It feels weird to be updating. I haven't done it myself in a while…And I'm gonna start by dedicating it to Kristin.
Oh, and I heard a rumour that Schwartzibrow was in the middle of writing this awesome new story, so you should all look out for that at a computer near you. It'll be off the hook.
Disclaimer: Meg Cabot owns all characters, except Holly-the-ho.
Michael's POV...
"What's up, Moscovitz?" John asked me when we arrived for rehearsals.
"Oh, you know, same old, same old," I lied.
"Things still peachy with the misses?"
"Why wouldn't they be?"
"You tell me," he shrugged his shoulders.
"Alright, guys, gather round," Felix instructed. "We still have a lot to do if we want to start playing gigs again..."
"Like what?" John interrupted.
"Well, like practise for one thing. And for another, we pretty much need all new songs..."
"Uh, what's wrong with our current set list?" I protested. Most of the original songs are mine.
"Are you saying you still want to sing 'Tall Drink of Water'? And what about the rest of the songs?"
"What about the rest of the songs? Ok, no, I don't particularly want to do Tall Drink of Water but the rest of them are ok. We can't change our set completely, that'd be totally impractical."
The rest of the songs may have been written with Mia at the back of my mind, as my muse, but they're not directly about her. I don't think.
"Ok then, we'll scrap Tall Drink but the rest stay. Now let's get some practise in."
We set up and played for a good while; I concentrated on not thinking about Mia the whole time. I think I did a good job. Our forbidden moment from a few weeks ago only popped into my head once. Maybe twice.
---
Holly met me after the practise and we got a cab back to school.
She's been shopping. But she's been really good recently; she's not buying as much as she would normally buy, and it's always on sale and always a necessity.
We picked up a newspaper with apartment listings too, and back in our dorm room we looked through it.
"How about this one?" she asked, pointing to one up the top.
"No, that's on the top floor, we can't afford that."
"We're not going to have to get one on the bottom floor, are we?" She sounded shocked by the very idea of it.
"Maybe not the very bottom floor, but close enough. Apartments on higher levels are much more expensive. We just can't afford it."
"Hmph...What about this one then? It's on the fourth floor."
I looked it over. Sure it's lower down than the first one she wanted, but it's still too expensive. And it's too big anyway; we don't need three bedrooms.
"This one? Or this one?"
She kept pointing out ones that were either too big or too expensive. Or both.
Finally I told her to go and make some coffee while I looked myself. I'd circled at least half a dozen suitable ones before she came back.
"But...But these are all one bedrooms! Or on the very bottom floor!"
"Holly, for our first apartment we don't need more than one bedroom. The baby can sleep in our room, and then by the time we need a second bedroom we'll hopefully be able to afford it. And I told you, the ground floors are the cheapest."
"Yeah, and probably much yuckier."
"We'll fix it up. Just look at the price differences between this two bedroom, top floor apartment and this one bedroom, lower floor apartment."
"We can afford that!" she cried, pointing to the top floor one.
"That's per week, Hol," I pointed out.
She gaped at me; I knew she didn't know that. "Per week! Who can afford that?"
"Exactly. Not us."
"Oh, I don't want to live in a dump! Can't we just stay here?"
"Raise a baby in a College dorm room? I don't think so. Besides, I finish is a few months and you won't finish the year out. And you'll have to take some time off so you won't be back for a while. That's why we really need to find somewhere to live."
"Fine. After all, you're always right."
Damn straight I'm always right.
---
A few weeks of apartment hunting and we still have no where to live. According to Holly, all the places that I deem suitable, are just not satisfactory. At this rate we're going to be raising the baby out of cardboard boxes down some alley.
Or worse, at one of our parents places.
Holly is now halfway through the pregnancy and she's beginning to get sick of it. She has trouble sleeping and keeps me up all night trying to get comfortable. She has horrible cravings and goes crazy when they can't be satisfied.
And yesterday, she noticed that her belly button has popped out and she cried for over an hour because it looks 'disgusting'.
Oh yeah, life is wonderful.
We really need to start going to child birth classes, but every time I bring it up she puts it off for one reason or another.
"Holly, we really need to start going to those child birth classes, remember?"
"Oh yeah," she said, not looking too thrilled. "We'll do that later."
"How about we do it now?" I picked up the phone.
"Or," she said, stalling me. "How about we join this club? You like books and stuff. Here, let's join this book club and NOT go to those classes."
She would rather join a book club than go to child birth classes? She must really be scared of them if she's that desperate.
I reached over and took the book club flyer from her outstretched hand. It says they meet every Monday and discuss new books and old classics. It actually sounds like my kind of thing. Not Holly's though.
"How about we do both!" I said enthusiastically.
"Both?" I can tell from her tone she doesn't want to do either.
"Yeah, this book club thing can be something we do together every week. And then we go to the classes too, so we're prepared for the baby. You want to be prepared, right?"
"I guess. But do we really have to do the book club thing too?"
"You suggested it," I reminded her.
"Yeah, instead of the classes, not as well as."
"Aw, come on. It'll be fun."
"All right, whatever."
I picked up the phone and dialed before she could change her mind.
