The Music We Make

Brian and I spent the rest of the evening in the studio, just talking about our lives and learning about each other. We decided to blow out the candles after I almost caught the place on fire, and we sat on the couch as we talked. Eventually I had cuddled up next to him and laid my head on his shoulder, shutting my eyes as he talked about how he met the guys and became friends with them. I couldn’t help myself, but as he spoke and ran his hand through my hair, I drifted off to sleep.

Not much time had passed before Brian had nudged me awake, smiling down at me. He helped me off of the couch and led me out to my car, making sure I was okay to drive home. And before I did, he embraced me and kissed me, making me weak in the knees.
The whole way home I was elated and felt like I was in a dream. The whole night had been so perfect; not only had he set up this extremely romantic night for me, I was able to just sit and talk with him and have a real conversation. It almost didn’t seem real.

I crashed as soon as I got home. Andi was already in bed, which was good; she wasn’t staying up all night studying and stressing herself out. Though I was filled with all of these happy emotions, I fell asleep as soon as I got comfortable, drifting off into the land of dreams.

-0-

The next morning I awoke and was actually excited to go to work. . I loved my job, but lately it had been a struggle wanting to go. I skipped to the shower, got in, and was immediately lost in thought. Now things were different. Brian was my….

Well, I didn’t really know what yet. He didn’t really ask me to be his girlfriend outright, so would it be wrong for me to assume that’s what I was? Or were we just dating at this point with no labels? Thinking of all of this suddenly made me nervous for the day to come rather than excited. How would we interact with each other at work? Did everyone else know we were seeing each other now? Would we act like nothing happened?

It’s not that I wanted to make a spectacle out of our relationship, but I didn’t want to have to walk on eggshells either. With the initial teasing aside, I felt like the guys would be cool with it and probably wouldn’t give us a hard time. But is that what Brian wanted? Would he be embarrassed to admit it?

I got out of the shower, wrapping my hair in a towel and I put on my robe. I walked to my bedroom across the hall and sat at my vanity. I groaned at myself, rolling my eyes as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Why would I let myself get all worked up about this stuff before I even knew what was going to happen? I always did this to myself; every sticky situation I was ever in I would over-analyze to the point where I thought I had no hope.

I sighed and put on some music, trying to clear my mind. I listened to Metallica as I put on my makeup and dried my hair, straightening it with the brush as I blow-dried it. I put on my tightest black jeans that I owned, a gray V-neck tee, and my red buffalo style flannel. I looked really cute, but not like I was trying too hard, which was the look I was going for.

When I walked out of my room, Andi was already there studying. It was only eight o’clock, and I knew she had class in about an hour, but she looked like she had been there for a while.

“Andi,” I almost scolded. “How early did you get up?

“I got up at six so I could study a bit this morning before class. I have to work tonight; I couldn’t get it off. And the test is this weekend,” she said sadly.

I walked over and gave her a hug. “You’re doing great. Do what you gotta do, but don’t kill yourself over it. Let me know if I can help.”

She nodded and I let her go, walking over to the foyer to get my shoes and jacket. I said goodbye to her, wishing her luck for the day before I walked out the door.

The whole ride there I forced myself not to think about Brian. I didn’t want to ruin such a great memory of the night before by over analyzing everything he did or said. Instead, I blasted music and sang along the whole way, feeling really carefree as the wind blew through my hair. I loved cruising around with the windows open and music cranked up loud.

I got to the studio later than usual because I had decided to get donuts for everyone. Zacky and Matt were already there when I walked in, and they immediately ran to the box of donuts before I could even set it down. I laughed as the fought over the sprinkle donut and gently sat the box down on the table. I thought of Andi and how she loves sprinkled donuts, too, which reminded me of how Zacky had been angry with her for ditching him.

“Andi loves the sprinkled ones too, Zack,” I said causally, poking him in the arm to tease him.

He frowned and said, “Well, who knows if I’ll ever see her again. If I do, I’ll make sure to buy her one.”

“Don’t be like that, Zacky,” I said with a frown. “I know you might not know this yet, but Andi is so busy and she’s not just making that up. She works nights at a bar, she’s in school full time, and she has her huge exam coming up soon. She’s not blowing you off because she want to, she has really important work to do.”

Zack frowned and said, “Yeah, I get it. It’s just disappointing. I know we just started dating, but I really want to be able to see her as much as possible before we go on tour again.”

I felt my stomach drop. How could I not have thought about them touring? I didn’t know what that would mean for Brian and me.

“I didn’t think about that,” I admitted, sadness in my voice. I tried to perk myself back up before I said, “Regardless, please try and cut her a little slack. She really likes you, but she’s
been working at this for a long time.”

Zack nodded, “Okay, Rosie.” He gave me a big smile and a hug, then said, “You’re a good friend.”

I hugged him back, nuzzling my head into his chest. He gave me a big squeeze, but let me know when he heard a voice.

“Hey, let go of my girl.”

Zack let me go and laughed. “Your girl? Shut up, Gates.”

I turned red, looking at Brian grinning. He didn’t say anything else, but came up to me to hug me too. I melted into his embrace, even as he snuck his hands a little too low on my back.

“I give way better hugs than that chump over there,” he said softly in my ear. He left me go then, giving me a wink, then walked over to the donuts I brought. I was still blushing, thinking about why he did that and whether or not Zack and Matt thought anything of it. It didn’t seem like they even noticed.

