courage

Chapter 8

Indi's P.O.V. - March 20th, 2021

As I push open the studio door, Emily greets me from the front desk. "Indi! You're here early. I don't think Ruel's here yet, I haven't seen him come in before 10 am if he doesn't have an appointment." I don't think she knows that he stayed here overnight. 

By the time the Uber showed up last night, it was 11:30. Luckily Ruel, and most of the other musicians with their own rooms, get their own keys, or we would have been locked in. My mum was mad when I got home, and so I got up at 8 am this morning to avoid her. And now I'm here, another day of singing, but at least the promise of dinner tonight is fresh in my mind.

"Oh that's ok, I was going to work on my own a bit anyway if that's alright?" Is the least suspicious reply I can muster

"Of course!" She replies cheerily, "Let me know if you need help with anything. Also, avoid the first conference room on the right, Mark has a meeting about all this Covid-19 stuff with some board members." I give her a grateful smile and jog up the stairs and through the hallway to our normal room. Not wanting to wake Ruel, I gently push open the door to find him curled up under a drum cover, it may only be the start of autumn, but it gets cold at night. I begin our usual set up routine, only doing the parts I can remember. When I turn on the wall monitor, the start-up sound scares Ruel awake. 

"I'm sorry!" I whisper, walking towards him. "I tried to be as quiet as possible..."

"Good morning," He yawns, stretching his lanky arms so far I'm scared they'll pop right off. "It's early, isn't it?"

"Yeah, 8:30. I wanted to avoid my mum this morning, I only got back at midnight last night." I cringe at the thought of what I have to face when I get home tonight. "Did your parents freak out at all last night?"

"Nah, I told coco I was staying at a mates place and she passed the message on for me."

"That's good," I sigh. "Sorry to force you up this early. You can sleep early tonight." I test whether he remembers our dinner plans from last night, but I doubt it.

"You thought I forgot, didn't you?" He finally stands up to face me.

"I didn't think it was a huge deal to you..."

He shakes his head lightly. "It is. How about we leave at five today, and I'll pick you back up at six from your place?"

I can't help but contain my smile. "Ok. But that's 8 hours in the studio..."

"Guess we'll just have to take a break for lunch." He shrugs. "Plus we'll be doing more development than practice today."

"Development of what? I thought we finalised the plans for the song ages ago."

"Your voice, Indi." I'm already regretting coming today. "I've been coming from the viewpoint that you willingly gave up singing, but if we can find a way to quickly retrain your lungs and voice without further damaging them, it won't be so hard to sing like you used to."

"That's gonna take a while. Let's just practice like we usually do."

"Hear me out, Indi. Don't take this the wrong way, but I've noticed your breathing is all wrong. You do breath from your stomach when you sing, but it's forced because you don't normally breath like that. And you're singing from your throat when you should be singing from your chest." He's so confident in his revelations that I just let him continue his 'development'

"What do you suggest then, Dr. van Dijk." I joke.

"Stand in front of me," he's getting all confident now, but I'll let it slide because it's kind've cute. I walk to the middle of the room and face him. "Please don't accuse me of sexual assault." He laughs, placing his hands on the space between my shoulders and chest.

"Wow, you really have to live in constant fear of a false sexual assault accusation, huh?" I say monotonously.

"They ruin people careers, look at Johnny Depp."

"I was being sarcastic, get a grip." He frowns at me but continues his confident development plan.

"hum." He demands.

"What?" I laugh. "This is pathetic, I've already warmed up my voice today."

"I said, hum."

"Fine," clearly we're getting nothing done, but I hum through my lips anyway.

"You're doing it wrong." He pulls his hands off my chest and walks over to the keyboard.

"Doing what wrong, humming?"

"Your warm-ups, they're wrong. You do external warm-ups like humming and bubbling your lips, don't you?"

"yes..." I reply shyly.

"You need to be doing internal ones. Try to follow a scale with your voice from now on. You can warm up here with the keyboard if you want, I assume you do it in the car at the moment?"

"Yeah..." He's not wrong, I have been doing them all wrong. "ok so maybe you were right about that. But my breathing is fine."

He sighs and shakes his head before responding. "Boy, do I have my work cut out for me" he laughs, I guess the rest of the day will be wasted on this then.

*****

As much as I hate to admit it, my breathing and tone regulation is considerably better by the time my watch shows 5 o'clock.

"You're getting there!" He says with an excited smile while we pack up the equipment. "You just need a mental reset. We'll have dinner tonight, but I want you to take a break tomorrow. Have one last beach day before we hunker down for pre-recording."

"What happened to me needing to 'just practise more'?" I tease, but there's a level of seriousness in my voice too.

"Well, you can, but I won't be here tomorrow because I think we both need a chill-out day." He opens the door for me as I start leaving. "I'll see you at six?"

"I'll be waiting..." Now the moment's come, I find myself wondering if this dinner has romantic intentions or not. But instead of clarifying, I ask "What's the dress code?" 

"Um... Cocktail. Whatever that means." He scrunches up his face in confusion

Before I can stop it, a girlish giggle escapes my lips. "It means wear a dress shirt, no jacket or tie." I brush my hand by his shoulder as I'm leaving the room. "I'll see you soon." 

Walking down the hallway I feel so confident until a thought hits me. Was I just... flirting with him? I could never... unless? Finally, I reach the refuge of my car and after a quick glance to make sure there's no one around, I scream. What the fuck is wrong with me? As much as I'd dreamed about it before this ordeal, I could never actually date him. He's too cocky and pushy, and there would be so much time away from him because of touring and recording. And the song... How would we manage recording? We argue over nothing every second day, we'd surely kill each other if we spent more time together. 

My driving is bumpy and fast because I'm so distracted. I try to force the thought of emotional investment out of my mind, and the result is another type of thought. His neck and shoulders and lips... the images taunt me and squeeze the air from my lungs. I find my hands tensing up around the wheel as I screech into the driveway. I'd usually park on the verge, but since I'll be out all night I park my car in the carport, Mum can take the verge tonight. The moment I walk through the door a feeling of safety rushes over me, but I don't have time to savour it because I only have 45 minutes to transform myself.

"Hey," a familiar voice comes from the kitchen.

"Callum, what are you doing here?"

"I thought we could hang out, but Adam said you have plans." Callum has problems with his parents, so he stays over at my place when he doesn't want to be at home. He gets uncomfortable talking about it openly, so we pretend it's just us 'hanging out'.

"Um... Yeah, I'm going to dinner, sorry." But the smirk on his face tells me that he isn't disappointed to spend some time with Adam. "I need to go get ready..."