Love On The 50

Lunch Break and After

[Jaden's POV] Throughout most of the beginning of rehearsal, before we got a break, I caught Ash glancing at the trombone section every now and then. When we got a break for lunch at about noon, I had already made friends with some of the people in other sections. I'm honestly probably the most social person in our group. One of my new friends who were actually from the trombone section asked if I and anyone else I knew wanted to sit with their section at lunch. I thought 'sure, why not'. I walked up to Hunter and Ash and asked them if they wanted to sit with them.

"I don't see why not," Hunter said. "The two of us barely know anyone yet so sure, why not."

"Alright," Ash said. "I don't mind." The three of us walked over to where some of the people I knew were sitting. We sat down and I started talking to some of them. A few minutes passed and I noticed that both Hunter and Ash were being strangely quiet. And apparently, I wasn't the only one who noticed. 

"You two okay over there," David, one of the people in the trombone section, asked. "You've been quiet for quite some time."

"We're not super social people," Ash said, looking at Hunter, probably to avoid having to make eye contact. "At least, I'm not." She looked down and I swore I saw a bit of a blush on her cheeks, but I figured I was seeing things and thought nothing of it.

"Well," Ryanna said, looking at me. "Why don't you introduce us Jaden, so it's less awkward." Ryanna was the only female trombone player. 

"Alright," I said. "Sure, why not. Guys, these are Hunter and Ash. Hunter, Ash, these are David, Ryanna, Jared, and Kaleb. Does that make it easier?" I raised my eyebrow at the two of them. 

Ash giggled. "Yeah, a bit," she said. "That makes it a bit less awkward." She looked up and looked at me and rolled her eyes. 

"Would you like me to make it more awkward?" I asked raising my eyebrow. Ash's eyes immediately got wider, she knew what I was talking about and I hadn't even talked to her about it yet.

"No," she said looking at me. "I think it's fine how it is." She gave me a look that said 'if you don't shut your trap I will personally shove my entire instrument down your throat' which I figured was something that she could easily do. 

"I'm confused," Dave said looking between Ash and I. He then looked at Ash. "You play clarinet, right?"

Ash finally took her eyes off of me and looked at Dave. "Yeah," she said. "I'm not very good at it though, I'm 3rd clarinet." She shrugged as if it was no big deal. "I don't really care though, I'll take what I can play." Dave nodded, even though he was 1st trombone. 

"I have a question for anyone willing to represent the trombone section," Hunter said, suddenly. "How the fuck do you guys memorize the positions for your instruments?"

"It's mostly muscle memory," Ryanna said. "Once you've been playing for a while, it gets a lot easier. It's actually a lot like memorizing your fingerings for your instrument, except with us we use our entire arm."

"That makes sense," Hunter said. "I feel like my arms would get tired really quickly."

"From what?!" Ash exclaimed, laughing. "You play mellophone so it sure as hell wouldn't be how heavy the damn thing is." We all started laughing, Ash was actually starting to act like herself. 

I looked at Dave, Ryanna, Kaleb, and Jared. "This is what she's usually like, just multiply the weirdness factor by like 5." We started laughing harder. Suddenly, we got called back to practice for the last 2 hours. I sighed, less than a day in and I already knew that the season was going to be... interesting. Although, we were back as an ensemble for the last part, we were outside. Great...