friends in low places

Chapter Five

As Charlie led the apparently famous supergroup up to his room, he secretly hoped they didn't think negatively of him for not knowing who they were. They seemed to not care all that much, and he was thankful there was not an immediate falling out, but he was still nervous about it. 

They got to his room and he sat down at his usual spot in front of the keyboard that sat by the window that overlooked the street below. He turned to them and smiled, hoping they would make themselves comfortable. 

"You guys can sit where ever you want, I'm sorry I don't have a lot of seating areas up here, I didn't really think about that." Charlie said. He couldn't help but dwell on the fact that he wasn't being a very welcoming host, but he was so high that he was barely functioning right now. He knew he shouldn't have smoked again with Zeb, but he had a hard time telling him no.

"You're all good dude, don't sweat it." Phoebe said with a smile, while sitting down on the pallet his bed sat on. Julien and Lucy followed suit. 

"You've got a nice selection of guitars man, I'll have to show you mine sometime!" Julien said, genuinely impressed that a kid so young had such a great layout. It was definitely obvious that Charlie was serious about music, it took up every square inch of his room, whether it be the instruments, the various band posters, or his seemingly huge record collection. 

"Hell yeah dude, I would love that! Is there one you wanted to play?" Charlie looked at all of them, to spread the question out to Lucy and Phoebe. 

"Oh I think we'd actually rather hear you play us something, at least for the time being." Lucy said, looking at Phoebe and Julien for confirmation. 

"Yeah definitely, I wanna see if you can actually shred or if these are just for decoration." Julien said jokingly. She hoped he didn't actually take that offensively, she knew that if someone spent this kind of money on something, they were most likely very invested in it. If not, that wouldn't be a very sustainable way of living. Julien had definitely saw that too however.

"Oooh, I see I see. Well, is there anything you want me to play?" Charlie asks, already picking up the sleek black Fender that Julien had been eyeing up. 

They all thought about it for a moment, Phoebe taking to Spotify to scour her recent liked songs, Julien and Lucy both copying the action. Charlie waited patiently, starting to mess around while they figured out what they wanted to hear. He had been working a new song, and was trying to get the right melody that was in his head onto the neck of the guitar. It took a little bit, but he got it eventually. When he looked up, he found all three women staring intently at him. He slowly stopped playing, mildly confused at what happened.

"Is everything okay?" He asked hesitantly. He hoped they didn't think he was just ignoring them, or trying to show off. He was just high and passing the time. He really had no idea how to interact with people, especially famous musicians, so his head was constantly spouting off everything that could go wrong with this encounter. Phoebe cleared her throat and shook her head.

"Yeah sorry man, I think we were just into what you were playing. Is that from a song or did you make that up?" She asked, still looking at him intently. 

"Oh it's just this thing I've been working on, I couldn't seem to get the melody figured out, but I think I finally did." Charlie said to the floor. He really hoped they weren't about to roast the shit out of him, he wasn't sure if he could handle it, given his current state.

"Yeah man, I think you did too." Julien said, sounding impressed. "That was really beautiful, do you have lyrics that go with it?" She asked, situating herself on the ground, wrapping her arms around her legs.

"Uhhh.." Charlie starts, hesitant to show them his lyrics. Before he knew they were a famous and successful band, he wouldn't have thought twice, but knowing that important fact about them, he was reluctant. He didn't want his lyrics to seem superficial, or basic. They didn't seem like the type of people that would say that kind of thing to his face, but he thought that them thinking it and talking amongst themselves about it later would be much worse.