13. Bad Habit
THIRTEEN
BAD HABIT
Cade
“Melody Gray, what are you doing in my kitchen at four in the morning?”
“We’re hungry.” She picks up the pan she’s cooking with and gestures in the direction of Abbott, passed out on the couch. “What are you doing just now getting back home?”??
“Oh, you know, just stargazing.” I plop down onto a barstool across the kitchen island from her with a smile I haven’t been able to wipe off my face since I walked Halle up to her door a few minutes ago.
“Mhm, just stargazing, so believable.” She serves her sarcasm with a smile, knowing exactly what I was up to. “Are you going to want some too?”
“If it’s anything but pancakes, yes.”
“You’re in luck because I’m making biscuits and gravy, but seriously, Cade, what is it with you and hating pancakes.” She laughs.
“Everyone knows waffles are supreme, pancakes could never compare. Simple as that.”
“You boys are so weird sometimes. Which, speaking of, could you wake Abbott up for me? Food’s almost ready.”
I nod and scoot out of my stool, making my way across the living room to him. I stand above him, thinking about how if it wasn’t four in the morning, I would do something wild to wake him, but I don’t want to be loud and wake up anyone else—that would be cruel. I opt for a simple tap on his shoulder and wait until his eyes slowly blink open. He looks at me and then around the room, confused as to why he was asleep on the couch, until his eyes land on Mel in the kitchen and I see his wheels start to turn at the memories of the night coming back to him.
We get ourselves seated on the barstools where Mel has so graciously left our plates on the counter for us. She’s standing across from us, getting her plate ready, when a mischievous look spreads across her face.
“I declare a meeting of the operational forces,” she blurts out.
Abbott groans, more interested in how soon he can go back to sleep than staying up for some late-night talking.
“Maybe we could wait until morning,” I bargain, trying to save Abbott, as much as I’m eager to talk now.
“It is morning.”
Got it, no room for negotiating with Mel on this. That’s one thing her and Halle have always been extremely good at—getting what they want. I just wish that one of these times I would be what Halle wants.
“I’ll start.”
Mel takes me by surprise. I expected her to question me about mine and Halle’s night. Maybe something happened at the party that she needs to tell me about first, and hopefully, it’s nothing about Sean. The last thing I need is for him to have put two-and-two together and start asking questions.
“It’s about Halle.” Mel stops, like she’s unsure of what to say next.
“When is it not,” Abbott jokes.
“Promise not to tell her I’m telling you this?” She holds both her pinkies out, waiting for me and Abbott to lock in.
“Miss Gray, how amateur of you to forget the operational oath of secrecy!” I dramatically tease while joining our pinkies.
She rolls her eyes, but I know we all love the silly dramatics of our operation. It keeps the same youthful spirit we started with alive after more than three years.
“She likes you,” she says so fast I almost don’t make out her words.
My leg starts bouncing but I can’t stop it. A few minutes ago, I felt ready for bed, but now I feel like I could run a marathon off this adrenaline rush. A million follow up questions are fighting their way to the tip of my tongue.
“Likes? Present tense?” I have to clarify before I get too ahead of myself imagining life with her in my head. I take a few deep breaths to calm the competing thoughts in my head. If she likes me that’s great, fantastic, amazing even, but where’s she at with Sean?
She doesn’t say anything, just nods, smiling, waiting for us to ask more questions.
“Did she tell you that? What about Sean?” Abbott asks my burning question.
“She did, in fact, tell me and Ruby on Friday. Speaking of Ruby, maybe we should involve her in these chats soon. Speaking of Sean, we will not be speaking of Sean, unless anybody wants to start Operation Get-Halle-To-Fall-In-Love-With-Sean, but I don’t think any of us want that… right ?”
Abbott and I shake our heads in agreement.
“Then it’s solved. Cade likes Halle, Halle likes Cade, so what are we going to do about that now to move forward?” She stares at me, waiting for me to have an idea.
“A double date?” I suggest, knowing Mel will love the idea. She would get to be a part of the date, rather than hear about it later. She’s wanted this for me and Halle for so long, she deserves to be part of it when it finally happens.
Her grin spreads from ear to ear. “I thought you’d never ask! Bowling? GoKarts? The movies? The options are endless, let’s get to work.” She whips out her phone to start taking notes.
We spend another hour talking about my feelings, Halle’s feelings, the date I’m going to ask her on, when I’m going to ask her, and everything in between. At some point, Abbott wandered off to bed, but Mel and I were wide awake until we reached a final plan.
We’ll go to the carnival that’s in town and the “plan” is to meet up with Mel and Abbott, but they’re going to back out last minute so that it can feel like a real date, not some chaperoned outing. Mel’s going to help me go scout at the carnival sometime this week to “map it out”, whatever that’s supposed to mean. It’s late and I trust anything Mel says I should do, so I’m going along with it.
Now I just need to follow through, something I always have a hard time doing when it comes to Halle. But maybe this time it will be different—because I know that I’m what Halle wants.
As soon as I hear the first ring of my alarm, I shoot myself out of bed. Today’s the day I do it. I’m going to ask Halle Cooper on a date.
