At Night V

The Practicing

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The building is a repurposed warehouse pretending to be an arts hub. Practice space for bands on the first floor, small art studios on the second. The hallway smells like cold concrete, fried electronics, and a thousand bands that never made it.

Claire pushes open the door to the rental studio J and his band has been practicing in for the past two months.

The walls are lined with ancient, greying acoustic foam, peeling like old scabs and smelling faintly of the ghosts of cigarettes past and stale beer. The space isn’t too large, enough room for a small drum riser, a half stack each for the lead guitarist and J, and a dual fifteen-inch cabinet for the bassist. J’s PA, a pair of speakers on tripods face away towards the door.

A cheap rug covers the middle of the floor. Cables run over it, along with half-crushed water bottles, a couple Red Bulls, and a roll of gaffer tape that’s permanently fused to itself.

The band’s already set up by the time Claire arrives. They’ve been here all afternoon.

Steve on drums, Trevor, the lead guitarist. Marco on bass, and of course J on guitar and vocals.

Jessica’s off to the side, adjusting some knobs and sliders on the sound board.

J doesn’t notice her staring. He’s already different. Shoulders loosen. Jaw sets. Eyes focused. He looks like a man deep in his own thoughts. The intensity almost frightens her.

“Let’s run it,” Jessica says. “From the top.”

Trevor nods at J. Steve counts them in with four quiet clacks of his sticks.

J steps to the mic.
The first chords ring out.

They’re covering Spend My Life by Slaughter, but their version is stripped down, slower. It’s still electric, but there’s more gravity to it. Less cheery, more ache. It’s J’s arrangement, his fingerprints are all over it.

His voice comes in low, softer than Mark Slaughter’s version. But there’s something else in it. Something Claire’s never heard before. Something lived-in, scarred and honest.

Claire feels the air shift. It punches through her harder than she expects.

She watches his hands move, confident and fluid, but it’s his face that hooks her. There’s a softness there, a kind of devotion buried under the grit.

And he keeps glancing at her.

She watches as his gaze alternates between his guitar and her, his lips close to the mic, he tilts his head slightly every now and then, damp hair in his face, and shifts his eyes to meet hers.

Trevor leans into a melodic line that wasn’t in the original, turning the chorus into something almost mournful. Marco anchors it, warm and steady. Steve builds a pocket around them, pushing J forward without drowning him.

It shouldn’t work.
It works too well.

When J hits the chorus — I want to spend my life with you — he doesn’t belt it out like Slaughter does, he sings. Softly. Measured, like he’s giving in to the words. A confession disguised as a melody.

Claire’s throat tightens. It’s not the song, or even the lyrics, it’s the way he looks at her, the intensity, the passion in his eyes she can’t quite decipher. She wonders if it’s the music… or her.

Jessica watches Claire instead of the band. She doesn’t judge, she notices. She smiles gently, then looks away, pretending to adjust the soundboard.

The song winds down into a softer outro, J’s voice dropping almost to a whisper over the last lines. He closes his eyes for one moment too long. And when they stop playing, the room does that thing bad rehearsal rooms always do — everything suddenly feels too loud and too quiet at the same time. Steve tosses his sticks onto the snare and reaches for a water bottle. Marco grabs one too, drains it in four gulps, crushes the empty plastic in his fist.

Jessica clocks the empties on instinct. “That’s it. We’re out.”

Steve tries the case in the corner, shakes it. Echoes like a coffin. “Dead.”

J wipes sweat from his face but doesn’t move toward the door. He’s still humming pieces of the chorus to himself, fingers ghosting the frets like he’s tightening bolts only he can see.

“I’ll grab the case from the car,” Jessica says. Already reaching for her keys.

Claire is up before she thinks about it. “I’ll help.”

Jessica shoots her a quick look — not suspicious or amused — just knowing. “Sure.”

The guys barely register them leaving. Steve’s already tapping out another rhythm on his thighs. Trevor is arguing with his amp about tone like it insulted his mother. Marco’s retuning, face blank, eyes half-shut, living in whatever dimension bassists occupy when they’re recalibrating the universe.

J doesn’t look up until Claire’s hand is already on the door.

He glances over. Just for a second.

Soft. Focused. Bare.

Claire feels it. Harder than she wants to admit.

Jessica opens the door. “Come on.”

They step out into the hallway. It’s cooler out here, quieter, the hum of amps reduced to a pulse through the floor.

Jess doesn’t make small talk. She’s not built for it.

“First time seeing him like that?” she asks as they walk towards her car.

Claire tries to play dumb. It lasts about two seconds. Jess isn’t buying it and she isn’t the type to pretend to.

“He’s intense,” Claire says. It’s the safe answer, but her voice slips on the word “intense.”

Jess huffs a soft laugh, but it’s not mocking. More like: yeah, no kidding.

“That’s not intensity,” Jess says as they reach her car. “That’s J when he forgets anyone’s watching.”

They retrieve a cooler on wheels from Jess’ car trunk and make their way back. They enter the building. Someone’s butchering Metallica in a room down the hall. It makes the silence between them heavier, not lighter.

Jess cuts in again, right outside the practice space. This time gentler.

“You know he never looks at anyone like that onstage, right? Not when we were kids. Not now. He’d stare at the exit sign before he’d stare at a person.”

Claire doesn’t answer. Which, of course, is an answer.

Jess glances sideways, clocking all of it. The way Claire’s breathing changed. The way she’s wiping her hands on her jeans.

“You’ve got it bad,” Jess says, a smile forming on her face.

Claire doesn’t deny it. And Jess softens in that small, private way she never does around the guys.

“It’s okay,” Jess says. “He’s got it just as bad.”

Claire swallows. “I… don’t know what to call this.”

“Doesn’t matter what you call it,” Jess says. “What matters is he’s running on two things right now: the music, and whatever the hell is happening between you two.”

“He’ll still sound good without you. Don’t get me wrong,” Jess says, hooking the cooler with her boot to keep it steady. “But that look he gets? The one he had just now? That isn’t performance. That’s him lit up from the inside.”

Claire swallows. “And I’m the one lighting him up?”

Jess doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah. He can fake the intensity. He’s done it before. But the fire? What you saw in there?” She nudges the cooler forward. “He doesn’t get that from the music alone.”

Claire looks back toward the practice room door, the weight of Jess’ words pushing down on her chest. The muffled sound of J’s voice leaks through it—mid-harmony, laughing at something Trevor did.

Jess watches her reaction, then adds, quieter: “He sounds different when you’re here. Sharper. Brighter. Like he’s singing to someone instead of past them.”

Claire doesn’t smile. She just breathes it in. Like she’s finally admitting the thing she was trying to keep quiet even from herself.

Jess sees it, and doesn’t push the issue. They both know. She just swings the door open, and pulls the cooler through the door.

“Come on,” she says. “They’ll need this.”

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