"Cheer up, Fran," Darren said, flipping over the eggs on the frying pan with a deft twist of the wrist. Friday and Sunday were fry-up days, and Darren was a master of fry-ups. Eggs, bacon, hash browns, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, the works. Fran had woken up to the sound of sizzling oil and the smoky rich smell of bacon. She always made a special effort to wake up in time for breakfast on those days, compared to Monday (cereal and yoghurt day) or Thursday (granola bar day), where she was happier dozing until she heard Darius arrive just before nine.

He seemed to be saying that a lot, lately, Fran mused, watching him dish out breakfast, carrying the plates to the table. Perhaps it was a sign. She wasn't cut out for innovation. It wasn't all that bad: she had plenty of other talents. 

"These things take time," Darren continued, sitting down to eat.

"Ehh," Fran said.

"Maybe you should get out of the house. I hate seeing you down like this," Darren said. "Actually, after work I'm going over to Mick's house for a little gathering. You remember Mickey, from the band?"

"Uhhhh yeah," Fran said, unconvicingly.

"Anyway, he's just having a few of us over for a little gathering. You can come along, if you'd like."

"Maybe," Fran said. "I don't really feel like leaving the house."

"Anything beats staying at home and sulking. It'll probably do you some good."

"It'll be a bit weird, won't it? Me hanging around with your friends. They're all like...old."

Darren rolled his eyes a little. "Have some faith in me, would you? Darius is coming, and there'll probably be some kids your age too."

"Hmmnh."

"And if there aren't, you can just hang around by the barbecue and mooch all the food."

Fran sat up quickly. "Barbecue?"

"Ah, I see where your priorities lie," Darren said, raising his eyebrows knowingly.

"Well, I mean, I guess I'll give it a try..."

The thing Fran liked most about summer was the warm nights. The evening air was like liquid, so ambient you didn't even notice the temperature. 

The three of them walked to Mick's house; you walked everywhere in Seacombe, apparently. The streets were narrow and awkward to navigate, and the village was so small taking the car was kind of pointless anyway. She half-skipped along behind the others – partly because the prospect of good food and potentially meeting other people raised Fran's spirits a little, but partly because the others had long legs and long strides, and Fran had neither.

She finally managed to fall in step with Darius, trotting a little to keep up. He had one of his headphones in, the other dangling over his shoulder. Fran hadn't yet seen him without them; it was like they were permanently welded into his ears.

"So, what're you listening to?" she asked.

"Three Day's Grace."

"Oh, that's a good song!" Fran said, brightly. Darius kind of winced, which Fran took as a cue to change the subject lest she embarrass herself further. "So do you know who else is coming tonight? Darren said there would be other kids there."

Darius shrugged.

"Not really. Ash said she might be there, but Ash is flakier than dried paint, that doesn't mean anything."

"Ash is coming?" Fran perked up.

"So you've met her."

"Yeah, she came to the jam club yesterday. She was cool."

Darius nodded absently.

"Why'd you ask her to come? I thought you weren't interested."

Darius gave her a quick, sideways glance. "I don't know. I guess I felt kind of sorry for you."

"Oh, right," Fran said, deflating a little. "I guess that's...kind of nice."

"Mhm," Darius said, putting the other headphone back in.

She kind of liked that he just switched off when he got bored of the conversation. It was a little jarring, being on the receiving end of it, but mentally she flicked through all of the really boring conversations she'd had that had left emotional scars on her soul, and briefly considered how much easier her life would have been if she'd had the courage (or apathy) to just walk away. She chatted to Darren for the rest of the journey instead, safe in the knowledge that even if she was boring him, he'd just grin and bear it.

Mick's house was a small, modern bungalow built on the other end of the promenade. Darren's description of small gathering was a little bit of an understatement; the house seemed to be full of people. Maybe because it was small. Fran tried to count heads, but the house was dark (there was a football match showing on the TV in the living room) and there was a lot of movement. She soon gave up.

