"How long would that take?"
"And could we find the budget to hire someone or would it have to be volunteer? Finding a volunteer is going to be tough."
"And another thing," Principal Donovan added. "Can any of you play an instrument?"
Silence. I almost raised my hand, since I'd played piano as a child way back before my Dad passed. But to say I was rusty was an insult to rust.
Principal Donovan scanned our glum faces. "I'm not hearing a whole lot of enthusiasm here, people" he said, with a warning in his voice.
"But we have to do it!" I cried out. I looked at my fellow teachers, terrified that we were going to blow this. "Gid wrote all the music, he picked all the parts. We have to do it in his memory, as a tribute." I looked around wildly. "Don't you think?"
I looked back at Principal Donovan who was nodding with a knowing smile. "I absolutely agree, Ruby. And it sounds to me like you just volunteered to make it happen."
Chapter Fourteen
Jonah
The house was quiet for the first time in days. I'd grabbed my guitar, ready to start working.
And then I'd just... sat there.
In twelve years in the business, I'd never once had writer's block. I didn't even understand it when others complained about it. To me, you sat down with your guitar and you powered through the ideas, one after another until you found something that worked. And it always worked.
Until now.
I set it back down again and stared at the wall, almost awed by how blank my mind was. Not a single idea bubbled to the surface of my brain. No melodies, no phrases that could be captured and fitted into a song.
There was nothing there. I stared at the wall as if it had answers, but the only thing that came to me was Ruby.
Kissing her wasn't something I'd planned. I had no grand scheme to seduce her by going to her knitting club.
But there had been something there. I'd felt it. She felt it. I could tell by the way she blushed when she made that accidental innuendo. And that feeling of wonder I kept having when I was with her, that rush of excitement over something brand new, made me lean in and see just what that something could be.
That something was electric. I'd kissed her softly, sweetly, but the way she yielded, parting her lips for me and letting me take control had my dick hard in an instant. She was perfect and I had no idea how I hadn't realized that until then.
I couldn't get that kiss out of my head. I couldn't get that girl out of my head.
And I couldn't get the words she'd shouted at me as she threw down her money and stomped out of the cafe out of my head either
You make decisions that affect other people's lives that aren't yours to make.
No wondered I had no ideas. That phrase had been running through my brain like a steamroller, squashing out any other thoughts.
Was it true? It didn't feel true. But then I had to remember that it was my idea to audition for the talent show way back when in the first place. My brothers had been content to get comic book money from our local appearances, but I'd always wanted something more. I'd more or less dragged my siblings to the mall that day.
And that decision had definitely affected their lives. Everything had changed, because of me. I'd always thought I'd done them a favor, that they'd owed me for it, but now?
Now I wasn't so sure.
Suddenly there was a bang that made my heart skip a beat. I leaped off my bed when it was followed by a sickening thud.
And then a series of eloquent-yet-filthy curse words that only Gabriel King was capable of stringing together.
I looked away from the wall. Duke looked up too. "You think he's okay?" I asked my dog.
Duke huffed and laid back down again, but I could feel his judgement all the same. "I'm sure he's not dead or something," I told him. "He wouldn't be cussing like that if he was."
I heard stomping and then another loud bang, then the sound of the tap running. Duke raised his head again and this time he looked at me.
"Fine," I told him. "You're basically deaf anyway, so you won't have to hear the yelling." I took a deep breath before calling down the stairs, "You okay down there?"
"Fuck off!" came the reply.
"Charming," I called back. "Just tell me you're not bleeding out on the carpet. Mom would kill me."
"I'm fine," Gabe grunted, then cursed again.
I thundered down the stairs and through the kitchen to find him in the downstairs bathroom. Blood streamed from a cut on his forehead.
"Jesus, you look like something out of a horror movie."
He ignored me and hissed, trying to fit a butterfly bandage over the wound, but the blood made it too slippery.
"Here, asshole. Let me do it, you're fucking it up," I said.
"I've got it."
"You clearly don't."
"Shit!" he snarled as the adhesive folded on itself.
"Will you let me?" I demanded. "Turn this way."
Gabe glared at me for a moment, but then blood dripped right down into his eye. Blinking furiously, he shoved the packet of bandages at me. "Hurry up," he growled. "Before I get blood on the towel and mom has a coronary."
I took the package, silently reveling in the first joke he'd made with me in nearly two years. "Okay hold still, I'm gonna pinch it shut."
He lunged away. "Are your hands clean?"
"No, they've been up in cowshit all day, you know me. What the hell happened to you anyway?"
He hissed as I gingerly closed the gash with my fingers. "I needed one of Dad's wrenches."
I instantly understood. "And he keeps them up so high."
"Fucking pegboard," Gabe sighed as I pulled the adhesive strip tight. "Why can't he have all his tools chucked in a disorganized toolbox like normal people?"
"So it fell on you? What, you didn't grab the ladder?"
"I didn't want to get out a fucking stepladder for just one wrench." He glanced at me as I wiped the blood away from the bandage with a wet cloth. "So I jumped."
I snorted. "Course you did."
"Course I did," he agreed.
I looked at him. He looked at me. This was the longest we'd spoken to each other in nearly two years. "How's that?" I asked, my voice oddly thick.
Gabe looked in the mirror and shrugged. "I suppose it'll do."
"You look like you got in a bar brawl," I told him.
He looked at me. "You don't look so great either," he observed, pushing past me out to the kitchen.
A smart remark leapt to my throat but Ruby's words clanged in my head and I held my tongue. "I don't feel awesome, if that's what you're trying to say," I said instead.
He opened the fridge and searched for a moment before pulling out an apple. "Well that sucks for you then," he said, polishing it on his shirt before taking a bite.
He was trying to shut me down, but I wasn't having it. "Where are you going?"
He lifted his chin towards the farthest shed.
"Dirt bike?" I asked him, incredulous. "Really? You still going to the track down by the creek?"