To PerfectlyPersuasive on her 25th birthday,

Thank you for being an amazingly, wonderful writer and always cracking my shit up, but also for being a fabulous beta and always being encouraging... and for not thinking I was insane when I called you my beta soul mate. I thought an indie rock Jasper and Edward might be up your alley... and as a warning, I'm sooooo not writing a lemon for you, Miss Queen of UST! :p

Love you!!

tuesdaymidnight a.k.a. Heidi

"Fell in Love with the Drummer"

I was nervous as hell. This was far worse than the time I had to play Peter Pan my Freshman year of high school, because none of the other boys in Drama Club were willing to wear tights. Just because I was gay didn't mean I wanted to wear tights. Of course, I wasn't even out then or entirely sure which team I batted for. Apparently, it was obvious to everyone anyway.

That didn't matter anymore, though. I was out, proud, and about ready to hurl.

Battle of the Bands.

I should have taken the "battle" part more seriously, because it felt like there was an army of butterflies attacking my stomach. Though, I was pretty sure nothing would have prepared me for the nerves I was feeling. I was standing outside behind the venue, bent forward with my hands on my knees, truly afraid that I was going to vomit at any second.

I felt two hands on my shoulders and nearly jumped out of my skin.

"Emmett!" I nearly screeched. "You scared the shit out of me."

"Edward, dude, you're about to bust an aneurism. Relax. You'll play fine. You always do."

"Not in front of label reps."

"Just pretend they're not there, or picture the crowd in their skivvies or something. This is a band and is going to take a group effort; you getting your panties in a twist isn't going to help any of us. We've been practicing hard and we're ready for this."

That was a major speech for Emmett. I figured I needed to at least try to pull my head out of my ass.

"I know, I know. But, you can't tell me that you aren't at least a little nervous," I replied reluctantly.

"Not really," Emmett shrugged. "I take that energy out on the kit."

I rolled my eyes. Drummers were something else.

"Come on," Emmett grabbed my arm. "The next band up is really good. Let's watch."

Emmett and I went back into the building, wove our way through the back stage area and settled in beside the stage, near our equipment that was waiting to go on after the next band finished their set. They were one of the two or three bands that would be our biggest competition today, but we knew the guys pretty well from being in the scene for the last few years, so there wasn't any animosity. They were just walking out from the other side of the stage when we settled in, and sweet baby Jesus who was that walking out with The Rainbow Connection?

He was a tasty-looking boy. Dirty blond curls hung in his face, and I could see his icy blue eyes even from my distance from him. He was wearing a snug-fitting, baby blue t-shirt with a picture of Lifesavers candy on it and tight jeans, like – I could totally see the outline of his bulge – tight. But, then he turned around, and I could see a pair of Zildjian drum sticks sticking out of his back pocket.

Dammit.

A drummer.

I hated drummers. Emmett was an exception, but even he had his drummer moments. Not only were they usually ridiculously stupid, but they were completely full of themselves and had absolutely no understanding of how songs were actually constructed. Not to mention, they were usually selfish lovers, um, not that I knew from personal experience or anything. They were the butt of jokes.

What do you call a guy who hangs out with a bunch of musicians? --A drummer.

But, here blondie was – fuckhot and in an infamously all gay band.

I tried to relax back and listen to the set. I had to admit they sounded really good. You could tell who their influences were, but their sound was unique, like if Conor Oberst birthed a love child by Vampire Weekend, and had it raised by She & Him.

But, my attention kept wandering over to the man behind the kit.

He was good.

Really good.

Covered in sweat from playing so hard good. His rhythm was absolutely metronomic. His fills were well-chosen. His drums even had a good sound. Most drummers totally didn't keep their kits in tune, but his sounded perfect, and fit in seamlessly with the other instruments. It was obvious that he wasn't just a rhythm section buffoon but actually a legitimate musician.

All thoughts of my nervousness were completely pushed out of my head as I lost myself in their set.

It was only Emmett's sharp elbow in my ribs that got me out of my trance, alerting me to the fact that we needed to set up. Luckily there was a huge crew at the venue that helped make setting up and taking down a lot faster. Before I knew it, we were doing our sound check, but I was still in a daze. We left the stage to let the sound guy do the final checks, and so we could be properly introduced.

Alice, our lead singer, was staring at me like I was crazy.

"You all right, Eddie?"

"Yeah, yeah," I replied, trying to make my most convincing cool face.

"You'd better talk to him after the set."

"What? How'd you--? I'm not--" I trailed off.

She rolled her eyes at me.

"Denial isn't your best color. You know I can read you like a book."

