The Boy Next Door

I headed back to my own house and sat down at my drum set in the corner. For a moment, I was too angry to play. Then, I started in on it, working out all of my frustrations.

The real trouble was that I couldn’t imagine the band without Mark or Carter. As frustrating as they’d been lately, they were founding members. Mark’s vocals were one of the things that we were known for. And Carter was a great guitarist when he wasn’t out of his mind. Not only that, but we had all leaned on one another over the past few years. We had been through thick and thin together. The idea of bringing in someone new now was unimaginable.

Yet.

I just couldn’t help thinking of the other possibilities. Could we find someone else to replace the two of them? Someone who could support Luke and me as we tried to capitalize on everything we had built so far, rather than dragging us down together as a team?

I slammed both of my sticks down on a cymbal crash. I didn’t want to think about that.

Was it naive to think that the four of us who had made it this far could keep going? It definitely seemed crazy to think that we could cut out half of the members of the band and keep our momentum, but it wasn’t like I could choose between Mark and Carter. I just wished they weren’t making things so damn complicated.

There was a shadow outside. This late in the afternoon, all shadows were long, but this one was particularly so. My new neighbor, whatever her name was, walking past on the sidewalk, dressed in smart-casual work clothes. I paused in my drumming automatically.

Then, I scowled. I couldn’t quit drumming every time I saw her come home. It was still early evening; it was my prerogative if I wanted to keep practicing. Maybe it would drive her crazy, but that was her problem. I hadn’t had any trouble before she moved in.

And if I wasn’t able to drum freely, I wasn’t going to get any better. Or be able to cope with all the shit that was going on.

Still, there was a part of me that felt bad about it. She had probably moved in there without any warning. Mr. Lake probably hadn’t heard my drumming during his time there, so it had never been an issue before. She likely thought that she was moving into a quiet, somewhat residential area.

That wasn’t my fault, but how she dealt with it wasn’t going to become my problem, either.

I went over there and knocked on the door, waiting for her to appear. The moment she answered the door, she seemed to realize her mistake. She started to shut the door on me, but I was worked up from the thing with Mark earlier, and I needed one thing to go right today. If it was this, then fine.

“Listen here,” I said before she could get a word in edgewise. “I’ve been living here for three years now, and I’ve always been able to drum whenever I wanted to. That’s not going to change now. So I suggest you invest in a good pair of noise-canceling headphones or something and learn to deal with it.”

I glared at her, but as she folded her arms across her chest again, I could see a speculative gleam of a challenge in her eyes. I had to admit, it turned me on a little to see that she wasn’t going to be cowed.

“Learn to deal?” she scoffed. “Have you read your lease terms lately? I don’t want to have to go to the landlord, but there are specific terms in there that stipulate the noise conditions. If you won’t adhere to those and he won’t do anything, well, I meant what I said the other night. I was just being nice because I just moved in here, but I’m not opposed to going to the police if I have to. I’m not going to put up with your shit. So I suggest that you find a way to deal, and maybe invest in some, I don’t know, noise-canceling drums.”

I stared dumbly at her. “Noise-canceling drums?” I finally snapped.

She shrugged. “I’m sure there’s something out there so that people like you don’t bug people like me in apartment complexes,” she said, tossing her hair back. It was then that I realized that it was loose today. The curls were no more contained than they had been the other night, but there was something about the way they played along the creamy skin of her jaw…

I dragged my eyes back to hers, narrowing my gaze. I couldn’t help the way that I was strangely attracted to her and her spunkiness, but I’ll be damned if I was going to let her know that. I wouldn’t let her have the upper hand.