Catch Up With Fate

Monday morning started like every other morning of class. I rolled out of bed and had some breakfast while I tried to wake up, then got dressed and ready to go to class. All of that happened with Viktor around since I had moved in. I almost had to give him props, he’d seen me with absolutely no makeup on, with my hair a mess, me in a grouchy mood, blubbering, crying and he still seemed to like me. Sometimes I didn’t even like myself, but he didn’t seem to mind.

After that unmistakable moment last night, I didn’t really know how to act around him when we were both having breakfast. Even the partially sleepless night where thoughts revolving around the blonde Swede had robbed me of some sleep, hadn’t led me to a decision. Not yet, at least. I didn’t want to do anything wrong, mess anything up, until I knew for sure, but I didn’t know how.

“Tasha, you okay?” Viktor’s voice snapped me out of my deepest thoughts.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” I nodded quickly, realizing that I’d been staring into my cereal for a little too long.

Throughout the day I found myself off in my own mind a lot. It just wouldn’t give me a rest. I felt like those girls in romantic movies that got no work done because they were thinking about the guy they liked all day. When I came home, all that thinking had exhausted me and I didn’t stick around for too long, choosing the comforts of the guestroom to do my homework and more thinking.

The next day was similar, only that Viktor had a game and was in his own little bubble. I didn’t realize until later that I somehow ended up avoiding him. It wasn’t on purpose, but the subconscious was a power not to be underestimated.

Wednesday marked the beginning of the All Star break, technically, the team had practice though. With a few days off for Viktor and no work for me except band practice later that day, we were both home during the afternoon. I still hadn’t found the time or place to ask anyone for advice, so that situation snuck up on me unprepared. In preparation for the band practice I was giving the lyrics another test and since Viktor was Drill Sergeant Lyric, who better to ask for help?

“Viktor?” I knocked on his door lightly and opened it slowly when a roughly positive sound came from inside. “Uhm, do you mind quizzing me on the lyrics again?”

He was half sprawled out on the bed, with the laptop in front of him. I’d seen the room a few times, but only in passing. It was less messy than expected, but it was a typical guy’s room. No real decorations, a big wardrobe, a shelf with a bunch of hats, a TV, a huge bed, clothes on the floor here and there...

“Sure,” he nodded. “Now?”

“You don’t have to, later’s okay, practice isn’t until 7.30,” I told him quickly, but he’d already shut the laptop and was moving off the bed. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he shrugged and followed me into the living room.

It helped me to wander around the room when trying to remember all the lyrics, so I didn’t sit down. Viktor though lay across the length of the couch with one arm behind his head. If he was aware how it drew (my) attention to the muscles in his arm, revealed by the short sleeve t-shirt he was wearing, then he did it on purpose, totally. If he wasn’t aware, he was an oblivious idiot...

“I’d say you’re good to go,” he attested after I’d sung the last song mostly correctly. “You know that you’re going to have to sing all the time now, right? I love listening to you,” he added with a grin. What did I do? I blushed. Ugh.

“Thanks,” I mumbled bashfully.

“I’m really looking forward to Saturday, you guys are going to kick ass.”

“I hope so,” I shrugged. “I’m not sure they’re going to like me, they had the other singer for a long time, now I’m the newbie...”

“They will like you, Tasha, because you’re good and you fit into the band. Maybe it’ll take a little bit to get used to, but they’ll like you,” Viktor assured me and I wished I had his confidence.

“How can you be so sure?” I asked slowly.

“You just have to be confident, that’s all,” he smiled. “Besides, what’s not to like? You have a great voice, you’re beautiful, you get along with the guys and you have a great sense of humor.”

Somehow I wasn’t sure if he was talking about stage skills or about me in general. It didn’t really matter either way, the way he looked at me just said that he meant it 100%.

“Thanks,” I mumbled shyly.

“It’s really true,” he stated with adorable sincerity. “I’m not the only one that thinks so.”

‘But you’re the only one telling me to my face and the only one I really want to hear it from,’ I thought. ‘When did this happen?’ I asked myself then. Had it been there before I’d moved in? Was this closeness of space playing up anything? Would this have happened if I hadn’t moved in? I had so many questions that no one could answer. The only help I could get, was other people’s opinions and advice. Aside from that I only had to answer to me, myself and I.

.

“Call if you need me to pick you up later, okay?” Viktor told me as I was jumping into my winter gear. Adam was due to pick me up in a few, so I wanted to be ready.

