Dez slept over. Again.
They played rock, paper, scissors for who would get the shower first and the redhead won. As usual. Austin is purely playing out of stubbornness and spite at this point. Hundreds and hundreds of chances he has had since they were boys and he has won so few that he can remember every one. It's a ninety-eight percent likelihood at this point. Or greater, he's never thought to look into that math.
So Austin was forced to wait his turn.
They managed to not completely fuck up. There is little paint on his clothes as he got most of it on his fingers and the back of his hands. Most importantly, the walls look good and there were no spills. No mess, and they had fun using the rollers. Austin liked watching the room transform before his very eyes. The fun blue chasing away the drab off-cream color. At one point he wondered if painting was his calling in life. Like, he couldtotallytouch up the Sistine, right?
And then Mister Dawson scolded them for leaving the door and windows closed, opened several, and went back out.
And he realized- with a bit of fresh air- that he was probably a little high. Still didn't make a mess, though.
Austin passed out before Dez returned from his shower. Unfortunately his best friend determined sleep was more important than being clean, and so he didn't disturb the blond. In fact, they both conked out within minutes of each other.
"Dude," the blond huffs and whips his pillow at his sleeping friend. He threw hard, sure, but it's a pillow. Dez will live. "What the fuck?"
"I have said exactly that to you, in my head, for the past... week," the boy traps the impromptu projectile to his chest and rolls over so he is facing away. "Go to sleep. The sun is barely even up."
Austin rolls his head back then forward in a dramatic show of frustration- mixed with a little disbelief at the brush-off. "We can come back and sleep after we go to Sonic Boom-"
"Give it a rest. Girls like gentle persistence," Dez puts additional emphasis on gentle, "not stalking-"
"I haven't paid her yet, dude."
"What?"
"How would I," Austin throws his arms up, "I- her socials are either private or don't exist, I don't have her number, and I damn sure don't have a way to send money to her bank account!"
Dez rolls back over like a log, still clutching the pillow, to face him. "Then what the hell was the painting thing for?"
"The first song. I owed her for two, remember? Oh my God," he groans and presses the heels of his hands over his eyes. "I just became a boss and I already suck at it. She'll never write another song for me again and Jimmy is going to mix the ashes of our contract into pancake batter and make me eat it."
The way Dez's jaw drops, face scrunching in something like mild disgust, is a rarity. Usually, he's the one who is a little "out there" and Austin is Mister Put-Together-If-Only-A-Little-Rowdy. That patterns holds about as true as their record on rock-paper-scissors. Very rare breaks. Austin's career is usually the thing that makes Austin spiral. "Eugh, what happened to you?"
"Woke up on the wrong side of the bed," the blond replies wryly and smells himself. "Damn! I smell like sweat and paint."
"Blue paint, to be fair." Dez yawns and sits up, "go hose down and I'll get my keys-"
"No here, I still owe you some rides. Use mine." And then he's bounding across the hall. Belatedly realizing he did not bring a towel or change of clothes with him just as he closes the door.
"Hey buddy?"
"I see the problem, dude," Austin scampers back to his room.
Ally does finally cave to check the views on her... episode for The Helen Show.
Initially, she planned to never look at that mess. Her reply to Trish was, "I lived it, I know it was bad." To Dad she said, "I lived it, I know it was bad. Please don't tell Mom. This will blow over before the video even reaches her."
Which she did not believe. Not at first.
And not at the moment, either. The view count is nauseatingly high, high, high and the search trends for Helen spiked for days. A sharp incline only now falling into decline. Still, the official clip alone has millions of views. Reuploads already exists with subtitles indicating those who speak other languages have seen the damn thing. A panicked chill drives a thousand needles to prickle under her skin. Despite the heat she shivers and quickly puts her phone under the register.
That's enough of that, Ally thinks, and forces herself to focus on anything else besides the gnawing embarrassment at the back of her brain. Like an enormous rat burrowing and making itself a home inside her skull.
Such as the break room. Dad has decided- apropos of nothing- to rearrange all the crap up there. He sold some of the empty filing cabinets and has been toggling between pacing around the store to trotting up the stairs to ensure the door is still locked. Ally begins to wonder if he planned on some kind of inspection to be made. Then, in that case, she feels they should try and clean up and make it look as relaxing as possible.
