To Catch a Dream

Chapter Ten - California Love

We had spent a night in Nevada, and just as soon as we had gotten there we had left. Headed straight for California.

This time we hadn't forgotten someone at the gas station or argued about who would play aux. We didn't argue, and nothing went wrong.

We had driven along the highway toward California for a few hours now, and I can't speak for my friends but I was so excited to finally be there that it felt like my heart was going to pump out of my chest. I was beyond ecstatic to play and maybe even win a record label.

"So why are you guys doing this competition thing?" Avery asked.

"Why didn't you ask that before you left your job-?" Zahra started to ask before I interrupted her.

"There's prize money and a record deal with MK Publishing!"

"Oh?" Avery questioned. "Like, the MK Publishing who released S.O.A.P.'s album two years ago?"

"You listen to S.O.A.P.?" Jasper mumbled.

"Yes!" I said. "Just like S.O.A.P., they were in the same competition we're doing too!"

"So we have like...an actual chance...to be something?" Avery asked, his eyes lighting up.

"Yes!"

"Oh, my God, I didn't realize how big this was," he smiles as his chest starts rising higher and lower. "This is huge!"

"YES!" I yelled, moving my hands in sporadic motions with excitement.

Avery placed his hand on his chest, "My moms are going to be so proud, thank- thank you, guys, for letting me come with you so much...oh...my," he said with a smile on his face.

"Of course dude, we love you here!" Jasper beamed.

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We reached the house we'd be spending the next five days in. It was HUGE! I don't know who really lives here, but thanks for making it an Airbnb. It was up a hill in a neighborhood that was gated shut with a passcode.

Logan quickly typed the code in and headed towards the top of the hill past many other mansions. We had spent so much money on nights here, but we wanted to treat ourselves.

On the property, there was a pool, a hot tub, a garden, an area for a fire pit, and many other things. There were countless bedrooms, countless bathrooms, extremely high ceilings, a large living room, kitchen, dining room, and front room. Each is adorned with different types of instruments.

We walked into the house and were met with a huge grand piano by the entrance, Avery immediately ran towards it and began playing different songs on it, most from memory, others from a book of sheet music in front of him.

As we walked into more parts of the large mansion there were electric and acoustic guitars hung on the walls, ukuleles, violins, and cellos precariously hung on the wall, balancing there.

There was a large library, in which a smaller piano was found, and was once again played by Avery.

"This one's out of tune, do you think the owners know that?" He asked.

"That's why the bigger ones are in the front room," Zahra snarkily rationalized to him.

"Sure," Avery agreed.

We had moved into other rooms in the mansion, eventually splitting off from each other and finding our own rooms. Each of us had spent a few hours in there until five in the evening had arrived, and soon we each crawled out of rooms and met in the extravagant living room.

"We have five days here," Logan explained, holding up five fingers, "We have all the time in the world to practice and relax. But I want it to be known that we have two days to practice, including today!"

Logan had always been a good leader, he was lead singer, he always drove us around- despite the fact that the rest of us could drive- and he always led these inspirational meetings.

"We all know the set, except Avery, so I volunteer to teach him lyrics and chords and then let him decide what he wants to do for this band. You guys can join in and help if you want, or you can do whatever you want. If you wanna practice, go for it. If you wanna go swimming, go for it. I won't stop any of you! You have the power to relax and you have the power to practice!" Logan continued his speech before he turned to Avery. "C'mon Avery, we can practice in this huge garage they have," he smiled.

The rest of the group nodded in agreement as we split up. Zahra and Maya had decided to go swimming, Jasper was going to help Avery and Logan- and I was going to go play on my phone in my room and recharge.

I could hear them practicing from my room. Avery does pretty well.

He's cool.

I'm glad we brought him along.

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At some point, I had fallen asleep, luckily my phone was plugged in. I awoke the next morning and ran through the big mansion to the kitchen and began to make a huge breakfast for everyone. I wanted to celebrate us getting this far.

I made French toast, eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns for everyone. Everyone had slowly woken up as I got to the end of making breakfast.

The day moved slowly, we had our breakfast, got dressed, and then immediately got into practicing our songs.

"What are the names of our songs?" Avery asked.

"We have three that aren't named but there's ten in total, the first seven are named "The Centipede's Chant", "Bugs Sound Better", "The Rhythm of the Bugs", "Early Morning Crawl", "Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Bugs", "The Year of the Bugs", and "The Forest is Your Land"," Logan explained.

"I'm seeing a theme with bugs," Avery joked.

"We are The Centipedes, after all," I explained, a smile plastered on my face. "Thought of the name myself, everyone loved it!"

"Sweet, it's kickass, I love it," Avery said with a grin on his face. "Last night, when Logan was showing me the ropes, I realized a lot of our songs are...rowdy, I love that! I've always been forced to learn slower and more melodic songs because of my dad...he always said rowdy loud music won't get a gentleman anywhere."

"That sucks," I mumble. "Maybe you wanna name the rest of our songs?"

"Yeah! Play 'em for me!"

We gathered around our instruments and began playing for Avery. Most of these songs included heavy instrumentals and occasional lyrics from someone.

"What about "Don't Eat Bugs" for that one?" Avery offered.

I looked at the group, they all smiled and nodded. "Hell yeah! I like that," I said.

We played our next song, it was heavy on a melody from Jasper's keyboard and the occasional rhythmic beat from Zahra's drums.

"This one could be "We Shall Crawl"?" He offered.

Once again, we all agreed.

We played him the last song, it was more heavy on Maya's ability to remix the sounds we made through the speakers live and pre-recorded audio. Avery seemed the most in awe of this song.

He had thought for a moment before he offered a name, "How about "Nice Weather for Bugs"?"

"Booya! You've got a great brain in there, Avery," I said, smiling. "Get in here, you wanna sing for us?"

Avery nodded.

"Well get in here! Let's practice!"