“Are you sure? It might be really late,” I frowned lightly. Not that I wanted practice to go so long, tomorrow was class after all, but we still had a lot to figure out.

“I’m not going to let you take a cab or something that late at night,” he said in a firm voice, unimpressed by the mere idea.

“Adam or Jay may be nice enough to give me a ride again...”

“I guess that’s fine,” he still didn’t look completely convinced, which I found kind of sweet. It had been a joke when I told Viktor I was going to hire him as a driver, but he really did drive me around a lot. Usually he offered, too, and never complained when I asked. He was being so nice to me that it was really hard not to develop these feelings.

“I’ll let you know when we’re done, oaky?” I offered, which seemed to please him.

“Okay,” I nodded. “Have fun and don’t let them pick on you too much.”

“I’ll try,” I chuckled and answered my ringing phone, telling Adam I would be right down. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Viktor smiled and closed the door after me.

.

“Okay, so let’s summarize,” Adam said and I let out a small laugh.

Band practice had been good, mostly everything was worked out, only some of Dillon’s and my harmonies needed some work until Saturday. Right now we were taking a post-practice refuel snack. Dillon and Jamison had disappeared right away, so I was left with Adam, Hayden and Jared. I’d texted Viktor that practice was finished and we were going to eat something, to which he repeated his offer to pick me up whenever. Somehow that had evolved into me asking the guys for help on this matter. Really, Adam was just awesome at making me ramble out all the important bits while making me blush beet red.

“He lets you live at his apartment for free, he buys you flowers, he came to the audition with you and he’ll be at the show, he drives you places and lets you borrow his car, he calls and texts you all the time and he compliments you... how the hell could you NOT figure out he likes you, Tasha?!” All of them gave me that look, you know the one where they make you feel really, really stupid.

“Well, I just-“

“You’re blind and you’re even wearing glasses. Seriously, if you friendzone Stalberg any longer, I might kill you,” Hayden told me. “How are you so oblivious?”

I just sighed and slurped my milkshake. When my phone beeped, I was the last one to reach for it, they were a lot quicker.

“Ha! He’s coming to pick her up,” Adam grinned triumphantly. “Told you.” Although he’d said he would take me home earlier, he had retracted the offer, just to see if Viktor would really come to get me.

“So? He’s just being nice. He’s Swedish, they’re all like that,” I grumbled.

“You make me want to smack you,” Adam stated bluntly. “Really, take it from three guys: he could only be more obvious if he flat out told you or put it on a billboard on Madison Ave. Just admit it, Tasha, you like him, too. Just fucking admit it.”

“You sound like Diane,” I whined.

“Would you like me to call her? Because she’d tell you the same,” he grinned and ruffled my hair.

“Love is in the air,” Hayden sang and that provoked a small laugh from me. “There she is, Lady Sunshine.” I rolled my eyes but continued to smile. I’d only really known these guys for not even a week, but they already felt like big brothers a little. To be honest, it was really sweet of them to give me this advice and to listen to me. There weren’t a lot of people that did that at the moment.

A little later my phone beeped again, telling me that Viktor was just pulling up. To save him the hassle of having to get out, the guys walked me out to the car. Really, they just wanted to see how I was with Viktor now. There wasn’t a lot to see though, I just hugged the three of them goodbye and got into the car. Hayden managed to stick his head in to tell Viktor to take good care of me and to drive carefully, otherwise they were coming after him, Blackhawk or not.

“They like you,” Viktor smiled, pulling the car back into traffic that existed even at night.

“I guess,” I grinned and laughed with him. ‘And you like me, too,’ I thought. ‘I’m just not sure what I'm going to do about it yet.’

.

Time flew by and before I knew it, it was Friday and we were holding the last practice before the show, save for sound check on Saturday afternoon. With some free time on his hands thanks to the All Star break, Viktor was eager to accompany me, which I knew was going to go over so well with the guys. I was in for a real treat and so looking forward to it!

Apparently I had missed the memo that this practice was also some sort of mini-concert because Viktor wasn’t the only viewer, albeit the only male one. Diane was there, giving me a giant grin behind Vik’s back and two other girls, who introduced themselves as Alexis and Mya, Hayden and Adam’s girlfriends respectively. Also present was Adam’s sister, Lucy.

