Dog Days Are Over

Be careful, okay ?

Unsurprisingly, it turned out that we were the only ones invited, for some reason I couldn't quite decipher. It was only December so maybe the boys didn't make friends with their other classmates yet, but still I found it odd. They were funny, nice, and really, really skilled. But their friends, or lack of for instance, wasn't a topic I could bring just like that, so I'll have to wait for now and ask any of the twins when we were alone, I guess. Couldn't say I was surprised by their dorms, too, as they were pretty much the same as ours, maybe a little bit more messier. The four of them slept there, in two different rooms, on two different floors, from what I understood.

Josh of course lead the way, while Mandy was whispering questions she couldn't keep in her head but was too shy to say out loud for everybody to hear.

- Who's the long haired bassist ?

- That would be Sam, my little brother, he replied in the same quiet tone. Why ? Interested ?

Mandy poked him in the ribs when he smirked at her in a suggestive way, and I let out a chuckle. The boys were all in favor of going inside to get warm and drink together while getting to know each other. It seemed like a good program. We helped them bring all of their stuff back inside either to the Music Dept building (drums and mic) or their dorm (guitar, bass and amps). And as Jake wouldn't let me lift anything that he deemed heavy, they declared me tambourine supervisor, making a show of putting it in my hands like a holy relic and insisting that this job meant a lot of responsibilities. Not gonna lie I was feeling kind of stupid seeing them carrying gigantic amps in their arms while the tambourine I got kept ringing with every step I took as if to remind me how useless I was.

- Oh that's him you were talking about last time, I said while sneaking a peek at him behind my shoulder. You guys really look alike. And the drummer is your childhood friend Danny, right ?

Josh looked positively surprised for a moment before acquiescing, asking me how I knew this info.

- Jake told me one time, when you were rehearsing.

The thought of that night made me smile to myself, remembering the awful pictures and odd war metaphors with poor Danny trying to calm everybody down. However, my smile disappeared quickly when I caught Josh's unamused expression. It didn't last long, hardly a second, before he found his usual cheerful self, but it was enough to make me uneasy. Something in his eyes told me there was something wrong. And I knew it was linked to Jake, I just ignored why. A piece of the puzzle was missing and it was slowly upsetting me since nobody cared to tell me. He was weird when he saw the both of us hanging out together, and flipped when he discovered we texted, but I thought we were over that now. So was he still upset about the whole thing ? Should I avoid talking about it even though I have his phone number too now ? Or am I being totally paranoid ?

The singer abruptly stopping still in the middle of the hallway got me out of my thoughts, though, painfully so since I face-planted on the back of his head and shoulder blades, making the tambourine ring in the process.

- Please stay with us mama, we're here.

Rubbing my nose, I heard Sam snort loudly and probably at me but had already been warned that he was a sass master, so took no offense in it. Danny, on the other hand, seemed like the sweetest dude alive. Always smiling and asking if we needed help with anything, with a quiet charm and a soothing aura. What a great guy. Now that I knew a bit more about the Kiszkas, I felt sympathy for his poor soul.

Jake came by my side, and I suddenly got surrounded by the twins, one of them waiting impatiently at my left, and the other filling the empty space between the wall and I. Gently dropping his amp on the ground, he searched in his jeans pockets for the key to their room, lightly brushing my face with his hair in the process, before bending over a little to unlock the door. He moved aside just enough so that Josh could have the honor of introducing us to their room by violently slamming the door open while posing and screaming « TADA ! ». Shaking his head, Jake got in first, seemingly not in the mood to wait for his brother, switching on the lights and putting his guitar and amp at their place in a corner of the room. Josh motionned us to go first, and Mandy pushed me by the shoulders.