FIC: I Know What I'm After (2/7)
Title: I KNOW WHAT I’M AFTER (2/7)
Author: Montmorency
Pairing: Adam Lambert/Tommy Joe Ratliff
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: About 4,600 (this part only)
Disclaimer: This is fiction. Never happened. Written for entertainment only. The real people who form the basis of these characters have their own lives.
Summary: Adam and his friends are in a band, and their guitarist just ditched them to play for Madonna. Tommy shows up at the audition, but disappears shortly afterwards.
Notes: If you notice that certain names appear similar to those of real people, but not quite the same, that was done on purpose. The age difference between Adam and Tommy has been changed to suit the story. They’re about four years apart in this.
This, by the way, is not a work-in-progress. It’s done, about 27k words. I’m posting it in seven parts, from now till the New year. I really struggled not to start posting right away. I’m impatient like that. The story is SO much better for not having been posted as a work-in-progress. I have my wonderful pre-reader and prompt-provider fairfax_verde to thank for that. The prompt was hers, from the kinkmeme, and wasn’t filled. It was too good to go unfilled, and I’m grateful that I got to be the one to do it. As I’ve been writing over the past few months, she has provided feedback and ideas and cheerleading. Without her, the story would be floundering hopelessly in never-never land still.
Also: any typos or errors are 100% my bad.
Thanks to @tuke18 for the gorgeous picture of Tommy, and adam-pictures.com for that of Adam. Crappy cut-out job on Adam's hair entirely my responsibility.
Chapter 2
The band does improve and Brian finds them more gigs, some even at decent places like The Mint and Hotel Café. They share the night with other bands - whatever it takes, that’s their mantra. Persistence will pay off.
Trevor is working out decently as a guitarist, more or less. He’s reliable, he knows the music cold when he arrives at practice and at gigs. Something’s missing, though.
“Monte could work out a part better,” Brian confides to Adam as they take a break, sitting on rickety chairs in the parking lot outside their makeshift practice studio. It’s a bright sunny afternoon, one of those gorgeous Southern California days that Adam loves. The beers lifted from the mini-fridge indoors are cold and inviting.
“Monte’s a fucking douche,” Adam grouses.
“He was a talented douche,” Brian says. “Give the man his due.”
“Not in the mood to. By now we might have had a contract, Brian, you know that?”
Brian makes a so-so gesture with his hand. “Maybe, maybe not. Look at it this way, we’re gonna make it anyway, and we won’t have to deal with his ego.”
Adam looks over at Trevor, across the parking lot, yapping away on his cell phone. “We need fresh songs and it’s not working with him. I can’t write songs with him.”
“Don’t look at me,” Brian says, hands up. “If I could I would.”
“You could try harder.”
Brian shakes his head vigorously. “If I had that skill, we’d both know it. I don’t. Nothing to be done about it.”
Adam frowns. “Isaac and Ash don’t write, either. We’re fucked.”
“Let’s take it one step at a time,” Brian says. “One gig at a time. We’ll get there. Have faith, bro.”
Isaac shuffles over, dragging a chair, and plops down next to them. “What up, dudes?” He pops a beer tab and takes a long swig.
“We’re having a family fight over the dick who left.”
Isaac looks like he’s sorry he put his chair down here. He moves to get up, but Brian puts a hand on his shoulder and holds him in place.
“You stay. You got another ten minutes, then back inside. I’mma check the sound system.” Brian saunters back towards the studio.
“You don’t much like Trevor, do you?” asks Isaac.
Adam sets down his empty beer bottle and drops his head to his knees, massaging through his thick hair with his hands. Muffled, he says, “Fuck my life.”
Isaac takes another swig of beer and stretches his legs out as far as possible, sliding down in the chair. “It’s not that bad. You’re doing what you love for a living.”
Adam makes a grumpy noise.
“What’s your fucking complaint?” Isaac asks, holding the cold, sweating beer can against his neck.
“Don’t laugh at me,” Adam says, “but I still wish we had managed to snag Tommy for the band.”
“No point crying over spilled beer.”
“At least you’re not laughing at me. Thanks for that, by the way.”
Isaac pets Adam’s head with his free hand. “I thought you found him?”
“I did. And then I lost him again.”
“Careless of you.”