In the trash she found a receipt from a delivery. Odd, considering they take out the trash after closing up so they should always have empty cans in the morning. Doubly so because Ally doesn't recognize the company name as any of their vendors and their order form only lists SKUs and not the name of the product. Looking around the show room, she finds no major changes. They might be in the stock room, however. Whatever "they" are.
They better not be more fucking duduks or other instruments that are as beautiful to hear as they are hard to sell.
Ally inhales deeply, holds, and then exhales just as much. Her heart squeezes tight like a fist in protest and bangs against her ribcage. Anxiety and nerves swallow her whole. Think about Sonic Boom, The Helen Show, her future, it all feels-
The glass doors open which a great gust of wind and clang that startles her and kicks her heartbeat into a stuttering overdrive. A rhythm of 16th note triplet. Heavy on the kick, probably, by the way her pulse jumps to her throat. "Jesus!"
Somehow, someway, she sensed it would be Austin before she even turned around. Dez is happily trotting at his side. "Hey Ally!"
"You guys," she rubs her hand across her chest and huffs out a breath, "is there a reason for this harassment?"
Dez raises an expectant eyebrow. She sighs and amends, "hey Dez." Which seems to appease him.
Austin swivels his head around. "Where is Mister Dawson?"
"You can call him Lester, or whatever. Apparently you three are friends now, " she too, glances around. "He was here a second-"
"Hey boys," Dad's eyes and forehead just barely clear the top of one of the shelf rows. He's probably on his toes to get there, but at least he can. "She's all yours! I'll keep watch down here."
Ally frowns then opens her mouth to ask what he's referring to. In her mind, she figures it's an instrument. Some ill-advised purchase one of them (Austin) likely made when she wasn't around. People often refer to their instruments by female pronouns. SHE gives hers female names, too. Like Evangeline the acoustic guitar and Monica the harmonica (she both is and isn't proud of that one).
But then Austin grabs her wrist and rushes to the stairs and Ally realizes she is the one that's "all yours."
"Wait, what?"
"C'mon," he beams over his shoulder as he hauls her along.
He's like a pet. It hits her all at once that he is kind of- in the nicest way possible- like a dog. Like a human golden retriever she sees people talk about on Snippet. He even looks the part, blond with bright, brown eyes and a friendly face. He pulls Ally along like an energetic puppy at the sight of a dog park. She thinks. She's never had a dog. "Austin-"
"You'll love this," Dez chimes, following them up, "hopefully."
"Hopefully? Guys, what on-"
Austin barely breaks his stride to throw the door into the break room open. Ally staggers through the door behind him. The windows are open. She can tell by the general warmth of the room and the light clattering of vinyl shades swinging away from the windows and back again. It's bright. Bright, bright. The musician steps aside gesturing about himself. "Well? What do you think?"
She doesn't. For a second.
The walls are now a pleasant shade of blue and there is a shocking amount of room without all the cabinets. Enough for the folding table to have been replaced with something that looks a little more permanent and cushion arm chairs. In fact, as she surveys the room, she finds a couple more. The ones along the wall are an orange that matches the bead curtains (since when?) with a track that runs the length of the windows, that matches the covers over the ceiling lights. A complimentary color to the wall. She notices a few small freestanding shelves and a cabinet next to the piano.
"Well?"
"Dez, come on, dude."
"She hasn't-"
Ally blinks and shakes her head to clear it. "Wow. I didn't- wow. This is wow."
"Wow good," Austin asks hopefully.
She nods and walks further into the room. "Wow. I never thought I'd see... well, this."
"I picked the furniture," Dez tells her.
"It's great, literally perfect complimentary colors." Then, she begins to wonder what this all costs as she runs her hand across the back of one of the armchairs at the table.
The redhead must be pleased. She hears the smile and pride in his voice when he says, "well, I am a director after all. A visual artiste. Austin would have floundered around for days-"
"Not days. A day, tops."
