and the stars will all come out

chapter one! ☆

"YOU DOWN FOR LEBANESE?"

Startled, Dave glanced up from the notebook he'd been fervently scribbling attempts of lyrics into. It was too early for dinner, right? It had been a while since he'd last checked the time: it always passed strangely in this dilapidated, damp basement, and he usually ended up blaming it on how fucking hard it had been lately to match lyrics to a melody.

Nate Mendel was there standing awkwardly in the doorway, a phone clamped in his hand and looking apologetic.

"Taylor's at that new Lebanese place that opened on Westwood Boulevard," he said when Dave didn't say anything. "He's wondering what you'd like."

"Surprise me," Dave mumbled, looking down disinterestedly at the notebook again. None of his ideas sounded rhythmic, and the words he'd half-heartedly jotted down felt clunky and out of place, uninspired. Another bout of writer's block again, he could feel it - and he swore it was because of Los Angeles. What was it about this perfect plastic city that made it so hard to concentrate?

"He says he wants to be surprised," he could hear Nate saying before the door swung shut, and Dave was alone in the damp basement once more.

The more time he spent alone, the more he realized he hated this basement and everything in it. He knew an uninspired space when he saw one - it was in the stench of beer, the ugly peeling wallpaper, the ratty sleeping bags nailed to the walls, the unburned CDs and stained paper plates scattered across the floor, and the inexplicable humidity of it all. Taylor and Nate never would've agreed, not when they'd all agreed the third Foo Fighters album was about to be recorded here, but he'd been entertaining the idea of getting out for a while now. He wasn't sure if the others would understand, but it had been a year of this shit, of being a drunk and getting fucked up every night, and he was already down two former bandmates in the process.

A tense beat, an awkward staring match between him and the notebook, then Dave tugged his guitar strap off his shoulder and inhaled sharply from his nose. He wasn't getting any half-decent lyrics down tonight.

Give it one more week, whispered the soft, reassuring voice echoing in the depths of his mind. If it doesn't change in one week, we can change it. You just need to throw all that rockstar bullshit out of the window and find something to believe in.

☆

LANDRY WAS SICK OF THIS SCENE.

The local venue couldn't have held more than two hundred people in the stands every night, and on a good night, (which were scarce these days) the band only filled up thirty. And that wasn't even counting the ones who had fallen asleep during the intermission or those that had left after experiencing their fill of ugly sound problems and unoriginal lyrics and screeching voice cracks. They'd started as a Pantera cover band in this miserable, rainy corner of Virginia, and by the way things were going, they probably should've stayed a Pantera cover band in this miserable, rainy corner of Virginia. It would've been better than torturing the local venues and theatres, anyway.

She wasn't taking responsibility for any of it, though. In the eyes of Evelyn Cruz-McRae, the mastermind behind the misery, Landry was just an unassuming bass player who never spoke unless she was being sardonic. The only one in the band who she hadn't yet accused of sleeping with her boyfriend, because according to her, with a face like Landry's, it was laughable.

Yeah, it stung, but she'd never confessed she knew the way Evelyn talked about her because the truth was, when Evelyn decided she didn't need her anymore, where could she go?

Nowhere. That was the answer. Landry Clarke was bound to the neighbourhood of Arlandria forever, and she knew it.

"Water with lemon, please," she said to the waiter who swung by to take her drink order.