Adam groans. “He stopped going to Sam Ash and Guitar Center. Probably because of me. He must have thought I was stalking him.”
“Weren’t you?”
“No, as it happens I was not stalking him,” Adam musters the dignity to say. “I’m worried about him.”
“Because he’s homeless?”
Adam had told Isaac a bit about his interactions with Tommy. They had also agreed that there was nothing they could do now that Trevor was in their band. It wouldn’t be fair to drop him. Also, if Tommy couldn’t bother to have a cell phone or call back when he said he would, how reliable would he be in a band?
“Yeah,” Adam says. “He seemed so, I don’t know, like he needed help.”
“There’s nothing you can do, Adam. Whatever his problem is, you didn’t create it.” Isaac looks into the distance, where eucalyptus trees wave against the blue sky. “Don’t worry about him, I’m sure he’s okay. You said he goes to the church shelter place, right? He’ll be okay. Someone’s taking care of him.”
“You think so?”
“I think so,” Isaac says, patting Adam’s back awkwardly, but even Isaac doesn’t look all that convinced. “What’s your choice here? If he doesn’t want your help, you can’t force it on him.”
Adam knows he’s not responsible. He knows there are kind people who help the homeless of Los Angeles. That doesn’t stop him from thinking about the scrawny kid, or wanting to be the one taking care of him. Whatever Tommy is running from, Adam is pretty sure it’s not Tommy’s fault. One thing he’s sure of: Tommy is sweet. Tommy wouldn’t do anything wrong. Well, except maybe boost guitar strings when he has no money. He could picture Tommy doing that, but nothing worse than that.
* * *
The next day, out of the blue, Trevor quits on them. By text, the chickenshit. Looks like he found a better band. The remaining band members regroup at the studio to vent their frustrations and, after an hour or so of this, to discuss what to do.
“Why not hire Tommy Joe now?” Ashley says. “I heard Adam ran into him somewhere.” She looks over at Adam.
Adam gestures wildly. “And then I lost him again!”
Isaac shrugs, an I know, right? gesture.
“Lame,” Brian throws in. “Now we’re extra fucked. I fucking hate running auditions.”
Adam agrees to seek out Tommy one more time. If he fails, they’ll set up another audition. Musicians all over the L.A. basin are going to know they’ve been abandoned twice. It sucks but time is important, so they agree he gets one week to find Tommy.
There are too many guitar stores and too many shelters in Los Angeles and environs. Adam tries a few other Guitar Centers - West Pico, Pasadena, Ventura - to ask about a kid with a beat-up Jaguar (Brian had identified it for him) and maybe pale-pink hair, since it was fading last time he saw Tommy, but no one has seen him. In addition to everything else, Adam feels guilty that he might have chased Tommy away from the only thing he enjoyed.
Remembering that Tommy had answered a classified in the L.A. Reader for their audition, Adam reviews all the paper’s audition notices carefully. He even hovers outside around one or two auditions where they’re looking for a lead guitarist. That doesn’t pan out, either.
After the agreed-upon week of in-depth searching he finally throws in the towel. Tommy could have hitched a ride out of L.A. altogether, for all Adam knows. Brian puts out an audition notice for the upcoming Wednesday evening.
So on Tuesday night - or rather Wednesday morning - at 2:14 a.m. when Adam’s cell phone jangles next to his bed, it scares the shit out of him. He comes from a stable family and no one ever, but ever, calls at that hour. His hand slaps around the bedside table until it connects with the phone. He checks its lit-up face but doesn’t recognize the number.
“Whu?” he mumbles into the phone, pressing it to his ear.
“Adam?” The voice is small and soft, tentative.
“Who is this?”
“I - Adam?” the voice says. It’s Tommy.
“Tommy? Tommy!” Adam yelps, sitting up, wrestling furiously with the sheets tangling around his legs and waist. “Fuck!” he mutters.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called.”
“What? No! Tommy, don’t you dare hang -“
Too late, the line is dead.
Adam punches redial immediately. It rings and rings.
He curses and redials again. “God fucking damn it, Tommy,” Adam mutters to himself. “Pick up the fucking phone.”
This time after several rings, the line connects again.
“You need help, don’t you? Let me help you,” Adam says fast. “Where are you? I’ll come right now.”
