Boy/Boy Problems

The Piano

There was a piano in the middle of Luke's living room and it was taunting Teddy. He couldn't figure out why it was there, it was so out of place amongst all Luke's possessions. Teddy had only been to Luke's house once before, after he first moved in, and he'd left as quickly as he could but he thought he would have remembered a piano. He definitely would have remembered a piano.

The first time Teddy and Luke fought it was about a piano. Teddy remembered every second of it because it had been excruciating after months of uninterrupted bless as housemates. He also remembered it because he was the one that caused it.

Teddy did most of his writing on his guitar. He loved his guitar, it was his go to safety net for any situation. He used it as a shield on stage, and a weapon when he wrote. But Teddy was also an accomplished piano player, his mother had made him take lessons for as long as he could remember for no other reason than it was the done thing. Lily had dropped it as soon as she could, she used high school homework as an excuse. Teddy would have given up too if his piano teacher hadn't been the most beautiful man he'd ever seen, until he met Luke of course.

When Teddy moved out of his parents house and into the apartment he shared with Luke he had asked his mother if he could take the piano. He was the only one in the house that actually played it after all. But his mother had insisted it wasn't possible, she didn't have anything else to fill the space in the room. Teddy had accept her answer because it wasn't worth fighting and he figure he could use his guitar until he had enough money to buy a piano for himself. He never mentioned this plan to Luke though.

Teddy was surprised by how much he missed the piano. He loved writing on his guitar but there was something special about sitting and tinkering with the keys. So the moment he got his hands on a significant chunk of change the first thing he did was buy one. He was so happy about, sitting at home waiting desperately for the delivery to arrive, like a kid on Christmas morning waiting for family members to wake up. Unfortunately he had not informed Luke that he was going to be placing a chunky musical instrument in their moderately sized shared space.

"What the fuck Teddy?" Luke had yelled when he got home from a long day of shooting to discover Teddy had moved the TV to accommodate for his piano. The TV was still there, it just wasn't in the prime position it had been in before.

Teddy had not read Luke's mood at all well that evening. He'd been too excited about his purchase and the song he'd written on it that afternoon - a song that would go onto become a fan favourite and one of Luke's favourites too. Teddy had bounded into the living room from his bedroom, talking about how awesome it was.

"You can't just put a piano in the fucking living room Teddy," Luke had said, with a sigh that suggested the gap in their ages was larger in that moment than it had ever been before.

"Why not?" Teddy had asked, confused but catching on that Luke was not as pleased as he was.

"You moved the fucking TV?" said Luke.

"Only a little bit," replied Teddy.

"That's not the point," said Luke in exasperation.

"We can move it around a bit, this was just the best configuration I could figure at the time."

"Still not the point Teddy," said Luke.

"Then what is the fucking point?" said Teddy mad at Luke for ruining the high he'd been riding all day long and angry at himself for not being able to figure out why Luke was so mad at him about a piano.

"This is a shared space Teddy," said Luke gesturing dramatically around the room. The way that he kept repeating Teddy's name was worse than anything else. "You can't just take a third of the room for your shit without even asking."