Olivia ran into her house and slammed the front door behind her. She was furious. Her cello teacher, Mr. Tunbridge, had refused her entry to the studio because she was one minute late. She had driven like a bat out of hell, fuelled by what the sexy biker did for her, and well, quite literally, free gas.
Her dad was messing around in the kitchen and poked his head into the hallway.
“Woah, Nelly!” What’s gotten into you?
“Mr. Tunbridge is such an asshole,” Olivia muttered and loosened the laces on her combat boots.
“Excuse me?” Her dad looked at her, bemused.
“Sorry Dad, I’m just so frustrated. Mr. Tunbridge has such a huge ego, and I was only one measly minute late because I had to stop for gas because someone left it on empty.”
Olivia’s dad drew in his breath. “My bad.”
Her dad’s use of such a youthful colloquialism threw Olivia off, and his ridiculousness diffused some of her anger. “He should just be a bit more understanding that sometimes things happen to…”
Olivia was interrupted by several loud bangs and feedback sounds screeching from the garage.
“Sorry, Kiddo. Steve and Randy are here practicing. Try not to let Mr. Tunbridge bother you. You know his late policy, not that I agree with it, but it’s not really like you to be late either.”
Olivia sighed, grabbed her backpack, and ran up the stairs two at a time. Instead of her lesson, Mr. Tunbridge had given her theory exercises to work on. While playing came naturally to Olivia, the theory was a slog for her.
She tossed her theory book and sheet music onto the bed and grabbed her workbook. The banging from the garage resumed.
“Argh,” Olivia growled and grabbed her earphones.
She turned up the volume of the music and set to work, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t focus. The racket from the garage permeated through her headset and shook her brain.
‘That’s it.’ She ripped the big headphones from her ears and tossed them onto the bed. She stomped down the stairs and flew into the garage in a rage, ready to lash out at the first guy she saw. Steve and Randy looked up from their instruments and smiled. They had known Olivia since she was a toddler, running around with a violin.
“Hey, Liv.” Steve brought his drumstick up to his brow like a salute.
“Hi, Steve,” Olivia responded, and immediately changed her tone. How could she scream at these old hippies who had always been so good to her?
“How’s cello school treating you?” Randy asked, his hands draped over the bass.
“It’s good.”
“You guys rock out up there? You know I’ve heard some pretty funky stuff with violins, I’m sure you cellists can make some pretty far out music.”
“I’m mostly into baroque right now. Not a lot of room for creative interpretation there…”
“You should grab your cello and jam with us!” Randy said excitedly.
After her experimentation the other day, Olivia wanted to try playing with them so badly. She had never really veered from what was written on the sheet music and wondered if she could actually improvise.
“No thanks. guys. I don’t think that would really work with your style.”
“That’s crazy talk!” Steve said and pointed to the guitar with his drumstick. “Grab that axe and let’s go.”
Olivia hesitated, but then walked over to the guitar and picked it up. “How is it tuned?”
“E, A, D, G, B, standard,” Randy responded.
“Hmmm.” Olivia tossed the leather strap over her shoulder and ran her fingers up and down the strings. Her cello was C-G-D-A, so completely different. She strummed a couple of single notes and then shook her right hand out.
“Guess I need to build up some callouses on this hand!”
Randy laughed and tossed her a pick from his pocket. “The Joker – G-C-D-C.”
Olivia listened as Randy repeated the bass line a few times. She had heard The Joker a billion times and started strumming the basic chords. It was a little tricky at first as her brain had to transpose and calculate the notes for the chords.
“Nice, Kid!” Randy exclaimed.
They played a few other easy classics and Olivia found herself having a ton of fun. She played the basic chords and quickly got the hang of it.
Later that night, Olivia sat on her bed and finished up her theory. It took her way longer than it should have. Her thoughts kept replaying made up scenarios with the hot biker. She couldn’t stop her imagination from running wild. She drew random music notes on the paper as her mind drifted away:
The biker met her eyes as he removed the pump from the nozzle in her car. She applied some red lipstick and winked at him, sassily. He walked up to her window and knocked, she rolled it down, and he leaned into the car with his hands on the window frame.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hey there, thanks for putting your nozzle in my tank,” she responded and held his gaze.
She turned to face him directly and put her hands on his, effectively pinning him to the car door. She leveraged her torso out the window to kiss him. He returned her kiss hungrily. He smelled like engine oil and musk. He pulled his hands out from under hers and looped them into her hair at the nape of her neck. They kissed again, even more passionately. The world around them disappeared, including the guy in the white leather.
He pulled back and looked into her eyes.
“You’re beautiful. Want to go for a ride?”
She shook her head yes, and smiled coyly. She pulled the keys out of the ignition and he wrapped his massive hand around her ribcage and pulled her all the way out of the car window.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and he gripped the back of her thighs, just under her ass. They kissed passionately as he walked to his bike. He put his helmet on her, gave her a lingering kiss, and threw his muscular leg over the bike. She wrapped her arms around his leather clad waist and held on tightly as they growled out of the parking lot and away into the sunset.
“Olivia. Olivia…”
She snapped out of her daydream and grabbed for her pencil.
“Where were you just now?” Her dad asked.
“I. I was composing something in my head,” she stammered back.
“Must be something good!”
“Mhmmm,” she responded and tried to hide the fact that she was clearly flustered.
“Dinner is ready and on the table for you. I’m heading out to Steve’s property to help him with the rain barrels. Again.”
“Ok. See you later, Dad.”
She held up her calloused right hand, rubbed her sore fingertips together, and smiled. Playing music, for fun, had felt so freeing. She wondered how she could ‘run into’ the biker again. She pulled her laptop out and googled ‘Brass Bonds – Torver’ and set to reading everything she could about the local chapter.