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Regina George didn’t do “beginner.” She didn’t learn skills; she acquired people to handle them for her. It was a strategy that rarely failed, which made her current location an absolute indignity. She was perched on a squeaky, lopsided drum stool in Rodrick Heffley’s basement, surrounded by crushed soda cans and band posters from 2001. The room smelled like stale sweat, energy drinks, and expired teenage ambition. A single bare bulb flickered overhead, threatening a migraine.
She crossed her arms, surveying the mess with open contempt. Following Rodrick down here after he claimed he could teach her to drum was a lapse in judgment she couldn't quite account for. Boredom? Curiosity? A temporary lapse in sanity? She wasn’t sure, and she certainly wasn't going to dwell on it.
Rodrick twirled a drumstick with a lazy lack of coordination and asked if she had ever played. “Obviously not,” Regina said flatly. “I have better things to do than hit furniture with sticks.” “It’s an instrument,” he replied, slumping behind the kit to demonstrate. He launched into a beat that was loud, chaotic, and actually decent. He looked entirely in his element. When he finished, he leaned back with a smug grin. “Easy. Your turn.”
“Fine,” she said, standing up and snatching the sticks from his hands. “They’re heavier than they look.” Rodrick deadpanned that they weren’t made for manicures. Regina brought a stick down on the snare, producing a screech that sounded like a mechanical failure.
Her second hit ricocheted awkwardly off the rim and clipped a cymbal. Rodrick blinked, then snorted. “Wow. You suck.” “Excuse me?” Regina scoffed. Being talked down to was unfamiliar territory; being talked down to by the frontman of Löded Diper was borderline surreal. He told her she had zero rhythm, brushing his greasy bangs out of his eyes, to which she snapped that she had been on the dance team for three years. He told her to stick to dancing, asking if she thought he was funny.
“Sometimes,” he said. Regina loathed him. Not with her usual calculated social hostility, but with the specific annoyance reserved for someone who was entirely too confident for his appearance. He stepped closer, taking her wrists in his hands, calloused, warm, and smelling vaguely of gas station snacks, to adjust her grip.
“If this is a move, it’s not working,” she warned. “Didn’t say it was,” he replied, leaning in just enough for her to catch a whiff of mint gum and cheap soda. Her brain mounted a quick defence, classifying her sudden spike in heart rate as pure disgust. There was no universe in which she was affected by a guy whose wardrobe looked retrieved from a lost-and-found bin. “Try again,” he challenged. Regina set her jaw and hit the snare. It was still stiff, but it held a basic cadence this time.
Rodrick admitted it was better, but quickly added that it was still bad. She called him impossible, and he countered that she was bossy, tilting his head with an infuriating smirk. “Kinda works, though,” he added. Regina froze. He was looking at her without a trace of deference or intimidation, which was as baffling as it was frustrating. She hated the basement, the damp air, and the noise, but she hated his expression most of all because it refused to fit into any category she controlled.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said sharply. He asked like what, but didn’t drop his gaze. The silence stretched, weighed down by the quiet hum of the amplifier. Impulsively, and mostly to shatter the tension, she leaned forward and kissed him. It was quick, deliberate, and tasted like corner-store cherry cola. To her annoyance, he kissed back. When she pulled away, her expression had already snapped back into place. “You tell anyone about this, I’ll ruin your life.”
Rodrick blinked, caught off guard for a fraction of a second, before his usual smirk returned. He called it hot, and when she called him ridiculous, he pointed out that she was the one who kissed him. “An accident,” she said, straightening her jacket. “Hand me the sticks. I’m not leaving on a mess.” He tossed them to her. She caught them, turned to the kit, and struck a clean three-note pattern across the pads. Rodrick let out a loud whistle of approval, but Regina just kept her chin up as she turned toward the stairs. “Obviously,” she said, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a smile. “I pick things up fast.”
“Uh-huh. Took you, like, fifteen tries.”
She grabbed a drumstick and flicked it at him. It hit his shoulder with a satisfying clack. “Keep talking, and I’ll make it sixteen.” He caught it midair before it fell, spinning it between his fingers with that same infuriating grin. “Deal.” Regina turned back to the drums, hiding the smirk threatening to break through. She told herself she was only staying because she wasn’t going to let him think she couldn’t do this. It had nothing to do with him or the way he smiled when she got something right.
Absolutely nothing.