When Evelyn's mother said "grounded forever," she meant it. It had only been three days but Evelyn saw no end in sight. The only places she was allowed to go were equestrian lessons and work. Evelyn's mother was there to pick her up as soon as both ended and dropped her off as soon as each started, she couldn't even sneak a moment in. Evelyn now had two paychecks burning a hole in her pocket and she longed to go to the music store to check out guitars and see how much lessons were.
On the fourth day, a stroke of good luck meant that Evelyn's mother couldn't pick her up. She demanded that Evelyn come straight home after her shift and asked her when it ended. Without skipping a beat, Evelyn told her two hours later then the truth, hoping to buy herself some personal time.
While Evelyn was spending a lot of time at home, Sirius was certainly not. He spent as much time away as he could. He had taken to walking around the streets alone, sometimes as a dog other times as himself. He hadn't seen Evelyn much, just once when she was on a break. Each exchanged a small smile and a wave. Sirius figured that was all there was to it but he was growing increasingly bored and the only fun he had had all summer was with her. With that in mind he headed towards the restaurant, hoping she was working that evening.
Evelyn was refilling the salt and pepper shakers and didn't hear Sirius walk up behind her. She jumped a little, spilling salt, when she heard him say:
"Could I get a coffee with a heap full of trespassing, maybe a little bit of kissing, but absolutely no crazy mother?"
Sirius was smirking and when he saw the spilled salt, he had the inexplicable urge to take his wand out of his back pocket to perform the charm to clean it, surely it would impress her. Or terrify her. For a moment, he missed magic in a strange way that almost hurt and felt unsure of his abilities for the first time.
Evelyn laughed at his comment and replied with: "Coffee we have, we only serve trespassing on Thursdays, kissing was a one-time special, but you could have the crazy mother if you'd like."
"Nah, I already got one of those."
"Are you sure you don't want both? Maybe if they were in the same room, they would finish each other off."
Sirius laughed but then stopped when he thought of how his own mother would gladly do something awful to Evelyn's if given the chance. Suddenly, it wasn't so funny as it was tragic.
Evelyn saw the serious expression come across his face and wondered if she had offended him somehow.
"I...that was a joke. I don't want anything bad to happen to your mum," Evelyn said awkwardly.
"Nor I yours" Sirius said without looking at Evelyn and still looking thoughtful. His face softened and he turned back towards Evelyn with a grin. "She seemed just lovely."
"Funny, She said the same about you."
Sirius grinned: "I bet she just loved me. What did she say?"
Evelyn faked a big sigh and said: "Well, you're dangerous..."
"Check" Sirius said matter-of-factly. Evelyn suppressed a grin.
"Your hair is much too long..."
"Maybe your hair is much too short, has she considered that?"
"Everyday, of course. Oh, and under no circumstance am I to ever ride your motorcycle." Evelyn said with a serious expression on her face which was on the verge of cracking.
Sirius leaned forward and whispered: "You can ride my motorcycle whenever you want."
Evelyn rolled her eyes but smiled: "That was awful." She said with a laugh.
"Yeah, it was. I'll have to think of something better."
"Get back to me on that." Evelyn said as she moved away to the table that she was being beckoned to.
Sirius had about a million different lines but he couldn't use any of them on her considering all of them had to do with magic. He was beginning to the sense in only marrying pure-bloods, what was there to even talk about?
Evelyn came back with a cup of coffee and handed it to him. He didn't even want it. The only reason he came into the cafe was to see her.
"When do you get off work?" He asked completely ignoring the coffee mug.
"That was the best line you could think of?"
"No, but it was the most direct, wasn't it?"
"It doesn't matter when I get off work because I'm grounded."
"For what?" Sirius asked curiously.
"Because of you." Evelyn said in an accusing tone.
"Eve, did you tell your mum that you rode on my bike?" Sirius said in a mock-horrifed voice.
"Considering I'm not locked in a tower, I'll let you figure out that one on your own."
"Can't you sneak out?"
"I can and I am." Evelyn said a little haughtily.
"What are you going to do?"
"Nothing exciting."
"And what would you consider exciting? Robbing a bank?" Sirius asked with a grin but before Evelyn could answer, she was called away to another table.
When Evelyn came back, Sirius looked her into the eye and said:
"Listen, wherever you're sneaking off to, take me along with you."
"Why?" Evelyn asked suspiciously, a little taken aback by his serious tone.
"Because we have fun, don't we?" Evelyn was about to answer but Sirius kept talking. "And otherwise I'd have to go home and compared to my mother, yours is a saint."
Evelyn considered what he said and somehow doubted him. Then again, every kid thought their parents were the worst of all. There was really no reason why he couldn't tag along to a music store.
"You'd be bored." Evelyn said slowly.
"No I wouldn't. Where are we headed?"
"A music store?" Sirius asked an hour later.
Evelyn didn't answer. She really regretted the fact that she had brought him along. She hadn't told anybody about her desire to play guitar, not even her best friend. So why was she sharing this moment with him? Maybe he'd become distracted by something else and she could sneak off and look over the guitars. Alone. Like it should be.
