A/N: Oh boy, I know I know, it's been forever. Who would have known that once I finally got freedom in the form of my own apartment that I would also have less freedom? Currently I'm so freaking broke, and finding a job is ridiculous right now. So for now, I live off of Ramen Noodles and my roommates TVDVD sets, especially The L word. Yay for no food, cable, internet, job, and for occasionally going to my parents to steal these things.
Updates aren't going to be regular even though I'm out of school now because of the whole no internet thing, so until I can afford internet I'll only be updating when I visit a place that I can get internet for free.
P.S. I made the club up in this chapter; any resemblance to another club is purely coincidental.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, quite literally, well I did buy a new bed from IKEA, that was ridiculous to put together and I'm too tall for, oh! And around 40 packages of Ramen Noodles, and my laptop, so I definitely don't own South or any of the musicians or the rights to their music that may be mentioned.
Two weeks to the day that she had had dinner with the Carlin's, Ashley found herself on the phone with the manager of Tipped. She had been looking for a place to play some of her songs, a place where she felt comfortable enough to play. She had stumbled across Tipped during her sophomore year of high school; she was walking back from a party at some unknown person's house when she walked past a low key building that had decent music coming out of it. She had decided to stay and listen to the band play, there weren't too many people in the establishment and there wasn't a huge main stage, just a small band playing an acoustic set.
Since that day she had been secretly going to Tipped and occasionally she had performed after hours for the cleaning staff, she never had the guts to play in front of more than 3 or 4 people. Her music was everything that she had, it was the way that she dealt with everything in her life, and she hadn't been ready to share her music.
However, after almost two years of not progressing in her music career, Ashley figured it was time to step it up and get back into the game. She had always wanted to pursue a profession in music, but wasn't sure if she was ready.
This would be the final test for her musical talents, now all she had to do was convince Spencer to show up.
'Alright Paul, nine o' clock on Saturday, I'll be there. Thank you so much, I won't let you down!' Ashley said through the phone.
As soon as the phone line went dead Ashley had let out a huge sigh and tried to think of how she could get Spencer to Tipped without telling her why.
It wasn't that it was a huge surprise that Spencer couldn't know, okay, it kind of was. Spencer had never really heard Ashley sing, sure when she was in the car singing to the radio, or when she was joking around, but never her own songs. When they were together she was too young and too self conscious about her work to show it to even her best friend and girlfriend.
This time around Ashley wanted to share her work with Spencer, she wanted Spencer's approval, but most of all she wanted to show Spencer that she had changed. She had a craving for this girl, she was sure that it would be the death of her.
As she paced around her room in her Kung Foo Panda boxers and spaghetti strap tank top, she began to think about how she could possible get Spencer to meet her at Tipped on Saturday.
Sure, they were friends, but they weren't the kind of friends that just hung out outside of family stuff. Not yet anyways. She had to be careful about this. There were more than a couple factors that could prevent this whole plan from going well. One, Spencer was still with Felisha, although Ashley was sure that their relationship was having problems and if she was being honest with herself, it made her smile a little, okay, a lot. Two, she wanted Spencer, oh boy she wanted Spencer, and in the worst way possible, which tended to give her foot-in-mouth syndrome whenever the blond was around. Three, Spencer's heart was broken by her, which meant that it was especially guarded, and Spencer was not going to make this easy. Four, Kyla had threatened to dismantle her if she had screwed up her last chance with Spencer.
It was particularly the last one that had scared Ashley the most, Kyla was a beast and was capable of more than it looked.
The thought of her being torn into pieces by Kyla was motivation enough to get it right the first time with Spencer, she supposed it also helped that she was completely infatuated with the younger Carlin.
It had been two hours since her conversation with Paul and she had yet to come up with a plan. She decided to do it the old fashion way, and just ask Spencer to go.
As she dialed Spencer's number she took a deep breath and let it out. It rang a couple times before she heard shuffling and a muffled hello.
'Uh, hi, it's Ashley.' She spoke unsurely.
'Oh hey Ashley. Ouch! Shit!' Spencer cursed loudly into the phone.
'Are you okay? Did I call at a bad time? Cause I can call back later.' Ashley rushed out. Spencer hardly cursed, and when she did it usually meant that something was going on.
'Uh, no, now is fine. I just stepped on a stupid dog toy.' Spencer growled over the line.
'A dog toy? You have a dog?' She asked perplexed. Spencer was so not a dog person.
'Yeah, Felisha's stupid poodle. Felisha always leaves its toys around everywhere, it's like she has no hands to clean up her messes.' Spencer said frustrated.
'You never were one for dogs, although I remember that time you convinced me to adopt that puppy junior year, what a disaster.' Ashley laughed.
'I felt bad, it had no home, how was I to know it was going to chew your moms Louis Vuitton purse?' Spencer replied.
'Eh, Christine deserved it, but what that puppy didn't deserve was your sad attempt at playing fetch with it.' Ashley poked more fun at Spencer.
'Whatever, there was something wrong with that tennis ball, I throw perfectly fine.' Spencer pouted.
'I'm sure there was Spencer, it's those damn tennis ball ferries again, injecting weights onto one side of the tennis ball that way it throws lopsided and to the left instead of straight.'
'Shut up you jerk! It's not like you did any better than I did, if I remember correctly there was more than one window broken that day by you.' Spencer laughed.
'Hey, I never claimed to be good at throwing tennis balls or taking care of small animals. I can barely take care of myself.' Ashley defended herself.
'This is true.' Spencer laughed.
'Hey! Aren't you supposed to say, you've turned out fine so far, so you must be doing something right, or some encouraging crap like that?' Ashley asked offended.
'Why lie to you?' Spencer teased.
'Wow, what a jerk. See, this is why my ego is so low.' Ashley said sadly.
'I'm sure it's just fine. So, what's up?' Spencer got right to the point.
'Oh right, well I was wondering what you were doing on Saturday night?' Ashley asked nervously.
'Uh, I don't think I have anything planned, why?' Spencer asked.
'I was wondering if you wanted to meet me at this cool hangout I know about in West Hollywood? They play good music and it's not too crowded; a nice place to catch up.'
'Um, sure, what time?' Spencer asked.
'Around 8:45?' Ashley threw out cautiously. She hadn't wanted Spencer to show up too early and have to wait for Ashley to go on, but she hadn't wanted her to be too late to miss the beginning of her set.
'Yeah, that sounds good to me, what's the place called? I'll get the directions online.' Spencer said.
'Oh, right, it's called Tipped. It's in West Hollywood, not too far away from my place.' Ashley stated.
'Okay then, Saturday night around 8:45. I guess I'll see you then.' Spencer said.
'Yeah, you definitely will. Oh, and thank you Spencer, it means a lot.' Ashley added quietly.
'No problem. Goodnight Ash.'
'Goodnight Spence.'
After hanging up Ashley did a happy dance.
Saturday night could not come fast enough.