The Test of Time

Eleven

          Eddy looked up at Brett as he slowly got to his feet. Though he was taller, in that moment, Brett made him feel small. The feeling jumped back into his stomach, which twisted violently. 

          Brett opened his arms as Eddy watched, "Give me a hug," he ordered. He knew that a hug is what they both needed, and that with Eddy in this mood, he'd have to demand one to get Eddy to oblige.

          Astounded, Eddy almost obeyed, but then remembered his anger. "No," he stated, taking a step back, but was cut off by Brett's foot stepping on his own. 

         "Eddy," Brett said in a warning tone, and Eddy gave in. He wrapped his arms around Brett's torso, and Brett followed suit. Eddy was upset about the fact that the hug was very nice, and almost all of his anger seemed to melt away. Brett felt this, and smiled. 

          They stood there, the silent forgiveness flowing through the both of them, for a long while. "The food's gonna get cold," Eddy commented, and they broke apart. 

         "Feel better?" Brett asked, as they sat down, his tone now almost back to normal, none of that commanding stuff, to Eddy's relief. Though, if he was being honest, he liked the way his stomach twisted when Brett bossed him around. No, we are not going to think about that, Eddy! Stop it!

           "Yeah, much. I'm sorry for being rude on the phone this morning," Eddy apologized, meaning it. 

            "It's okay, man," Brett replied, accepting the apology, "Why didn't you talk to me last night though? And why were you mad at me?"

           "Well...the last night thing was because I didn't charge my phone-" Eddy started, but was cut off by Brett's sudden exclamation.

           "You what?! Eddy, you dumbass!" 

            Eddy cracked a smile, tried to suppress it, but failed. He burst out laughing. Never had laughing felt so good, all the bad thoughts leaving him. All the jealousy, all the pain, all the weirdness, gone. All that remained were those stupid butterflies. Brett started laughing too. They laughed together, eating their food, and for a moment, all was right in the world. 

           Perhaps Brett will forget about asking me why I was mad at him, Eddy thought. 

           "So, what did you want to talk about last night that was really important, but wasn't important enough to require my immediate attention at dinner?" Brett asked.

           Eddy was very happy that he had been right about Brett forgetting, and immediately launched into the story. "You're right, I am a dumbass for forgetting to charge my phone, but I had a good reason!" He tried to defend himself.  

          He could tell Brett wasn't believing that, based on his smirk. Eddy rolled his eyes and continued, "Well, you know yesterday we both mentioned that we'd really like to tour again? I may have found us a jump-start."

         "What?" Brett cut in, "Are you serious?"

         "Yep! I was checking our business emails, and came across one from a Maestro in Spain. García, I think his name was. Anyway, he wanted us to come and preform with his orchestra. He included hotel tickets, and sightseeing in three cities!" Eddy was so excited, and he could tell Brett was too.

        "You're joking, right, Eddy?" Brett asked, clearly in disbelief.

        "No! I'm not joking! Here, let me pull up the email." Eddy took out his phone and saw that he had a couple texts from Mallory. He quickly clicked passed them, hoping Brett wouldn't see. 

        "Was that Mal?" Brett questioned, "What did she want?" 

         Eddy groaned internally, "I'm not sure. I'll check it when I get home. If it's something important, she would have called, and I would have heard it. The texts came through only a few minutes ago anyway."

         "Gimme your phone, I wanna see what she said!" Brett whined.

         "Absolutely not!" Eddy said, fearful. He tried to mask it with fake anger. "You may not see my phone!"

         "So you do know what she was talking about, you just don't want me to see!" Brett concluded, a wicked smile on his face. Eddy tried to protest, but deep down he knew that Brett had it right. "I'm going to call her if you won't tell me," Brett challenged.

       "No, you won't, we need to talk about the orchestra," Eddy said, trying his best to change the subject by shoving the email in Brett's face.

        Brett allowed the subject to be changed, mostly because he was very interested in the contents of the email. As he read, his jaw dropped. Eddy had been right, about everything! All expenses paid, flight tickets too! This would be a great jumpstart to their tour. He froze when he saw the dates, though. "Next month?" He asked, shocked.

        "Yeah, that's the kicker," Eddy confirmed, "They want us there the end of next month."

        "Do you think we'd be able to get a whole tour planned in that time?" Brett asked, unsure.

        "We'll figure something out," Eddy replied, "We always do."

         Eddy was right, Brett thought, they always did figure stuff out. "Well, if we're going to do this, we're going to have to do it soon." 

         "Yeah," Eddy agreed, "We might should go ahead and send some emails later today, if you're sure you want to do it." 

         "Sure I want to do it? Of course I want to do it, are you crazy?" Brett announced, laughing. He was very excited to get to tour the world again. He already had a list of countries forming in his mind, a list he was sure to go over with Eddy soon. 

         "Would you want to do that and film later today?" Eddy asked, "Unless you've got other stuff to do. You did mention having something to do instead of this on the phone this morning."

          Brett was caught. "Oh, that...I was just going to call Misako this morning. I got her phone number last night, and as I said, she's super hot. I was hoping if we talked today that I could snag a date."