Beautiful Disaster (Ongoing & on Hiatus)

Beautiful Disaster - Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE:

 I woke up the following morning to the sound of drums and guitars. I sat up in bed, and for a moment, I felt disoriented. It took me a few seconds to remember that I was at Iggy’s house, in the guest bedroom where Caleb and I shared at the moment.

Caleb had generously offered the bed last night while he settled for the cold, hard floor. I never had the chance to thank him, though, because I fell instantly asleep the moment my head touched the pillow. I had a dreamless sleep—I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Maybe it had been better that I didn’t have dreams, because dreams invariably led to nightmares.

I slipped my feet into my slippers before standing up and headed downstairs. The farther I went, the louder the sounds became. I stopped in front of a door leading to a room that the music was most definitely coming from. Then I heard it—that familiar honey-glazed singing voice that blended perfectly with the instruments. Before I opened the door, I already knew whose voice that was. It was unmistakably, undeniably my brother’s voice.

I twisted the silver knob and nudged the door open. That’s when I realized that the door lead to the garage. I found Iggy on the drums; Zerrah—to my surprise—was playing the bass guitar; an unknown boy was on another electric guitar, and Caleb was dancing his slender fingers on the strings of his acoustic guitar while singing into the microphone. Enchanted, I stepped forward, but when they saw me, they stopped.

“Why did you stop? You guys sound awesome!” I remarked.

“Oh, hey, Nat. ‘Bout time you woke up.” Caleb shot me that boyish toothy grin that I hadn’t seen in years. “Guys, this is my sister, Natalie.”

There was a chorus of heys from the band members.

“Caleb, you never told me you had a band. This is so cool! What’s your band’s name?”

“Barbecued Lizards.” His grin impossibly stretched wider.

“What?”I grimaced. “Why in the world would you name your band that?” At my response, the rest of the band members snickered.

“While we were having rehearsals one time over barbecue, a lizard fell from the ceiling on to the plate of barbecue. Then Iggy said that maybe the lizard wanted to be barbecued, too. It was hilarious.” Caleb chuckled at the memory. “So, that’s the product of our genius.”

“I see.” I grinned back.

“By the way, I didn’t get to introduce you two yesterday since it was—well—an awkward situation, to say the least. Anyway,” Caleb laid a hand on the blonde’s shoulder. “This is Zerrah, my girlfriend.”

“Hey,” she gave me a friendly smile. “Sorry about yesterday’s mix-up. We didn’t know we’d be having a visitor.”

“Uh, it’s okay.” I shook back the memory of her and Caleb and managed a smile. “I didn’t know you guys were busy, either.”

She laughed a throaty, sexy laugh. Now that I was close enough, I could see that her eyes were as blue as the cloudless sky and her lower lip jutted out slightly, giving her a pouty-lip look. She wore a black racer-back tank top and a pair of tight-fitted denim jeans and flip-flops.          She looked like a Latina Barbie doll, and for some reason, I suddenly had a feeling that we’d become good friends.

“And that guy’s Tyler, our lead guitarist.” Caleb said as he jerked his thumb towards the boy beside me.

“Gidday.” Tyler gave me a crooked smile that sent my heart into a frenzy and he offered his hand.

“Hi, Tyler. It’s nice to…oof!”I walked over to shake his hand, but my foot had accidentally caught on one of the many wires that snaked on the ground, and I tripped. I shut my eyes quick, hoping for the fall to come quick and painless, but instead, I found myself falling into Tyler’s arms, with only his electric guitar in between us.