𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐘||𝐌𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐆𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐘

𝟗. 𝐌𝐞, 𝐨𝐛𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐥𝐲

✧

THE MUSIC ROOM WAS ONLY A FEW doors away from the locker room that they had been moved to stay in when the weather warning got worse, but any change was better than the four walls lined with lockers or the library lined with books that they had previously been enclosed in.

They left the door open upon entering so that the room wasn't encapsulated in complete darkness and Brooke jumped slightly when another tumble of thunder rolled and another flash of lightening illuminated the patterns of the blinds. Noel noticed as he was plucking one of the guitars off of the shelves and pulled up a chair beside the one that she was stood closest too, gesturing for her to sit beside him.

Brooke looked at the guitar that Noel was resting in his lap, his fingers pressed against the chords with a frown."Do you play?" She asked as he ran a pick through the strings of the guitar on a gentle strum. She never took him for the type of guy who would play an instrument, he always stereotyped himself as a jock who got heaps of attentions with the flash of a grin.

He smirked looking at her with said classic grin, strumming another chord. "Shh, it's a secret." He teased, and she scrunched her nose questionably. "My parents have this recurring nightmare I'll bail on college and beg for quarters in the subway." He said gently laughing, followed by the brunettes beside him doing the same.

"I see it." She grinned, earning a playful glare from the Kahn boy as he picked up a tune on the guitar. Brooke smiled at the melody that escaped the hollow wood, remembering the song that her parents had as their first dance at their wedding. "I know that," She said recognising it also from the many mornings that she came down for breakfast, hearing it play through their kitchen radio, her parents humming the tune and smiling at each other. She wondered if it would ever be like that again. "My parents used to play it all the time."

The thunder rumbled again across the sky, followed by yet another flash that made the brunette jump. "I don't think we'll be leaving anytime soon." She sighed, wrapping her jumper around herself, suddenly feeling colder. The rattles of the sky no longer reminding her of happy memories with her grandma but instead reminding her off the night that she lost one of her best friends, only now she could realise that when the other girls were falling asleep, Alison Dilaurentis was getting murdered in the dead of night and Brooke Bentley could have possibly stopped it.

    Noel noticed the vacant look on the Bentley girls face, snapping her back into reality when he said "I could play louder." Repositioning the guitar and pressing harder on the strings as he ran the pick through them, the music echoing louder now and somewhat drowning out the sounds coming from outside the room.

    Brooke smiled finding comfort in the melody, pulling her legs up onto the chair sitting cross legged comfortably and watching him as he played.

As the guitar drifted off at the end of the song, the room fluttering into the remaining echos of the chords that last escaped the guitar. The lightening outside flashed brighter upon the scene—unknowingly betraying Brooke Bentley at the wrong moment, exposing the setting in the music room.

Because as the thunder rumbling became the only remaining sound in the room, Brooke watched as Noel Kahn leaned in. His lips parted slightly and a hand slithered onto her thigh as he leant closer, trying to pull her that smallest bit closer to him. Her lips parted too, but in surprise rather than apprehension for what was about to happen.