It took all of yesterday to convince myself that I didn’t imagine Mel telling me how Halle feels. Well, what was left of yesterday after waking up at too embarrassing of an hour in the afternoon to admit—but to be fair, Mel kept me up until six in the morning working out all the details. I’ve waited years to hear those words, and finally getting the confirmation sent me into a mixture of shock, panic, and planning. I have to strike while the iron is hot, or whatever the saying is.
It’s early in the morning and I may have snoozed and kept Halle waiting on other days, but not today. I want to make sure we get to Jubilee at least an hour before they open. We’re still going to record this morning even though we have band practice later, because according to Halle, I am “the tryhardiest of all of Tryhard” and don’t know how to take a break from the music. She might be right about the me being a tryhard part, but it’s not that I don’t know how to take a break, it’s that I don’t want to take a break from music.
Once I’m ready, I look at myself in the mirror and try to give myself a pep talk. “C’mon, Cade, it’s just a date. With a girl you’ve been crazy about basically your whole life. Asking her will be easy, no pressure.”
I should not be a motivational speaker, because if anything, this “pep talk” just made it so much worse.
I slide my hand over my face. “What am I doing?” I can only imagine if someone walked in right now and saw me muttering to myself. I spritz myself with some of my Tobacco Vanille cologne and then head out to the parking lot where Halle’s already waiting for me. I check the time to make sure I’m not late to the plans I’m forcing her into, and that she’s just early, and like usual, the latter is thankfully true.
We grab coffee on our way into Jubilee because it’s also our last recording session before sending the EP off to be remastered with the new vocals. I decided to try Halle’s usual oat milk latte with vanilla and it’s much sweeter than my go-to cold brew. I can’t complain, it was absolutely delicious.
I can feel the caffeine set in throughout recording because I start to get extra jittery. I’m telling myself it's from the caffeine —but it could also be my nerves, because no matter what, today is the day I ask Halle on a date. I can’t keep letting my bad habit of running from my feelings get in the way of going after what I want.
The rest of our recording hour flies by, and it’s about time for the shop to open, which means it’s time for me to let Halle get to work. We start walking toward the studio door, but when we reach it, I don’t open it. Instead, I turn around to lean on the door and face her, blocking us in, in a non-creepy way of course. She just looks up at me, waiting for whatever it is she can tell I have to say.
“Remember the carnival we used to go to all the time as kids?” I blurt out. My heart could beat out of my chest.
She responds with a nod.
“There’s one in town that ends next week, do you want to go check it out?” I rake a hand through my hair, trying to play it cool.
“Like, with everyone?” she asks.
“Just us, and maybe Mel and Abbott, like the old times.” I pause, growing nervous that she isn’t thinking of it as a date but more of a group hang. “What do you say, Valentine, is it a date?” I’m doing a good job of playing it cool even though I’m incredibly nervous.
“It’s a date.” She's beaming. Gosh, her eyes are somehow more mesmerizing the wider she smiles.
She probably can’t tell, but I’m beaming, too.
I turn back around and open the door, holding it open for her to head out first so she can go get clocked in.
“See you at practice tonight?” I ask as I walk to the front door of the shop.
“Wouldn’t miss it.” She smiles back at me, and I see the slightest blush on her cheeks.
I return the smile, and make my way out the door, starting my walk home. I don’t make it far before I pull out my phone to let Mel and Abbott know I did it. I shake myself out of my jacket and swing it over my shoulder for the rest of my walk, letting the crisp, dewy morning air cool me down. When I get back home, I run inside to grab my car keys and run right back out the door. It’s time for a joyride.
I’m on cloud nine when Halle unveils the new merch she picked up for us at practice. I don’t know how she does it, but I know we’re going to have a hard time keeping merch in stock with designs this good. There are trucker hats, tote bags, and a few samples of tees for us to pick from for our EP release. She tells us her favorite is the tote bag. Girls love tote bags, that’s something I’ve learned recently. “Tote bags and handwritten notes,” Halle once said was the way to her heart.
I keep working on songs by myself after practice, and I finally put a melody to some lyrics I’ve had floating around my brain ever since my first recording session with Halle a week ago. I get enough of it worked out to decide I’ll show it to the guys tomorrow. Halle doesn’t usually come to practice on Tuesdays, so I feel even better about playing it for the guys without her there to distract me. Ironically, that’s what the song is called, Distract Me .
It’s all about how when you want someone so badly, they find their way to the front of your mind at all times. Even if they aren’t physically around, they distract you from everything you do.
“What did you say you wanted to call it again?” Beau asks when I finish playing my idea for the first verse for them the next day.
“Distract Me,” I confidently boast.
“Sounds moody and sexy all at the same time. I like it if we can get the sound to match the energy of the title,” Zack adds.
He’s usually the one to have the most feedback on the holistic “vibes” of our songs. I think it comes from his multi-instrument background, he’s always thinking of the collective sound, rather than what he’s playing on his own. I don’t know what we’d do without him playing such an instrumental role in our sound—no pun intended.
By the end of practice, we were able to give the song a good foundation and make it sound like a real Tryhard song and not just “Cade and his acoustic guitar” as the guys like to say. We also reworked some of the performance aspects of the songs on the EP to make them as best as they can be for when we start touring.
All I can think about after that practice is how good I feel about the direction we’re headed, and Halle. I’m always thinking about Halle.