I slipped out my apartment door in sweats, an old baggy sweater I always wore, and sandals, shutting the door quietly behind me. I, unlike the boys, had respect for my neighbors at one in the morning. I padded softly over to the stairway and climbed up to the fifth floor. I was apartment 421, so since Michael was directly above me, he must be 521. Sure enough, I could hear the muffled voices and was that music? Whatever it was, I could hear it from the hallway, just like I could hear it from the floor below.
Scowling, I ran a hand through my long hair before delivering three swift knocks to Michael's door. I folded my arms and shifted my weight to one foot while tapping the other, and waited.
And waited.
76 seconds later, there was still no answer, and the noise proceeded inside. Rolling my eyes and deepening my scowl, I knocked again, doubling the number of knocks and the strength by which I rapped on the door.
Exactly 32 seconds later, I hit the door even harder, losing my patience with these boys. Much to my relief, the noise came to an abrupt stop and I could hear the voices reduce to a low murmur before stopping altogether.
11 seconds later, Michael Clifford opened the door.
"Lana?" He asked, looking down at me, his eyebrows pulled together. "What are you doing here?"
"What the hell are you guys doing that's loud enough for me to hear through my ceiling in my apartment?"
Michael looked surprised for a moment at my harsh, sudden tone. But the expression melted into a smirk as Michael crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. "You mean, what the hell are we doing that's loud enough for you to hear through the floor of my apartment?"
I glared at him. "That's hardly the fucking point, Michael."
He chuckled and stepped back out of the doorway, gesturing for me to enter the apartment. "See for yourself."
Michael's apartment had the exact same layout as my own, so I had a weird sense of Déjà vu, walking into an apartment that could've mine, but wasn't. Michael apartment wasn't too badly cluttered as I would expect a boy's to be, other than the boxes, a few strewn clothes, and a couple of video games.
But my focus was at the center of the living room, where there were three stools. Calum and Luke occupied two of the stools and Ashton sat lower to the ground. But what intrigued me the most of it all were the instruments they had. Calum sat to the left of the empty stool, with a bass balanced on his knee. Luke was on the right, with two acoustic guitars, one on his knee, the other being held in place on the ground by his free hand. As I moved closer, I could see Ashton wasn't on a low chair, he was sitting hunched over on a cajon.
Glancing between the three boys and then occasionally at Michael, I put the pieces together. "You guys are in a band?"
Laughing, Michael walked past me to grab his guitar from Luke and sat on his stool, saying, "Lana, we are a band."
I thought back to what Luke said at Concert in the Park, understanding what he was thinking when he asked me about what kind of bands played there. I looked over at Luke and asked, "So when you asked me what bands normally played at the park, you were thinking about getting a show?"
"Yup," he nodded. "I thought maybe we could book a performance, more public than small bars, clubs, or restaurants."
"I see," I said slowly, glancing between them again. "So I take it you guys are probably pretty good, if you think you can play at the park?"
"That's not for us to really say, hun." Ashton chuckled, drumming his hands quickly on the cajon.
"Hey," Calum spoke up. "Maybe you could stay for a little and hear one of our songs? It's always nice to have new opinions. Besides, it could be our way of apologizing for disturbing you."
