Alekk Weston

Pop - Ch.3

                “Ugh.” It was already ten in the morning, but Niv and Alekk were still passed out. Whatever visitors they had had already left and whatever parts of the house I did clean yesterday were cluttered in food and trash again.

               With nowhere to go I decided to clean up the house, again. The boys were obviously hung over, so I conveniently made them breakfast as well. By that time it was nearing noontime, so I walked over to the boys.
              “Man, you guys stink.”

                Niv was the first to awaken. He groggily opened his eyes, looking around the house to see that last night’s disaster had miraculously disappeared. Then Alekk was next.

             “Alekk, she cleaned the house for us again.” Alekk shrugged.
             “Convenient,” sighed Alekk, “this means you can fire our actual maid, Niv. There’s no use of having two maids run around the house. Saves me money, too.”
             “On it!” shouted Niv as he made his way to the kitchen for the phone.
             “Hey, she made us breakfast too!”
             “Convenient,” repeated Alekk.
             “So, do I get paid then? I mean there’s really no point in me cleaning your house if I don’t get anything in return.” Alekk looked disappointed.

 

 

 

                “I’ll make you a deal. You clean my house, and if you come up with one good song on the guitar, I’ll let you be my opening number on one of my shows at the end of the summer. In front of thousands of people, may I add.”

I gulped.

“But I-,”

“But you what?”

And then I remembered. I had to be in character with this “Alyssa” girl. While I had never played or touched a guitar in my life and hated being in front of crowds, being Alyssa was the only way I was going to stay here. And have somewhere free to sleep. And not have to put a financial burden on Wes.

“I’m afraid of crowds.”

 

 

 

                “Well then I guess that’s something you’ll just have to get over then. Or not. It doesn’t bother me how great you are after this whole ordeal. I have plenty of other charities that demand more of my attention.” He smirked before walking towards the kitchen. And that’s when I realized that he was only wearing underwear. I blushed and ran up the stairs toward my room.

“Don’t stay up there too long! I’ll be appropriately dressed and showered within the hour to give you your first lesson!” laughed Alekk. How embarrassing. I slammed my door shut only to hear more laughter. This time coming from both Alekk and Niv.

 

 

 

                How stupid it was, I thought, that whenever something trivial happened inside this house the first thing I would do was to run in this room. What was I hiding for? I had successfully fooled both Alekk and Niv, cleaned their house, made them a “post-hangover” breakfast… what else did I need to do? I had realized that my summer break had started a couple of days ago, and I still hadn’t had anything to show for it.

  Deciding not to wait in this room, prison cell, or whatever appropriate adjective sufficed, I changed into my bathing suit and headed down to the pool and enjoy the afternoon sun. Such a beautiful place to spend a summer. I didn’t think I would ever get the chance to be so close to the salty ocean waves.

  Niv was already basking in the sun, but I didn’t seem to mind his presence. He cherished a calm demeanor that led me to believe he wouldn’t be as threatening as being next to Alekk in this same situation. I sat down in the lawn chair next to him.

 

 

 

                “You gravitate towards water, too?” he asked simply.

  “I haven’t had much of a chance to be around it. I like being outside though, and it’s too nice right now to pass up. Summer is always too short.” He smiled slightly, a small breeze tucking strands of hair away from his face.

 “It is. For something so short and splendid, you have to enjoy it in its entirety.”

 That was all he said for a while. We just sat there, soaking up the rays of the sun. I had never felt so content in such a long time. It made me miss Wes as I wondered how he was doing in this moment in time. Had I abandoned him? I hope he didn’t think in that way. That he was alone.

  Niv smiled again.

 

 

 

                “C’mon,” he smirked as he jumped in to the huge crystal-like pool. I shivered. He repeated his demand again as he swam around effortlessly in grandiose gestures. I smiled and nodded towards him as I sat up in my chair.

Before I knew it I was in the same cool blue Niv was in, a look of shock plastered on my face mixed from both disbelief and pure cold from the icy chlorine water. Niv laughed at my expression. Then he pulled himself under the water’s surface in a sudden jerk, descending down to the bottom floor. I gasped.

After sixty menacing seconds, Niv pushed off the bottom floor of the pool and ascended to the surface, immediately sucking in copious amounts of air. He looked at me again and laughed. My face must have been an open book!

“You don’t have to worry, you know,” Niv sighed, “I’m practically a fish!”

 I shook my head.

“Not all of us can be so lucky,” I replied jokingly. I swam back towards the edge of the pool, trying to find a ladder before Alekk himself pulled me out of the water. Another look of shock swept across my face.

 

 

 

                “Lesson time,” Alekk simply stated, “get dressed and meet me out on the deck.”

  Alekk walked away swiftly, disappearing around the wall of his house. I looked back at Niv apologetically as I frantically tried to get dressed as quickly as I could. He did his smile again before diving back into the deep waters of the pool.

 

 

                I almost had a nervous breakdown as I climbed the stairs up to the deck where Alekk was. I began thinking about who I was pretending to be, the girl Alyssa, and whether Alekk would be upset that I had never touched a guitar once in my life. One could only hope.

