Don't Sleep With the Drummer

♤ 6. Kasin ♤

Kasin found Vince's apartment number and gave it a light knock.

Oddly, a pudgy shirtless Vince opened the door. "You're early," Vince noted groggily. "Couldn't you have called first?"

"Nah, you know calling isn't my style."

"Yeah, so isn't coming when I tell you to."

"Coming when you tell me to?" Kasin chuckled while stepping over the threshold. "When did I become your bitch?"

"Year 8," he snorted.

"Uh-huh, yeah, you wish."

Vince's home was three times better than Kasin's parents roach infested apartment. Since there wasn't any parental control, Lisa and Vince went all out with their large monthly allowance. Kasin dreamed of getting an allowance, proper allowance from his parents, but the only money he ever got was from the aunt he lived with, but that didn't feel the same.

Kasin halted when he spotted the mountain of sheets moved on the couch. Suddenly, Tory's grinning face snuck out from behind the sheets, but the joy melted once she saw Kasin, not Vince, before her.

Now it became clear to him why Vince was so upset of Kasin's earliness.

Quickly, Tory clung the covers tighter around her body and scooted back against the cushions. "Oh, Kasin," she grumbled awkwardly. "I didn't hear you come in."

"I didn't know you were going to be here," he said with a laugh. He spun on the balls of his toes, facing the opposite direction for her to run off to the bedrooms down the hallway.

"Did you bring your bass?" Vince asked from inside the kitchen, pouring himself some juice.

"It's in the car."Kasin headed toward Vince's voice, "Why aren't you dress yet? I thought we were going to Trev's house to practice."

"Plans changed, buddy. Trev has something that has to do with his mom and Arrow's with Leon, for what reason? I don't know." Vince informed bitterly at the end. "Didn't you get the text?"

Kasin's phone line had gotten cut last night-again. It was the third time this year. With their dad's medical bills on top of the restaurants demands, money was tight and certain things had to be cut. Sighing, he thought of the last chance he got to talk to his mother, discussing the status of his father. She hadn't cried, so that meant there was progress and acceptance. Accepting the fate of her husband, seeing him weaken day by day.

The water and power was still on, so that was good for the younger kid's sake. Kasin hated the thought of them being forced to live without running water or electricity.

"Don't you remember? I broke my phone," he lied simply. He hated admitting to his poverty. "Dropped it right on the screen and now I can't see a damn thing on it."

Like most people at their school, they came from money. Their blood was money. Though Vince was his best friend, Kasin constantly tried to restrain from going in depth of his family's money struggle. He knew how people at school talked about the ones who had gotten a scholarship to get in.

Lost in his own thoughts, Kasin fell only deeper into what would be waiting for him when he went back to East L.A. The restaurant. His father. Amir-

"...Kasin? Kasin?" Vince snapped his fingers in Kasin's eye range, but Kasin stood frozen, trapped in his self-made hypnosis. Knowing that look more than anything, Vince rolled his eyes and did the unthinkable. He slapped him.

"What the fuck was that for!?" Kasin cried and threw a punch at Vince's chest.

Vince winced, "What the fuck was that for?"