It’s not a dream.

Throughout all my years, mom never once entered my room without knocking first. She didn’t need me much to begin with, and even if she was dying with curiosity about what was happening here, I trusted her enough not to burst in without asking or even stand behind the door eavesdropping. This meant that, so long as we weren’t too loud, we were allowed enough privacy.

Mila was sitting on my desk chair, Sarah was laying back on my bed and I was sitting close to her with Grace on my lap. Even now, the girls were looking around.

“Your room is nothing like I imagined,” said Mila.

“And what did you imagine?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Band posters, video game things all over…”

“Yeah, this is all surprisingly reserved,” Grace said, then frowned. “Actually, no. When I describe it like that, this isn’t that surprising.”

“I play games on PC, and these days it’s more convenient to buy them digitally. I sold the last console I had to upgrade my computer. I’m not a huge fan of posters, either. Something about them looking at me while I sleep bothers me.”

That sent them all into another laughing fit, but I felt pretty justified in my opinion.

In the confusion, Sarah reached out for the art books on the shelf near the foot of the bed, having to stretch herself to reach the closest one. Which one did she gra…? Oh no.

She looked at the cover and then looked at me with a mercilessly teasing grin.“And who’s this lady with the huge bazongas?”

Sarah saying ‘bazongas’ was one thing I never expected to hear.

“Oh?” That got the attention of the other two, and they left their seats to crowd around the blonde.

“Oh wow. Those ARE huge bazongas,” Mila said, looking from the cover picture to Grace’s chest. “Not even you can compete.”

Grace seemed to take that personally. She crossed her arms and pouted cutely. “Well, mine are real.”

I groaned. They were looking at an art book of a very stylized fantasy game, best known around the world for the design of one its playable characters: a sorceress with a dress that showed an ample amount of cleavage and legs, carrying a wooden staff and the classic big witch hat. As the girls said, her tits were massive.

“I just… like the art style of that one, okay?” I defended myself.

Sarah began to flip through the pages, and when she got to one with a big picture of the guy in armor, she started laughing. “This guy has chicken legs!”

“Chicken legs?” I asked while Grace and Mila also laughed.

“They call that what you look like when you don’t work out your legs and end up with a huge upper body and skinny ass legs,” Sarah explained. Good thing I decided to start with legs, huh? “And speaking of which, how did it go today at the gym?”

“Oh yeah. You went with your mom, right?” Mila asked.

I told them everything, though it wasn’t such an interesting story. What was interesting was that I ran into Lyla there.

“I’m not that surprised, to be honest,” Grace said. “Plenty of girls start working out after a breakup, for differing reasons. Some want to get back at their ex, wanting to show them what they missed out on. Some do it to build more self-respect. Some just need stress relief.”

“Why do you think Lyla is doing it?” Mila asked the group as a whole.

“I don’t really care,” Sarah said bluntly. “Any reason is a good reason. What matters is if you can stick to it or not. I’m more surprised you showed her around, Oliver,” she told me. “You sounded kind of frustrated with her.”

“I am,” I admitted. “I’d rather not talk to her, but if I had been in her shoes, I would’ve appreciated someone showing me the ropes, so…”

Mila giggled, tackled me into a hug and kissed my cheek. “You’re cute,” she said.

…I wasn’t completely sure what that was for, but I wasn’t gonna complain about a kiss on the cheek.

Meanwhile, Grace looked at my guitar on its stand by the corner, which I’d moved earlier to make space for them to sit. “So this is the famed instrument.”

I grew self-conscious about it. That electric guitar was a cheap model, black and white with two asymmetrical horn-like tips rising to the sides of the neck. I’d been wanting to upgrade, but there was a big gap in price between this and something better.

“Can we hear you play?” Grace asked me with a smile I couldn’t bring myself to say no to.

“...If it’s not a bother,” I said, looking at Mila and Sarah. The two girls sat on the bed, smiling at me. Grace sat with them, and I had **** but to pick up my guitar, plug it in and sit at my desk chair.

I swallowed hard. My hands were shaking, which hadn’t happened in a long time while holding my guitar. I hadn’t played in front of people in like three years, unless you counted my sister, who sometimes came in while I was practicing.

I got nervous even thinking of what to play. The music I liked and practiced the most was from video games. At that moment, I had even forgotten that Grace liked Creedence. I kept thinking that they wouldn’t like anything I played, and that I wasn’t even that good to begin with. Maybe playing would only disappoint them. They had high expectations and I was just a dude that played for fun in his room.

“Can you play that song we talked about?” Grace suddenly said. “You know, the one you said was what got you to start playing?”

“Oh, I’m curious, too!” Mila agreed.

I bit my lip and nodded. I had my pick between my fingers and started plucking to do a last minute check that everything sounded right, even though I’d been playing not 15 minutes earlier.

The song that got me to start playing was from a game. An old game, at this point. It was originally 16-bit music, but it’s such a popular track that’s been covered to hell and back. It was one of those covers that I learned.

Just… Just relax, Oliver. You’ve played this song hundreds of times. You played it earlier today, even. They won’t know it, but you can at least play it well.

I tapped my foot on the floor, and after the fourth tap, I started. I kept my eyes on my fingers on the strings, both to make sure I was playing this right and because I was scared to look at their faces. As I played, I became aware of how hollow the song sounded without the bass, without the drums, without a second guitar. There was no point in performing this song without all the other instruments, and it made me believe that the girls would be unimpressed. This song I always liked now sounded terrible in my ears. My heart pounded so hard it hurt. It was like being back at the music club in freshman year. But I continued playing until the song was over.

I had a hard time looking up after it. It was Sarah’s voice that made me snap my head up.

“Oliver, are you a pro?”

“What?” I asked, baffled.

“Seriously, are you a pro? Do you play professionally or something and haven’t told us?”

“No, not at all!” I insisted. “I’m just an amateur!” It didn’t sound like they were making fun of me, but…

“Love,” Grace started, “my UNCLE is an amateur. He plays acoustic guitar, and what you just did was on a whole other level.”

Mila started tapping on her phone. “Can you tell me the name of the song?”

It was embarrassing to have to say ‘Spark Mandrill Theme’ for some reason.

Mila started playing it on her phone, and after confirming she had it right, she asked me to play along. I could do it, too. I’d done it before plenty of times to make sure I had my timings right.

I heard the girls laughing, not mocking me, but out of excitement. The song did sound better this way, and I was confident I was playing well despite my shakes.

“Holy crap! You’re amazing!” Mila said.

“Do you know any other songs like that?” Sarah asked me.

“...I know the entire soundtrack to that game,” I said sheepishly.

“Play another one, then!” Grace said.

They did the same as before. They played the song on Mila's phone and I played along with my guitar. The sound of the amp overshadowed her phone a little, and it would’ve been smarter to play the songs on my computer to use the speakers, but I couldn’t think about any of that.

The girls were excited to hear me play, paying full attention, eyes going from my face to my fingers. It was like a dream. After the second song, my shakes were gone and I could play more calmly. I played a couple of credence songs to which Grace sang along. I played a couple of Nirvana songs, too, which Mila enjoyed a lot.

This couldn’t be real, but it was.