Adam can almost physically feel the hesitation through the phone. He hears soft breathing. “Please, Tommy, please let me help you. Please.” One thing he knows: if it weren’t urgent, Tommy would never have called him. It’s got to be bad.
“Okay,” Tommy’s voice says quietly.
“Where are you?” Adam tries to keep the panic out of his voice, but he cannot let Tommy get away again and doesn’t care how much he sounds like he’s begging, because he is. “Please, Tommy. Please. Just tell me.”
* * *
Adam throws on enough clothing to be decent, then a few more layers for good effect, drags on his combat boots without lacing them, grabs phone and keys and leaves the apartment as quietly as he can, hoping not to wake his neighbors. He finds his dew-covered car parked at the curbside, gets in and races over the hill to a run-down neighborhood in Burbank not far from the airport. Tommy is sitting on the curb at a dark intersection. If Tommy hadn’t instructed him to stop at that corner, Adam would never have seen him.
He pulls to the side of the street and reaches over to open the door. Tommy rises to his feet stiffly, or so it looks to Adam, and shuffles to the car and slips in, barely causing it to bounce when he sits down. He closes the passenger door as softly as he can and sits quietly.
That’s got Adam on the near side of frustrated. It’s well past midnight and he just drove for half an hour, risking a very expensive speeding ticket, and now Tommy doesn’t say a thing?
“Are you okay? What happened, can you tell me?” he asks, angled towards Tommy.
Tommy turns to look at him, his eyes glittering a little in the dim light. Something looks wrong about his face but it’s too dark to see much. “Please just - drive,” Tommy says.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Drive first,” Tommy insists.
Headlights turning the corner sweep a beam of light into Adam’s car and Tommy slides down out of sight, but not before Adam notices a bruise on his cheek that the headlights illuminate for a split second. “ Please,” Tommy begs.
The car is past them now; Adam checks it out in the rear-view mirror. The car stops, brake lights bright red. Adam puts his car in drive and pulls away from the curb, still glancing now and then in the mirror. The other car appears to sit there, brake lights shining. A few more blocks and Adam turns to head back to the main drag.
“Seat belt,” Adam says once he’s on Vanowen, waiting till Tommy complies. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know,” Tommy says, sounding miserable. “You said to call. If I needed something.”
Adam thinks but no brilliant idea is manifesting itself. He shouldn’t take Tommy to his own apartment. For one thing it’s tiny, for another he feels like he might need some help dealing with whatever this is. Tommy’s in some kind of trouble and Adam isn’t used to dealing with trouble. His upbringing was pretty much drama-free. He used to think his family was dull, but now he’s kind of grateful. “Tommy, I’m glad you called. Did you get a phone?”
Tommy shakes his head.
“No? You called from someone else’s phone?” When there’s no answer, not even a gesture that he can see peripherally, he takes his eyes from the street for a moment and looks over. “Tommy?”
“Can you just take me to the Strip and leave me there?”
“No way I’m dumping you on a seedy Hollywood street corner.”
Tommy slumps further. He’s skinny enough to slide down even with the seat belt hooked up.
Adam comes to a decision. Isaac and Sophie are going to hate him, but it’s the wee hours of a Wednesday morning and this is the only idea he has. He turns the car in the direction of Valley Village and thumbs at his phone.
Isaac and Sophie are too tired to be mad, and also they’re awesome like that - they’ll do anything for anyone. They open the door to their roomy one-bedroom, second-floor apartment, rubbing the sleep from their eyes. They welcome Tommy inside without so much as a surprised look. He slinks in like a cat that isn’t sure whether there are disapproving dogs on the premises. They sit him down at the eat-in kitchen table, keeping the lights low because no one is quite awake yet, and Isaac puts on a tea kettle while Sophie checks on Tommy’s face.
“Nice shiner,” she says. “We need an ice pack.”
Adam sits across from Tommy while Sophie gets ice cubes and a plastic bag and a clean kitchen towel and Isaac finds mismatched coffee mugs and teacups.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Adam asks.
Tommy’s eyes shift to the two people moving around the kitchen.
“You can trust Sophie and Isaac. I’ve known them forever. Come on, Tommy, I need to know who did that to you. You know I’m going to smack the shit out of someone.” He tries to make it light. Tommy chews on his lips as though he’s trying to hide a smile. “Oh come on, you know I’m butch, I could so do it,” Adam says. “You called me from wherever it was, yeah?” He holds up his phone and wiggles it at Tommy. “I have the number right in here.”
