something / braeden lemasters

chapter three - distracted

"braeden?" dylan repeated for a third time, stepping closer to braeden to wave his hand in front of his dazed eyes.

"what? i'm paying attention," he tried lying, turning to face dylan, who stood over him from behind the couch.

cole was sat with the drums in the corner of the room, watching dylan trying to get ahold of braeden as he stared at nothing and traced his fingers on the strings of his guitar and had a slight smile on his face. they had seen each other only the day before yesterday, but they didn't know what was different now. cole said, "dude, you are absolutely not paying attention. what's up?"

braeden turned to face cole, turned back to dylan, then very suddenly set the guitar safely on the couch beside him as he stood up and moved a foot or two away from the couch so both dylan and cole were in his view as he announced, "i met a girl."

dylan and cole both had matching reactions; they raised their eyebrows slightly in surprise, then smiled at their friend. before either could ask one of the many questions they had for their friend, braeden continued to speak.

"yesterday when i went to get a new record, she was working behind the counter and when i asked her about abbey road i was like oh yeah, do you have abbey road?" he changed his tone of voice to emphasize what he said, then continued normally as he said, "and she was like," he changed his tone once again to say, "yeah, follow me! and then i followed her, and it was the last one, and she handed it to me and then i went to pay for it and we started talking about music and she— ugh! it was amazing, she just got so into it! just the way she talked about music and everything... i can't stop thinking about her, you guys."

dylan and cole both opened their mouths to say something, but braeden continued to talk, excitedly saying, "and then i asked her for her number and she freaking gave it to me and i sent her a text and she sent me one back and— i just— i don't know!"

braeden took a deep breath once he was finished, catching up on the lack of breaths from when he told them his story.

sensing he was done, dylan — still a bit surprised with a wide smile — said, "that's great, man! i'm— i'm really happy for you! if you got her number, im assuming you got her name...?"

braeden continued to smile widely, looking at dylan as he happily responded, "yeah. yeah, i got her name. nora. and when she put her number in my phone, she put a little smiley face next to her name."

cole finally spoke up, getting dylan and braeden to look over at him. "oh i know nora. she's great. it's too bad she has a boyfriend, though..." he trailed off, stifling a smile.

braedens face dropped instantly. "are you— are you kidding me? i mean, that makes sense, but... dammit! i mean, i really just want to be her friend and of course being more than that would be really... really cool, but i'd respect if she were in a relationship.... i guess this is karma for jumping the gun and thinking exchanging numbers would mean something like... i don't know. ugh, dammit!"

cole didn't expect braeden to rant for as long as he did, but he decided once he paused that he would jump in and say, "brae, i'm just joking." dylan started laughing as braeden kind of just froze in place. "as far as i know, she's single."

"you're a really mean person, cole," braeden said to his friend, but he couldn't help but let his glare fade to a grin as he pointed at cole and said, "but that was pretty good, you got me on that one!"

cole smiled triumphantly as dylan calmed down and stopped laughing so he could ask cole, "so you know this girl?"

"yep," cole said as he nodded. "she's super friendly and cool. she was working the first day i went in, and she's usually always there when i go, so we've gotten to know each other pretty well. i've wanted to take you guys in there to show you the store, but also to meet her since i figured you guys would get along with her."