Ketchum, ID

ch 11 - both

Julien

As we walked out of the coffee shop and back over to our cars, I took my arm back from around Jo's shoulders.

"Do you guys want to follow us to the studio? I totally understand if you would rather just go home after that," I said while looking down at my shoes.

"We'll meet you there! I'm fine!" Jo said in an annoyed voice. "I need everyone to quit looking at me like I could shatter at any moment. I lived! You all saw it! It's done, and I'm ready to move on with my day."

"Atta girl," Alex said, lightly punching Jo's shoulder. "You heard the woman, let's get on over there!"

We got into our respective cars and started the quick drive to the studio. When we pulled in, Jo and Alex pulled in and parked right next to us. We climbed out of cars and all headed up to the doors of the studio. Phoebe put the code in on the door to let us in, and when we got in Lucy locked the door behind us. Once we were all inside, I looked over and realized Jo was wearing my sweater.

"Nice sweater, Jo," Lucy said with a smirk, causing a blush to creep onto Jo's cheeks.

"Okay, let's map these next hours out. We need to finalize Bite The Hand, Salt In The Wound, and Me & My Dog," Phoebe started. "We need to figure out how many songs we want on this album, go through and piece together lyrics, and at least start working on the background tracks for a few more songs."

"Let's start with Bite The Hand since that's the one that's freshest in our brains," Lucy said.

"Let me set up my shit and we can get started," I said.

I watched as Jo and Alex went to sit on the couch right outside the room I had just gone into to set my foot pedals up. Phoebe and Lucy came into the room, talking amongst themselves about their guitar straps, and turned to me as I stood up from the floor.

"Alright boys, shall we?"

Jo

Alex and I walked over to the couch and sat down to get comfortable. Phoebe, Julien, and Lucy went ahead into the recording room.

"She's so cute, Jo. She brought you options to keep you warm, she held your hand and had you sit on her lap in front of your ex, she constantly checks in to see how you're doing. Jo, you gotta go for it," Alex said.

"We met her YESTERDAY," I replied. "Quit trying to rush something that doesn't need to be rushed!"

"I just want you to be with someone who genuinely cares about you and makes you happy. I'm tired of you getting your heart ripped out and stomped on. It's not fair! To you or to me!"

Alex and I talked for a little bit while the other 3 recorded Bite The Hand. They had to record it a few times before they got the take they wanted, which Alex and I didn't mind the background noise. We talked about work, what event we wanted to have next, and if we wanted to hire more people to help around the bar.

"We have plenty of people that have applied, I just don't know if we are ready to bring in people we don't already know," I said. When we opened Ketchum-All, all of our friends wanted to join in on the bar. We had friends from Idaho more than willing to lend a helping hand to get us up and running, and we even had friends from college move back to work at the bar with us. My coworkers were my family. I loved walking in to work and knowing everyone already.

"I know, I know. I don't want to have to actually go through the interview process, but you're working every single day! When do you have time for you?"

"Work is time for me! I go hang out with my friends, have an endless supply of entertainment in front of me, and make money! What could be more me than that?"

"When would you ever have time to hang out with Julien?" Alex asked.

I sat in silence, trying to ignore the question at hand. I really worked every day. Even on days I wasn't scheduled, I was going in to pick up shifts or help the girls on busier nights. I hadn't had a night off before tonight since I could remember.

"Exactly," Alex said. "You're overworking yourself, and I think it's time we bring on some new staff. You and I can go through the interview process together to make sure we both like the people, and we can be the ones to train them so we know their work ethic. We're in charge baby, we hold the cards."

"I guess you're right. When should we start going through the applicants?"

"I mean I brought my laptop with me if you wanted to start looking through them now?" they said, gesturing to their bag on the opposite side of the couch.

"I guess there's no time like the present," I said with a hint of reluctance in my voice.

Julien

We finally got a perfect take of Bite The Hand, and Lucy and Phoebe started talking about which song we should tackle next.

"Me & My Dog is a good one, but so is Salt In The Wound," Phoebe said.

"I want Juls to have to show off her talents in front of Jo, so my vote is Salt In The Wound," Lucy said with authority.

"Well that's all you had to say, buddy!" Phoebe exclaimed, patting Lucy on the back.

"Hold on, I gotta grab my water bottle," I said, rolling my eyes.

As I stepped out of the room, I saw Alex and Jo snuggled up on the couch on Alex's laptop. I wish that's what I was doing right now.

"Okay, so you can move him to the interview pile immediately. Look at him. He has to be the cutest person we've seen so far," Jo said, pointing at the computer screen.

"Okay, okay," Alex said as they typed something into their computer.

"Hello ladies," I said, making sure they were aware that I was in the room. "How's it going out here?"

"Well we've been looking at people who have applied for Ketchum-All in the past 3 months for the last 30 minutes, and so far we've only got 6 people on the interview list," Alex said, dramatically exhaling.

"We'll find more! We have to be selective!" Jo exclaimed.

"I know we do, it's just tiring. I just want to be done with it and we've hardly even started,"

"Well, I believe in you guys. I just came out here to grab my water bottle and let you guys know we're about to start the next song," I said.

"Exciting! Which one did you guys decide on?" Jo asked me genuinely.

"I think they've decided on Salt In The Wound, so it may get slightly loud out here, my apologies," I said with a chuckle.

"Well we can't wait to hear it," Jo said with a smile.

I walked back into the room with a smile on my face and shut the door behind me. When I turned around I was still smiling, causing Lucy and Phoebe to elbow each other violently. I shrugged them off and went to grab my guitar. When I got back to my mic stand, I looked out through the window in front of me and saw Jo and Alex sitting on two of the stools, ready to watch us. They both gave us two thumbs up, and Jo smiled her beautiful smile in my direction.

"So this one's called Salt In The Wound," Phoebe said to our now attentive audience. "We hope you like it."

"But again, if you don't, please don't tell us," Lucy said, causing all 5 of us to laugh.