It was odd seeing Alekk this way, on his deck. It was “his” space. The combination of the ocean breeze and the slight privacy made Alekk look like a calmer version of himself. It seemed fitting. Being the most popular musician in the world had to mean that he hardly had any time for himself, to be by himself. I hadn’t thought of it in that way before.

“This will be the shortest lesson you will ever have from me. But that’s because I want you to be able to perfect whatever I’m teaching you and be able to show me your efforts tomorrow. First however, a question. Do you know how to play guitar?” I knew it. The dreaded question. I gulped.

“No.” No sign of anger from Alekk.

“Not surprising. It’s amazing the stories I’ve heard of how many people “fake” their way through the competition in order to win the scholarship. You’re not the first.” Yea, to be next to you, I thought. I probably would have done the same thing. Oh wait, I did. Alekk picked up his guitar and began to play.

 

 

 

                “Three simple chords I want you to learn. A, D, and G. The easiest chords to make a song out of.”

  He was playing those chords, I figured. He kept switching the order, making the progression his own. It all sounded so magical. Such a basic short melody, but he closed his eyes. He had found his source of life. It was like Niv and his love for being in the water.

 “Basically what I want you to do is make a song out of these three chords – no lyrics – and have it ready to play in front of me tomorrow.” He didn’t say anything else. I just watched him play. Was I supposed to leave?

  I must have watched him play and play that guitar for thirty minutes. I didn’t know what else to do other than to just watch. It was one thing to see this man on a TV in front of me, but for some reason the barrier of glass and space made the difference. I wonder if this was how he touched so many of his devoted fans.

 “You may go now. You have a lot of practice to do. Oh, and there are dishes in the sink.”

  The aura I was in was now wiped clean. Alekk Weston, famed musician… certified pain the butt.

 

 

END OF CH.3

 

 

 

Pop - Ch.2

   “She looks so little, though. Mhm. Alright, see you when you get back.” Click.

   I was starting to wake up when I realized where I was. Before falling asleep I had just broken into THE Alekk Weston’s summer vacation home. That entire sentence sounds impossible to me, but there I was, lying on a couch in his living room. But that wasn’t his voice. My eyelids flew open.

 The man was sitting at the dining table, but as soon as he heard me he came over.

 “Al isn’t going to like you being here. How did you get in anyway?” My nerves jolted. Who was this man? And who gave him permission to have the bluest eyes on the planet?

 “Through the door on the side. It was open.”

 “Shoot. He’s always leaving doors open. One day we’re going to come back and everything will be gone. Who are you anyway?”

   Darn. I hadn’t actually thought about that. About who I would pretend to be so that I would actually have the chance to stay. I had to think of something quick, otherwise I’d have absolutely nowhere to go. Whatever I said in the next five minutes would determine me staying here or possibly being on the streets. I looked around the room, for anything.
  Then I saw it. A poster for some scholarship a student could get that included free music lessons from Mr. Weston himself. Bingo!

 “I am the student that won the scholarship,” I tried to sound confident, “but my college rearranged the music lessons so that I could take them during the summer before any of my classes started. I’m guessing no one told you?”

 He mused a bit before giving a face of recognition. I’m guessing neither he nor Alekk talked about the scholarship students that much. It made sense. A lot of things in their lives were probably more interesting than giving some girl guitar lessons.

 “Yes!! Oh, yea we weren’t expecting you until fall, and definitely not at this little place. So you’re Alyssa then? I don’t know why, but that name sounds familiar.”

 “Well, my real name is Alyssa, but I’ve always been called Max.” I lied.

   The man looked surprised.
   “Alright….Max? I’m Niv. I’m Al’s assistant. Your room’s the empty one, and I’m not usually one to bear a rude comment, but I suggest you take a shower or something.”

 “Oh!” my face flushed bright red. I quickly grabbed my bag and rushed to the nearest empty room. I heard Niv laughing behind me.

   After being on the road for a couple of days, a good shower was just what I needed. I stood in my room afterwards and enjoyed the splendor of being here. I knew I would love it. My room was nice and neat, and so big. I smiled and decided to explore the rest of the house. My smile was wiped clean.

   The house was disgusting! How did I not notice this earlier? Magazines had littered the floor, and plates of food were left all over the counters. You could tell some had been left there for days. Flies were all over the place. I couldn’t just leave it all there. Not if I was going to be here for the entire summer.

   After cleaning the house, I looked for Niv. He was at the pool. So now I had freedom. I sighed and ran over to the couch and flicked on the TV. And that’s when I screamed.

     Alekk was at the door, but I could have sworn I didn’t see him as I did my little jump onto the couch. How embarrassing. And I couldn’t believe it. Less than twenty feet away from me was someone I had been watching on TV practically my entire life. THE Alekk Weston.
    “No, go ahead, make yourself at home. I mean, you did only just break into it a couple of hours ago. Oh, but I see you have made my home yours. Niv and I don’t clean around here. We have a maid for that.”