Fran stuck with Darren for a little bit while he insisted on introducing her to his old bandmates ("You remember, Fran, right?"). She'd seen them play once when she was very young – that was how he had met Frieda – but that was a while ago, and memory of that night was kind of hazy. She suspected the feeling was mutual, but they both nodded and smiled at each other awkwardly as if they were old friends ("Ah – of course, how could I forget...?") and then quickly moved on. By the time she'd met everyone, she realised that she was alone. Darius had disappeared into the crowd soon after they'd arrived and was nowhere to be seen, which she thought was a little rude.

Whilst looking for him she stumbled across a serving table of food in the kitchen, and one of the people manning the barbeque had just tipped a pile of burgers onto a plate. "Help yourself," he smiled, noticing Fran staring. Fran didn't need telling twice. She made herself a couple of burgers on a paper plate, and then ducked away as people started to notice the food was out and started to crush around the table.

She headed into the corridor, dodging the occasional kid who charged through the hallway, screaming at the top of their voice. They appeared to be playing some variant of tag. Or perhaps they were just running around shouting; kids did that. She liked peering into the rooms she passed and checking out the interior décor. The rooms were all modern and boxy, black and white and blue. The photographs on the walls were all of beaches, maybe even local ones. All beaches kind of looked the same, in her opinion.

She'd been staring hard at one such photo, trying to pick out distinguishing features, when she heard a laugh from one of the rooms, and then a familiar, muffled voice, low and bored.

Company! she thought, honing in on the door the voices were coming from. Gently, she eased the door open and peeked in. She was right, it was Darius. And Ash, and another boy she didn't recognise: a little shorter than Ash, with messy brown hair underneath a beanie, bright dark eyes, mouth curled into a lazy half-smirk. He tilted his head a little when he caught her standing in the doorway.

"Why are you in my house?"

"Um..." Fran said, gulping down her mouthful of burger, "...this is a party, right?"

"Oh, you're here too," Ash said, sounding sort-of pleased to see her. "Come in if you're coming in, or the kids will get in."

Fran edged into the room, shutting the door closed behind her with her foot.

"Nice room," she ventured.

Which it was: small and cosy, with walls painted a deep red and dappled with movie posters and a nice view of the twilit road in front of the house. Beat a mattress on a balcony, for sure. With the door closed the screams and pounding footsteps of the kids, the chatter and laughter of the adults, and the loud Latin music playing from the stereo all faded into a muted hum in the background. The boy and Ash were lying on the unmade double bed in the corner, with Darius slumped in a beanbag nearby. All of them were drinking, which made Fran feel like she should have gotten a bottle of something before she started looking for them.

"So how are you enjoying Casa de Donovan?" the boy said, as she pulled out the swivel chair from the desk and shuffled it forwards, plate balanced on her lap. "I see you've already found the food..."

Ash snickered, and Fran flushed a little with embarrassment.

"It's not like that," she protested (it sort of was, though). "I didn't know where Darius went so I just went for the safest option."

The boy grinned at Darius. "You brought a girl to a party and then ditched her? Cold." He looked back at Fran. "You'll have to forgive Darius, he's not normally this antisocial," he continued, in a tone of voice that heavily suggested he was being sarcastic.

"I'll try harder next time," Darius said.

"Don't get your hopes up, though," Joel told her, in a loud whisper. "Darius is like...eighty percent asshole," he clarified.

"As if you're a saint yourself, Joel," Ash nudged him with her foot. "You're more of an ass than he is."

"And Ash is a bitch," he finished off, pointing his bottle at her. "We're all terrible, join the club."

"Well, I mean, I wouldn't say I was terrible per se..." Fran said.

"We believe you," Joel said earnestly. "No need to pretend, we're all friends here."

Ash shot Darius a sly grin. "Oh, man, who's gonna tell him...?"

Josh gave her the finger. "Whatever, I don't need you guys. Me and Alice here–"

"Fran–"

"That was my second guess," Joel assured her. "Me and Fran will live our lives happily without you. Fran, we're best friends now, you okay with that?"

