Misprinted Lies (Alice in Chains/Bruno Mars)

Misprinted Lies

A/N: Here we go! When you see the straight line it changes POV. There are only two POVs so it won't be confusing. It starts with Bruno.

On a Friday in March of 2010, Ryan Tedder invited me to his house for a party celebrating the release of Billionaire. It was going to be the year of Bruno Mars. This was it. This was my big break after so many years of being told I wasn't good enough. With the talks of a new album and a tour, I was going to be busy.

I knew this was going to be an interesting party. Ryan told me he had been working with Kurt Cobain's daughter. I used to play parts of Nirvana songs in random bars in Hawaii and later L.A.

"Look who decided to show up," Ryan yelled across the yard.

All eyes turned were on her.

"You cleaned up well. I'm surprised," Ryan said.

"Yeah, I decided to come out of my hole," she replied.

She and Travie greeted each other. He's so tall. He's like a foot taller than me so compared to her, he was a skyscraper.

"Sorry, sorry," Ryan said quickly. "Lily this is Bruno. He co-wrote and sings part of the song. Bruno this is Lily, she does the engineering and mixing with me and well, for me at Patriot Records."

"I read some of those lyrics. They're pretty damn great," she said. It was pretty awkward and uncomfortable and I wasn't sure why

"I know, right," I said.

"Who doesn't want a shit-ton of money?" she said dramatically.

I glared at her.

"Hey Lil," Ryan said, breaking the silence. "Go over to the bar and get yourself a drink."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

She was born in the early 90's, way too young for a drink. I wasn't sure about her, but I was sure about that. What was Ryan doing working with a teenager anyway? I started remembering myself as a teenager, definitely not mature enough to work for a record company.

"What kind of comment was that?" I asked as she walked away. "She has a shit-ton of money. She shouldn't be talking."

"Neither should you, Bruno," Ryan told me. "Careful, it's not what you think."

"What do you mean?"

A little while later she complimented my Metallica shirt, which I thought was kinda cool. We talked about them for a while. It's hard to find girls that can hold a lengthy conversation about heavy bands.

______________________________________________________________________________

B.O.B invited Phil and Ari over, who were Bruno's songwriting partners, producers, and really good friends by their interactions. We decided to take a break for a little bit. We were losing our minds. We had drinks and hung around. Phil started playing something ridiculous on piano and we were all laughing.

I started to feel a little guilty. I started thinking about Jerry and how I just left those guys. Goofing around in the studio was what I did with them too, except those guys basically helped raise me. Should I have called back? Should I have calledJerry?

"Hi Lily!"

I snapped out of my funk. It was Bruno. I had hoped I wasn't zoned out for too long.

"Oh hey Bruno."

"Hey show em the song," Ari said excitedly.

"Well it's not done yet but here goes," I said.

I hit play on the computer. We all sat in silence listening to the song. I spun around in the chair giving a fake smile and hoping for some kind of approval.

"Damn that's good. Sounds done to me," Bruno said taking a sip of his drink.

"Think so? I think the guitar needs a little something...less treble and more bass, maybe," I said.

Maybe this WAS different. Here I'm actually doing stuff, not just sitting around watching other people work with music. Maybe this was it, my calling. Maybe this was my way of showing the world I'm not just the product of a bunch of junkies and I have something going for me. Those magazines weren't going to have lies to write about me just because they could no longer write about my dad.

Phil went home first, then Ari.

I hadn't even noticed how late it was getting.

"Hey, nice work today," Ryan said, giving me a hug.

"Thanks, Ryan. You too. See ya tomorrow."

"You going home?" Ryan asked, grabbing his keys. "We have that meeting tomorrow morning."

"Um," I said, yawning again. "I don't have my car here. Probably not."

He smiled. "Don't be ridiculous. I brought you here so I'm taking you back home. I'm dropping Bruno off on the way."

Oh god. To my house?

"No don't worry about it, seriously," I said. "It's too out of the way."

"No seriously, let me take ya home."

Ryan stared at me for a while.

I took an exaggerated breath. "Alright fine."

"Great," he said with a smile.

I put my guitar back in the case and he threw me my jacket.

We piled into Ryan's car. I sat in the passenger's seat and Bruno sat in the back.

I didn't even want to see Bruno's reaction as we pulled into the driveway. He clearly had already hardcore judged me from the moment we met. Ryan already knew my situation and I appreciated his lack of judgement. Bruno took my guitar out of the backseat. I tried taking it out of his hand but he pulled back.

"Let me walk you in."

Oh great.

I unlocked the front door. It took a few shoves to open the door. He followed me in, leaving the front door cracked open. I cringed as he took a look around. That house should have been condemned.

"Cool posters," he said looking at a long wall of classic video game posters, my effort of making a distraction from the rotted wood paneling.

He walked up and down the hallway looking at the posters. I heard his feet squeaking as he walked on the yellow shag carpeting covering an old floor. The whole front room smelled of mold all the time. There were definitely issues in this house.

I yawned.

"Well I'll let chu get some sleep," he said, giving me my guitar.

"Thanks, Bruno."

"No problem," he said, flashing a bright smile with a nod.

______________________________________________________________________________

She was so mysterious. What happened to her? There was so much I didn't know; I had so many questions. As soon as I got home, I read some websites that told me that Alice in Chains singer Layne Staley also had custody of her after her father committed suicide, which didn't make much sense to me. That couldn't be true.

Kurt's family and her mother Courtney had to have been the ones taking care of her, not a drug addict who wasn't even related to her. Her eyes were a bright blue color like his were. Why was she living here? Why was she living alone, in drug and criminal infested neighborhood?

I couldn't sleep and I felt like a complete asshole. I passed so much judgement on her when I shouldn't have. I painted a picture of a girl using nothing but lies from the internet.