- Skunk Anansie, All I Want -

https://open.spotify.com/track/4QbYWHMiJx7KPzFahLOUau

- March 12th -

The morning after my so called dad's surprise visit I came to the kitchen to find my mum already there.
In her hand was a photo.
She was turning it over and over in her hands while I got my cereal and my coffee.

"He left this," she said as I sat.

"Who?" I asked.

"I found this wedged under the namesign by the bell. It's Scott and me," she said and slid the photo across the counter towards me.

It showed my mum looking shy and the man I recognised from the day before. They were both a lot younger.

I turned it over and saw writing.

"Elizabeth.
I hoped to tell you that you were not unwanted.
I'm sorry."

The text was followed by a phone number.

"Creepy!" I said.

My mum and I looked at each other and started laughing.
The whole situation was just absurd.

"Why don't you tell me about him first and I'll see if it's worth phoning?" I asked.

"Okay. What do you want to know?" She said.

She had told me some things when I was little but my interest had dwindled as I hit my teens and realised he'd never be around.
I shrugged.

"He was charming and handsome. And I was completely under his spell. I was probably very naive to not realise he was married. I just felt lucky that he wanted me," she said quietly.

"How did you meet him?" I asked.

"He was my tutor," my mum said looking quite ashamed of herself.

"Your tutor?" I asked, trying not to laugh.

"I suppose it's the old 'female student crushes on her young, hot lecturer'.... He was a good ten years older than me and when he offered tutoring I fell for it," she said.

"What subject?" I asked.

"Literature. He had this way with poetry. Pulling up Bob Dylan and other modern music as paralels to Keats and Byron," my mum said with a quick huff as if the memory was bittersweet.

I started laughing.

"You mean to tell me professor S. Holland is my father?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yeah. Why?" My mum asked.

I reached into my bag and pulled out a book entitled "The Poetry of Postmodern Popular Music". The author was Professor S. Holland.

I lay it on the counter. There was a look of surprise on my mum's face.

"I got it from the library. To help me write lyrics," I said with a shrug.

My mum started laughing.

"And are you getting anywhere?" She asked once the laugh died down.

"Apart from Ethan - the bastard - holding my notebook hostage... Not so great.." I muttered.

"Ethan has your notebook?" My mum asked with a smirk.

"Yeah," I said dejectedly.

"And in that book..." she started.

"Are all my loose ideas and various ideas for songs... lncluding stuff for sappy ballads," I admitted.

"And Ethan has it?" My mum said fighting back a grin.

"Yeah... He says he is working some of my words into a new tune," I muttered.

"And how obvious is your prose?" My mum asked, grinning openly.

"Not very... I hope...," I replied feeling my blush spread across my cheeks.

She sat there smiling at me for a while.

"It will work out Izzy," she said.

"I don't know," I said.

"You know... I have never seen you like that with anyone. Not even Simon. Even when you were going out with that Ben, you never seemed that relaxed," she pointed out.

"I was never that serious about Ben," I shrugged.

"So?" My mum said.

"I don't want to lose that comfortable friendship. I like him too much," I heard myself moan.

"I get that... but you can have both!" She said.

I shook my head.

"You can. I mean... You probably don't want details here, but with Josh... The more I get to know him, the more I like who he is and it makes everything so much better," she said.

I had to smile at the happy look in her eyes.
I nodded.

"God... Izzy... I just wish I had met him earlier!" She said and I saw the smile shine in her eyes.

"He's with you now, mum. Everybody can see that he loves you," I said and squeezed her hand.

She nodded at me.

"It's just scary, Iz. It's all so new. And I've never had anyone look at me like that before," she said on a half giggle behind her hand.

Josh was perfect for my mum.
Calm.
Caring.
Considerate.
And he obviously adored her.
Secretly, I was picking out hats for a wedding.

"Do what feels right Izzy," my mum said as I set out for the door to catch my bus to the academy.

I was wearing a t-shirt that said 'I taught your boyfriend that move you like' when I entered the band room that afternoon.
Ethan threw one look at it.

"Confident today?" He asked as he wrung his sweaty t-shirt over his head.