Fran smiled a little. "Sure, why not. We can probably make some space for you at the store. Move some pianos, get another mattress..."

"Oh, I get it, so you're staying at the record store. I was wondering what the hell Darius was doing with a girl at all."

"You need to stop talking," Darius said.

"Yeah, people tell me that all the time," Joel said. "So, what's your story, Fran? How'd you end up staying in a music store in this dump? Sounds like the premise of a bad reality TV show."

"Oh, me?" Fran said, the question taking her a little by surprise. She realised she didn't have a backup answer for such a predictable question and flailed for a second.

"It's not a hard question," Joel said, noticing her hesitate.

"Well," Fran said, "I...guess...I just wanted...a change of scene, right? Something new and exciting."

Joel, blinked, and then barked a laugh. "You might have got the wrong place. Neither one of those words describes Seacombe."

"Well, as a veteran Seacombian, how would you describe it?"

"Huh. 'Dull'."

Fran waited for a follow up, but he'd stopped talking. "Just the one?"

"It only needs one. Seacombe is dull as fuck, Fran. You haven't noticed? People stay here for a night on their way to cooler places and forget about it as soon as they leave." He titled his bottle towards her, before taking a long gulp. "I drink to drown the pure, unadulterated sorrow of living here. How long are you staying for?"

"Probably end of September."

"I feel so sorry for you right now. Nobody should have to go through that."

"What, no. It's not even that bad. You've got, like...a beach, and..."

Ash smirked. "You know a beach is literally just a pile of sand, right?"

"It's not what it is," Fran said. "It's what it could become."

"No-one wants to hear your pithy calendar-quote optimism," Joel said. "You stay and complain with us or go home."

"Literally all we do is complain," Ash agreed. "It's kind of sad: Fran's only been here for like a week and she's already got something interesting to do with her life."

Joel glanced at her, eyebrow quirking. "Elaborate."

"Oh, um," Fran said, taken a little by surprise. "It's like a music thing. In the record store."

Joel gave her a sly smile over the rim of his bottle. "That's original."

She frowned. "It's not supposed to be original. It's functional. Like having a book club at a bookstore."

"Yeah, you're not selling it."

"I guess either you like it or you don't. You can just show up and play with the instruments and hang out and stuff. It's really interesting."

"Really? How come I haven't heard of it?"

Fran took a sharp breath in.

"Well, I put an ad in the paper," she began, in a small voice.

Joel just laughed, longer and louder than necessary. "The paper? Why?"

"That's what people do," Fran said, feeling a sudden, intense need to justify her actions. "Whenever you have a missing child or a job opening or a new social initiative–"

"No, no. No no no no no. Fran, this is twenty-seventeen. If you want to get people talking about something you have to do something dramatic." He paused for a second, then snapped his fingers. "Come on, seeing as you like beaches so much..."

"I don't like them that much..."

"–how about a live demonstration. Show me this amazing youth-club-slash-jam-session in person. We can get instruments from your place, right?"

"I'll have to ask Darren, I guess..." Fran frowned.

"And you guys all play something, so it's chill. Darius, you'll play guitar for us, right?"

"No."

Fran looked at him sharply: she had no idea he played guitar. She thought of all the times she'd been playing to herself on the balcony whilst he was on the shop floor, a little disappointed he hadn't joined in.

"Ugh, why not?" Joel said, and then smirked. "Don't tell me you're still crying over him–"

Darius narrowed his eyes. "Seriously, Joel, shut up."

Joel laughed. "Whatever. C'mon, Fran, go talk to Darren."

So Fran went, and eventually tracked him down in the open-plan kitchen, hazy with smoke from the barbeque in the small garden just outside and thick with the sound of chatter. She had to wait whilst he finished his conversation with the guy he was talking to: some amusing anecdote about a gig they'd done in the past.

"Oh, right," he said, when she explained what she wanted. "I guess you can take the keys. Don't break anything, ok?"

"Sure thing," she said, tucking them into her pocket. "You're the best!"

Darren smiled. "I try."

---