AllFreeNovel
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And in that living room was… a lot of shit.
She had floor-to-ceiling shelves overflowing with CDs, vinyl, and even some fucking cassettes.
There was one of those giant-ass five CD changer boomboxes, a record player, hip-height speakers, and a stand holding up a guitar.
There was so much musical shit that there was barely any room for her small navy blue velvet loveseat.
Lexy pulled off her sunglasses, popping them back into her purse, and shooting me a smirk, completely unbothered by what I’d said.
“Physical media is always, always the way to go,” she said.
“Go on and explain that to me,” I invited as I walked over toward her collection, seeing more names than I could even pretend to know, along with some that I did.
“Well, you know when you ‘buy’ a movie online, or even music, you don’t actually own that, right? Like, they can take it back at anytime. Ebooks too. They’re technically more like long-term rentals. You don’t have any say if they decide to remove it. The money you spent is just gone.
“And I don’t know about you, but I think it’s fucking ridiculous to spend my hard-earned money on something I don’t actually get to own. Besides, if something ever happens to the internet and shit, I can still be rocking out into the apocalypse so long as I have a solar bank to run my shit off of. And I do.”
She made a good argument.
I’d never really given it any thought before.
Then again, I couldn’t claim to be that into music or movies or books to care that much if something I bought up and disappeared someday.
“Limp Bizkit? Really?” I asked, producing a CD with a raised brow.
“Hey, we don’t hate on Nu Metal in this house,” she said, brows raising, daring me to dig my heels in. “I mean, have you ever even listened to ‘Re-Arranged’?”
“Can’t say I have,” I admitted.
To that, she rolled her damn eyes at me as she stormed across the living room, the old floorboards creaking under her steps.
She plucked the CD out of my hand then turned to put it into the player, clicking until she found the track whose number she knew by heart, then turning it on, though not very loud, given her migraine.
“You listen. I make coffee,” she said, turning to go down the hall.
Then, despite not really caring much about music, I stood there. And I actually listened.
“So?” Lexy asked when the music changed from a much less introspective song to something louder and sillier.
When I looked up, she was holding two mugs. One looked like a vintage amp. The other like a vinyl record.
She held the record one out to me.
“It’s light and sweet. If that’s not how you take it, well, you can just choke it down,” she said, making my lips curve up again as I grabbed the mug.
“That’s how I like it,” I said. A lot of the guys ribbed me about that, liking their coffee black and bitter themselves.
“Well?” she asked, pinning me with an intense gaze. “What did you think?”
“I liked it.”
“That’s a bullshit answer,” she said, surprising me. “You don’t simply like music. Do better.”
“I think it’s the first time I’ve actually stopped and listened to the lyrics of a song.”
“I mean, judging by what I heard at the club last night, that kind of makes sense. Don’t get me wrong, party music has its place, but it’s not exactly written to make you think and feel shit. This was. I mean, not all of Limp’s catalog is that way. A lot of it is just music. But there are a few goodies in there.
“I can see you as a Nu Metal guy. Papa Roach, Disturbed, Linkin Park. Moody music for a moody guy.”
Moody guy.
I almost felt a little taken aback by that.
Because that hadn’t been how I saw myself. At least not until the past few years. I’d always been more laid-back, quick to laugh, to fuck around with the guys, to rib people.
There was no denying that I was moodier now, though.
“Did I hit a nerve?” she asked, watching me with her head tipped toward her shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with being moody. I’m moody as fuck. Hence…,” she started, going toward her shelves, and gesturing to a massive section of it, “all of this. All gets you in the feels.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, still skeptical, even if I had enjoyed the one song she’d played for me.
“Well, like, you know how fucking impossible it is to open up to people?” she asked, and it felt like her words landed a punch to my gut.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Listening to music that expresses what you’re feeling, it kind of just… decompresses the feelings. Makes them easier to deal with. At least, that’s how it’s been for me. I guess that’s not everyone’s experience,” she said, going to the CD player and hitting a button. There was a whirring and clicking as another CD fell into place before the music started playing.
