Unexpected Encounters [B.H.M.]

16

Hey everyone!

I want to apologise for the long wait but life actually got in the way a little with lots of traveling, lots of studying and then even more traveling, which basically killed any creativity within me. But now I'm staying in the same place until September so I hope I can get back to my somewhat more frequent updating schedule. I was struggling a little with the beginning of this chapter, but I hope it turned out in keeping with the rest of the story.

I'd love to hear feedback from you, as you might have read in other updates your comments mean so much more than you can imagine, I doubt that I would still be writing without you motivating me with such sweet (and incredibly helpful) feedback. So please don't be shy, there's no need for that! It will help with keeping me motivated to turn this story into the grand adventure that I have planned for Frida and Brian ;)

I hope you enjoy this chapter, and remember, don't be shy to let me know what you think!

Nina x

. . . .

The next morning I slept long. It was Saturday and after that long and very intense Scrabble night I had been tired. Very tired. So when I got up around noon I decided I would just skip breakfast and go straight for lunch. Or rather I would have breakfast and then skip lunch. And then I tried to focus on my workload for the day but it was hard. I kept thinking back to the evening before. It was hard to wrap my mind around the fact that I'd been playing Scrabble with the one and only Brian May in my living room for hours. Who would ever have thought that would happen? Certainly not me.

And the weirdest thing was ... the fact that he was a rockstar had been the last thing on my mind. That had not been on my mind at all, not until after he had left. He was a man, a very handsome man, a troubled man as it seemed. I liked if I could make him smile, if I could make the exhaustion disappear from his expression. It had made me happy to see him relax during our games, even if that had meant losing. That was okay. And normally I hated to lose.

I really struggled to focus on the tests I was supposed to be grading, so by the time I got up to get myself a little afternoon snack I hadn't gotten half as far as I had hoped. And yet I allowed myself a short break on my couch, which I didn't get to enjoy for very long though because only a few minutes after I sat down my phone rang.

A slightly annoyed sigh escaped my lips as I pushed myself up and trudged into the hallway to answer my phone.

"Hello?"

There was a moment of silence before someone spoke up. "Frida?"

I knew that voice, that was Brian. And it surprised me because I hadn't expected to hear this voice until later tonight. "Yes, it's me. Hi Brian," I greeted him, smiling to myself. I had a rockstar casually calling me on a Saturday afternoon, that wasn't a daily occurrence. Well, it hadn't been until now. Who knew how this might develop, anything seemed possible now.

"Yeah... uhm.."

He didn't sound very good, that was slightly worrying.

"Frida, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to cancel our plans...."

"Oh..." Wow. I hadn't expected that. I had really been looking forward to that, another fun evening with him, so hearing this was actually quite disappointing.

"I'm sorry... I just ... I..." He paused and sighed. "Something has come up and I don't think I can make it."

I was disappointed. Very disappointed, I was surprising myself a little with how much I had been looking forward to seeing him again. But I tried not to show my disappointment. He had no obligation whatsoever to come here and if he couldn't - or didn't want to - make it, then I wasn't going to judge him. I was just a fan after all, nothing more. We'd had fun the few times we hung out but that was it. "That's perfectly fine, don't worry," I told him, trying to be cheerful. He did seem to feel bad, I didn't need to make that worse.