The Chairs Between Us

Performance

Liam and I were standing off in the wings as we watched Ella go on stage. Her purple hair was shining in the light and her long black dress flowed she walked. 

I was surprised at how good she played. She could probably beat our first chair.

About 10 minutes later she ended her piece and took a bow. The audience was cheering while the judges looked absolutely emotionless. 

Well this just makes me more nervous. 

Ella bounced back into the wings and pulled us into a bone breaking hug again, "It's going to be so much fun hearing you guys play!" 

Liam laughed but pushed away from her, "Um... I can't breathe Ella."

She immediately released us, "Oh sorry... I will break someone in half one day." 

The announcer walked onto the stage and spoke into the microphone, "Next we welcome to the stage Liam and Dominic from Clearwater High School. They will be performing Passacaglia composed by Handel for two violas. Enjoy."

My nerves hit me like a truck on the freeway. My hands started to shake and my whole body froze up. Liam looked at me and grabbed my face in his hands, "Look at me. Don't panic, we will do fine. Okay?"

I nodded, taking a deep breath. He just shook his head, "That's not good enough... I am going to be out there with you. We are going to show them the best viola performance they will ever hear. Okay?"

I laughed and smiled, "Okay."

He gave me a quick kiss before grabbing my hand, "Let's do this."

We both walked out onto the stage with the audience cheering. I heard a few boos over and maybe even a few hateful words.

Seriously people. It's 2019 and it's a freaking music competition. I am pretty sure 60% of us are gay.

I began to hear people yelling back at then to shut up. Liam smirked and squeezed my hand while I smirked too.

I looked up at all the rows of seats and balacanys in awe.

You definitely don't play on a stage like this everyday.

Liam and I took a bow together then lifted our instruments as the audience died down.

We started the piece and surprisingly we were doing good so far. I watched Liam the whole time with him smiling at me and me smiling back. We were having fun on stage. It was almost like the audience and the judges were gone and it was just the two of us playing in the meadow back home.

The piece was over in what felt like only a few seconds. The last note rang through the whole building until the audience launched out of their seats in a standing ovation. We both lifted our violas off our shoulders and bowed whole the audience cheered. Liam had the biggest smile I have ever seen on him but something in his eyes told me he was thinking about something. I stood closer to him and whispered, "What are you planning?"

He just chuckled, "Oh, I was just planning on being gay."

I lifted an eyebrow, "Oh?"

Within a second, he pulled me into him and was kissing me.

We both pulled away and saw some of the judges with their mouths wide open while two of them were smiling and started to cheer too.

We took a final bow and grabbed each others hands, walking back into the wings.

This time it wasn't just Ella that pulled us into a bone breaking hug but it was Sorina and Mr. Bennet too. Mr. Bennet was smiling so big, "That was the best performance I have ever heard from you guys!"

Liam laughed and lightly tried to push out of their grip on us, "Okay don't go all proud dad on me."

They all released their grip on us. Mr. Bennet pretended to wipe tears from his eyes, "They grow up so fast."

We started dying with laughter. Until Mr. Bennet spoke up again, "Alright well we are done here for today so you kids can go back to the hotel and hang out or whatever while me and Sorina will go talk about important teacher stuff."

Liam rolled his eyes, "Since when have you ever done important teacher stuff."

Mr. Bennet rolled his eyes too, "Whatever. We will see you guys later tonight. Don't get injured or killed."

With that they left us on our own again. Liam, Ella, and I went up to our practice room and grabbed our stuff then we all left back to the hotel.

We sat in our room talking for awhile about random things until Ella got tried and retreated to her suite.

Liam curled up next to me on the couch while we flipped on a movie but within a few minutes we were both passed out, cuddling each other.