Westwood School

honorary member

Rowen

    I sigh, taking a sip of my beer and looking around the room. The boys and I were sitting in the attic of the dorm that we had turned into a hangout space years ago. We even soundproof the walls so we could practice our music. Posters were covering the walls and worn down Persian rugs covered the floor. There were crates upon crates of records covering one wall.

    Matteo sat on the ground, flipping his drums sticks around and around with his fingers. Laurent sat at his keyboard, smoking a cigarette. It drove us mad that he smoked, but it was the norm in France and other European countries to do so. Caspian was flipping through the records, beer in his hand.

    "What do y'all think of her?" I ask abruptly.

    "Nola?" Matteo asks, looking up, I nod.

    "I mean, She can sing." Laurent offers and sucks in another huff of smoke.

    "What if she sang with us?" Caspian offers. I choke on my beer, Laurent scoffs and Matteo gives him a look.

    "Hear me out, she wouldn't be part of the band, but she could bring some good stuff to the table." He leans back against the wall, "First of all she can sing, I bet she can play as well, she seems to have an unprecedented categorical knowledge of music. And, she's hot."

     I throw a glare at him, but he does have a point. I mean, I bet she would have a lot of ideas. I sigh, "Actually, you're not wrong. Surprisingly."

    "About her being hot?" he wags his eyebrows at me.

    "No, you arse, about her bringing some stuff to the group," I take another swig from my bottle, "I mean you heard her singing the stones."

    Laurent sighs, "Honestly, I think it'd be good for us."

    "Hey, if she has hot friends then I'm down," Matteo offers. She also seems to adamantly hate Gemma from that one interaction, so maybe I'll fend her off a bit.

    "I'll text her to meet me in the stairwell, and I'll bring her up here," I say standing off. I run my hands through my hair and adjust my corduroy jacket.

    I text Magnolia to meet me, and she arrives moments later. I looked her over, she was beautiful, her warm toned, dirty blonde hair falling down to her mid-back. Her clothes hugged her curves and flattered her hourglass figure. I had to resist the urge to touch, or even look at her body, so I instead focused on her eyes. She wasn't short for sure, but she was a good 6 or so inches shorter than me, if not more.

    "Hey," She said smiling, "What did you need me for?"

    "I wanna show you something, come with me," I said as I grabbed her hand and pulled her behind me to the top floor, a boy's dormitory. We walked to the end of the hallway were Laurent and Matteo's room was. I opened the trap door and then turned to look at her. Her eyes were wide and she had the biggest smile on her face.

    "Ok, up you go," I said as I turned to her. Getting things in and out of this room as horrible, getting the furniture up there... that's another story.

    Without any help, she climbed onto the top of the dresser and then she threw her arms and legs into the hole, and somehow she contorted her body into getting into it. She coulda just used the rope ladder...

    I climbed up after her and saw she was already eyeing the guitars on their rack on one end of the room. I cleared my throat to get her attention.

    "So, the boys and I were thinking..." I started, glancing around the room for back up. Come on, what happened to my wingmen?

    "Do you wanna play with us?" Matteo spoke up, I saw him staring at her, no doubt noticing her body that was obvious in her outfit.

    "Actually?" She says eyeing us.

    Caspian rolls his eyes, "Yes actually, let's play something right now." He says standing up.

    Fuck yeah, I think to myself as I grab an electric guitar. The other boys get in positions around the room, Laurent on keys, Matteo on the drums, Caspian on bass, but he was sort of a jack of all trades, playing all sorts of odd instruments, and I on guitar.

    "Do you know One by U2?" I offer, knowing it was a good place for us to start. Our band sorta wanted to mimic the sound of a lot of bands coming out of the 90s and 70s, but the favorites were R.E.M. and U2 from the 90s.

    She nodded excitedly and walked up to a microphone, she and I chatted for a moment, agreeing she and I'd sing together, going between us for the verses and together for the chorus. The moment we start, even before we start singing, we sound better than we ever have before.

    I start singing the first bit, "Is it getting better, or do you feel the same?" Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Nola as she begins to dance slowly to the music.

    Then, when she begins to sing, I realize we definitely made the right choice. Her voice soared as you felt every emotion as she did. She could definitely sing a more grungy song, and then turn around and sing country or folk, and then turn around and sing classic rock.

    "Have you come here for forgiveness? Have you come to raise the dead?" she sings.

    When we get to the chorus, our voices complement each other, she harmonizes with my voice, changing the sound. She was making every lyric she sang, feel as if she was singing them all directly to me. When we stopped, I stared at her in awe.

    "Was that ok?" She asks, seeing us all look at her. I watch as Matteo drops his drum stick and walks around. He picks her up and spins her around the room. She laughs and squeals in excitement. I feel a twinge of jealousy but I push it away.

    "Ok you're definitely playing with us, hell you can be an honorary band member," I say smiling at her. I watch as she smoothes her hair and walks around the room slowly.

    "Hey, can I make a playlist of songs y'all-we should definitely play?"

Much to my surprise, Laurent is the one to answer her, "Yes, we do write songs, but for things like the dance next weekend we play other songs people write. People seem to like it more like that."

She nodded and began climbing back out of the hole into their room.

"Hey Nola," I call after her, I watch her look back up at me with those vivid green eyes, "see you tomorrow!"

I watch her hesitate, just dangling there. And she decides against saying whatever she was thinking as she drops, leaving.

Hey you guys! should I post something showing images of how I imagine the characters? I see a lot of other people here do it, and I wanted to know if I should? thanks for reading! <3!