Crappy-Looking Planter Boxes

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ASHLEY:

I hear a tap on my door, then Jake cracks it open. "You coming down to breakfast, dude?"

"Yeah, I'll be down as soon as I finish getting dressed," I tell him, as I rummage through the drawer for socks. "I should only be a couple more minutes."

He goes on, and I finish getting dressed, then make the mistake of looking in the mirror before I leave the room. Shit, I look fucking ghastly! I'm starting to get big circles under my eyes from lack of sleep, and I'm pretty sure that I'm losing weight, too. It's been almost a week since the festival, and I still wake up at least once every night because the place is just too fucking quiet now. And it's not just me, the rest of the guys have mentioned it, too; things like how they expect to hear the window closing during the night, or how they're sort of startled not to find things put back in order when we come in from the studio. Apparently, we were all taking those things for granted, and got lazy.

I head down to the dining room, passing Charlie on the way, who says, "Good morning, Ashley. Don't take this the wrong way, but you look like you've had a bit of a rough night."

"Yeah, still not quite used to how quiet it's gotten. To be honest with you, I'm actually kind of glad we can't go to the studio for the next couple of days, I'm not sure how well I'd be able to concentrate."

We found out a few days ago that there's some kind of street fair going on in the neighborhood where the studio is located, and since we were told that the street will be closed to traffic today and tomorrow, and that parking will be a nightmare for several blocks around, we just decided to stay in this weekend, and do some longer hours later to make up for it. Which is fine with me, since those kinds of crowds seem to be prime locations for weird encounters. I mean, we love our fans, but being chased through the streets of an unfamiliar city is definitely not on my list of fun things.

I go on into the room, and walk over to the coffee dispenser on the sideboard, and as I reach for a mug, Susan passes me, carrying pitchers of juice to the table. She glances at me and gives me a polite nod, but doesn't say anything, which has been pretty much the status quo since the other night. My popularity with our hostess has dwindled considerably, and in comparison to everyone else, I've been downgraded from "friend" to "just another guest". And, if I'm honest with myself, I guess I shouldn't be surprised; she's still upset about the thought of Rachel's dad coming into the house, and what he might be planning to do with the medallion. Also, the two of them had become friendly, since they spent so much time together while we were gone, and she blames me for not having her friend here anymore.

As I sit down with my coffee, Jinxx looks up from his plate and says, "Hey, Ash, I know I already said this last night, but I'm sorry about the incident at the cafe. I hope Melissa isn't pissed off at you because of it."

"I haven't heard from her, so I don't know if she's heard about it yet, since she didn't work last night," I tell him. "And if she wants to get bent out of shape over that, it's her problem, not mine."

CC laughs, almost choking on his toast in the process. When he's able to speak, he says, "With all the people there last night, I'm pretty sure somebody has spread the word by now. Hell, they almost got a standing ovation!"

The "incident" they're talking about involves the fact that Jinxx, along with one of the other customers, completely discredited Jimmy's "paranormal investigator" credentials. He was there last night, telling people stories about "cases" he's been involved with, which meant that we had to listen to Jinxx grumbling about what a moron he was. This went on for a bit, until the woman sitting behind him, who turned out to be a college professor, started questioning some of the things he was saying.

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