The Middle | ✔️

Chapter 42

Jamie

About 15 minutes earlier.

By the time we arrive at the beach, the party is in full swing and there is literally only one parking spot left in the parking lot, like a mile away from the steps leading up to the promenade. Awesome.

"Could we be parked any further away?" Joel moans, slamming his car door closed.

"Don't complain, at least you got a spot." Patrick says, opening Joel's trunk and hauling out a guitar.

"Yeah, well, we probably would have gotten a better spot if you didn't insist on pulling over to give those girls directions back in town." Joel throws Patrick a glare, Jay and I laugh.

"What? They looked lost." Patrick says, shrugging his shoulders.

"Lost!? Veronica Sommerville was driving the car! She's from North Bridge!" Joel exclaims.

"Yeah, she was lost all right." I say as Patrick hands me my guitar. "Lost without Patrick's phone number."

"Correct." Patrick says with a wink, and we make our way over to the promenade with our guitars and our bags full of alcohol. The guys are sticking to beer tonight, and I've brought rose wine for myself. Wine does tend to go straight to my head, but I'll take it slow.

"Bryan! Are you guys done?" Jay calls over to Bryan Dawson as we make our way down onto the sand, by the fire pit. Bryan and his friend Max Coull were jamming with their guitars around the fire pit, but they've just stood up and slung their guitars off of their shoulders.

"Yeah! It's all yours!" Bryan calls over to us before him and Max head over towards to the crowd of people surrounding the drinks tables. I spy Shaun Campbell talking to some girls by the tables, I knew he wouldn't be too far from Bryan and Max, his band mates. The poor drummers are redundant tonight though, which explains why he wasn't sitting around the fire with them.

Joel, Jay and I sit down by the fire with our guitars, not wanting to waste any time in case another group of musicians start jamming before us, and Patrick goes to pour our drinks into cups.

"What's it gonna be?" Joel asks, settling his guitar onto his knee.

"Can we do The Chain?" I ask eagerly. Such a good 'sitting around a fire, chilling out by the beach' type of song.

Jay and Joel don't answer me, Jay just begins playing the opening chords of The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, one of my favourite songs. Jay sings Lindsay Buckingham's lead, and I sing Stevie Nick's backing vocals. We love playing this song together, if we were ever gonna record a cover, I'm sure this would be the one.

"Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise."

I smile at Jay and Joel as we play, and watch as Patrick sits down next to Joel with our drinks crammed in between both of his hands. We've attracted a fan club already (almost exclusively female) but that's nothing out of the ordinary. I look around at the people smiling at us and enjoying the music as I play, grateful that they're giving us their attention. It means a lot, it always does and it always will.

"And if you don't love me now, you will never love me again."

I scan the sea of people around us, and my eye catches Aubrey's. I smile at her. She's standing with John, Kim and Zach, and actually, she looks a little stressed. So does Kim. Zach looks casual, and John looks kind of...bummed? He's talking to Aubrey and Kim about something, and the girls don't look too happy about it. Shit, I wonder what's going on. Aubrey and Kim are looking over at me though. I'm smiling at them as I sing, though. Why aren't they smiling back at me?