“I am so going to mess up,” I groaned at Adam as I sat on one of the amps while Hayden and Dillon were tuning their guitars.

“Does he make you nervous?” Adam just grinned at me.

“He probably knows the lyrics better than I do, he’ll hear every little mistake,” I sighed.

“So will Mr Perfectionist Hayden, but we don’t give a shit,” Dillon joined in. “C’mon, let’s go. Let’s just go through the set for tomorrow without stopping, okay?”

“Is ‘no’ an option?” I jokingly asked and went to the front of the small ‘stage area’ the band room had. You could definitely hold a small, small show here for 30 to 40 people, which was pretty cool. Maybe we’d do that sometime.

What do you know the, first song I completely messed up the lines for the verses. The guys didn’t stop playing, they just kept on and waited until I was back in it. No one in the audience made comments or gave me looks, but I was embarrassed for myself. If I was doing badly with just a handful of people around, how was I going to survive anything between 50 and 200 people, as Dillon had vaguely put it?! This was going to be such a mess!

“Just imagine they’re naked,” Dillon smirked at me between two songs.

“Helpful,” I gave back, rolling my eyes. First off, I didn’t want to imagine my girl friends naked and second, while Viktor may have been nice to look at that way, imagining him naked wasn’t going to make me less nervous. Fortunately the songs after that went much better, so that was good.

“Tasha, you have to do ‘Rolling in the Deep’!” Diane announced when we’d gone through each song and smoothed out a few things here and there. I exchanged a look with Viktor and shook my head.

“Nah, maybe not,” I declined casually, but everyone else agreed with her, unfortunately.

“Are you kidding me? You gotta do it! We’ll definitely bag the gig if you do!” Dillon exclaimed. “You gotta.”

“I gotta nothing,” I explained pointedly.

“Come on, you killed that song! That’s our ace up the sleeve,” Hayden piped up. “Why don’t you want to do it?”

‘Because I’ll be a mess after,’ I thought, but I couldn’t tell them that. They had no idea about the tension with my sister and I didn’t really want to tell them either. I just wanted to be left alone about it.

“It’s an emotional song for me,” I answered vaguely.

“But that’s the great thing about it, you can hear that,” Diane said.

So they wanted to exploit my emotional turmoil for the ‘greatness’ of the song? Thanks.

“I’ll think about it,” I offered, hoping they would accept that for now and knowing that the thinking process would be short. 2 letters short: no.

“Fine,” Dillon sighed. “It’d be way awesome if you did it though.”

The practice was done then, but Dillon and Adam started messing around with some riff they had come up with, so I sat down with the ‘audience’, next to Viktor. He gave me a smile.

“You did great,” he told me. “It’s hard to believe you’ve only been playing together for a week.”

“Thanks,” I nodded lightly, my mind still on the issue with the Adele song.

“I think you could do the song. Maybe you can get out your emotions that way and deal with them better,” he voiced his opinion, which was not completely welcome.

“I don’t want to,” I insisted stubbornly.

“You should,” he replied with a firm look. If he meant the song or dealing with my emotions or both, I didn’t know, but my statement of unwillingness was applied to all three options.

.

Back at Viktor’s apartment my first trip was straight to the fridge. I almost felt like how I imagined the guys felt after games: absolutely famished. For after the show tomorrow I was definitely packing a few sandwiches and snacks. If we had some drinks afterwards, it would make for one awful night if I didn’t have anything in my stomach after the show.

“Your phone’s ringing,” Viktor told me after I resurfaced from sticking my head into the fridge.

“It’s just a notification,” I shrugged. “Voicemail.”

“From?”

At first I shrugged, but then I answered with a frown. “...Marc”

“Why’s he calling you?” Viktor looked confused. “And why are you not answering?”

“Probably because he thought I’d be in Raleigh, but am not,” I guessed. “Not like it’s any of his concern, safe for that one time while I was still at Sharpie’s, he only texted a few times.” I closed the fridge.

He hummed something. “He seemed pretty keen to keep you in New York though.”

“Heh,” I breathed out. “He was. Guess he wasn’t as interested as everyone thought. Out of sight, out of mind,” I pondered, wondering why the hell we were talking about Marc now? Either way, I wanted a change of topic as soon as possible. I got one, too, just not one I expected.

“What if someone else was interested?” Viktor asked and my stomach immediately plummeted. What had Adam said? It could only be more obvious if he flat out told me? Oh God.