"Yeah, right-"
Ally turns to face the boys and they fall silent immediately. Which means she is, in fact, making a face. She doesn't mean to, but this is a lot to take in- both them and their apparent efforts- and also... this whole thing. This week. "Guys, I really, really love this but I don't know- how do I-"
Austin smiles again. "Really? You love it?"
She nods. "I don't know how to pay you back-"
"You don't have to," he gestures, this time with only one hand and smaller, around them, "I did this with some of the money I got from Doubletake. So, I owed you. And really, this is like an investment."
"Investment?"
"Well, yeah. If we're going to be working together on an album, or EP, or whatever, we might as well do it in style. And not bust our asses on the floor again. I figure we will be spending a lot of time up here, Dawson."
Ally blinks and eyes him reluctantly. "Spend more time with you?"
"Yeah," he says it like it's obvious. Like he has actually thought about this. "I'm a singer who loves to perform. You're a songwriter with stage fright. We're a perfect match. What do you say?"
Her eyes leave his to find Dez- purely out of curiosity to see his reaction to all this- only to find he is gone. Probably back downstairs. Austin looks at her, slightly leaning forward, eyes a little extra wide, perhaps a little more eager. Working with him the first time didn't quite kill her. She bets they made a killing on Break Down The Walls and, God, does she need that money.
What's the worst that can happen?
"I'm in. We're partners," Ally holds her hand out to shake. They promptly blunt into his stomach as he surges forward, arms open. "Oh."
"I'm a hugger," he says and stares at her expectantly.
"Uh... I'm not." But, fuck it, right? Why not? She opens her arms.
He drops his to hold his hand out then laughs. Ally rolls her eyes. "We need to agree-"
"C'mere," Austin squeezes her into a big bear hug. It's awkward and strange (for her and her only, she knows). She struggles, mostly mentally, to even lightly pat his back in return. It isn't that she doesn't engage in displays of physical affection, nor does she have an aversion to them, per se. But with a stranger? Awkward is the most mild term she can find. "This is going to be awesome! We're going to get so much done this summer and-"
In the morning, you're making waffles? She almost jokes. Then decides against it for worry that he won't catch the reference or- worse still- fixate on waffles versus pancakes again.
"Oh, I need your account so I can send you your cut."
"Sure," Ally nods once and stops when her face rubs unpleasantly against his body, "as soon as you let me go."
He laughs again. A giddy, relieved giggle that she feels more than she hears. When he lets her go his face is positively lit up by his own cheer and the sunlight. A huge golden retriever. She can easily imagine him with a long, feathery tail wagging back and better be worth it.
Trish gets a job at the Melody Diner.
It was a little bit of an accident, but she isn't unhappy with it. The food is decent and relatively cheap and most of the waitstaff are local high schoolers killing time and making money between school years. She is the second oldest behind the head waitress and she also has more experience than most of her coworkers with all of her (short-lived) waiting jobs combined.
Management wants her to have a day of training but, honestly, this is not Trish's first rodeo. She doesn't need it. The only unique stipulation of the job is singing the menu and specials. She can do that. It takes less than a shift to learn the songs and she is a gifted vocalist.
Her first two shifts go by with no major issues. Customers tend to forgive mistakes in their orders and the kitchen staff likes her. They seem to think she is funny and are amused by her total lack of intimidation from them. Her coworkers are cool, too. Between that and the free food, Trish sees something like a long-term job here. At least until school starts back up.
The only bummer is that the manager makes them put their phones away in the lockers in the break room.
When she's finally off for the day, she takes her time grabbing her things and talking to coworkers. Her phone lights up with messages from Ally. At a glance, Trish can see her bestfriend freaking out about something to do with Sonic Boom and decides to swing by rather than go straight to her car. If it were serious- like, a robbery or fire or something- it probably would have resulted in calls rather than texts. Or Ally would have just walked across the mall to the diner.
As predicted, the store looks fine. Mister D is roaming the floor with the inventory clipboard and she can't smell smoke or nitrocellulose. "Guess who just worked a third shift at the same job for the first time this summer?"
The man rolls his eyes and shakes his head good-naturedly. "Oh, Trish."
The teen shrugs. "Um, where's-"
"She's upstairs." He grins a little, eyes shining as they return to his clipboard, "bet she's working on a new hit for that Moon boy as we speak."
