** ALLAN **

OKAY. I CAN DO THIS. IT CAN’T BE THAT HARD, right? I mean, not harder than being twenty-three with a pointless degree that gave you no jobs so you still live with your mom. Right?

God, kill me now.

I think I spent ten minutes or longer in front of that large black oak door. For some good two minutes I honestly even forgot about how pathetic I was and all I could do was admire the woodwork, and I’m not even that into it. And I’d know that. I tried some classes four months ago.

It was gorgeous, though, this door. A heavily ornamented casing all around a smooth blank panel. I was in love with the contrast and also the amazing patterns.

But then anxiety kicked in again and I started to hate the door. It was already bad enough that my mother had signed me up for this as if I were six, now it looked like I would be spending the rest of my dooming days in the company of some old bald short man who resented his frustrated career and lashed out on poor clueless beginners like me. Or like that little child I saw leaving the building with his mother earlier who I can swear came out of this flat.

Okay. Fine. Not dooming days. It wasn’t forever. It was just twice a week, two hours at a time. But still, if waiting for courage to kick in while facing this black oak door (it is gorgeous! Maybe if my woodwork teacher had been the artist behind these carvings… who knows?) was already everlasting enough, I didn’t have too much to hope for. Well, at least I could always go back home and disappoint my mother again.

Now that was an area I could totally ace.

I’ve been home for almost two years now, after getting my degree in communications and getting no jobs whatsoever from it. I apply at least twice a day, but the more time passes, the harder it gets. So, I got a job at one of the airport gift shops selling overpriced trinkets to overexcited tourists on a daily basis. It wasn’t bad and the pay was decent enough for the task, but it didn’t really help much at home. At least I could get by on my own without being an extra expenditure on my mother at my age. However, it really wasn’t enough for me to get my own place, no matter how small. I’ve heard that in Latin cultures people tend to leave their parents’ home as late as possible, so I hope all those telenovelas my mom binges can work something in my favour.

About a semester after living at home, my mother talked me into trying a new hobby. At first, I tried programming, but I sucked at that. Then I tried swimming. I sucked at that, too. Woodwork. Sucked. Gardening. Sucked. Sculpting, creative writing, yoga, you get the pattern. Even drama! For the last sixteen months, I must have tried a dozen different hobbies and the more I failed at them, the more I felt as if I were failing at life altogether.

So, this time, it was the piano. This is a little bit different from everything else I tried before because, as I said, this one my mother picked up for me. She meant well, sighing a fortnight ago and saying to me:

‘Sweetie, if you… discovered… you don’t really like these things, can I suggest one? Just for a change of scenery?’

That hurt. But she was also trying to help, so I took it.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘What do you have in mind?’

‘I still don’t really know. I’ll think of something with all my heart and set you up for some classes, okay?’

I shrugged and agreed. I had put this topic to a very dark corner of my mind so I couldn’t be bothered by it, until last night when she greeted me back from work with a sticky note on her hands and a wide smile on her face.

‘Hello, darling! I hope you had a great day at work. Here, I got you something.’ I curiously grabbed the note from her stretched hand and stared at the address where I currently stand. ‘I gave it a lot of thought and also a lot of talk with the church ladies and I want you to take some piano lessons. It will be only you and the teacher, so you won’t feel any pressure to keep up with others and you can learn as slowly or fast as you wish.’

Looking back at her words, I think she was trying to be nice and call her son stupid at the same time.

‘Thanks, mom. I’ll give it some thought.’

‘Actually… I already enrolled you. You start tomorrow at four thirty. Since you leave work at three, there’s plenty of time to grab a bite on the way and still be on time for your classes. They’ll be twice a week, Wednesdays and Fridays. I hope you enjoy them!’

‘So do I, mom. So do I.’

Of course, I didn’t have the heart to tell her how hopeless I was feeling and how certain I was that I was bound to disappoint her again, so here I was, wasting at least a quarter of an hour she had already paid for by facing this magnificent black oak door.

I took a deep breath and held my fist a few centimetres from the wood, sighed about three more times and finally knocked four times on the flat cold surface. I wasn’t expecting it to open so fast.

I wasn’t expecting a lot of things.

I wasn’t expecting this ridiculously gorgeous tall and skinny man with shoulder-length hair to be there facing me.

I wasn’t expecting him to be smiling.

I wasn’t expecting him to know my name.

I wasn’t expecting all of my anxiety to disappear the moment he looked into my eyes.

I wasn’t expecting him to be the person I had actually come to see.

‘Allan!’ He said with a wider smile. I wasn’t expecting his voice to be so sexy. ‘Finally, mate! I was beginning to wonder you’d take the lift back downstairs! Come on in, come on in! I’m Brian, your new piano teacher!’

I wasn’t expecting him to be younger than me. Heck, I wasn’t expecting him to be young at all. Where was the grumpy boring bald old man?

As I passed under that magnificent casing and past him into the large room, I wasn’t expecting him to smell so amazing.

I wasn’t expecting to fall for someone so deep and so fast.