Tommy looks impressed at Adam’s investigational skills. Also worried. “My dad is, like, a preacher.”
That’s random, thinks Adam.
“Is he the one who did that?”
Tommy shakes his head. “I mean, him and Mom want me back but he doesn’t get his hands dirty.”
“So who did that?”
Tommy turns away.
Sophie drags up a chair to sit close to Tommy and presses the make-shift ice bag to his cheek. “Hold it there,” she says softly.
“Tommy, I don’t get it. You’re twenty-one, you should be on your own,” Adam speaks carefully, not wanting to send Tommy back into his shell where he won’t talk. He wonders if Tommy really isn’t twenty-one. “It’s not their business to interfere with your life now that you’re an adult.”
“They’re kind of strict,” Tommy says, wrapping his hands around the mug of hot tea that Isaac puts in front of him. “Thanks,” he says softly to Isaac, who plops his ass in the fourth chair around the table.
The story spills out slowly, what with Tommy’s intense reluctance, but Adam is persistent, and Sophie puts a light hand on Tommy’s forearm where it lies on the table and leaves it there, comfortingly.
The story is weird and disturbing, utterly unlike Adam’s own experiences growing up. Tommy’s parents run a strange church in the Valley and Tommy never fit in and never wanted to. It’s like he was an alien child born to these strange people who are nothing like him. It’s been a contentious subject forever, and Tommy spent time being home-schooled when he wanted to go to public school. He finally left them five years ago, not letting them know where he went. He’s stayed under the radar since then, never getting a real job, not able to afford a phone or anywhere regular to stay.
In the end, it’s four a.m. and Adam doesn’t even know what to say. His own experiences in school were difficult, given that he was in the closet and had no friends he knew were gay. That was stressful, but when he told his mom at last, instead of freaking out like he had worried might happen, she was totally cool about it. His dad was the same. They had been waiting for him to tell them in his own way. They made it clear that they loved him no matter what; but more than that, they thought it was wonderful that he was gay, that it was a part of him and therefore they thought it was awesome. So long as he was happy, that was truly all that mattered to them. He says a small nonsectarian prayer inside to thank his parents for being so rad.
Tommy, though, that is something else. He can never go back there. Not if Adam has anything to say about it. Now’s not the time, though: Tommy’s exhausted, everyone is tired, and thank fuck Adam doesn’t have to work until six p.m. tomorrow night. Damn musical.
Sophie fluffs a fresh cotton sheet over the long sofa. “This thing is deliciously comfortable to sleep on. When Isaac snores I just sleep out here,” she says.
“For me?” asks Tommy.
Sophie laughs, a cute little girly laugh. “Of course for you, silly. Come here,” and she drags him into her own skinny arms and hugs him fiercely tight. “Although maybe a shower is in order first. Isaac, you and Tommy are both twinky little guys, I’m sure he’ll fit in something of yours.” She doesn’t let go of Tommy, and eventually he puts his arms around her, too, as if unsure.
Adam is totally jealous. He wants to hug Tommy. It’s so obvious that Tommy isn’t used to being hugged and that he deserves to be hugged, and Adam wants to be the one doing the hugging. But Sophie beat him to it. He frowns at her behind Tommy’s back. She just giggles again.
“Get over here, group hug!” she calls. “Isaac!”
From the hallway comes a voice: “What?”
Adam doesn’t need a second invitation and Isaac pops his head back into the living room; in another moment all four of them are hugging each other in a big circle. Adam gets an arm around Tommy and squeezes. Tommy makes a pathetic whimpering sound.
They pull apart. “You okay?” asks Isaac.
Tommy’s arm is tender. Adam coaxes the cheap polyester windbreaker off; sure enough there’s a large bruise on his upper arm.
Adam gets mad all over again. “This is going to stop now!” he announces.
Tommy flinches at the harsh tone.
Sophie shoots a death glare at Adam. “Tommy,” she says, turning to him, “I think maybe we ought to take you to a hospital.”
Tommy shakes his head vigorously. “I’m okay, don’t need that.”
“You got hit on your head, that’s serious.”