Sirius was distracted by the music store. He had never been inside a muggle one before. The stacks of records, the instruments lining the walls, the rock music playing in the background: all new to him. His eyes opened wide and he rushed forward to look at the row of albums nearest to the door. There were loads of things in here that he could bring home to annoy his parents. Why hadn't he thought of it before? Pictures and posters weren't enough. He comforted himself with the fact that the muggle world was completely unknown to him; it was a brand new universe he was finally able to explore.
Evelyn had seen that look on Sirius's face before. It was the very same look he had when she had picked the lock of the auto-shop: like he was seeing something for the very first time. Maybe he was just an enthusiastic person but she had seen enough of him to know he was slightly jaded. So no teenage boy should be looking at records at the way Sirius was looking at them now. And this, Evelyn finally concluded, was exactly what frightened her about him.
Sirius looked up at her for just a moment, like he couldn't tear his eyes away from the records for too long and said:
"This is amazing!"
Evelyn herself had trouble looking away from records so she began to peruse them as well, being sure to edge closer to the guitars, so she could make a clean getaway.
"What do you think of this one?" Sirius asked her frowning slightly, record in hand.
"It's okay. I prefer their first album though."
Sirius compared the two. He wasn't so much looking for which had better music but rather which had a more obscene cover. He couldn't play them at home. Although maybe he should...He tried to imagine the look on his mother's face if he were to bring a record player home complete with albums with muggle depictions. Lost in his own thoughts, he drifted towards the players, not noticing Evelyn gliding over towards the other side of the store.
Evelyn walked the length of the wall, examining each guitar closely. But her eyes kept drifting back towards an acoustic that was placed in the middle. She stood in front of it, admiring the woodwork and noticing the shine of the strings. She felt a swoosh in her stomach that let her know that this was the one. Hesitantly, she reached one finger towards it and stroked the smooth wood.
"Why don't you take it down and give it a strum?"
Sirius had found her. Evelyn's hand flew from the guitar as if it had burned her.
"No." She said quickly. "You can't just play it, it's up there for a reason."
"Sure you can," Sirius said with a shrug as he lifted the guitar off the wall and held it out towards Evelyn. For one thing, Evelyn truly did believe she wasn't allowed to play it. There were display guitars out on the floor that were supposed to be for playing. The other was that Evelyn didn't trust herself to play on any guitar but especially not this one.
Evelyn actually physically backed away from it and almost tripped on a chair in the process. She steadied herself with her hand and just decided to sit before she fell over and destroyed the guitar.
"Go on," Sirius said with a laugh as he handed the guitar to her. It rested on her knee but she still hardly touched it.
"Are you seriously not going to play? Here," Sirius said as he bent down so that they were on the same level. He reached his own hand out and grazed the strings which made a pleasant noise. Both of their heads were bent over the guitar and when Evelyn looked up, she was much closer to him then she thought. She saw that his eyes were really more of a gray then blue and looked back down the toward the guitar and strummed the strings to distract herself. It was magnificent.
Sirius stood up, noting the awkward moment that their faces were inches apart. That shouldn't matter, Sirius thought. They had already kissed or at least somewhat kissed.
A man who looked to be in about his mid-thirties with a full beard, walked over and frowned at Evelyn.
"You can't play that," He said matter-of-factly. Evelyn's hand had just grazed over the strings and the last notes were humming into the air still.
"Come on, she's not that bad," Sirius said.
"No, you can't play these guitars. You can mess about on that one." The bearded man said as he pointed behind Sirius.
Sirius turned to look at it and then back at the man: "It only has two strings."
"So?"
"So, how are you supposed to play a guitar with two strings? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose?"
Sirius was inching closer to the man. Any excuse for a fight was fine by him. Sirius had a lot of anger pent up inside and who better to take it out on then some bearded prat?
"Shut up," Evelyn muttered towards Sirius before turning to the man and handing him the guitar. "Here, Sorry."
But the man was ignoring Evelyn. He was gazing steadily at Sirius and said:
"It only has two strings because idiots like you all come in and think that you can play," he threw a look in Evelyn's direction. "And mess them all up."
Sirius made a movement towards the man but Evelyn was one step ahead of him.
"Hang on," She said angrily, not realizing that she had stepped in front of Sirius who was growling behind her back. "it's not like I did it any harm. Maybe you shouldn't be so rude to customers. Otherwise you might have more people here." Evelyn said with a look of disdain at the nearly empty store.
Sirius gave a short laugh which seemed to anger the bearded man more than anything.
"Get out!" he said pointing towards the door.
"Gladly," Said Evelyn even though she was sad to see the guitar go.
"You know, I don't think I'm ready to leave yet," Sirius said in a rather haughty way.
"Come on," Evelyn said grabbing his arm and giving him a hard tug. The very last thing she wanted was for him to get into a fight. Sirius wasn't going to give up that easily though and Evelyn had to tighten her grip.
"Let go! Won't let him speak to you..."
"Oh, shut up!" Evelyn said irritably. "He can speak to me however he wants, it's his store!" She let go of Sirius's arm. "And I don't need you to defend my honor."
Evelyn marched out of the store into the night.
Author's Note: Kind of an awkward end but the chapter was wayyyy too long so I had to find a place to split it. Next chapter will probably go up a little later.