Catch Up With Fate

Diane had been right, there was no call from the band that night and almost the entire morning. I was in class when my phone rang around 11am, so Dillon left a voicemail. After class Diane called me about the news before I had even had the chance to listen to the voicemail and find out myself: I had made the band.

She was extremely excited about it, gushing forever how great I had been and telling me what Dillon had told her about the band’s decision and thoughts about me. Apparently I had really impressed them and I was sure it didn’t hurt that Jamison was on my side anyway.

Diane’s excitement rubbed off on me, especially when she told me how much fun the shows were. She told me that when the band had first started it had just been Dillon singing. Melody, the old singer, had come in as a friend of Hayden for a few duets and for the longest time everyone had put up with her. Now everyone was happy to have me and that kind of made me happy, too. I shot off a text to Viktor to tell him the good news before I agreed to meet my new bandmates for lunch.

.

“I am never going to be able to learn all this by next week,” I groaned, thumbing through the folder (!) that they had brought for me. It contained all the songs they had ever played and damn, there were a lot.

“You don’t need to know all of them by next weekend,” Hayden assured me. “We already have a set list, so you only need those first. You can learn the rest over time and we don’t really play all of them.”

“The original ones and the ones in the set list are most important,” Dillon agreed. “Do you work this weekend?”

“Yeah, tomorrow morning, I’m done around 2 or 3 I think,” I told him and ate a piece of my almost abandoned pizza. There was so much to talk about, to understand, to organize, to match up, to think of, my head was kind of buzzing and I was a little too busy to eat.

“Cool, we can hold a practice from 4 to whenever then,” Dillon grinned and I didn’t dare to point out that after a morning/lunch shift, I wouldn’t really be in any shape to participate in a band practice.

“Works for me,” Hayden shrugged and the others also expressed their agreement.

“Great. Do you think you can make it to the band room by 4?” The band room was a sound proofed room in the building Hayden lived at and only a few blocks from Dillon’s uncle’s bar.

“4.30 would be better, gotta make it home to change and stuff. Also depends if I can borrow Vik’s car or not,” I offered slowly. Half an hour sometimes was the crucial amount of time between work and something else.

“If you can’t, I could pick you up,” Jamison offered with a shy smile. I was so not up to having another hopeful guy around me, especially a bandmate. And even more when I was starting to lose my mind because of Viktor.

“Perfect,” Dillon grinned happily. “Just text us later, when you know.”

I nodded and focused on actually eating for a little bit, while the guys told me about past shows and stories from practice and what not. It was bound to be a fun(-ny) time with them, that much was already clear.

Jamison ended up giving me a ride home, which was both awesome and uncomfortable. He answered all of my questions that came up as I flipped through the folder a little more closely, which was very helpful. The downer was that I could tell that he was just eating up every smile and laugh that I gave him. Most of them were involuntary, he was a pretty funny guy and so were his comments about the songs.

“Thanks for the ride, Jay,” I told him when he stopped the car in front of Viktor’s apartment building.

“You live here?” Jamison’s eyebrows almost met his hairline. Thanks to Viktor’s status of being a decently paid hockey player this neighborhood wasn’t too shabby and you could see it from the outside, too. “Right, you live with the hockey player, I forgot.”

I shrugged slowly, I was used to being around Viktor and the rest of the team, so I sometimes forgot how that must appear to everyone else. Especially since moving in with him, Viktor had become a very normal fixture for me. In some ways at least... “See you tomorrow at practice.”

“Let me know if you need a ride, okay?” Another one of those hopeful smiles he’d been giving me all day.

“Will do. Bye.” I got out of the car and watched him pull back into traffic.

The team had a game in Detroit tomorrow, so I was pretty sure that Viktor wasn’t home. They usually left after practice for these kind of games.

“Viktor, är du hem?” (are you home?) I called into the apartment, busting out a little bit of Swedish. Unnecessary, because he really wasn’t home. At least that way I could learn the new songs in peace and play them as loudly as I wanted to (within the building restrictions of course).

My first course of action was to go to ‘my’ room and change into sweats. If no one was home, I didn’t feel the need to apply to the standard I had put on myself since I had moved in. At the old apartment I didn’t give a shit, because it was just CC to see me there, but it was different here. Of course it was, I lived with a male now, everything was different. I didn’t want him to see all the ugly, ratty old clothes I only wore when no one was around. The ‘not without makeup’ rule I had waived the first week in, because food stood above painting my face in the ranking of my priorities first thing in the morning. The little voice in my head kindly reminded me that said male was also someone I could end up really liking and that also made things much different. What the hell was I getting myself into?!