"Thanks, I'll just go check in real quick."
Trish makes her way up to the door and pauses outside to listen for the sound of a piano or other instrument inside. On rare occasions, she has heard Ally singing to herself just loud enough to be heard through an ear pressed to the door. The Latina strains to hear, even brushes some of her hair aside to do so, but there is no noise to be heard. Not even shuffling or moving.
So she just lets herself in and has her sense of sight and smell accosted by new paint. Bright blue walls made all the brighter by the open windows and blinds. "Woah."
"Yeah," Ally is sitting on the floor. Her back against the piano bench and her Book laying closed in her lap. Arms crossed, head tilted to the side. "It's a lot, right?"
Trish nods then closes the door behind her. "I gotta say, never thought your dad would even think to do something like this."
"You'd be right. It was- uh, it was Austin and Dez." The brunette's voice is quiet, eyes fixed to the opposite wall and the windows, but unfocused. Like she is a thousand miles removed from here. In one of her moods.
"They did this? By themselves? On their own?"
Ally shrugs. "I guess."
Trish turns her attention to one of the new chairs. An orange lounge she can recline on enough to lay down. She feels its fabric and then asks, "you like it?"
"I do. I guess I'm just... overwhelmed."
"You've had an overwhelming week."
They go quiet while Trish climbs onto the chair and lays out. She sighs and gets comfortable. "Oh, this is nice."
"Wanna guess who picked the furniture," her friend asks. There is just enough humor in her tone that she knows the answer right away.
"I fucking refuse."
"Now you have two reasons to call Dez Annoying Orange."
"Three, if you count his hair." Then after a pause, Trish relents with a roll of her eyes, "but I guess it was cool of him to help. Or whatever."
"Austin wants me to write more music with him," Ally says. "Came by earlier to pay me for the last song we did and asked if I'd be his partner. I agreed."
"You don't sound happy."
"I think I'm in shock. Is that weird?"
Trish shakes her head. "I don't think so. Like I said, you have had one crazy-ass week, Dawson."
When her friend doesn't reply, she continues. "Looks like you're already starting on other songs, though."
"I was looking at what I have already," Ally pats the leather cover of her Book. "I don't think any of it is useable, but I might be thinking about it too much. Austin is going to text me the details later."
"Then this is your office, now. Is that it?"
"Yup."
"Oh shit," Trish sits upright, "this is yours and Austin's office."
"Yup."
She cracks up at Ally's haunted look.
Austin drops Dez off and has every intention of going home and staying there for the night.
He's tired and he has a gig with Kira and another Starr signee tomorrow. Not a large one by any means, but important all the same. The first that he'll have two of his own songs to perform rather than just covers and duets. The first that he can make purely his own with the band and choreography. Though, he has a copy of Ally's composition for Break Down The Walls and he has Doubletake in his head. He just has to figure out how to turn it out onto the page.
The thing he is worst at.
But he makes an effort. Home and eating dinner before sundown, blank sheets for writing the music out on printed curtesy of the internet and a black pen. Austin gets the guitar tablature for both songs down in no time. He gets stuck after that. His brain running out of gas and stalling right as he hits the familiar urge for procrastination. He mostly finishes writing out Doubletake before deciding to reward himself with a drive to the beach before his parents get home.
When it's too dark for people to still have to many umbrellas set up.
And sure it's a bit of a drive from his house to Mid-Beach. And sure, the traffic still kind of sucks even later into the summer nights. And of course, the whole of Miami Beach is lined by hotels on the bayside and crowded all the way to the inlet which makes finding parking a nightmare. People love to trot out in front of moving cars with a reckless abandon that even Austin doesn't have.
But it's worth it to him.
There are still people partying on the sand. So even as he picks a relatively empty stretch to sit on, he isn't truly alone. Behind him, the hotels and streets burn bright in artificial lights that blot out all but the brightest stars and moon above the ocean. The surge of the tide drowns out most of the chatter except for the occasional bark of laughter or whooping cheer from none-too-far away. Austin smiles to himself and draws his knees up to rest his arms on them. The waves roll up the sand.
Sometimes, his mind wanders to thoughts on whether the beaches of California are any different.