“Just a bruise.”
“Did you black out?”
“No.”
Adam looks grumpy. “I say we do the hospital thing.”
“I don’t have insurance,” Tommy counters.
“UCLA takes everyone,” Isaac says.
Tommy shakes his head again.
“Tommy…” Adam says warningly.
Isaac gets between Adam and Tommy. “Hey, big guy, if he didn’t black out, I agree with Tommy, he’s okay. In a day, if it’s worse, we go to UCLA med center, okay?”
Sophie nods. “We all need some sleep right now. Do not scorn the cozy little bed I made on the sofa.” She takes Tommy’s hand and guides him to the sofa. “Let’s worry about the shower after a good rest.” She leaves him there and clicks off the light that’s near the front door.
“What about me?” Adam asks.
“Hold on,” Isaac says, disappearing into the hallway to the bedroom and bathroom and reappearing with a Thermalite pad. It inflates itself nicely and Isaac tosses it on the open floor area in the living room. A moment later, a blanket lands on Adam’s head.
Inflation, Adam learns after tossing and turning on the Thermalite thing in the dark for nearly thirty minutes, is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. “How do they sleep on these things in the woods? It’s bad enough even without having rocks underneath.”
Tommy’s head appears, shadowy and indistinct, over the edge of the sofa. “We can trade,” he offers.
“Nope,” Adam grouses. “If Sophie prances in here in the morning and sees that, do you know how far up my ass her foot would go?”
“You bet it would!” Sophie hollers from the open bedroom door.
“Oh fuck, everyone’s still awake,” Adam moans.
“You woke us up, bitch,” Isaac calls good-naturedly.
Adam groans and rolls over and yanks at the thin blanket. “For fuck’s sake, I hope they don’t start having sex or something.”
“Just for that, we’re gonna,” Isaac says. “Ooooh, baby, do that again!” Sounds of evil cackling waft from the bedroom.
But they don’t, thankfully, and Adam wakes up not all that long after, with the birds and the first rays of sunlight, grumbling as quietly as he can, getting up on all fours to twist and stretch his back. He catches sight of Tommy sleeping on the sofa, the sheets and blanket pulled up to his chin. He looks like a cherub. Adam flops down on his ass and leans against the side of the sofa, one arm propped near to Tommy’s tousled head, and stares.
“What is it about you?” he whispers, mostly to himself.
As much as Adam finds Tommy attractive, beautiful even, he’s more struck by how fragile Tommy seems right now. The bruise is turning yellowish. At least it’s not a black eye. Bruise or not, he’s adorable, snuffling a little in his sleep, scratching his nose. His fingernails bear the remnants of black polish, almost entirely picked and chipped off. His hair looks dry and unwashed, as though he’s been using bleach to get it blond, and maybe Koolaid to turn it pink.
Adam hears rustling, a door closing, a toilet flushing, running water, and then Sophie tiptoes in with a small stack of clothing. “I’m going to get those filthy clothes off him,” she whispers to Adam, “and chuck him in the shower. Can you go out and get breakfast? Isaac won’t wake up for at least an hour.”
She sends Adam off with directions to a great takeout breakfast place. By the time he returns, juggling several bags filled with scrambled eggs and hash browns and bowls of fruit and a carry-tray of coffee cups, Sophie’s got the teapot steaming on the stove, and Tommy’s all freshly damp and tousled, wearing Isaac’s plain white t-shirt and skinny jeans.
They dig in at the kitchen table, Tommy curling his bare toes against the clean linoleum.
Isaac pads in, still in sleepwear, scratching at his stubble. “So how’s our new guitarist?” he asks with a gigantic grin, drawing up a chair and reaching for the piles of food.
Tommy looks up, surprised, a forkful of hash browns halfway to his mouth. “Huh?” he says.
“We didn’t have time to tell you last night,” Adam says. “Guess who quit our band?” He looks and feels ridiculously thrilled to be saying it.
“Um…” Tommy mumbles. There’s a ghost of a question mark there, and maybe a touch of hope.
“The guitar player,” Adam announces happily.
“What Adam’s trying to say,” Isaac throws in, “is the job’s yours if you want it.”
Tommy puts the fork down. “I, um, I can’t.”
“Can’t?” Adam doesn’t understand.
