The GEEKs

10. we ain't got no money, honey

"Honey, I'm home!" The unmistakable nasal voice of one Stone Gossard echoes through the house. I guess he's not too far off, he spends so much time at our place he's probably gonna start getting his mail here soon.

"I hope by honey you mean me?" Chris looks up when Stone walks into the living room, followed by Lucy, Chris' black retriever from Hell.

Chris has been trying to fix an inch wide hole in the wall next to the TV for the past hour and I've been making a bead bracelet on the couch that whole time, which has so far proved to be a weird mixture of annoying and relaxing. Chris even whipped together this cement mixture but at this point it probably looks even worse than it did right after Matt and Kim somehow managed to punch that hole in the wall in the first place.

"Uhh... Sure..." Stone casts an exaggeratedly creeped out look at Chris and then comes over to mess with my beads orderly scattered all over the couch. "Is this gonna be a new torture weapon for Andy?"

"Wasn't planning on it, but I'm willing to shove a bag of beads up your ass if you don't stop touching everything, Stoney."

He holds up his palms and slowly takes a step back. "Relax, Xana, it's okay, no touching happening. So what are you guys up to? Where's Andy?"

"Take a guess." I cast a glance into the general direction from which we can hair the faint sounds of Andy's excited 'fuck yeah's; he gets really into it when he's playing video games.

"How long?"

"At least an hour, I think it's about time for him to take a break."

"Good, good..." Stone nods his head clearly lost in his thoughts a little even while talking to me.

"What did you came here for?"

"I have this new riff stuck in my head, I need Andy to do something with it. It's more like two parts...and I need a bridge... Anyway..."

"You coming to the show tonight?" Chris looks up from his construction grounds.

"Yeah, yeah." Stone nods again looking nothing short of distracted as he does. "Off Ramp, right?"

"Correct. Your memory is just phenomenal, man." Chris quips clearly deciding to take a break too. I honestly doubt he's gonna finish fixing that hole today; the rest of Soundgarden are gonna be here any second even though there's a couple of hours left before the gig, and the wall's probably gonna look like a grey tumour for another week. "Hey, I ran into your girlfriend last week." Chris announces giving the wall one last pat with a metal spatula trying to smooth out the grey lump that the hole has turned into by now.

A moment's silence ensues while Andy's shouting 'go, go, GO!' upstairs in the bedroom, and then Stone finally realises Chris' words must have been addressed towards him. "Who?"

"Katie?"

"Oh, right, right... Not my girlfriend." Stone corrects Chris very casually.

"Since when?" I ask; I clearly remember referring to her as Stone's girlfriend around him at least once, and he didn't correct me, so...

"Since I was born?"

Ugh, goddamnit, Stone. It's been about three weeks since we interrupted their coffee date so either Kat's not into him, or she's just as much of a pussy as he is, and I'm still curious to know which one it is. Which, I guess, goes to show what an exciting life I lead. Hey, it's Seattle, we don't have much here apart from constant rain and seeing same old bands every single night.

"So, no... As in, not yet?" I ask for a clarification.

"Uh-huh, sure... Hey did I tell you guys about this movie we saw a while ago?"