"Hello Eddy... oh! Have you had some good news, by any chance?"
Eddy almost rolled his eyes when he saw Sasha's face. It was instantly obvious that Sasha knew all about this, from the blatant half smirk, the raised eyebrows, right down to the glint in his kind eyes. He shook his head and put his violin case down.
"Something tells me you already know about my news, Sasha."
Now Sasha laughed out loud.
"Yes, actually I do know. Theo discussed it with me before he asked you, of course. I take it you said yes?"
Now, Eddy would have loved to have said something sarcastic. Like: is grass green? Is the pope a Catholic? But he was a good Asian boy, of course, so he just nodded politely.
"Of course. I'm super happy for the opportunity."
"Well, I guess you earned it. Let's start with a D major scale, please."
I guess you earned it. I guess you earned it.
It was five very simple words, but they rang around his head like they had been screamed at him. Was it because of that that he played so well, the whole lesson long? He wasn't sure, but when he saw Sasha's pleased smile at the end of the hour he felt positively high. On life.
And Brett didn't even know any of this yet!
"See you on Friday, Eddy. Nice work."
Nice work.
"Thanks very much, Sasha. See you then!"
The next student, a small Asian girl he barely knew, had just walked in. He smiled way too widely at her, and almost ran out of the room.
Nice work. Sasha said nice work.
Oh my God. He skipped down the flights stairs as if he had feathers in his shoes, and all but ran to the cafeteria. Brett would be there, and maybe some of the rest as well. He didn't care who, as long as Brett was one of them.
He was in such a hurry in fact, that he managed to almost run into his boyfriend as he legged it into the cafeteria and to their usual table.
"Whoa, where's the fire?"
"I'm first."
There was no space for pre-amble.
"I'm first, Brett. Theo just asked me before my lesson. Someone transferred out. I've been made first."
He saw Brett's face changing as he understood what Eddy was saying.
"Whoa, first violin, really?"
Eddy nodded. "Yeah. And Sasha... Sasha said nice work."
"Eddy! That's so awesome!"
Jumping up and down in the cafeteria was probably frowned upon, right? So Eddy settled for grabbing the table hard and grinning widely at his love.
"What's awesome?"
Todd had turned up by the table and was eyeing them both curiously.
"Nothing much, Todd." Brett said with a smirk. "Just that Eddy here is now in the first violin section."
Todd's eyebrows raising to the ceiling made everything even better. Then he grabbed Eddy's hand and pumped it up and down vociferously.
"First, in your first year. Wow, Eddy. Brett's right, that's awesome."
Eddy looked down at his sneakers demurely. Look. He was not going to let this get to his head. He still had to prove himself, right? He might just as well bomb out in an hour, during rehearsal. And he would be reading, too.
Well. Not that he wouldn't have been reading the second violin part, but this would be a much harder part.
"Yeah, yeah." he said. "Let's just hope I don't fuck it up, yeah? Theo already made a joke about me being able to read stuff."
Todd threw his head back and laughed one of his great belly laughs.
"I love Theo. He's the funniest guy here, and he's clearly got you pegged. Ian! Guess what! Eddy's first now."
"Really?"
They all sat down at the table, and before long the topic changed back to safer topics, safer than Eddy's real or perceived achievements. But he couldn't help the glow in his cheeks, and he couldn't wait until rehearsal would start.
God, he wished he could just read through the music beforehand. He was definitely going to practise his scores now!