The rest of the band showed up shortly after, followed by the producers. We got to work right away, and nothing else was said about Brian and me. I guess everyone was used to our flirting and touches, so they didn’t think much of it as we continued doing it throughout the day.

Zack was working on practicing his part for Wicked End. Brian and I were just sitting back and giving him feedback while he worked, but there wasn’t much we really needed to do.
Brian kept looking at me and smiling, and at one point, he wiggled his eyebrows at me. I couldn’t stop laughing as he made silly faces, but our giggles were making Zack mad.

“Could you two stop?” he said, his voice tense. “I need to get this down.”

“You should’ve practiced yesterday like I told you to,” Brian said, leaning back in his chair so he could stare at the ceiling.

“Sorry, Zack. We’ll stop,” I said.

“It’s fine. I’m gonna go in one of the back rooms to keep working so you two can work on something else. Might as well do something productive,” Zacky said, picking up his things. He stood and slowly walked to the back of the studio where we had a few small rooms and booths.

Brian moved back to a normal position in his chair and gave me a huge grin. He rolled over next to me, placing his legs in between mine. “We’re alone now,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows again.

I laughed at him and rolled my eyes a bit. “And?”

“And… now I can kiss you whenever I want,” he said softly, leaning in to kiss me gently on the lips. I smiled at him and he smiled back, but his grin turned to a smirk as his hands moved to my thighs.

“Brian,” I whispered. I didn’t want him to stop, but I wasn’t sure if this was the time or place.

He gave my thigh a gentle squeeze. “I wish we could just move over to that couch and make out right now,” he said bluntly.

I snorted. “Yes, I’m sure my boss would love that.”

“He won’t care,” Brian whispered, standing up.

He grabbed my hands, pulled me out of my chair and over to the couch. I laughed as he pulled me down, giving him a fake stern look. He moved closer to me and brushed my hair behind my ear, cupping my face in his hand. He closed the gap between us, planting a short, sweet kiss on my lips. He moved his hand down my body, resting it on my thigh. Brian smiled at me then kissed me again.

“We should be careful,” I said. I didn’t want Fred to Mudrock to get pissed at me.

“I know,” he said. “I just can’t resist you.”

He pulled me a little closer then, giving me more sweet, little kisses. He moved, putting his arm around me so that I could sit back in a normal position on the couch. It was lucky that he did too; Jimmy walked in the room right after I moved.

His eyes lit up when he saw us. A grin crept up on his face. “What do we have here?”

I started to speak but Brian interrupted me. “We were just talking. Zack was being a bitch and went off to practice.”

As he spoke, he moved his arm away from me and scooted away from me on the couch. I was disappointed. I didn’t want to get caught making out or anything, but I didn’t want Brian lying to his friends about us either.

“Riiiiiiiiight,” Jimmy said, drawing out the word. “I don’t believe you.”

Brian shrugged, but didn’t say anything else. I was so tempted to tell Jimmy what we had just been doing, but I didn’t want to make Brian mad. Jimmy was his best friend, though; why didn’t he want to tell him?

The rest of the day went pretty smooth as we recorded different parts of the song. I focused mostly on listening in on Matt’s session for the rest of the day. Brian and I were done, Zack needed to practice more, so there wasn’t anything I could do with them. Brian and I barely spoke the rest of the day, and the exchanges we did have were awkward. It felt like he didn’t want people reading into our normal flirting, which I knew they wouldn’t do. We had done it all morning and no one cared, so why change now?

When we were done for the day, I stuck around to clean up the kitchen area. I was taking notes of things that needed to be restocked when I felt his strong arms wrap around my waist.

“Alone at last,” he said into my ear, kissing the lobe when he finished speaking. A shiver moved down my spine, and I was immediately turned on. His hands moved from my belly to my hips, fingers lingering dangerously close to my inner thighs. His kisses moved to my neck and I felt myself go weak in the knees.

Brian gently spun me around and kissed me on the lips, his hands now fully on my ass. His kiss wasn’t gentle and sweet like before; it was hungry and full of passion. I moaned at the touch, allowing myself to fall into his kiss.

When he broke apart from me he smiled and said, “I’ve wanted to do that all day.”

“You didn’t have to wait,” I said softly, not looking in his eyes.

“You said it yourself; your boss wouldn’t like that.”

“Well, I guess I didn’t mean kissing. But you didn’t have to hide it from everyone. Especially Jimmy earlier.”

Brian took a step back, obviously surprised by my words. “I didn’t think you’d want everyone to know. Since we work together and everything.”

“I mean, yeah I guess it will be awkward at first, but they’ll get over it. We’re all adults.”

"True. I'm pretty sure Jimmy figured it out. Especially since he already knew that I'm crazy about you," he said, making me smile. "And Zack probably noticed something fishy when I called you my girl this morning."

I smiled. "I liked that."

Brian smiled back, then came closer to me. He put his arms around me then kissed me on my forehead. “I’m sorry, Rosie. Tomorrow we can make out on the kitchen table at lunch.”

I laughed. “You know that’s not what I meant!”

He laughed back and gave me a kiss. “We’ll tell them tomorrow.”

Notes

Here's a longer chapter since I haven't updated as quickly as usual. Thanks for reading!!