Chapter Text
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Hylan woke up with a splitting headache. She could still taste the tangy after-taste of the wine. Her stomach turned, feeling nauseated. She pressed her skin against the cold surface of the counter and let her head fall down. Tired of being disappointed with herself, she couldn't stay in the head space she resided in, she needed to get up.
In the shower she deliberately scrubbed the sorrow and the alcohol slumber from her skin. Today was gonna be a hell of a day.
Hylan shut the door to her apartment, from the front of her door, the vines from the surrounding sidewalk trees started to overgrow on the building. This was something she appreciated before moving on with the concerns of her life. Today was a new day, a day of new possibilities and she was not going to let her woes of self-destruction get in the way of it. With the little hope Hylan had left, she made her way to the train station. She wanted to check out the bar that had opened a few weeks ago. Of course she didn’t like bars, but it’s what she was good at. It was always an opportunity to spread the music she created, and the company from the customers wasn't so bad every now and then.
This was the second job interview and Hylan did not want to fuck it up, so she decided to have faux charisma and forced a smile so tight she could feel her facial lines pulling. She added a bounce to the black Miss Lola’s she walked in to highlight the confidence she wanted portrayed to disidentify her internal conflict.
Entering the doors of The Black Ace. The inside was very spacious, more spacious than where she had previously worked. She passed an older man who stopped in his tracks and made a noise. She stopped in her tracks as well, facing him. She could see the passage of years in his face, in his posture.
Hylan furrowed her eyebrows in concern. “Are you alright, sir?”
He stared at her and gently smiled. “Do not give too much expectation or effort into this one. You're going to find him here,”
Furrowing her eyebrows, she looked around. “Wh- who won’t I find here?”
“Well your spade, darling” He took a deep breath getting ready to say something else, but he was cut off by a mellow voice.
“Dad, there you are, I was looking for you everywhere,”A woman turned towards Hylan, smiling at her. She raised her hand to greet her. “Oh, Hi. I’m so sorry, he likes to meet new people,”
Hylan shook the woman's hand as she took a subtle breath, she chuckled a little. Fixing the collar to her white dress shirt.
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you,” She looked Jules over.
The woman looked well over in her forties, she had dark brunette hair, with an all black long sleeved halter where the collar was lined with black glitter and flared bottom pants with glasses that honed her green eyes.
Jules took her father by the forearm. “Come on, this nice young lady probably has somewhere important to be-”
Hylan stopped her, “I don’t. Well, I do have somewhere to be, I’m just a little nervous,”
“Oh, what are you here for?” Jules asked.
Hylan took a moment. “I’m here for an interview,”
Jules looked taken aback. “Ar- are you Hylan Moore?”
Hylan forced a smile onto her face. “Yes, I am.”
“Well, I’m glad you were able to make it. I’m the executive of the bar, Jules Barckor. I will be conducting the interview, you can follow me,” Jules said.
Jules made her way towards a separate room filled; a pool table, a mini bar, and a lounge area. And inside of that room with the pool table and the mini bar and the lounge area, was another room.
She turned to Hylan. “You can wait here, make yourself comfortable. Let me sit my father somewhere," Jules left the room.
Hylan took in the room, it was an office with much personal clutter. A desk right in the centre accompanied by a little light and supplies- when she walked in, one chair sat at the back of it in-front of two windows and two chairs in the front towards the door. She sat down, crossing her legs. She rubbed her palms down the front of her shirt, thinking about whether the interview will go great or bad. The room smelled of coffee that settled into the sunlight that glistened through the windows. The sight of dust swirling through the room. Hylan sat in the chair up from the door, she was getting nervous, her palms and under her arms accumulated excessive sweat, the need for a drink kicking in. She gulped and held her breath, her ears rang, it was hot in a rush of calming so she blew cold breaths of air. The door closed, the sound brought Hylan back to her senses, the air whipped by her face, nearly having to endure whiplash with how quick and stiff she turned her head.
Jules rounded the table and sat down, the shriek of the chair materialized as she scooted closer, a stack of papers to the left of her.
“Al’right, let’s get started, there’s no need to be nervous as you confessed earlier. I’ll start with… the basics,” her hands clasped, she looked up. “Are you usually this nervous, Hylan?”
Hylan chuckled to calm her nerves. “No actually, never. But I am expecting to be disappointed if I don’t make this interview really.”
Jules began to stare at Hylan, almost as if she was trying to figure her out. “Expecting to be disappointed, huh? Tell me about that,”
She leaned back.“Well, I lost my last job. Had another job I was looking forward to, and I was late to it”
“Why were you late?” Jules looked at her intensely.
Tongue poking the inside of her cheek, Hylan answered. “I woke up later than the expected time, and I also happen to not own an automobile”
“Why’d you wake up late?” Jules asked not a second after.
“Why do you ask so many questions?” Hylan retorted, side-eyeing her.
Jules sat with a straight face. It scared but also irked Hylan, she thought she’d botch this interview, just then Jules made an outburst of laughter. She got up and headed towards the door.
“Come on.”
Hylan got up and followed her out of the compacted room back through the lounge and into a hallway that led to an area of stools stationed by a bar-top where the lights mainly beamed, pool tables with companion seats and a stage, and just on top of that stage was a few young men who looked to be around Hylan’s age if not younger. She started reminiscing back to being able to express her art through words in front of a diminutive quantity of people.