With the warmer weather, he had taken up running again, between his lectures and band practice.
And leaving his bag in the band room, so he had to go in to get his gear for the shower.
Oblivious to the fact that I would sit there like a melted pile of gooey sludge, fighting to keep my brain cells alive.
Especially as he insisted on taking his shirt off before going to the showers. I got that the shirt was sweaty and sticky, but I didn't really see the need to take it off in the band room and then going shirtless up through the more public areas and into he locker room.
Not that I was complaining. Nothing wrong in getting the occasional visual to add to my already chaotic hormones.
He wasn't overly muscular. No actual sixpack or anything. He was just perfectly toned.
Just enough to give me the completely wrong idea.
And his sweaty hair was either clinging to his forehead or sticking up at kinky angles after a few runs of his hands through it.
Spring was absolutely in the air.

I shrugged, trying to push back that dry feeling at the back of my throat.

He continued looking at the shirt.

"What move exactly?" He asked with a growing smirk.

"That would be telling and it's more of a showing kinda thing," I grinned back.

Flirting with him when he was stood there shirtless felt like playing with fire, but my weak mind couldn't resist. When the extreme alternatives were either blushing and stuttering or licking his skin, flirting was the sensible option.

For some reason I felt more confident around him since the scolarship contest.
Maybe getting all that practicing out of the way helped. He had more time. He was more relaxed. And my worrying about him leaving wasn't as urgent.

As if by coincidence I had found a flyer for the Fine Arts Institute of Vienna in the Academy student services office.
His comment backstage before the contest had lodged itself in my brain and refused to budge.
My inner fangirl was occasionally throwing arguments at it and feeding the beast.
I told myself I wasn't going to apply.
I was just curious.
But they did have a course focusing on human anatomy which appealed to me.
Especially right now.

I forced my attention to my bag as he left the band room. Willing my eyes to stay away from his ass.
Oddball crouched next to me with a packet of kleenex.
There was definitely a quizzical look on my face as I looked at him.

"For the puddle of drool," he grinned.

I threw the kleenex at him and hit his head.
He laughed.

"Fuck off, Oddball," I replied trying not to laugh.

"Why?" He asked with a grin.

"Because... You're being a pest!" I said.

"And you're still crushing on skinny-boy!" Oddball laughed.

"Shut up, lard-ass!" I muttered back with a grin.

"Hey. My ass is perfectly biteably soft!" He grinned back, smacking his own ass.

"Whatever," I replied, shaking my head in a dejected giggle.

"So... When are you planning on admitting you like him?" Oddball asked.

"Errmm... Let me think.... I'm busy Monday and Tuesday... so that would be.... Never!" I said scratching my chin theatrically before snapping my fingers on the last word.

"Why not?" Odd asked.

"Because my dear Watson.... it is fairly elementary that he's into some mystery girl - as you have named her... repeatedly - and has been for quite some time. So, rather than make an ass of myself I prefer to leave dead dogs firmly buried," I said.

Odball started laughing.

"The mystery girl, Izzy?" He laughed.

I sent him a quizzical stare.

"There is no mystery girl," He said with a smirk.

"Really?" I asked.

Oddball grinned and nodded.

I had to turn away to hide my very satisfied grin.

Oddball was still laughing when Simon came into the room looking decently cheerful a few minutes later. He strolled over and sat down with his planner where he wrote all our gigs.

"My dear folks. I hope you don't have plans for the next three Saturdays and if you do, you are prepared to cancel. We have gigs!" He said as if he had just been elected pope.

"Not next weekend! It's Ethan's 20th... We have to have that free!" Oddball exclaimed.

"Shit. Forgot about that," Simon muttered.

To be honest, I wasn't that surprised. He had the worst memory for birthdays.
There was a moment of panic as I realised I had not even started thinking about getting a present for him.

Oddball scratched his head with a drumstick.

"I suppose we could take him out for food on Sunday... but that's a bit lame," he said.

"What's lame?" Ethan asked from the doorway.

"Dum-dum has booked a gig next Saturday," Oddball said pointing to Simon.

"And?" Ethan asked with a shrug.

"Dude. It's your 20th. No longer a teenager!" Oddball said with a childish clapping of his hands.

"No big deal. My birthday is on the monday anyway," Ethan muttered and slung his bag into a corner.

"But... We need to celebrate it!" Oddball nagged.

"We will... By playing music. Pretending to be rockstars. It's cool," Ethan shrugged again.

"Not a big fan of birthdays, huh?" I asked.

"Nope," Ethan smiled.

"Not even the cake and presents?" I asked.

"Cake. Yes. Presents... meh... I usually save up for what I want. I have enough socks and stuff," he shrugged again.

"So...?" Oddball asked.

