I Wish I Could (Mia)

[Noah Washington]

Noah loved music shops. It was probably the only time he was able to play such amazing instruments, because the likelihood of him ever actually owning them was very low. They were so expensive... And that just wasn't something he could handle despite the fact that he did have a job. Still, it never really hurt to indulge in his interests.

Right?

He walked into The Quarter Note with a guitar clearly strapped to his shoulder, though it was shrouded by its case. He actually had a reason to be there despite the fact that he was going to play around first. He approached the counter where he saw a girl standing behind it with pink hair. If she was behind the counter, she must have been able to help him...

Right?

"Excuse me," He asked, putting on his most polite voice and a winning smile, "You don't mind if I play some of the guitars, do you?"

[Mia Bell]

Mia stood behind the counter of the Quarter Note music store. She had her notebook opened as she drawled in it; she was now drawing a wolf laying in the middle of a grass field. Mia taken to help manage her Uncle’s shop, she hang out in the store enough, she couldn’t call it a job. She wasn’t getting paid and she didn’t want to at that. She was working because she loved the store and wanted to help out her Uncle.

Mia looked up at the blonde as he approached the counter. “Oh Hello.” She said smiling at him. “Ah! I do not mind, feel free to play with whatever you like. Just don’t break anything…” She saw the guitar he was carrying and wondered why he would want to play the guitars in the shop when he already had one. She bit her bottom lip as she looked him over, she wondered why it always had to be a guy with blonde hair and a guitar. “Are you looking to get a new one?” She asked, quite interested if he was here to replace the one he was carrying.

[Noah Washington]

Noah nodded once, sure that he wouldn't break anything while he was there. He couldn't imagine the trouble he would be in if he did, because he had no idea where the money would come from.

"I wish." He replied, finally taking the time to actually look at her. Looking past the pink hair and actually at her face, that was. She was really pretty. And she was in a music store! Did that mean that she knew a lot about it? Or that she was into it? Or was she just some girl that worked at the place because she needed the job... For some reason she looked familiar. Maybe he'd seen her a few times around campus? She bit her lip. He accidentally frowned slightly.

He reached back and tapped his guitar a few times. "Actually, I need some new strings. I broke one this morning. Mine's really old now, so it needs like... Constant maintenance." He should probably get some new pegs while he was around as well.

[Mia Bell]

Mia knew everyone always saw her hair first, she expected it to happen; it was pink after all. Did she ever expect anyone to look past it? Not really. Oh she knew a lot about music, it was her life and it’s what helped her get through the past year. She knew a lot about music, and wrote her own songs. She might have looked familiar to him but he didn’t look familiar to her. Then again Mia looked familiar to a lot of people, it was hard to forget about the pink hair. “Ah so you just want to mess with them? Well that’s cool too.” Even though the store needed the money.

Mia moved from behind the counter. “Have you been here before?” She stood next to him standing on her tippy toes after a while she dropped back to standing flat; she was much shorter than he was. She liked being short; she liked having to look up at other people; though it was a pain being short sometimes. “The guitars are over on that wall.” Mia pointed to the obvious spot of the store where the guitars were. She hadn’t meant to make him frown “is something wrong?” She tilted her head to the side, had she done something wrong? It was always her fault wasn’t it?

“Ah, I’m guessing you want to get them after you play with our guitars?” it only made sense, at least in her mind, play first than get to business and buy things. “Ah see this is why I’m a keyboard and Piano person. Less maintenance.” Granted if something did go wrong with either of those two it would cost a lot to get it fixed.

[Noah Washington]

"Well, at the moment I'm sorta trying to save up for one. So I guess it's also about trying to make my mind up as to which one I really want." Noah explained. It was more than just messing with them, but he understood why she would think that was all he wanted to do. People probably did that all the time.

For a moment he watched her walk around the counter to stand close by. "A few times. Normally there's a guy in here with black spiked up hair. He's pretty cool." He paused for a half second to look at her again, laughing slightly as she stood up on her tip toes. "You're a welcome change, though."

He looked to where she was pointing; the guitars. But he looked at her again when she asked if something was wrong. He smiled genuinely in her direction; "No, no. You bit your lip, I thought I might have made you worry or something." It was cute, though.

"A keys girl?" Noah asked, excitement in his voice because it meant that she really was into music. That was a complete plus in his books. "This guitar was the first thing I bought with my own money, so it's kinda special to me. I know it would be easier to just buy a new one but, I don't know. This one means something." He explained, before walking over to the hanging guitars. There were so many good choices, he wasn't sure which one to bring down and try out.

[Mia Bell]

“Oh okay, even better! Though usually people around this town just tend to go for the cheaper ones… Which I can see why, this town is small people probably don’t make a lot of money, especially since a lot of the people who come in here are teens. ” She shrugged; really she would go for the one that best suited to her liking. But everyone had a different opinion and she had to respect that. Yeah she was talking a lot, she did that; especially when it came to music of any sort.

