Precious Virtue
Chapter XL: Loved & Lost
[Preston's POV]
"I'm starving." Blaire groaned, letting her guitar hang around her shoulders. "How long have we been practicing for?"
"About an hour," Elijah replied, checking his phone. "Why don't we practice for another half hour, and then we go and pick something up to eat?"
"Mmm...sounds good. Can we get fries? I want fries. And maybe a burger. Oh, oh! Maybe chicken nuggets instead?" Blaire rambled off. I chuckled.
"Now I want a burger, honestly."
"Practice first, burgers later," Elijah said, snapping his fingers to gain Blaire and I's attention. "We only got a month left before the festival, so let's make the most out of practice, yeah?"
"Whatever you say, mom."
Flores, Prim, and Blaire, all laughed behind us. Elijah narrowed his eyes at me. I smiled innocently and walked back over to the microphone stand.
Since I started my outpatient treatment, my roommates and I have been meeting up in one of the music studios on campus every other evening after my 12-step meeting to practice for the music festival. We usually practiced for an hour or two. We were going to be given roughly fifteen minutes of stage time, so we had a few songs lined up that we needed to practice and perfect.
It was a lot of work, managing band practice on top of my rehab and schoolwork, while also making time for Adrien, but my therapists and my roommates have been super helpful with keeping me on track, and so that I didn't get so overwhelmed.
My professors also gave me a little more leniency with labs and paper deadlines, so that I wasn't completely drowning myself. It also helped that I was able to get set up with a disability advisor on campus for my BPD and substance abuse diagnosis, so I had access to some accommodations to make my life easier.
We practiced for another half hour or so as Elijah suggested, Flores on his drums, Primrose on her keyboard, Blaire and Elijah on their guitars, and me singing. We ended up goofing around a bit toward the end of practice, just playing random tunes and cords on our instruments. When practice was over, we packed up our instruments and walked back to our residence to put them away and grab our wallets.
"I think I need to tune my guitar a bit more, I feel like my riffs sound just slightly off still," Blaire spoke up as we walked, one hand tucked into her coat pocket, the other carrying her guitar case. "It's annoying the heck outta me."
"We can tune it more when we practice on Friday," Elijah reassured her. "It doesn't sound bad though, I'm sure we can perfect it well before the festival."
"It's okay, I still feel rusty on all the high notes. I can't quite reach them yet," I chuckled. Blaire scoffed.
"Are you kidding? You sound amazing."
"Maybe, but it could be amazing-er. You know?"
"Amazing-er? That's not even a word—"
"Well, I just made it a word," I smirked.
"The word sounds stupid, not gonna lie," Flores butted in, nudging me with his elbow. I gave him the side eye.
"Yeah? I don't care what you think." I stuck my tongue out at him. Flores laughed.
Conversation bounced around the five of us as we walked, and as we got closer to our townhouse dorm, Blaire was reaching into her purse, fumbling for her keys. By the time our dorm was in sight and we walked closer, our chatting quieted and I slowed down, brows furrowing when I realized that Luka was standing just outside the door, hands shoved in his coat pockets.
YOU ARE READING
Precious Virtue ✓
General Fiction[Precious Series Book Two] As the weeks go by and summer break ends, Preston King and Adrien Aguilera's mending friendship becomes just a bit more complicated as they start university, and they're separated by distance. For Preston, while he's exci...
