Andante con Brio

LXXXIV

"Hey." 
Brett was waiting for him in the entrance hall to the con as he rushed in half an hour later than he should have, his violin heavy on his back and his bottom eyelids pretty much touching his cheeks. He looked him up and down with clear concern. "How much sleep did you get?"
Eddy grinned wryly. 
"Not as much as I should have. Did you manage to score a key?"
He was feeling bad enough about making Brett wait for him in the entrance hall and losing valuable practice time. No way he wanted to be responsible for him being late to the second orchestra rehearsal of the year as well. 
Brett looked like he wanted to say something else, but he didn't. He just nodded and held up a practice room key with a triumphant glint in his eye.
"Awesome."
They walked up the stairs together without saying a word and it wasn't until Eddy closed the door behind him that Brett put his case down and opened his mouth with some resolve. 
"Right. So, do you remember when we went to Perth, and that one concertmaster girl liked you?" 
Eddy blinked in shock. Wait, that's true, there had been that girl. What was her name again? He tried to picture her face but couldn't really remember it. 
"Er... I think so, why?"
Brett looked down at his black sneakers for a long moment, his left hand still resting on the violin case he had just put on the table. Then he looked up with his eyes big and sober. 
"Anna. Her name was Anna. She said she might come here, I guess that would be next year, because she was a year younger than you. She was slight and had large eyes. Her hair was brown and a little wavy. She was good. Concertmaster, even though she was still so young."
Eddy couldn't hide his surprise at this waterfall of words. Why was Brett saying all this?
"Wha... how do you even remember all this?"
Brett grinned once, a dry and fatalistic sound. 
"Because she liked you. Because she made a move on you, and you were brave and told her I was yours. Because I was so jealous my blood boiled and it felt like it was going to spray out of the top of my head. And you didn't even notice that she liked you at all, not until I told you. I was jealous anyway. And I never told you."
Eddy's mouth opened and closed a few times, like he was some sort of deranged goldfish out of its tank as he stared at his boyfriend, desperately searching for something to say. 
"You're telling me now." 
He didn't put the question mark at the end, but he knew Brett heard it anyway because he nodded. 
"Yeah. Because I thought you should know, after last night. And... I don't know, Eddy I just... I just don't know if I handled it well enough."
His eyes were firmly fixed on his sneakers again, but this time Eddy knew exactly what to say and he reacted at speed, grabbing Brett's shoulder and pulling him into the corner of the practice room where anyone lurking around in the hallway wouldn't be able to see them. There was no question in his mind that Brett had been obsessing about this, silently, inwardly, the way he did most things. He had to make him stop. 
"Brett, if anything you handled it better than I did, because you managed to do so without outing us in the process. I'm sorry I didn't see how you felt, when we were in Perth."
Brett looked up at him with that sober look that pierced right down to Eddy's very soul and shrugged. 
"I'm good at not showing it."
Eddy sighed. 
"I know."
He pulled Brett to his chest for a quick moment and kissed him gently on the hair. 
"Please don't worry about it. You did nothing wrong. Okay?"
He put his index finger under Brett's chin and tipped it up gently so he could look into his beautiful dark eyes. He glanced quickly to the door to check there was no one there before he bent forward to let their lips touch once, just a tiny peck, just a small second. 
"Okay."