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Chapter Eleven

I'd been pretty nervous boarding the 08:02am bus on Monday morning. Luckily, Noah was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he'd decided to drive, I figured. Why had he even been on a bus in the first place if he had a car all this time?

Why does it matter? Just get over it, I thought, trying to focus on my book but re-reading the same chapter at least twice while my mind drifted.

I couldn't stop glancing towards the back of the class during performance studies.

"What's up with you today?" whispered Kris, as Dan delivered his usual sassy feedback to the girl who'd just performed.

"Nothing, I'm just feeling edgy today," I reassured him. "Must be nerves."

"What have you got to be nervous about?" he pushed. "Your performances are always flawless. I'm pretty sure every other person in this class wishes they had your talent."

Resting my head on his shoulder as we watched the next lamb head up to the slaughter, I decided to stop looking for an accidental appearance from Noah, and focus on nailing my upcoming turn.

I was going to do a different song this week. Noah had kind of ruined my last piece by taking it and turning it into something different. Something it was never meant to be. Plus, every time I'd tried to work on it since, I couldn't get his face out of my mind.

By the time we got to theory class, he was still nowhere to be seen. Oh well, I was sure whatever extra-curricular activity it was that he kept running off to all the time was keeping him busy.

After a two-hour music business lecture in the afternoon, I was feeling just about ready to head home and hit my bed with my laptop and a few episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, until my phone flashed up with a text.

Rehearsal room booked for 5-7. See u there, L x

Oh shit, Lina. I'd completely forgotten about our group practice. As much as I didn't want to go, I grabbed a coffee from the machine and headed over to the other campus building, hoping the cold, brisk walk would help wake me up.

As I approached the rehearsal room I could already hear the band warming up. For a metalhead with long black hair and a wardrobe consisting solely of baggy band T-shirts, Will was making the opening bars of Uptown Funk sound pretty, well, funky. Maybe I'd ended up in one of the better groups after all?

Pushing open the door, the smile dropped suddenly from my face. Cole and Lina were locked into their bass and drums groove so intently they didn't even see me enter. But the guitar part stopped abruptly as Noah looked up to meet my dumbfounded gaze and raised one hand to run his fingers through his hair, looking pleased with himself.

"Abi!" he called with a grin, as the other two musicians came to a halt. "Hope you don't mind but I wasn't gelling with my group, so your guy said he didn't mind swapping."

"But..." I had absolutely nothing to add to that sentence.

"We're sounding sick!" Cole shouted excitedly. "Your voice will be amazing on top of this. I remember you from last term, we're going to smash it."

The reality began to dawn. Any minute soon, I would knowingly be singing in front of Noah. I would be regularly rehearsing with Noah. I would be completely, totally, fucking unable to avoid Noah.

How and why did stuff like this always have to happen to me?

Taking a deep breath, I walked up to join them on the small stage. I had no idea what the hell his game was, but he wasn't going to defeat me. Grabbing the microphone off the stand, I turned to face the three of them and raised it to my mouth.