Drowning

Chapter 29:

Both our heads snapped up and he jumped back quickly from me.

"Fuck." He whispered, pulling at his hair.

His eyes went wide and he started to pace around the room. I removed my boot off the stool and raced it over to place it back behind the drum set. We stopped for a second and looked at each other with panic in our eyes.

"Ezra, Riley? You two down there?" I heard Aiden's voice call from the kitchen.

"Grab your guitar." I whispered hastily. He paused, looking at the acoustic guitar resting on the stand. Ezra was frozen in place. "Now!" I pointed forcefully.

He ran over and picked up the guitar and placed it over his shoulders. He readjusted the strap so the guitar rested lower on his hips to cover the bulge in his shorts.

"Play something." I begged. We were so close to getting caught. I needed him to act like nothing was going on. He looked down, willing his hands to move. I turned around to look for anything for me to do to throw off suspicion.

I heard the door creak open at the top of the stairs. Ezra began playing something, it sounded slightly familiar, but I couldn't remember the name of the song. My eyes scanned the room until I saw some old guitar magazines sitting in a pile on the coffee table in front of the couch.

"You guys down here." Aiden called again.

"We're here." I yelled back up to him.

I ran over and dove on the couch and put both legs straight, laying them across it. Leaning back, I pretended I was relaxing and quickly grabbed a magazine from the pile. I looked down and saw my ripped fishnets.

"Shit." I whispered and Ezra looked up at me and down at my tights. I crossed my legs, trying to cover the tear and opened the magazine to a random page.

Aiden appeared around the corner. "Hey, guys, what's up?" He said surveying the scene before him. He looked over at me sitting on the couch with the magazine and then over to Ezra, who was playing shirtless. A strange look crossed his face. My mind was screaming that we had been caught.

He turned his head to the side while looking at Ezra. We were in so much trouble. I braced myself for the confrontation.

This was going to be bad.

"Dude, are you playing an ABBA song?" Aiden questioned him.

I busted out in laughter. That's why I didn't recognize the song immediately. Hard, tense Ezra was playing ABBA of all things.

Ezra was glaring at me but then broke out into a smile.

I caught my breath and looked over at Aiden, who was completely confused. I jumped in with the first thing that popped into my head. "I bet Ezra $20.00 bucks that I could find a song he couldn't play. I thought there was no way he would win."

Ezra switched over to playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and I died laughing again.

Aiden looked between us, still trying to figure out what was going on. "I guess this means you lost?"

"I know, right? Did you know he can also play MMMbop?"

Aiden broke out into laughter and Ezra furrowed his brow.

We spent the next hour or so playing the game I invented. It wasn't in my plan, but it ended up being pretty entertaining. Aiden suggested some ridiculous and obscure songs. My sides hurt from all the laughter. Ezra covered everything from death metal to product jingles. The amount of music knowledge he had was immense. Ezra was smiling as he was playing, music was his passion and it was the only time I had ever seen him really let his guard down.