2 Million Lies

Chapter 5 - Shane

A week passed before Shane even thought about texting Cyrah. He spent the weekend with Eli, then Monday and Tuesday in the studio. He found her number in his jeans when he did laundry on Wednesday, and left it on the kitchen counter next to a small pile of guitar picks. On Thursday he found it again, and shoved it into his pocket again, intending to text her later, but then fell asleep and forgot.

On Friday, Lindsey came into the studio, holding her ever present binder. "Alright, everyone, let's talk weekend plans. I know you aren't going to like this, but I've scheduled an interview for you guys tomorrow."

Ugh. That was the last thing Shane wanted. He had done one on Wednesday, and the woman doing it had gotten way too personal with her questions. The last thing he wanted was to deal with that again so soon. He didn't fucking want to have his personal life blasted all over for everyone to read, and he didn't want to have to fend off invasive questions. So he needed an excuse not to go. He couldn't get out of it by claiming to be too tired, he had tried that on Wednesday and Lindsey had handed him a cup of coffee. And anyway, he wasn't tired. Over the week he had started sleeping better than he had been the week before. Zach had been right. Things were steadily improving.

So he needed another excuse. What would be the perfect excuse that even Lindsey wouldn't be able to shoot down?

He thought for a moment, but came up completely blank. Until suddenly the perfect excuse occurred to him. "I have a date," he blurted out.

Lindsey sighed and shook her head before turning away, but didn't tell him he had to do the interview anyway. Perfect. He had known that was a foolproof excuse.

Elijah, Zach, and Zane all turned to stare at him.

Zach spoke first. "Really? Is she pretty?"

Damn, he didn't actually have a date. He needed to make something up, and fast. "Yeah, of course," he said, trying to buy himself time to construct the perfect imaginary girl to tell them about.

The only image he could come up with was the photographer from the Friday before. She had been pretty. Great. If they pushed, he could just describe her and give her a different name. That worked.

"Come on, you've got to tell me more about her than that. Blonde or brunette? Where'd you meet? What's her name?" Zach grinned at him, and Shane suddenly realized that Eli could track his phone and would probably look to see where he was that afternoon, because he was an irritating bastard who ignored privacy. Like Shane minded most of the time, on occasion he was actually grateful for it.

Shane suddenly remembered that he had Cyrah's number in the pocket of his jeans. How hard would it be to talk her into getting coffee with him or something? Meaning he wouldn't have to totally make up the details of his date or sit somewhere by himself for an hour. Even better. "Her name is Cyrah, brunette, we met at a party."

Eli obviously knew exactly who that was. "The photographer from Friday?"

Shane nodded. "That's her."

"I didn't know you met at the party. Did you know she was the one who told me to come save your ass?"

Shane hadn't. That had been nice of her. Had it really been that obviously that he needed saving? "No, I didn't know that. And yeah, we did. I was kind of an ass to her really, I'm shocked she agreed to this."

She hadn't yet, but Shane thought it was likely that she would. Hopefully. If she didn't he could make up a shitty date and hope they never ran across that same photographer again. Because if they ever did his story would be sunk. Like it mattered, there would be no consequences to this coming out, except for general disappointment that Shane wasn't getting back to normal, wasn't taking steps towards a life that didn't revolve solely around drugs and music, and still felt the need to lie even to his best friends. Yeah, that would actually kind of suck. Hopefully she would agree and then none of this would have been lying, because Shane felt kind of bad about lying now.

Eli nodded and smacked Shane lightly on the shoulder. "Congratulations and good luck. She was pretty. Not my type, not scary enough for me, but she was pretty."

Zach rolled his eyes. "Not everybody likes to date girls who are literally terrifying, man."

"That's what I said, I get that, but I do. And Isabelle isn't that scary, really."

Zach shook his head. "You do you, man. She's a solid foot shorter than me without shoes on and I'm still intimidated by her."

Eli laughed. "And I'm shorter than her when she wears any shoe that isn't completely flat, and it's great."

Zach shook his head again. "You're a fucking weirdo, man."

"It's great to have a girl who wears the same size you do, if she has any sneakers or anything you can borrow them, and also steal her hoodies without looking stupid."

"Not that, I'm sure that's great, there must be a reason girls love to take clothes so much, but the whole being intimidated thing."

"Oh, she's nice to me, it's you people she doesn't like."

Shane nodded. "She still thinks you're kind of an asshole, Zach."

"Hey, that was three years ago, are you really going to hold it against me?"

"I'm not." Eli shrugged. "She does, though. She thinks I should have kicked you out of the band and let her drum for us again."

"Isn't she too busy with her own band to do that?"

"Yeah, that's why I didn't listen at first. But you're fine now, properly educated and all that. Don't worry too much about it, she's still not a fan of Shane, even though he's been here since day 1, like literally day 1."

"Day 8, actually, we didn't meet until a week after you were born," Shane corrected.

Eli smacked him lightly again. "Shut up, that's not the point and you know it. It's because of the drugs, she worries you'll drag me down with you. But you won't, because I'm not an idiot and neither are you."

Shane nodded. "I don't want to drag anyone down with me, it really sucks down here."

Eli nodded and patted him on the shoulder. "I know." He laughed. "Really, she should worry about me getting the both of us arrested, I have plenty of bad ideas myself, most of which involve vandalism of some kind."

Shane laughed. "That's right. Remember when you almost got caught painting on the old factory by our old apartment? You didn't have me along that time, you wouldn't have even come close to getting caught if you had."

"I still maintain that it was unfair that I almost got in trouble. It was abandoned. Nobody was using the place. It actually looked better after I painted that, it was art, and good art too, not shitty art, I went to fucking art school, I know what I'm doing."

Shane rolled his eyes. "Don't start on that, it was illegal and you know it."

"Yeah. Isabelle says she's not picking me up if I land myself in jail, so I've stuck to spray painting things I already own lately."

Shane nodded, and pulled out his phone. He pulled the number out of his pocket without anyone noticing, and sent it a text.

Shane: Hey, this is Shane, I was wondering if you had time this weekend, specifically tomorrow at two?

Cyrah: Sure. Where do you want to meet?

That had been easy. Excellent. She was probably into him for his fame, but that was okay, all he needed was a single sort of date.

AN: This chapter officially begins my new update schedule, which will be Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. 

Also, I'm trying out including Shane's PoV every fifth chapter. Let me know what you think!