“Oh! So you’ve met my Uncle… That’s good.” She smiled, if they became friends he would be her only friend in Pilot Ridge that has that she knew of. She really didn’t know if any of her friends had wondered into The Quarter Note at all. She grinned and a slight blush appeared on her cheeks. “Why thank you! Your also a nice change from most of the other people who come in here.” Considering when it was just her here guys had the need to hit on her. It was very welcoming that this blonde wasn’t.

Mia laughed a little “oh! Yeah, I do that… It’s nothing you have to worry about though. It wasn’t because of you.” She did it when she was thinking about something or caught up in her own world. There were other reasons she bit her lip but this time it was nothing he needed to worry about.

She nodded “Yeah, I’m a keys girl.” She winked at him “So what made you want to learn how to play the guitar to begin with?” Mia was fascinated by the boy and really didn’t want to stop talking to him but she also didn’t want to bother him. “Ah I see, sentimental value, it’s the best kind because it never has a price.” She smiled at him, she understood what he meant; it was just like how her songs had sentimental value to her; maybe for different reasons but it was all the same.

Mia sat on the counter nearest to the guitars. She wanted to give him space to look around.

[Noah Washington]

"Some people think that cheaper ones are easier to learn from." Noah mentioned. He knew a few people back home who thought as much. "It's actually easier to pick up an electric guitar and learn the hand movements from there. It's less strain on your fingers when you first start and all that." He could talk forever when it came to seemingly useless guitar information...

Her Uncle? That was pretty lucky. He wished one of his parents were into music. Also, he couldn't help but notice the small colour that rose onto her cheeks. It made him smile anyway.

And he was very glad to hear that he hadn't done anything wrong. The last thing he wanted to do was do something wrong in this kind of place. He planned to come back frequently enough. Noah laughed alongside her, shrugging lightly. "It was cute, anyway." He said lightly. Because it totally was cute.

"I always liked music. I figured guitar was a good choice because it meant I could bring it with me wherever I went. Plus they offered lessons at my school. That was before I moved here for the Hammel Institute." He explained. He had no idea at the time how much he would fall in love with it. Nevertheless, he watched her walk away and he turned to look at the guitars.

Noah did a walk of the line before turning back to look at her. He raised his hand to give her a small wave and a smile. Sometimes he was just dorky like that.

[Mia Bell]

Mia shrugged “I wouldn’t know.. I’ve tried learning guitar and I just wasn’t interested.. I guess I just like playing classical instruments..” Considering she could also play the violin; though she wasn’t as passionate with it as the piano. “Is it really? I didn’t know that, I figured it would be the same difficulty..” She did know it was much easier to learn to play the keyboard if you already knew how to play the piano but that goes without saying. Then again learning to play the piano was easy for her to learn in general so there wasn’t much comparison. The girl didn’t mind him talking about music, she actually quite loved people’s enthusiasm when it came to music.

Mia’s blush deepened when he said it was cute and she bit her bottom lip again, she hadn’t meant to do it, it was like a reflex. “eh.. Thanks..?” She scratched the back of her pink head as she turned away from him, looking for something to do, anything to do so he wouldn’t notice her blushing. This was a nice start, not exactly what she had in mind but at least he was friendly.

“Ah I see. Yeah that’s not a luxury I get with the piano..” Mia blinked “Oh hey! You go to Hammel too?” She was grateful that the school had a piano she could play and alongside that, thanks to her Uncle she now had a keyboard in her dorm room she was able to play almost whenever she wanted to.

Mia grinned and waved back; it was a bit dorky for both of them. But Mia didn’t mind seeing how she could be dorky in her own way.

[Noah Washington]

Hammel? Maybe that's where Noah recognised her from. He had been there for almost a year now but he could only remember seeing her there recently. It was hard to forget someone with hair like that; it was the kind of thing that really caused a double take. When she waved back at him he smiled in her direction, before turning back and finally making a choice.

He swung the guitar bag off his arm and set it to the side, before reaching up and resting his hand around the neck of a Firebird. He was really tentative about handling it as he made his way over towards the set up amps. He took a seat and plugged it in, resting the guitar on his knee. Noah was quick to tune it by ear, relatively sure that he had done so perfectly.

After fiddling around and getting it just right, Noah practically launched into an extended Jazz solo. He tapped his foot along to create his own beat so he could keep in time. After a while he looked back up at the pink haired girl and smiled again. "You alright if I sing along, or something?"

[Mia Bell]

Mia hoped off the counter and walked behind it to start back on her drawing. The boy seemed like he was to into the guitars to want to talk. She always gave people space when they wanted it. She didn’t recognize him but then again she didn’t recognize a lot of the people who had seen her around. She knew her hair wasn’t hard to forget and knew it played into that factor; but she didn’t mind that at all. She found it interesting that he went to Hammel and wanted to drill him with questions but thought it would be rude to bother him.