After I’d changed I went to get myself something to drink and literally walked into a big surprise. On the kitchen table there was a huge bouquet of flowers. Really, it was gigantic! There were red roses, white carnations, soft purple daisies and some blue flowers I didn’t know the name of even in German. In front of the vase was an envelope with my name on it, in chicken scratch. Very obviously this was Viktor’s doing and I really had trouble closing my mouth because I just couldn’t believe it. The flowers in the first place, the size of the bouquet, the card, everything.

“Oh my God,” I kept repeating to myself and stuck my nose into the flowers. They didn’t smell much, just fresh, but that didn’t matter, they were stunning just to look at. Finally I picked up the envelope and revealed a card. I let out a hearty laugh upon seeing it, it read Well Done, You did it! on the front. Inside Viktor congratulated me on making the band, wished me good luck and told me that he better get first row seats for next weekend. All of that in Swedish, which took me a while (and a translation website) to figure out.

I decided that I had to call him, because a text just wouldn’t suffice. It rang a few times, making me remember that maybe they were having some team activity or whatever else they did on the road like this, but then he picked up.

“Hey Tasha,” he greeted me innocently.

“You’re crazy!” I told him right away, he laughed.

“Maybe, but you deserved something special,” he replied and I could so hear (and see) him smiling. “Do you like them?”

“The flowers are amazing, Viktor!” I nearly exclaimed. “They’re so beautiful and the card is really sweet.” Everything about this was really sweet, he really didn’t have to do that.

“I’m glad you understood it,” he chuckled.

“I got the gist of it,” I offered, not planning on giving away my secret helper...

“Great. So, did you just get home?”

“Yeah, I had lunch with the guys in the band. They gave me an entire folder full of songs they play!”

“Holy shit, do you have to know them all by next weekend?”

“No, thank God. Only the ones on the set list, but even those are like a dozen.”

“Oh man. Do you know any of them yet or are they all new?” he asked, really sounding concerned for me.

“Some are ones they wrote so I obviously don’t know them, but I know at least half just from having heard them on the radio and stuff. They mostly do covers,” I explained and involuntarily sighed when I thought of the band practice tomorrow. “We’re going to have a practice tomorrow, so we’ll see how it goes.”

“Good luck for that,” he told me sincerely. “If you need someone to quiz you on lyrics, I’d do it,” he offered additionally.

“That would be good, yeah, thanks. You guys are flying back right after the game?”

“Yeah, home game against Philly on Sunday.”

I pulled a face, that was bound to get real nasty. You don’t just forget who you lost the Cup to, especially with not even a full season in between. Hopefully the Chicago guys would stand tall and not give Filthadelphia the satisfaction of folding. Then again, did that really matter? We had the Cup, had won the game that counted, so maybe if we lost this one, it wouldn’t matter so much. No one could take away the Cup from us now.

“Ew, okay. Good luck for that one, too,” I said. “Though I’ll probably see you Sunday morning or during the day, so I’ll tell you again then.”

“Can never have too much good luck,” he chuckled.

“Exactly. Well, I’ll get started on those songs now, so... See you Sunday.”

“Okay. Maybe I’ll call tomorrow...”

I raised my eyebrows, finally realizing that Viktor was indeed calling a lot more than expected (and appropriate?) when he was away. Strange.

“I have to work until lunch and then I have band practice...”

“Oh, okay. Sunday then. I left the car keys in the kitchen I think, so you can definitely use the car.”

“Thanks for letting me use your car all the time, Vik,” I told him and I really meant it, too. How much time I saved by using the car, unbelievable.

“Sure, no problem,” he replied easily. “See you on Sunday, Tasha.”

“Yup. Hej.” (Hej is both greeting and goodbye in Swedish, it almost sounds like ‘hey’ but has a much softer ‘y’ sound at the end, kind of like ‘heyyy’.)

He laughed quietly. “Hej.”

.

The afternoon and evening passed very quickly as I tried to cram all the song lyrics into my brain. Well, not all of them, but I started with the songs on the set list that I was the least familiar with. Those I’d probably need the longest to learn.

There was one song that I had to learn that would be difficult to sing. If I’d thought doing ‘Rolling in the Deep’ was difficult, this was one was even more so. It was a cover of Omarion’s ‘Ice Box’, but in the style that There for Tomorrow had used for their cover version. It was a great song and a great adaption, but again it was the lyrics that did me in. Singing about wanting to stop fighting, but not recognizing the girl she used to be, that hit a little too close to home for my taste. But in a way it was true that my heart was frozen in my chest now.

Girl I really wanna work this out, cause I'm tired of fightin'
And I really hope you still want me the way I want you
I said I really wanna work this out, damn girl I'm tryin'
It's no excuse, no excuse
But I got this

I got this icebox where my heart used to be (but I got this)
I got this icebox where my heart used to be (said I got this)
I'm so cold, I'm so cold, I'm so cold, I'm so cold
I'm so cold, I'm so cold, I'm so cold
(Omarion – Ice Box)