The Middle - Volume Two ✔️

Chapter 14

Jamie

The following week, and I'm finishing up packing for New York. I am really fucking excited about this, and I'm feeling good. I've hooked up with Shaun a couple more times (at his place, I'm still not confident about sleeping with him over at my house - far too much traffic from my friends randomly showing up whenever they please) I haven't bumped into you-know-who again (I ditched English Lit again, meh. And I also ditched Social Studies, in the interests of avoiding Will too. The guys even agreed to bail on performing at the Grill Open Mic Thursday night, so I didn't see anyone I didn't wanna see there either) so overall, I feel very content today. I'm looking forward to a fun road trip with my boys, seeing Erin and Sarah again, and hopefully nailing this audition for the Blue Light Records scouts. 

Jay handled all the arrangements, as usual. He organised the audition with the scouts, he booked a couple of hotel rooms for us, and he even managed to get us out of classes for a couple of days. Turns out NBU staff are extremely forthcoming when it comes to excusing students in the interests of pursuing your dreams. I mean, NBU is so music orientated, it makes sense that they'd allow time off for auditions with record labels. Cool, huh? Aubrey and Kim agreed to dog-sit Benji for me, Jay is driving the four of us to the city in his truck with all of our instruments, so everything is totally taken care of. 

The scouts want us to play three songs for them, so we've agreed on Sensitivity, Mediocre Fuck and Dream Without the E. We all love the bones of Sensitivity, so it was an obvious choice. Mediocre Fuck is upbeat, comical (I wrote it about sex with Will...) and catchy as fuck, and Dream Without the E is slow, and much more emotional than the other two songs. We thought it was a pretty good mix, to show them our diversity. I'm feeling confident about it, we're gonna rock. I have my selected guitars at the ready, my overnight bag is packed, Benji is over at Aubrey and Kim's, and I'm sitting on my front porch waiting for Jay to pick me up. He honks his horn as he pulls into my driveway, and I smile as Patrick and Joel jump out from either side of the car to help me with my stuff. 

"I got it!" I insist. God, just because I'm a girl they think I can't lug my own shit into Jay's car. 

"We're only helping, J2. Come on, where's that smile?" Patrick says, taking one of my guitar cases from me against my will. I roll my eyes. 

"Did you take Benji over to the dorms?" Joel asks me, taking my overnight bag from me against my will. 

"Yeah, I told them they could spend the night here, but they thought it sounded like fun sneaking him into their suite. I didn't argue." I inform them as I make my way over to the truck. Jay's just sitting behind the wheel with the engine running. 

"Thanks for the help, dude. Love you too!" I say to Jay sarcastically as I hop up into the passenger seat. He laughs. Wow, he's in a good mood today. He has been in a good mood ever since he got the call from the scout though, which is nice.

"Any time." He says, as the trunk slams closed. "I need a Jamie Squared talk at some point today, by the way." He says quickly, before Joel and Patrick open the back doors and climb into the car too.

I eye him curiously and he smiles at me before backing out of the driveway. This 100% has something to do with Erin. I pull my phone out immediately, and sure enough, I have a new text from her.

Erin, 09:27am: Hey - did Jay talk to you yet? So excited to see you tonight, by the way! xox

She never signs off her texts with kisses and hugs. I am suspicious. 

Me, 09:28am: No, not yet. He told me he wants a private talk with me though - what are you two up to?

I angle my phone slightly so that Jay can read the messages currently displayed on the screen. He notices what I'm doing and glances down a few times as he drives. He smiles to himself, but he doesn't say anything. This obviously isn't for Joel and Patrick's ear. Hurry up and reply, Erin!