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Avery sported a scowl the entire Uber ride through the city after her shift at the diner. She was exhausted, smelled like bacon grease, and hardly had the cash lying around to take an Uber to some cryptic location her brother had texted to her. All she could think about was how desperate she was to take a shower and go to bed as the car pulled into the bumpy parking lot of a modest building. She tipped her driver when she exited the car, and texted Alex quickly. It was dark out, smog settling over the city as night fell, and Avery felt an certain eeriness as she watched her Uber leave. She tapped her fingers to the edges of her phone as she impatiently waited for Alex to reply, when a sudden blast of music erupted from the building, muffled but loud.
"What the hell?" She blurted out loud to no one as she crossed the lot. Once closer to the building, she noticed the back door was propped open slightly with a stray chunk of concrete. Curiosity overcame Avery, as it often did, and she slipped through the door and into a maze of darkened hallways. Her instinct was to follow the deafening sound of rock music coming from somewhere down the hall. It became clear to Avery quickly that she was in a recording studio, she hadn't even paid attention to any signs or logos outside the building. Finding and pushing through another door at the very end of the hall, Avery's eyes widened at the view of Alex sitting at a swivel chair behind an enormous sound panel watching a band through a glass window. Not just any band, though, it was Greta Van Fleet... Jake's band, "No fucking way..." Avery breathed, dropping her bag on the floor and rushing to get a better view through the glass. Alex looked up at her when she appeared beside him, his eyes sparkly.
"There you are! What took you so long?" Alex was already turned back to watching the band like a kid watching his favorite Saturday morning cartoon.
"I texted you, you didn't tell me where to go..." Avery answered out of the side of her mouth, her eyes also glued to the scene before them. The band was in full jam mode, not playing anything in particular, but sharing melodies like they could read each other's minds. Avery leaned in further and grinned. Hell, she'd have her nose pressed to the glass if the sound board wasn't in the way. They were cosmic, fantastic, breathtaking... encompassing everything Avery wanted to do and be.
Jake was entirely engrossed in the groove that broke out from a riff Sam had been playing with for upwards of a week. He loved when things like this happened, because it usually meant new material would birth out of it. Josh was singing random lines that came off the top of his head as the jam continued, occasionally scribbling them down in his notebook. They were meant to be running through some rough patches from their last show, but hardly anything ever went as planned when it came to the band. When inspiration hit, they simply let it take over. It was only when Jake slung his head sideways to look at Sam that a new face in the window caught his eye.
"Avery!" He blurted out with a grin, halting his playing abruptly and slinging his guitar off his shoulders. Sam and Danny came to an awkward stop as well, feedback and the cymbals echoing residually from the sudden change.
