Andante con Brio

LXXXVII

Second year theory really wasn't a bad place to be. Even though he didn't know anyone but Brett yet he wasn't even feeling that shy, because he had Brett by his side and it was awesome. Being next to your boyfriend like that when no one in the room knew you had just kissed him so tenderly in the basement bathroom? Well, it was a new kind of thrill, a thrill that was making his cheeks colour. He looked out of the window at the courtyard to try and get them back to their normal complexion.
Theo was at the whiteboard in front of the little group of students that were sitting around a large table, leaning back in their chairs, relaxed because they had been here before, their legs folded calmly under the table. The whiteboard had pre-printed staves on it and Theo was waving around a blue marker with his right hand like it was his baton of choice for the hour.
"Eddy, can you please give me the inversions for a Dominant seventh chord starting on B flat?"
It only took him a second to get his mind back from the bathroom to the current moment. He sat up. 
"B flat, D, F, A flat. Then D, F, A flat, B flat. F, A flat, B flat, D and A flat, B flat, D, F."
"Okay. Can you sing it for me?"
Before Theo had a chance to take the step over to the piano in the corner to give him the B flat Eddy was already humming the first chord, and the way Theo's eyebrows raised just ever so slightly now made him glow a bit inside. 
Oh yeah. Score! 
Then Theo grinned softly. 
"Right. Well, I personally think having perfect pitch is cheating a little bit, but good job, Eddy."
"I agree with you, Theo." Brett suddenly smirked, and everyone around the table laughed.  
Eddy grinned along. He didn't mind the little ribbing. There was no malice in anyone's laughter here. 
"Okay. I'm going to give you guys a melodic dictation."

It was too easy to let his mind wander as Theo sat at the piano and played the first bars. He wrote them down quickly and looked back out of the window. Yeah, Theo was right. Maybe it was cheating to have perfect pitch, but he couldn't help that all of this shit was piss easy for him. To be honest, he wished he could skip this class altogether and just go practise. Wouldn't that be a much better use of his time? 
His mind started mulling of its own accord. Brett, just now in the basement bathroom, all worried. What Brett had told him about Anna. God, he hadn't even really remembered her after the couple of messages they had exchanged post-Perth. And yet Brett still knew everything, had suffered with jealousy that he had never shown. Shouldn't he have seen that? Shouldn't he have been able to help Brett with that? He had been so oblivious! 
He wrote down the next couple of bars as Theo played them and went back to staring out of the window. 
Look, he would have to do his best not to let that happen again. From now on he would be a lot more on the ball with things Brett wasn't showing. He didn't ever want Brett to feel bad. Brett, who he loved so much, who was still writing hard next to him, scrubbing out a note here and there with the eraser from his pencil case. Eddy could see a couple of mistakes in what he had written, but there wasn't very much he could do to help, right here in the open. 

"Okay gang, that was that." Theo was gathering all the pieces of paper and smiled at them in his pleasant way. "Please, for next week, choose a piece of your own instrument and start analising it. Put all the chords in with their inversions and look at the melodic structure."
Some of the students made a little groaning sound, no doubt because of the extra work it would be on top of everything else. But Eddy just shrugged. 
Sure, Theo. Whatever you want. It may be boring but it still sure beats having to do French homework. 
He got up from his chair, smiled back at Theo and walked out with Brett on his heel.