Wild Ride - The Alternative Version (Book 2)

Chapter 74~The Bearer Of Bad News

Another week flew by, and all of us were gathered at Matt's place today, having discussing more of the stuff for the vow renewal. We were making great progress. Though Elise was at work, I brought the things we wrote down for ideas and such and the girls took it from there. Simple enough.

While we'd been doing that, the kids were all piled in the living room playing Rock Band 3 on Matt's Xbox 360. When we finished doing everything we needed to for today, we went in and joined them, watching them conquer song after song. The younger kids were playing right now, and Abbie, Ella, and Isaac were sitting on the couch together, watching them with interest. Brady was on drums, Mikayla was on guitar, and Darren was playing bass. Apparently no one wanted to sing. 

They would cycle through every few songs, just among the youngers one it looked like. Kaylee was up next, and she chose to play guitar. I don't think she's ever played before, but she wanted to try it, curious to see how it worked as usual. But she soon found that it wasn't as easy as it looked, and she pouted a little when she couldn't hit the notes and strum at the same time, on time. It was kind of hard for her to reach the end of the neck of the guitar where the buttons were, trying as hard as she could to stretch her arm and those little fingers over the buttons. She just looked up at Abbie helplessly.

"Need help?" Abbie asked, and Kaylee nodded sullenly.

"I missed like, all of them." 

"That's ok, you're just not used to it yet." Abbie replied as she moved over and sat Kaylee in her lap, who was still holding onto the guitar. "Why don't you bring your fingers down here to the smaller buttons, that way it'll be easier for you to reach and it'll be a lot more comfortable for you." Abbie took Kaylee's hand and placed it where the skinnier buttons were on the bottom, closer to the strum bar. 

"I still only need three buttons, right?"

"Right, green, red, and yellow. They work the same way as the big ones do. Remember, they're lined up the same way on the guitar as they are on the screen too. It's kind of hard to do it without looking at the guitar at first, but you'll learn to do it just by looking at the screen eventually. Just don't give up." Abbie told her.

Kaylee tilted her head back to look up at Abbie. "Will you do it with me? The way you taught me to play the other games?"  

Abbie nodded in response, and then she placed her hands over Kaylee's, positioning her fingers the same way as Kaylee's. "Ready?" She asked Kaylee, who nodded. To the other kids, she said, "We're ready when you guys are." 

They chose to play Pressure by Paramore, and Abbie would press down Kaylee's fingers to tell her what buttons to press, reminding her to look at the screen and not the guitar.

"But how will I know if I'm pressing the right ones?" Kaylee had asked.

"Just trust me." Abbie said, and Kaylee did. She let Abbie move her hand downward to strum at the correct time, and after they got about halfway through the song, I could see that Kaylee was starting to figure it out as she was reacting the same time Abbie was, going a while without missing a note. Abbie noticed too, and without Kaylee even noticing, she let her hands drop away from Kaylee's, and Kaylee did the rest all on her own.

Kaylee didn't notice Abbie's hands were missing from hers until they got back to the setlist after the song was well over with, and she looked at Abbie, saying, "Hey, wait a minute! Where are your hands?" 

Abbie held up her hands from where they'd been resting at her sides. Kaylee looked utterly puzzled. "I let go halfway through the song and you didn't even realize it." 

Her eyes widened. "You mean I did that all by myself!?" 

Abbie grinned and nodded. "All by yourself."