“So, are you gonna tell me why you woke up late?” Jules retrieved a lighter from inside of the box full of cigarettes held in her hand, one taking place in her mouth as she ignited the tip of it, smoke starting to spread throughout the air from it.
Hylan turned to her, snatching the cigarette and took a puff. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She exhaled and handed it back to Jules.
She caught Hylan staring at the stage. “You perform?”
“A little,” Hylan responded.
Jules nodded, inhaling from the cigarette. She took a second, thinking. She needed new hires and
Hylan seemed like she had a lot of potential, she’ll end up seeing her perform later. “You’re Hired.”
Hylan turned, surprised. “What? That fast?”
Jules flicked the ash from the cigarette into the mini trash bin Hylan hadn’t seen when they’d entered the room. “I don’t know, you remind me a little of myself when I was younger,”
Hylan went quiet, she was at a loss for many words. “No personal questions? Not a thorough look into my life?”
Jules blew out her last breath of smoke before throwing the cigarette in the garbage, the remaining smoke ascending into the air. “Ya want the job or not, kid?”
“Yeah. Yes, I do. Thank you,” Hylan rapidly accepted.
Jules hummed and started walking away, she yelled. “You can start next week!”
She turned the corner.
From where Hylan stood, one could see the gathering of her emotions. She didn’t want to jump out in excitement and embarrass herself in front of anyone who might’ve been watching, but it’s what she felt like doing.
She whispered. “Yes, yes, yes!”
Then she realized she hadn’t asked what time she was expected to arrive. Her nervous system working up the attempt to penetrate her brain through stress. She looked back contemplating whether she should follow.
“I’m guessing you got the job!” A voice said.
She spun around out of sheer surprise. Hylan had not heard any footsteps. As her fight or flight response kicked in she went into a defensive position. Said person backed away with his hands up. He was maybe two-three inches above her head, with mild spiked dirty blond hair, and medium blue eyes that seemed to hold sorrow. He wore a red sweater trimmed with grey thread with dark blue jeans.
“Woah, I didn’t mean to scare you. I saw you with my mother,” He said
She untensed. “That’s your mother? Wow, She looks great,”
He laughed, smiling bright. “My name’s Aaróun”
Hylan offered her hand. “Hylan. Nice to meet you.”
“I was watching, heard you say you performed,” He shook her hand.
“I was unaware that I was being watched,” Hylan smirked.
He took a glance back. “We’re looking for a member, I was wondering if you’d want to join.”
Hylan hummed in thought. “What? One of your band mates quit or-“
He cut her off. “No, he’s just M.I.A all of the time so, we have a hard time counting on him to show up. Come meet the group”
Aaróun led Hylan up onto the stage where two others were. He pointed to a brunet. Mini spikes coming from the sides of his hair. He had brown eyes.
“This is Mitchell, he plays the drums. And this is Claude. Guys, this is Hylan. You know my name, I play bass, and as you know our other member isn’t here at the moment.” Pointing to another blond head whose hair was mid length, also blue-eyed then emphasized onto himself. Mitchell and Claude both waved.
I’m guessing the last is gonna be blond-haired and blue-eyed too, seems to be a little trend here. She thought.
Claude spoke “So, Hylan. What are you good at? Do you play the guitar? Keyboard?”
Hyllan put her hands behind her back.“Well, I play a little guitar but I like to sing and write. I can show you better than I can tell you.”
They all looked at each other, then Claude got up and handed Hylan his guitar. Hylan walked around to the microphone.
She looked back at the group “Maybe a slow tempo”
Hylan started playing a slow upbeat tempo, as Aaróun played bass, Mitchell later coming in with the drums.
“Insecure in her skin
Like a puppet, a girl on a string
Broke away, learned to fly
If you want her back, gotta let her shine”
Hylan, as always, starts to feel the beat. Her foot tapped on the wooden stage as she conjured up the memorized tune she’d been working on.
“So it looks like the jokes on you
Cause, the girl that you thought you knew”
She stopped for a beat, catching her breath.
“She’s so gone, That’s so over now
She’s so gone, you won’t find her around
You can look but you won’t see the girl I used to be
Cause she, She’s so gon-”
Caude cut her off.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know you didn’t get to finish but I want to say… you sound magnificent dear, very lovely,” he came back up on stage.
Mitchell set his drumsticks down and held up a finger.“Could you give us a moment please?”
They huddled together whispering, all she could hear was mumbling, only catching onto one word- a name.
“Yeah, but what about Jack?”
Jack?
She felt her heart jump. For whatever reason hearing the name made her think back to the dream she had a day ago, you know? When she ended up getting fired on her first day, yeah that day. Hylan looked down at her hands and fiddled with her chipped maroon nails as she rocked side to side, she zoned out so she didn’t notice the boys approaching her.
Mitchell waved his hands in her face.“You still there?”
She nodded “Yeah, I’m here,”
“You got the part. One of our main singers,” he said
Hylan felt ecstatic, she jumped up and down, throwing her arms around his neck.“Oh my goodness, thank you so much”
Claude asked. “When are you available? We live together- a couple blocks down from the building”
Hylan retrieved her phone, exchanging contact information with them.
“Well, I guess I’ll be working throughout the week, so on my off time and weekends. Here’s my phone number,”
“Alright, we’ll see you then?” Mitchell asked
“I guess you will.” she smiled
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