Man Overboard

29. This World's An Ugly Place, But You're So Beautiful To Me

"Guess what song played on the radio, not once, but twice on the ride back from campus?" Mark asked rhetorically as he strutted into the apartment. "That's right, fuckers! My song."

I looked up from where I was doing homework at the kitchen table and glanced over at Tom in the living room. He stopped playing his guitar and smiled at me from the couch.

"Don't you mean our song?" Tom smirked, turning his head to look back at Mark.

"Eh, same thing," Mark waved off Tom's correction. "They said it's the most requested track at the station already. Can you believe that?"

"Are you serious?" Tom demanded, twisting in his seat. "It's only been two weeks!"

"I know!" Mark shouted back.

"Dude, that's so fucking awesome!" Tom set his guitar on the couch before running over to Mark. The two did an elaborate handshake before holding each other's hands and jumping up and down.

I giggled at their display, but they deserved to be excited. The band had worked so hard to get to this point. This had been Tom's dream for years, and now it was finally coming true. Blink had a song on the radio and it was getting a hell of a lot of airplay. The band's popularity seemed to spike overnight because of it. The shows they played started to double and they were getting more attention; there was even a possibility of making a music video for "M+M's".

Not all the attention was good, however, something we all realized when Mark got a phone call from Cargo Records a few weeks later.

"Seriously?" Mark talked into the landline disbelievingly. Tom's frown matched my own while we watched Mark from the couch. "Okay, yeah," Mark said with defeat. "We'll change it... Alright, thanks."

"What was that?" Tom asked. Mark sighed heavily as he joined us on the couch again so we could resume the movie we were watching.

"That was the record company. Apparently there's another band named Blink," Mark huffed. "We have to change our name or they'll sue."

"What? Can they do that?" I asked, shocked.

"Apparently," Mark sighed again. I understood his reason for being upset. Blink was who they were, and now some other band was trying to take that away from them.

"I've never even heard of another blink," Tom rejoined, clearly just as angry as Mark was. "Who the fuck do they think they are?"

"Some techno band from Ireland or some shit," Mark answered. "Cargo gave us a week to change our name."

"I'm sorry, guys," I apologized. Mark gave me a weak smile while Tom put his arm over my shoulders and kissed the top of my head.

"I guess we'd better start thinking of another name," Tom declared before hitting the play button on the remote.

But being the boys they were, they put it off for another few weeks. It was already a few days past the deadline Cargo had set for the band, and I hadn't heard the boys mention a new name once. They were definitely putting the task off, but I figured they would get around to it eventually, even though it seemed like the last thing on Tom's mind right now.

I was preparing dinner in the kitchen when Tom hopped up onto the counter next to me. He swung his legs slightly, his feet only a few inches off the ground. I continued to trim the chicken breasts, completely unsurprised by Tom's behavior.