“I don’t have a guitar,” Tommy explains. “They kept it.”
Adam’s incensed. That’s what is so wrong - when he got Tommy at the curbside, that was the first time he’d seen Tommy without the guitar. “Let’s go get it,” he says firmly, hauling out his phone and thumbing around to find the number Tommy called from.
“No,” Tommy says quietly.
“Yes,” Adam insists. He holds up the phone. “This is the number, right? Your parents’ number? Wanna bet how long it’s going to take me to figure out the exact address that goes with it?”
“Please don’t.”
Too late, Adam’s on Google and he already found it. “This is it, right?” He shows an actual photo of the house from Trulia. “Your last name is Ratliff?”
Tommy cringes.
“I’m mad, Tommy,” Adam says. “Mad. No, not at you, at them.”
“But I don’t think I can deal with it right now.”
“Why are you defending these people who did that to you?”
“It’s more complicated, I didn’t tell you everything, and right now I can’t deal with it, I just can’t.”
“Don’t roll over like that, you have to stick up for yourself!”
Sophie shoves her chair back and grabs the phone from Adam’s hand, setting it firmly on the kitchen counter. “This is not about you, Adam.”
Adam is ashamed; Sophie is right. Sophie is always right. Adam wonders how Isaac can bear living with someone who’s always right. It would drive him insane.
Isaac doesn’t appear to understand his bad luck. He grins and waves his fork in the air. “My bud Evan has a buttload of decent guitars he doesn’t use all the time. I bet he’ll loan you one for now.” He points the fork at Tommy. “Cool?”
Tommy nods uncertainly.
“Cool,” Isaac says. “Hey, you’re not wearing my shorts, are you?”
Tommy blushes.
Sophie lays a hand on Isaac’s forearm. “Darling? Remember the Hello Kitty undies that your lovely brother gave you for Christmas? The package you never opened?”
Isaac barks out a laugh. “Excellent. They’re yours now,” he chortles to Tommy.
“Don’t you guys have an audition to go to this afternoon?” Sophie asks slyly.
Adam exchanges looks with Isaac. “Oh shit.”
* * *
Brian isn’t happy to have to make all those calls to cancel the audition but he’s pleased to hear about Tommy. In lieu of the audition, they all decide via furious texting to gather at the practice spot and get down to work teaching Tommy the songs.
First things first, though. Before Sophie runs off to her job (selling clothing in a hipster store), she checks Tommy’s cheek. The bruise is already receding. “This looks just fine,” she says, giving him a quick hug and handing over his cleaned and hung-dry jacket. “Keep an eye on the bruises, Adam. Other than that, he should be good to go.”
The front door closes behind her. Isaac is in the bathroom, singing off-key while brushing his teeth. Adam puts the last teacup in the drain basket, dries off his hands on the kitchen towel, and joins Tommy in the living room area. He decides that clean is a great look on Tommy.
They stand there awkwardly. After all the drama and emotion, the excitement and anger, Adam feels a bit deflated. He got Tommy back, but now what?
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” Tommy says, standing stiffly, arms at his sides, hands twitching a little.
“Thanks for calling.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“I’m so happy you’re okay. I was worried.” Adam bites his lip. Tommy doesn’t want to meet his eyes, it seems. “Can I hug you?” Adam asks.
Tommy jerks his head in what seems like a yes direction. But he makes no move. Adam takes a few steps forward and pulls Tommy right into his arms, flush against him, and squeezes hard. Tommy doesn’t engage but he doesn’t resist, either; Adam buries his nose in Tommy’s tousled-damp hair that smells of shampoo. After a few moments, Tommy’s stick arms go around Adam’s waist and he hugs back fiercely. He’s stronger than Adam might have guessed. It takes another few moments, while Adam thinks he might start to have trouble drawing breath, until Tommy relaxes marginally, and then it gets comfortable and comforting. Tommy’s face is pressed to Adam’s chest and his breath is softly moist through Adam’s shirt. Adam thinks maybe Tommy is starved for touch, that he hasn’t had enough of it in his young life. If that’s the case, Adam intends to fill the hunger until Tommy is sated.
With impeccable timing, Isaac bursts into the living room right then, hollering, “Oh my virgin eyes! Stop with the bromance, let’s go score a geeee-tar!”
On to Chapter 3