The Middle | ✔️

Chapter 26

Jamie

My Friday night guitar lesson with John went well, and as expected, Jay, Joel and Patrick showed up. It was good, Jay and Joel gave John some pointers, Patrick drank my coffee and ate my food, then Aubrey came over. Luckily, she wasn't overly interested in listening to any of us play guitar, so we didn't need to cover up the fact that John can only really play one song. We all just talked and hung out for a while. It got pretty late, actually. It was almost 1 o clock in the morning before the guys decided to leave, closely followed by Aubrey and John. Patrick and Joel live pretty close to the dorms, so Patrick offered Aubrey and John a ride. They said no though. Apparently they wanted to walk to get used to the route over to my house or some shit. We all knew they just wanted to walk home together. They're so cute.

So now it's Saturday afternoon, and I'm currently walking over to Jays place with Benji. Jays parents aren't exactly dog people, so Benji only gets to come over when they're out of town. That happens a lot though, so it's all good.

I'm not a huge fan of the street Jay lives on, because it's snob hill. All of the houses here are excessive and just scream money. I don't fit in in this neighborhood, but hey, neither does Jay. Ive been coming around here my entire life, so I don't exactly feel out of place. The gated community just isn't exactly my thing.

I'm only a few houses away from Jays place when a black range rover pulls up alongside the curb just ahead of me. Creepy. Am I about to be pulled into the truck and abducted? I'll soon find out, I guess. The window rolls down, and I hear a familiar voice.

"Hey there, Superstar." Shaun Campbell. Awesome. "What brings you to this side of town?"

"Don't call me that." I reply dryly. "I'm walking my dog, what the fuck does it look like I'm doing?"

"I can see that." He looks down at Benji with a smile. "But people who don't live on snob hill don't usually come around here on leisurely walks with their pets."

"People who don't live here don't usually drive around creeping out the innocent dog walkers." I reply sharply, and he laughs.

"My dad's house is right around the corner." He replies.

"My friend's house is right up the street." I comeback.

"Oh yeah, Jay Montgomery, you're in his band, right?" He asks, and I know he's being condescending on purpose, calling it Jay's band. The Middle is not a dictatorship.

"Yes, we are in a band together. Bye now." I say, and I continue walking with Benji. He drives slowly alongside me though, not taking the hint that I wanna end this pointless conversation.

"So, have you given anymore thought to picking up Drum class? There's still time." He asks arrogantly.

"No, I haven't, because there's nothing to think about. Stop being such a creepy curb crawler" I say, not looking at him through his car window, keeping my eyes fixed straight ahead of me.

He doesn't reply, he just laughs as he rolls up his window and speeds off ahead of me. Fucking weirdo. I shake off this weird exchange though, I'm almost at Jays.

I open the side gate to get into Jays driveway. I say driveway, but it's like a 5 minute drive from the main gate to the actual house. It's a winding road and it's uphill. I let Benji off of his leish and he begins running around Jay's garden. I say garden, it's an estate. It's practically a forest. So fucking excessive. But whatever, it is nice here.

When I do finally reach the house (cough, palace) I head around back, because we never really use the front door. Jay spends a lot of time in the pool house (yeah) or outside by the pool. He doesn't swim much, but his garden is really nice. We sit around out back quite a lot when the weather's good. It's better for Benji, too.