Chapter 10: Fruit Hard Candy
The Duncan House
"What's wrong with that?"
Seeing Emmett's skeptical look, Adam said defensively, "I'm allowed to change my mind."
Nobody was immune to eventually coming around on something they'd dismissed before. It was just human nature.
"You really have changed a lot this past year, man."
Emmett's expression was hard to read.
"People change," Adam said easily. He'd heard some version of that sentence more times than he could count since settling into this life, and he'd long stopped feeling any anxiety about it. He just took it as a compliment and moved on.
"Juno, if I go back to doing music — what level would I actually need to reach for it to count as real leadership experience on a college application?"
This was the gap in his thinking he hadn't noticed until tonight. He knew extracurriculars mattered for American college applications, but he'd been using Sheldon and Leonard as his mental benchmark without realizing it. After listening to Juno break it down, he understood the mistake. He wasn't Sheldon or Leonard — at least not right now. Trying to follow the path of someone operating at that level without that level of raw ability was a fast track to falling flat.
"Pick something you actually care about," Juno said. "That's the starting point. You can't sustain the effort something like this requires if you're not genuinely into it. It has to be something you'd keep doing even if nobody was watching. And if you stick with it long enough, go far enough with it, get good enough that you're pulling other people along with you — that's leadership." She paused. "You already have a foundation in music. You're good at it. If nothing better comes along, reform the band, play seriously, enter competitions, build a real track record. Being the front man who makes all of that happen — that counts."
Adam nodded slowly.
The body he'd inherited had come with two things he hadn't expected: a completely unremarkable face, and a genuinely good voice. His predecessor had somehow landed a DJ spot at the school dance and even helped write a jingle for his dad Bob's pest control company. The lyrics had been ridiculous, but Bob had used it anyway — and Bob wasn't the type to throw his son a bone out of pure sentiment. There had to be something real there.
If he already had the foundation, throwing it away would be stupid.
"YES!" Emmett shot to his feet. "I knew it! PJ and Dynamic Band is back, baby!"
"Hold on." Adam held up a hand. "Even if we're reforming, that name is done. I'm Adam now, not PJ."
"What's wrong with PJ? It sounds like DJ. It works great."
Emmett crossed his arms. "You're PJ, I'm Dynamic. Perfect."
"What if you added me?"
Juno looked up from her textbook. "I play bass and rhythm guitar. I could be your bassist."
"Sure, absolutely."
Adam agreed immediately — more time with Juno meant more potential intelligence gains — and shrugged at Emmett. "Now that Juno's in, we definitely can't keep the old name."
Emmett looked at Juno with open skepticism. In his mental picture of the world, rock bands were a specific thing, and that thing did not typically involve a girl picking up the bass. He wasn't going to say it out loud — not with Juno right there — but his face said enough.
Adam just tilted his head toward the instrument corner.
Juno got up, unlatched Adam's guitar case, pulled out the guitar, and started playing.
Within about thirty seconds, Emmett's expression completely changed.
"Okay, what the—" He shook his head. "She's actually really good."
Juno released the strings and smiled. "So can I join?"
Emmett looked at Adam. Adam looked back at him.
"Fine," Emmett said, with the dignity of a man conceding a point he'd already lost. "Yeah. Okay."
"So what do we call ourselves?" Emmett leaned back, thinking. "Three-piece band, two guys and a girl — hey, that's actually not a bad band name right there—"
"Absolutely not," Adam and Juno said at the same time.
"Hard Candy," Adam said, glancing at Juno's red hoodie without really planning to. It just came out.
"Hard Candy." Emmett's eyes lit up with an expression that was impossible to interpret charitably. "We're the hard, she's the candy. I love it. That's perfect. Hehehe."
Adam caught Juno's expression and immediately felt cold.
"Actually, maybe we should think about—"
"I like it," Juno said, and laughed — a real one. "Hard Candy. It's good. You've got a knack for this, Adam."
"...Thanks."
Adam laughed weakly. He would take the win.
"Hard Candy it is!" Emmett was practically bouncing. The fact that Juno had signed off on it seemed to mean more to him than anything Adam could have said. "I'm on drums and backup vocals. Adam's lead guitar and lead vocals. Juno's on bass. Hard Candy is going to blow PJ and Dynamic completely out of the water."
"We might need a keyboardist though," Adam said, almost to himself.
A two-piece could technically call itself a band — he and Emmett had done exactly that before, lead guitar and vocals up front, drums and backup behind. That was the bare minimum.
But if they were going to do this seriously, play real venues, enter actual competitions, build something worth putting on a college application — they needed a fuller sound. A bassist like Juno helped enormously with that. But a rhythm guitarist or a keyboardist on top of that would round everything out, fill in the harmonic gaps, and make the whole thing sound professional rather than just loud.
And as it happened, Adam already had someone in mind for the spot.
End of Chapter 10
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