"So... Earth revolves around the sun and spins around itself. A day... or even a year is just an arbitrary human marker of time passage," he said.

"Philosophical," I grinned and earned a crooked smile my way.

I sat back up against the wall and caught myself wondering why he was so hung up on christmas but not so keen on birthdays.

"Your family not big on presents either?" I asked.

"They know I don't like fuss," he shrugged.

"But they will get you something?" I asked, suddenly worried that his bithday was a non-event.

"Selma might get me something intetesting, but I'll probably get shoes or a t-shirt from Dina and clothes from my parents. Sean will hand over money in some form and Mio will claim that my half of the car is a generous present. He thinks a full tank of fuel puts him up there with Gandhi..." Ethan listed.

I had to laugh.

"Actually... Mio might go silly and buy new sparkplugs or a can of oil... and then spend all weekend with his head in the engine," Ethan mused.

"So not a big deal?" I asked.

"Nah," he said.

Oddball shook his head with a laugh.

"What's the gig anyway?" Ethan asked.

"This weekend, wedding anniversary, next weekend we're playing at Rock Central and there's a 50th birthday following that," Simon said with a sly grin.

Three faces whipped towards him.

"Rock Central? You got us a gig at Rock Central?" Oddball asked looking awestruck.

Simon nodded.

"That's why you looked so smug?" I asked.

"Yeah!" Simon grinned.

"How?" I asked.

Rock Central was a reasonably big deal. They usually only booked bands with an album or two, or at least a respectable tour on their resume. Trouble was that they also operated with a 21year age limit so we were all effectively cut off from seeing other bands there.

"Billy phoned and told me Shamrock had canceled," Simon said looking cavalier.

"How did Billy know that?" I asked.

Oddball looked at me with a smirk.

"Billy just gets info. God knows from where," he shrugged.

"And all I had to do today, was go down to Rock Central and talk to the manager and ... taa daaa... Simon delivers!" Simon grinned.

"Simon is very pleased with himself if he's talking about himself in third person," I teased.

"Simon thinks Ethan might appreciate Rock Central as a birthday thing!" Simon laughed.

"Ethan can live with that," Ethan said with a laugh.

"Great... now you got him doing it!" I muttered with a sigh.

"Hey... There might be scouts!" Oddball exclaimed.

"Yay... more nerves!" Ethan muttered.

I sent him a reassuring smile and got a self ironic shrug back.

Leafing through the lyrics in my folder, I was hoping to find ideas of what could impress the seasoned rockers who hung out at Rock Central.

"So we need something impressive?" I said.

"We could poke fun at the fact that it's our first gig there and open with 'We will rock you'," Oddball grinned.

"And follow up with some Led Zeppelin, Nirvana and Foo Fighters covers? Izzy. Can you handle Skunk Anansie?" Simon asked.

"Sure!" I said, hoping my voice could match up to Skin's.

"Cos they played there a month ago and the crowd apparently loved them," Simon continued.

"Everybody loves Skunk!" I said evenly.

"How happy are we about those originals?" Oddball asked.

We all knew we couldn't just do covers at a big gig like this.

We had three finished self written tunes that still sounded a bit naff.
With a clever grin, Ethan dug my notebook from his pocket.

"If we work together we might be able to get another couple out of this," he grinned.

"My book!" I said holding my hand out for it.

"Look at the second to last one," Ethan said and tossed it over.

There.
Written in his handwriting was the complete lyrics to a whole new tune. I recognised some of the lines as mine, but he had completed it with some of his own.
I looked at him with wide eyed surprise.

"It works with the melodyline of the tune Simon usually calls 'the kick ass bass'," Ethan said referring to a song that untill now had no words but a smooth guitar and high energy bass.

I hummed the melody quietly while reading the lyrics.

"It works!" I said.

"I know!" Ethan said with a smug grin.

I looked at the lyrics to see he had titled it 'Dark days' and the lyrics in it's total had ended up being about an argument.
I recognised my contribution as something I had written in frustration back in January, when Ethan had been an ass.
He nodded as if he knew what my lines had been about, so I nodded back with a quick smile.
I read through the words again, seeing how, between his lines and mine, it all basically read as an apology.
I liked it.

"It beats going la-la-la," Simon said looking over at me.

"Let's try," I said happily.

(A/N:
Thank you for waiting for this.
I loved writing this chapter.
What do you think?
Please vote and comment to let me know!

And what should Izzy get Ethan for his birthday?)