 Yikes. I curled back further in the couch.
 “I’m your-,”

   “Student. Yes, I know. I’ll teach some things to you like you want and in a couple of months, I’ll be free again. I just want you to know that while you are my student, this is also my house. So don’t be surprised if, you know, I have a couple of friends over,” Alekk cut me off with a wink. He went to then get himself a drink before going outside on his porch.

   I sighed deeply. What was I doing here?! Ugh.
   It was now midnight. Though I wasn’t tired, I made my way to my room. Might as well get out of the way before the party begins. I sat at my desk and cried. I had met Alekk Weston, and I couldn’t help but think that he was kind of a jerk.


END OF CH.2

Last remnant of my TS2 days... sad =(

music addiction 1/24/13

Pop - Ch.1



“I don’t think she’s coming back this time.”

“Yea, I don’t think so, either. It’s been three months,” replied my cousin Wes. We were sitting in the living room of our house. It had evidently been three months since my Aunt Karen said she was going to visit a friend ‘over the weekend.’
You’d think normally, that as adolescents who were technically dependent would have called the police, would have been frenzied with terror as our guardian disappeared and left us. But we didn’t make a single phone call. We kind of knew this day was coming.
My parents died in a car accident, which is what most Americans who die, die from unless it was heart disease or something similar to that. This happened when I was three, and really the only family I could go to was my aunt Karen. At the time she was nineteen, single, and trying to support my cousin Wes who was the same age as me. Being a teenager with a hopeless romantic heart, she somehow thought that she could take care of the both of us by herself. And I have to hand to her… she kind of did.
She suddenly earned a lot of money, and bought us this really nice house. When I was younger, Wes and I had no clue how she earned her money. But as we got older and she started disappearing, we kind of figured it out. Anyways…

“You know what we said we would do if she was gone this long. We’d go find HIM,” smirked Wes.

I smiled back.
“So, can we do it?”
“Absolutely.”

So you might be confused as to “him” is. Two words… Alekk Weston. Only the world’s most talented and beautiful singer/songwriter. Wes and I kind of adore him and his music.

It all started when we were little. At the time Alekk was a youngster like us, singing some catchy pop song that made all of the pre-teens and their moms fall in love with him. There was nooo way you would be able to pull Wes and I from the television set if Alekk were on the screen.
Eventually Alekk grew with his music as time went on, changing his style from pop to rock to some sort of indie rock that he does now. But with every change, he conquered. It seemed as though his competition retired and he only got better.

Anyways, Wes and I made this pact that if aunt Karen had disappeared for three months, we wouldn’t sit and wait for her anymore. We were almost adults as it was. If she was going to leave us, we were going to leave her with nothing to come back to. So we saved our money and decided we were going to catch a glimpse of Alekk at his beach house this summer.

Before we knew it, Wes and I were driving away from the place that was our home for seven years. We were leaving the town that neither of us had fit into, whether at school or even in the eyes of our own family. Rolling hills of grass and trees were to be traded for a beachfront view of rolling waves.

“I can tell you’re excited,” Wes said calmly. We had stopped for a quick break, but the break was long enough for me to see that he was already being affected by what we had done. We both knew this, both knew how it would feel. If Karen ever came back, she would come back to nothing. No clue would tell her that we would be halfway across the country. She wouldn’t know where to begin if finding us was what she really wanted to do. Wes felt guilty.

“Hey, we’ll be okay,” I reassured Wes. Corners of his mouth went up as we walked back to the car.

And several hours later, we were okay. We were there, standing across the street from Alekk Weston’s beachfront mansion.

“I can’t believe this is it.”

“His house is huge!”

“I can’t believe we made it Wes!”
He grabbed my wrist.

“You are going to have so much fun, Max.” Me?
“And you too, Wes,” I grinned.

“Nooo,” Wes sighed, pulling away from me.
“I should have told you sooner. I know it’s wrong.”
My mind was spinning. What could he have been talking about?

“Max, I know you need an explanation. That money we saved after my mom disappeared… I only saved enough for you. I’ve already found a job here, so I’ll still work to support us, but I’m going into the army this fall.”

“What? You’re not coming with me?” I was furious. Confused, more like it. This didn’t make any sense. I was scared. Wes was leaving me to this by myself. I needed him!

“No. I’m sorry, Max. You know this was always your thing. I’ll still be in town for the summer. You need to do this. You need to have fun. You deserve it.”

I lost it.

“Oh Wes! How am I going to do this without you?” I hugged him close. He was the only familiar person here. And I was being ripped apart from him.

“You were always more daring than I ever was,” winked Wes, “no go have fun.”

And with one last hug, he walked back to his car, started it up without me in it, and drove down the street until I couldn’t see him anymore. I was alone.

It looked as though nobody was home right now, so I walked around the small mansion, trying to find an open door and window. Bingo.

I was in the living room. Everything was so nice, so polished. It was so warm and inviting, yet modern and neat at the same time. I wondered if this was the touch of a highly skilled interior decorator or of Alekk Weston himself.

My eyes had adjusted to the warm temperature of the house and were now warning me that I had been awake too many hours. Not even bothering to try and find a bedroom, I walked over to the nearest couch before I felt myself falling asleep on a cloud.

END OF CH.1