The following morning, Eddy was on his way to work when he received a phone call from his boss.
"Keith"
"Good morning Eddy, I know you're heading towards a low rise building job this morning but are you available for another high rise building job this afternoon?"
"Um.. yeah, sure."
Eddy bit his lip. He was hoping for sure this time he could ask Brett out for a coffee in the afternoon. But he had established a reputation at work to be reliable and wanted to maintain such an impression with his boss who had been so good to him.
"Great. It's actually the same building, they now want to take a photo of the sunrise tomorrow morning, so it's the east side, just the top 5 level windows.
Brett's building....
A smile escaped Eddy's lips.
"Got it."
Yesterday after his shift, Eddy had managed to exchange a couple more text messages with Brett in the evening;
Eddy> I play the violin, too
Cool <Brett
Then he received a phone call from his mother asking him to come over to help him around the house so he quickly texted Brett;
Eddy> Sorry, gotta go help family with stuff, catch you later.
K, no worries, I've got stuff on tonight myself. Later. <Brett
And so his text trail had stopped dead in its tracks. Eddy hoped he could revive it today.
He decided to text Brett during his late lunch break.
Eddy> Hi Brett, I'm cleaning the east side of your building sometime this arvo.
Almost immediately he received a response.
Great. I'll keep an eye out for ya. <Brett
Eddy was geared up and on a scaffold again. He played "chase the squidgy" with his now favourite cat with the kidney bean shaped patch on its head, then waved to some toddlers who must have woken up from their nap time. It was time to lower the scaffold to the level of Brett's penthouse. Eddy removed his sunglasses and mask. He took a deep breath, then lowered the scaffold. Brett was waiting for him, standing right by his window.
Eddy had been wondering whether Brett was a professional musician. It intrigued him that he was at home at this hour of the day for the last 3 days and lived in a penthouse. But he wanted to speak to him directly to ask such questions rather than finding out by texting him. Eddy felt texting was so impersonal. To prove it, he couldn't help the warm and fuzzy feeling he got just by the sight of him. Eddy then came to realise that he had not even heard Brett's voice yet and his imagination went wild. Perhaps he had a high-pitched chipmunk voice that matched his body frame.
That would actually be kinda cute...
The emotional attraction they'd been building up through the double panel windows must have become quite strong.
Eddy was surprised and delighted to see Brett waiting for him with his hand on the window.
Eddy immediately placed his gloved hand on the other side of the window. For a violinist, Eddy thought, Brett had very dainty and delicate looking hands. They probably weren't by normal standards, but Eddy was already smitten and his larger than average size hands in gloves made Brett's hands look comparatively smaller, he thought they looked beautiful.
Eddy had lowered the scaffold so that it was positioned slightly below Brett's apartment's floor level so that they ended up at eye level of each other. Eddy couldn't help himself. He smiled, then moved his face closer to Brett's. Brett's face broke out into a smile too as he moved in his face closer too. Eddy tilted his head to the left and Brett also followed by tilting his to his left. Eddy went in closer as he started to close his eyes. He saw Brett doing the same thing on the other side of the glass.
OMG
It was as if Eddy was in some kind of a trance as he slowly kept moving his face closer and closer to the glass, his heartbeat racing in contrast to the speed of him moving in. Then Eddy's forehead lightly tapped his forehead to the window panel. Eddy snap opened his eyes. He saw Brett give out an affectionate laugh, even though Eddy couldn't hear it. He then saw Brett smirk and the next moment Eddy saw Brett playfully press his lips onto the window. The sight of Brett's lips squished against the window made Eddy burst out laughing.
On the other side of the window, it was as if Brett was watching a slow motion movie, Eddy looked flustered and in slight shock when his head had tapped the window, he looked so cute, then when Brett decided to make him laugh by purposefully squeezing his lips onto the window panel, he got the response he was after. Brett saw Eddy burst out laughing, even though he could not hear anything, as he stood up straight and leaned back away from the window.
Unfortunately, Eddy had leaned back a touch too far and their eyes met as both Eddy and Brett's eyes widened in absolute horror as Eddy's upper body moved further and further away and sunk lower and lower, until Brett saw Eddy's legs lift off the scaffold and the next moment his whole body disappeared from the scaffold...!! The last glimpse of Eddy's face Brett saw appeared as if he was screaming, but the soundproof glass windows made it look like a silent film, not even a soft whisper of Eddy's voice could be heard.
Brett was absolutely mortified. There was no doubt he was who had caused Eddy to fall out of the scaffold. He had no idea where Eddy had disappeared to. Had he fallen to the ground !?!? But he could have sworn he didn't see him fall. Everything happened in silence, it was so eerie and confusing. Brett panicked. He didn't know what he should do. Should he call an ambulance? The window cleaning company ??
The next moment, he saw one, then another gloved hand on the rim of the scaffold, then saw Eddy push his upper body up and over, slowly climbing back into the scaffold. He sat on the floor of the scaffold, panting as Brett stared at him, so relieved, but still concerned whether he was okay. Brett wasn't terrified of heights, after all, he did actually live in a high-rise penthouse, but he could not imagine doing Eddy's job on the other side of the window. Finally, Eddy raised his gaze up to Brett. He was a bit pale but managed to give him a smile.
Brett mouthed "I'm sorry" about 100 times.
Eddy nodded to each one with a smile, then after he got his breath back, he waved to Brett as he went back to work. Brett must have stood by as when Eddy finished cleaning Brett's window and looked inside, Brett was by the window again. He mouthed.
"Are you okay?"
To which Eddy gave a shy smile and a nod.
He then waved as he lowered the scaffold.
Once Eddy was out of sight, Brett held his head with both hands and groaned.