Slightly Tilted – Wayne 41

 

[For back story go here: Story so far at 30 Nov 2020 and this one.]

[Other back story through in-links.]

It was the small stuff that raised his suspicions. For a start he was quieter than usual – but only on occasions. It used to be that you could walk into a room and whatever he was doing he’d look up and smile, be happy to see each you and ready to talk, even if he had to finish a sentence or a musical phrase or a drum machine pattern first. The first few times he didn't do this, Dave put it down to preoccupation - there was a lot of stuff going on and it wasn't surprising. But then when it became a regular occurrence...

A couple of times Dave noticed the laptop was being guarded, or at least more carefully guarded than usual. Or maybe he was imagining it. Again, there was a habitual move to reposition the screen slightly, refocus and start again – everyone did it. But now there was an extra tilt in the movement, a subtle shift which didn't just mean the screen was at a different angle to the upright it was also slightly turned away...

But it was the tea breaks that actually made him worry the most. They had fallen into a nice routine of breakfast, work and coffee/biscuit break. During this break Dave would generally produce a little something special ready for them to try especially if the ginger biscuits were stale, boring or had run out. These were met with appreciation and sometimes constructive criticism from Wayne who would ask how these treats came about, what was the chef’s intention and how he felt about how they’d turned out. It was an interesting and fun way to break up the morning and sometimes Dave found himself more occupied than usual the night before, deciding what the next day’s effort would be and how he could pull it off.

And then two days in a row Wayne just didn’t seem to care about it. He ate the biscuits, snacks, whatever, asked what they were made of and how tricky they were to make but there was no real depth to his enquiries. He hadn’t engaged with the food, he didn’t seem interested aside from that it was tasty and Dave should make some more of this. Soon.

Dave wanted to say something but didn’t know exactly what. It wasn’t as if Wayne was unproductive. He was very productive and engaged with Jezzy in their new music escapade. They had regular conversations about the tracks they were working on, what they could do with them and where their influences were coming from. All very good and positive and Dave didn’t mind that he wasn’t really part of these discussions. It was what made Wayne ManzDown. But even so there was something going on.

“Are you guys going to put an album together?” he asked Wayne one coffee time.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Wayne, “I reckon so. We have some great tunes and ideas and sounds coming in from all over. We can put them out however we like as well. People seem to like it and we don’t need them to make money particularly. Maybe a subscription service I thought.”

Dave sat down next to Wayne. Wayne readjusted his screen. That way.

“Is the record label talking to you about it?” He asked, “I mean how official is it?”

“They know about it but it’s out of their hands,” said Wayne. “Just Jezzy and me so we can make our own rules.”

“What about Cath?”

“Loving it,” said Wayne. “Why all the questions?”

“I can be interested, right?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Wayne. “Loving the Battenburg by the way.”

“It’s not Battenburg, actually…” started Dave, but Wayne simply raised a hand to indicate an incoming call and within seconds he’s swallowed the carefully crafted cake and was in animated conversation with Jezzy.

Yes, something had changed. Was it just the influence of Jezzy and the movement of this new found music collaboration? Dave even asked himself if he was just feeling jealous of this new working relationship but he couldn’t figure that one out. All he knew was something was happening, but it was tricky to investigate what without causing more disruption and possibly arguments.

Maybe he thought as he tidied away the coffee and made notes on the snack offering for the day, it wasn’t anything to worry about. Maybe Wayne was planning something, something nice. There was a special day coming up in February, make that two special days as he would also see a birthday come and go. They hadn’t been in a relationship for any other birthday and maybe this was how Wayne behaved around such dates. Yes, better to wait it out and see what happened rather than wade in and completely wreck any carefully laid secret plans.