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When he left, I shrugged out of Ian’s arm and began walking again, keeping my head down so that he couldn’t see my heated face. Of all the bad luck—I’d never intended for Ian to learn about the poem. I’d written it the day I’d started avoiding him, back when I was all torn about whether or not to give in to my urges. I also hadn’t expected to be called upon in class to read it. That had been one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life.
For a while we walked in silence, and then Ian finally spoke.
“So you wrote a poem about us.”
“Not us per se,” I said softly, my eyes on my shoes. “Maybe it was initially inspired by us, but it took on a life of its own. All my lyrics do. That’s why he referred to it as being an addiction to another person.”
Ian stopped walking. “But it is an addiction.”
“What?” I stopped to face him again. We were now in the middle of the block.
“What I feel for you. It could be considered an addiction.”
“Yeah. I guess it could.”
Ian reached out and inserted a finger into the front of my jeans, pulled me to him. His grin was mischievous, infectious. “And I need my Lex fix.”
I laughed and pulled away. “You’re giving me a few days to recover, remember? And don’t you need to talk to Bruce?”
He sighed. “Fine. Come on, you can wait at my place.”
Instead of taking the steps down to the basement of the block, we entered through the door to my building. Ian paused at the staircase to make sure no one could see us through the glass door to the lounge, and then with a wink, descended the staircase to the basement. I followed, feeling jittery and lightheaded. It was a relief to know that after talking to Bruce, all this sneaking around would be over.
As soon as we were alone in his room, Ian gently took my bag off my shoulder and placed it on his desk. We went into his bedroom and I stood in the middle of the room feeling anxious while he walked over the guitar stand that housed both an electric and acoustic guitar. Apparently he wasn’t quite ready for the showdown either.
“Do you play?”
I shook my head.
“Sometimes I prefer the acoustic.” He ran his fingers along its neck. “I like the rawness of acoustic guitar, don’t you? And I never feel like I should be playing in a band when I’m playing acoustic.”
“Why don’t you like the idea of being in a band?”
“I guess it’s the pressure. I only want to be accountable to myself.” He picked up the electric, a red Gibson with a mother of pearl faceplate, and held it out to me. “‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is an easy enough one to learn. It only requires chords E minor, A, G and C. I’ll find the chords for you.”
Moving to the living room area, Ian opened his laptop on the coffee table and ran a search. I followed and perched on the edge of the couch, played at plucking the strings. Soon a printer on the desk roared to life and Ian brought the papers over, placed them on the table in front of me. He’d printed off both the tabs and chords used in Teen Spirit, as well as a page of chords and their finger placement diagrams.
“I expect a show when I get back.” He winked.
I knew he was trying to distract me, and I appreciated it. The moment he left, I looked at the chords drawings and practiced moving my fingers into place. Then I tried actually playing each chord until it sounded right. Then, once I was confident with each chord, I finally attempted a very, very slow rendition of the song. The hardest part was moving my fingers to the next chord in time. The most painful part was the way the strings bit into my fingers. No wonder Ian had callouses.
I was musical and knew how to play piano, but guitar was entirely different. Guitarists used tabs and memorized chords, whereas I was used to reading music. Not for the first time, I appreciated how much time it must take to learn guitar. Plus it was way cooler. A guitarist could join a band and if they could sing too, they had it made. Sure some bands had keyboardists, but I doubted they got the same star attention as lead singers and guitarists.
As I thrummed the strings, I got lost in the idea of Ian and I being in a band. Maybe I could write the lyrics and play keyboard and he could play lead guitar. Was he a singer? I’d have to find out. I’d love to find out.
The suite door banged closed and I stopped playing. A string vibrated and slowly died out as Ian walked into the bedroom, his face unreadable.
“How’d it go?” I asked, pushing the guitar aside and jumping to my feet.
“Terrible.” Ian shook his head somberly. “Not only was I fired, I was kicked out of school.”
But his lip twitched and gave him away.
“Jerk!” I said and tossed a pillow at him. “I was worried. What happened?”
He sprawled on the couch, grinning mischievously. “Play for me and I’ll tell you.”
“Ha! Yeah right.”