I gaped at her. Even after knowing her for two years, she still weirded me out with her voodoo.

"The blond, right? The drummer?" She offered.

I cringed at the d-word, but gave in.

"Yeah, the blond. I'll talk to him."

"I know," she replied in a sing-songy voice, before flitting away to make sure she had a bottle of water on stage.

A few minutes later, I heard the emcee announce, "...give it up for The Jimmy Legs."

Yeah, it was a stupid band name, and the result of Emmett and me watching Seinfeld reruns while drinking heavily.

We started our set, and I got lost in the music, like I always did. Emmett, James and I had been playing together for years but never really got anywhere. As soon as we met up with Alice at some random open mike night, and I gave up lead vocals, something just clicked and our sound just came together. James was a little reluctant to have a female vocalist sing his songs, but after a few rehearsals, he came around. As it turned out, James and Alice actually meshed really well at songwriting, and Alice was never afraid to call him out at his overly emo lyrics.

I got into a groove, and my fingers were flying over my fretboard where they belonged. Emmett was on and James was playing his bass like a man possessed. Alice was practically making love to the crowd like only she could do. It was our cover of Deerhunter's "Nothing Ever Happened" that brought the house down, for some reason.

We finished our set, and I started coming back down from the high of performing. As soon as I tucked my Gibson Hollowbody back into its case and into our van, I went back out to peruse the crowd.

Okay, fine, I was in search of The Rainbow Connection's new drummer.

I scanned the room, and there he was, off to the side of the stage nursing a beer.

Was he looking at me?

I felt something behind me give me a gentle push. I looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, it was Alice.

"For the love of Pete! Just go over there already!"

"Fine," I said as I raised my hands in surrender.

I tried not to look at him as I walked over to where he was casually leaning, so as not to be obvious, but, when I got close, my eyes latched onto his and I was drawn in.

He greeted me with a head nod, and I responded with the same.

"Good set just now, uh-?"

"Edward," I offered.

"Well then, good set, Edward," he smirked.

"Thanks, uh-?" I mimicked.

"Jasper."

"So um... Jasper, I, uh, didn't know TRC had a new drummer," I blurted out.

Smooth Edward, really smooth. They should name a brand of smoothie after you.

"Yeah, I've been filling in for Brady since he went away to finish school."

"Oh."

Monosyllabic much?

I cleared my throat, pretending that my pause was intentional.

"So, you're playing in an all gay band?" I raised the end of the statement like a question.

He tensed. "Yeah, what of it?"

Backpedal, Edward. Backpedal.

"Well, you might want to watch out for Tim. He assumes that all gay men are interested in having him suck them off on a Marshall stack after they've consumed more than their fair share of mojitos."

Jasper quirked an eyebrow at me, "And you know this, how?"

"You know all the glitter he puts on his face before a show?"

"Yeah."

"I was rinsing that shit out of my pubes for days."

Jasper threw back his head and let out a deep, beautiful laugh. "Well, don't worry. Tim's not my type."

"Oh yeah? What is your type?"

"I like guitar playing boys who wear skinny jeans and Pavement t-shirts."

I looked down at my shirt and blushed.

"What about you, Edward. Do you have a type?"

"Drummers," I blurted out.

Oh, either that was a Freudian slip of some sort, or I was an amazing liar.

"Really?" he quirked an eyebrow at me. "That's not what I heard."

So, he had heard of me. I wondered why he went through the motions of our introductions.

"Well, sometimes types change," I said with a smirk of my own.

"So, wanna get out of here?" Jasper looked almost shy as he smiled up at me.

I swallowed hard and tried to subtly adjust myself. Jasper's small smile morphed into a knowing grin.

I rolled my eyes at him, but lowered my voice, "Yeah, let's get out of here."

Jasper blinked and swallowed.

Two could play at this game.

We silently headed for the door. I followed closely behind Jasper as he wove his way through the crowd toward the back of the building where the bands had all come in. We were nearing the exit when a booming voice called out,

"Edward!"

I spun around.

Great, Emmett. Damn cockblocker.

"There's only one band left. You're not staying for the announcement of the winner?"

I turned to look at Jasper who seemed to be looking at me for the answer. As a substitute drummer, he had less invested in this than I did. Somehow, though, I just had a feeling that leaving with Jasper was going to be way more important to me in the long run.

"Nah, man, I'm gonna cut out. You guys can handle it if any label reps bite."

Emmett looked at me, then at Jasper, then back at me. Finally ending the tennis match going on in his head with a shrug,

"I always knew you'd end up with a drummer."