Snippet #1834987

As Izzie glared back at Johnny, the guitarist from Chicago Loop, along with the rest of his band, had come up on the stage, and in the advent of her little outburst, he actually backed her up--much to Izzie's own small level of surprise, in all honesty. "Now, what in fuck's sake made you say that? Are you bleeding daft in the head? You don't say that to someone who can kick your ass half way to next Tuesday." Izzie couldn't help but glance, a bit confused, at the Chicago Loop guitarist. He took my side? That's...unexpected. She hadn't thought Xander had really liked her...but then again, it was a fact known to nobody, not even her, in all truth, that Izzie felt that way about more or less everybody. Even her own bandmates, she was sometimes afraid, disliked her, maybe even hated her.

But that was a prospect completely aside from the current moment. Xander held out a lit cigarette to her, which she took, nodding her head silently in grateful thanks before she took a drag of the cigarette. Yeah...I definitely needed that...

But in the advent of her outburst and Xander's entrance, Johnny looked at her with a strange expression in his eyes--she'd expected him to fire back with something angry, argue his point at her...something conflictive like that. But the expression in his eyes was less antagonistic and more...hurt? Huh?

"Come here," he said, his voice far gentler than it had been previously. Raising an eyebrow, a bit confused, Izzie nevertheless cautiously followed him as Johnny walked over to a distant corner of the stage, keeping her silence as they walked. Lenchi glanced back after them a bit curiously....before he promptly realised that turning his neck to look at them was getting to be a bother, and he lost interest.

"I'm sorry I just acted like a jerk," he smiled at her. "But my dad...I'm like him. And since you're the leader, I give you the chance to kick me out."

Izzie furrowed her brow, staring at him as though he'd just grown an extra head out his ass or something. "Kick you out?" she grunted, trying to ward off any impression of vulnerability in the brief moment of surprise. "You're our singer. Can't do shit without a singer. So you just try to step off this stage." Couldn't be a bit nicer about it, could I? she chastised herself--no, she couldn't. It was beyond Izzie to say something like "Nah, it's okay, we're all good. Let's go back and play that show". But hell...these days she just depended on her bandmates to know when she was being genuinely being abrasive and pissed and when she was just....being herself.

But Johnny merely smiled again. "I think I just want the band to be perfect you know. To show our moms and dads we chose the right thing."

Izzie was about to shrug and say "Whatever, let's just go play" when he leaned towards her. Instincts, built up and reinforced by years of living on edge and alert, kicked into action, but when he leaned forward and kissed her, right on the cheek, she was frozen in shock. I...he..he just...what?! He'd kissed her. That meant something, right? That had to mean something. It meant...No, no, can't be that. She was overthinking it, plain and simple. There was...there had to be a simple, obvious reason that she was just completely missing. Johnny couldn't possibly feel that way about her. Just couldn't. She couldn't imagine anyone who possibly could have. But he did, he just... Izzie couldn't bring herself to think it straight up to herself. No, there had to be a simpler way about it than that. Because otherwise, Izzie had no idea how she was supposed to feel about that...

For his part, Lenchi, having decided finally it was worth the effort to move his head and take a look around, was utterly taken aback. "Did you just....did they..." he stumbled over his words, turning to Juniper to figure out if he'd finally gone mad. "Am I hallucinating or did I just see Johnny plant one on Izzie's cheek?"