone in this club was so different. There were jocks, preps, punks, goths, hipsters and so on.

"Alright, Jared, the spotlight is yours. Take it away." Mr. Schue told me.

"Take what away?" I heard Brittany whisper to Santana. Santana just smiled and shook her head.

I began to play the song I chose. It was one of my favorites. Hallelujah from the movie Shrek.

"I heard there was a secret chord

That David played and it pleased the lord

But you don't really care for music do you?

Well it goes like this

The fourth the fifth

The minor fall, the major lift

The baffled king composing hallelujah…" I sang. After the first verse, my nerves disappeared and I let myself get into the song. I let my mind wander to my ex. Her name was Denise. We were together for a year and she made me happy for a while. I loved her and she told me that she loved me but I learned one day that she wasn't telling the truth. She did have feelings for me but she was in lust with me, not love. I learned this when we went to a party and we had a few drinks and I saw her hitting on someone else and when the person reminded her that she was with me, she confessed that she what she felt for me wasn't love. We talked the next day and I broke up with her. She constantly tried to get back with me but I gave her the cold shoulder. 4 months later and I was packing my bags to leave Florida and she tried to stop me from leaving but I turned my back and left.

It still hurts and even though I have moved on, I still can't help but think about what I could have said to her. I could have given her a piece of my mind but I didn't. I am above that. I imagine what it would be like if Denise and I were alone and I was playing this to her. I pictured her walking in the choir room as I looked her dead in the eye and sang, "but all I ever learned from love, is how to shoot somebody who outdrew you."

Before I knew it, the song was over. I strummed the last chord right before the glee club broke into applause.

"Wow, Jared," Rachel spoke, "That was wonderful. Your voice went with the song perfectly and you sang with such passion! I think I speak for all of us when I say, welcome to the glee club. Mr. Schue, do you agree?"

"Definitly," he said, "Jared, with your talent, we will win these competitions by a landslide." I sat down by Brittany, Santana, Quinn, Charlie and Rachel. They quietly congratulated me while Mr. Schue began the lesson. He wrote the word 'Duets' on the board and explained that we will be picking names out of a hat and the person we get will be our partner. We will work together in our pairs to perform a duet at the end of the week.

Rachel was paired with some guy named Finn, Charlie was pared with the goth girl, Tina and I'm pretty sure Santana has some magic powers or something since she picked Brittany's name. Then I heard my name called. I looked up to see Quinn Fabray standing infront of the piano, holding a paper with my name on it. This was going to be interesting.

After glee, I found Quinn waiting by my locker. "So Jared, since we are partners for this duet thingy, shouldn't we plan a day to meet up and practice?"

"How about tomorrow, after school, my place?"

"Fine by me. Here, give me your phone. I'll put my number in it." I handed her my iphone and she typed away, saving her number and sending herself a text from my phone so she had my number. We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. As I walked into the school parking lot, looking for Brittany's car, I felt my phone vibrate. I checked my phone to see a new text from an unknown number.

"Guess who?"

"Who?" I replied, wondering who this was.

"Guess. I'll give you a hint. I go to Mckinley and we see each other every day."

"Well, I know you aren't Brittany since I have her number" I told the mystery texter.

"You're getting warmer," they replied.

"And you aren't Quinn since she just put her number in my phone." I said.

"Wait, why did my sister give you her number?"

"Charlie Fabray. How nice to hear from you. Our sister gave me her number since we have to work on a duet together."

"Oh crap, I meant to say 'Quinn' instead of 'my sister'. Wow, I just gave myself away. And it totally slipped my mind that you and Quinn are duet partners this week. I was kind of hoping I would be paired with you so I could have the chance to collaborate with you before you try out for my band."

"Too bad. So when do I get to try out for this band of yours?" At this point I had already found Brittany's car and we were on our way home.

"Well we were planning on practicing in a few hours. Want me to pick you up before I head over to practice so you can try out?"

"I'm cool with that."

"Alrighty! Bring your electric guitar. We have amps and cables and everything else you would need."

"Who are you texting that has you smiling like that?" Brittany interrupted me from my texts.

"Oh, it's just Charlie. She wants me to audition for her band today."

"Ooh fun. Do you need a ride?"

"Nah, Charlie is going to pick me up and take me there." Brittany pulled her car into the driveway and I ran to my room and grabbed my electric guitar. Before I knew it, Charlie was at the door and we were off to practice.

She drove through a neighborhood and pulled into a driveway with an opened garage. I followed her inside the garage.

"Hey, Hipster Fabray! You're here!" Said a muscular guy with a mohawk.

"Jared, this is Puck. He's our drummer and this is his house. His parents let us practice here."

"Nice to meet you, Jared. I hear from Charlie that you are like 10 times better than Sunshine Corazon."

"Who?" I asked.

"Sunshine was our old lead singer until she stabbed our backs and joined a band from Carmel High." Charlie explained.

Moments later I heard another car pull into the driveway and I turned around to see a guy and a girl getting out of the car.

"Hey, whats up? I'm Scott and this is Harmony." The guy said.

"Scott is our bassist and Harmony plays the keyboard," Charlie told me.

"Nice to meet you guys. I'm Jared."

"Is it true? Do you really outsing Sunshine by a landslide? Harmony asked.

"I wouldn't know."

"Well let's find out. Jam with us!" Harmony said. We set up our equipment and we tried to figure out a song we all know. We decided on 'Call Me Maybe' since it was a pretty easy song. Puck sped up the beat and with the use of bass, guitars and keyboard, the song sounded pretty awesome. I had fun and sang the song while adding my own little rock n roll touch to it. We finished the song and Puck tossed his drumsticks in the air.

"Dude! You rock! You are like Joan Jett or something!" He shouted.

"He's right. You are just what we need." Harmony said.

"I think we just found our new lead singer." Scott commented

"Jared, welcome to Motherload." Charlie told me.

"Is that your band name?" I asked.

"Yep. I thought of it myself. We were debating between that and Jackie Daniels. Puck thought of Jackie Daniels and we all liked it until we realized it was an alcohol reference." Charlie told me.

"Well I think Motherload is a pretty sick name. I can't wait to start playing gigs with you guys." I said

"Well hopefully Puck here could finish designing the Bass drum head so we could start performing at Joe's Ale House again." Harmony commented. We continued to jam out until it got late. Charlie drove me home and I couldn't help but wonder how preparing a duet with her twin sister was going to go tomorrow.

AN: Scott the Bassist is the bassist from glee. Scott is the actor's name so I went with that.