Mia watched as he started to tune the guitar he picked out, the blonde had picked a good choice with guitars. She felt slightly creepy for watching him so she went back to coloring her drawing. If he wanted to talk she was all ears, but she knew how people could be when they came in here; usually they didn’t want to be bothered by a sixteen year old.

Mia looked at him and started watching him in awe once he started playing. She started smiling; the boy was good. She blinked when he asked if he could sing along, she tilted her head to the side wondering why he would need to ask. “Oh go right ahead, I sing in here all the time.”

[Noah Washington]

Noah looked up at her when he'd asked, noticing that she must have been drawing something. He really wished sometimes that he knew how to draw. It was something that people said everyone could do, but he was relatively sure that no one wanted to see the scratchy doodles he'd draw on his notebooks when he was bored during a class. They were not exactly the work of an artist.

"Ahh, thanks." He replied, looking down to his hands again. It took him a minute or so with fiddling around with chord progressions before he actually did anything again. He wanted to make sure it all sounded right before he tried to play.

He peered up at her for a second or two before letting the first chord ring out, catching it with a few more notes. "Today I met this girl," Noah couldn't keep the grin that was forming off his face. "She said her name was-" And he looked up at her, letting the chords ring out as he waited for her to fill in the blank. Because he really hadn't gotten her name yet!

[Mia Bell]

Mia never showed anyone her drawings, the only person who knew was Ana; a friend she had made at the school’s retreat. She didn’t even show the girl, it was a fluke that the girl had ended up being in the tree she had sat under. Mia didn’t care if people knew, she just didn’t go around showing people. She wasn’t the bragging type, and she didn’t think any of her work was great enough to show off.

Mia nodded when he said thanks. Really she loved singing; most of the time she would be listening to her ipod and singing the lyrics out loud. She wasn’t an awful singer but she didn’t think she was that great either. That didn’t say much for her considering she didn’t think she was very great at doing a lot of things.

Mia blushed a little at the boy’s lyrics and looked up at him. She gave him a sheepish smile as she scratched the back of her head. “Mia.” She said simply, Her name was short and easy to remember; it was also easy to put the name to the face, or rather name to hair. “And may I ask what your name is?” She tried asking before he went back to singing. She really was curious and wanted to know.

[Noah Washington]

Noah's smile shone out when she spoke. "-Mia."

He paused for a moment to think on how to incorporate his own name into the words of his newly crafted masterpiece. "Noah liked her right away," He stopped, winking in her direction with a much dorkier smile than before. A brief moment to run through his mind and think of what rhymes with Mia? "And he got a... g-reat idea!" He was clearly proud of himself with that one. Besides, the chorus was where he could let loose.

"Ohh Mia, Mia.
Not a lot of good words rhyme with Mia, Mia.
Unless... You want to go to Ikea, Mia.
And maybe drink some beeah', Mia."

Noah let the last chord ring out again on purpose, signalling that he was indeed done with his awful serenade. "I don't really like to drink beer, Mia. It was just the only thing I could think of." He explained, being unable to stop himself from laughing afterwards.

[Mia Bell]

Mia couldn’t help but blush even more when he started singing again. She shook her head slightly as she ran her hand through her hair. So his name was Noah, cute name; not one you would hear often, it fitted him. Mia couldn’t help but wink at him in return. She was glad to know he liked her, and she was starting to like him. His dorkyness was cute after all.

Noah start to sing the chorus and her blush deepened as she looked down her hand on her cheek. She didn’t think her cheeks could get any redder, it wasn’t that she was starting to like him but this was the first time anyone had written a song for her. Mia wasn’t counting the songs Cameron and her wrote together, because quite frankly she wasn’t even sure what those lyrics meant to Cameron and who or what they were about.

“Your chorus needs a little work..” She piped in when he was done. She laughed “That’s actually really good to know. You did pretty good for an on the spot song though.” She shrugged “Yeah I know my name is short and doesn’t rhyme with a lot of things.. But then again I doubt my parents ever thought someone was going to write a song about me though.” She winked at him and chuckled a little. Mia herself didn’t think anyone would. Mia quickly wrote the lyrics down on a piece of paper and under it she scribbled his name, this wasn’t something she wanted to forget.

“So let me get this right, your name is Noah, you can play the guitar, sing and write songs? Is there anything you can’t do?” she looked at him curiously, as she placed her pencil in her mouth and started to chew on the end.

[Noah Washington]

"I'll put a little work into the chorus." Noah offered with a smile. Who knew? Maybe he would keep the bare bones of this song and build on it in his own time. If he could make her blush like that again, it was definitely worth keeping. Of course, he'd had to know more about her first. That way he could personalise it a little more. "Noah doesn't rhyme with much either. Unless... Y'know, I wore a feather boa, or I was from Samoa or something." He offered, shaking his head at the thought.

"I can't draw?" He confessed, pointing to her notebook as he started fiddling with a few more chords while he spoke. "And I can't be seriously appropriate in music stores towards girls who seem to work there." He smiled broadly in her direction. Maybe she appreciated his dorky charm?