Keep Me Hanging On [Jaime Preciado]

The music Jaime listened to was a little weird to me, but then again, I didn’t have much of a music taste. I just listened to whatever played on the hits radio station. But Jaime obviously knew what he liked, each song that played on the stereo shared a similar style to the last. It took me a few songs to get used to the screaming vocals in the music, but I eventually started to take a liking to it.
The city lights were visible just a short distance away and I started to get excited. What was Jaime's house like? Clean? Messy? A little bit of both? Did he have any pets? If so what kind? The anticipation was killing me.
"I have roommates by the way, I hope you don’t mind... They're pretty cool guys though, so you'll probably like them." Jaime told me taking a turn that led us into the city.
I shifted my sitting position to face Jaime better “I wouldn’t have minded, even if they weren’t cool. I’m just happy I have a place to crash other than my parents’ house… I used to have my own apartment, actually I still do. But I don’t live there anymore.”
“Wait, what? If you still have your own place why don’t you stay there anymore?” Jaime asked, tilting his head to the side a bit, but not taking his eyes off the road.
I breathed out heavily and moved a stray piece of hair away from my face “The apartment wasn’t just mine, I shared it with my boyfriend… Well, Ex-boyfriend… He made me move out after we broke up, but still insists on me paying for it. He said he’ll start paying once he has more money, but I know he’s just using me because it’s been months since this little deal was made… I’m just too spineless and scared to do anything… Plus he’s dating my sister now, so she backs up everything he says, and I have no power against her.”
Jaime shook his head and sighed “You can’t let people push you around like that Clover. We’re going to work together to get your place back, or at least get him to start paying the fucking rent. Okay?”
“Okay…” I said quietly.
The two of us didn’t speak for the few remaining minutes of the drive. I watched as we drove through the neighborhood Jaime lived in, most of the homes were older looking bungalows, and there were dozens of construction sites strewn around where gigantic duplexes with roofs that looked like eyebrows were being built. “Which one of these houses is yours?” I asked.
“Just up here… We’re pulling up to it right now.” Jaime answered taking a turn that led into the driveway of a smallish brick house. All the lights were still on even though it was way past midnight. I could already tell Jaime’s roommates were going to be fun, most people who stayed up this late were.
I got out of the car after Jaime parked in the garage, there were no other vehicles in the garage so each of the roommates must have shared this one. The garage was filled with random junk, like most people’s garages, empty bottles of beer, whisky, and other alcoholic beverages sat in boxes and bags thrown in a pile in the corner of the room. I could hear laughing and loud music, similar to what I heard in the car, coming from inside the house.
“Go ahead and go inside, the doors unlocked, I’m right behind you.” Jaime told me as he stepped out of the car.
I nodded and walked up the steps that led to the door. Once I opened that I was in a laundry room, a couple hampers filled with possibly clean possibly dirty men’s clothing were lined up next to the wall, and both the washer and dryer were in use. I walked through one more doorway that led into the hall, the sounds I heard from the garage were much clearer and louder now.
“Am I supposed to just walk into the living room where all your friends are… or like what?” I whispered to Jaime. I was always nervous when meeting new people, the only reason I think I handled meeting Jaime so well was the adrenaline rush I received from the whole situation I was in at the time.
“Yeah… Are you scared to walk in first or something?” Jaime asked. I nodded. He groaned. “I’ll walk in first then I guess…”
Jaime pushed past me and walked into the living room, greeting his roommates loudly over the blasting music. I timidly followed after, hiding myself by trying to blend into the walls, but Jaime blew my cover by introducing me to everyone. “This is clover by the way guys. She’s going stay here tonight… It’s a long story, I’ll explain later.” He said pushing me into the living room, then walked off into the kitchen to grab himself a drink.
I waved at everyone awkwardly. Jaime’s roommates were three other guys, they looked Mexican just like him, two out of the three had long hair, and all but one of them was covered in tattoos.
The roommate without all the tattoos walked up to me and greeted me with a hug, he was holding a beer in his hand, and I could tell he’d had a few before because he nearly spilled it on me. From such a close distance I could tell that he had his nose pierced, he had a silver hoop similar to my own. “Hey Clover, I’m Vic. And welcome to The Casa De Fuentes. That’s my brother Mike, that’s Tony, and you already know Jaime. Don’t be shy okay.” He said as he released me from the hug.
I muttered a simple ‘hey’ to Vic then shuffled over to the black leather couch to sit. It was a very comfortable piece of furniture, the cushions had just the right mixture of soft and firm. I saw Jaime come through the kitchen doorway with two drinks in hand, one for him and one for me.
He walked up to the couch and handed me one of the two bottles. “I sure hope you’re over 21, because you never did tell me how old you are.”
I grinned and took the drink. “It’s all good Jaime, I’m almost 29.” I told him before taking a sip.
“Good.” Jaime said sitting down next to me on the couch.
There was a guitar next to the TV, it was white with green paint splatters on it. I used to play guitar when I was younger, I sang too, and I was good at both of them, at least that was what people told me. But I stopped, my parents made me, they told me I had to worry about more important things than music, that it was something foolish, that I would never be good enough at it to get somewhere. My parents absolutely adored hurting my feelings and crushing my dreams.
“Whose guitar is that?” I asked to no one in particular.
“Mine!” I heard Vic say from across the room.
“Oh cool. Are you any good?”
He nodded and flashed a tipsy grin. “Yeah, same with Tony, Mike plays the drums, and Jaime plays bass. We’re all in a band together.”
I tried to hold back my laughter by taking a sip from my drink. “Oh… Well I hope you guys all kept to your day jobs… Now tell me, how often do your families pester you about how your band will never make it big?”
“Never, and we don’t have day jobs.” Tony spoke up.
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Because our band actually made it somewhere.” Mike answered, tossing me a few magazines
from the end table.
I looked the magazines, and sure enough these four Mexicans were on the covers. Tony handed me his phone with their band name, ‘Pierce the Veil’ searched up on YouTube, each of the videos featured had nearly if not over a million views. “Oh shit.” I thought. Now I felt really dumb.

Notes