Andante

XXV

He didn't sleep much at all, that night. Every time he closed his eyes the film of the evening started in front of his weary eyelids. 
Busking with Brett. The look in Brett's eyes as he wished him a good evening. Dancing with Lily. Andrew hissing. Talking on the bench. Then inevitably his mind would go to the next moment: kissing Lily. What the fuck had he even been thinking? 
But then... like a miracle, the understanding that he got. He had no idea how Lily had got to be so mature, but he would be forever grateful to her. 
He did still feel very, very guilty though. He'd led her on. He may not have meant to, but he had. And he'd ruined her first kiss for her. Every time the film got to this point he shook his head miserably. He could never fix what he'd done wrong. 
The admission he made to her he didn't even allow himself to contemplate. He had no idea where to put that for the moment. So he'd skip to the part where he'd walked her to her door and had somehow looked to her father like all was well. He'd also got past his own mum without issue, falling into bed like a stone. Where he lay now, wide awake. 

Tomorrow there would be a next step and it made his belly hurt. When was he going to talk to Brett? What was he going to say? Did Brett even want to hear these things from him? Had he not blown any chance he had with him? He tossed and turned, and it wasn't until the light of dawn started streaming into the crack in the curtain that he managed to fall into a fitful sleep. 
When he woke up he was a wreck. He didn't even need to look in the mirror to know there were dark circles under his eyes. He sighed deeply and went downstairs to have a quick breakfast. If he wanted to see Brett today he had to get his act together and do his work. Tired or no. 

¨Good morning, Eddy! Did you have fun at the dance?¨ 
Oh no. Not this. How was he going to act like it was all good to his mum? He groped around in his brain, panicking, thinking of the right thing to say. 
¨It was fine, mum.¨
She eyed him curiously. ¨What did you do?¨
¨We just danced, and we chatted on the bench we often sit on.¨
There, that wasn't a lie. Admittedly it was far from being the whole truth, but it wasn't a lie. 
Suddenly he found himself volunteering some more information.
¨I don't know if I'll go again though, mum. Loud music and lots of people are not really for me.¨
Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and then she answered.
¨I understand, Eddy. I've never liked parties much either.¨
He looked at her in shock. Whoa, that was so not like her, to say something like that? What brought that on? 
¨So¨, she carried on, ¨do you like this Lily girl?¨
She must have seen the reaction on his face, even though he'd been trying to keep it neutral. So he told her the truth.
¨I like her a lot as a friend, mum. She's not my girlfriend or anything.¨
He had no idea how to interpret her face now. Was she happy? Disappointed? Understanding? 
He wasn't the only one who could carefully hide his true feelings around here.

As soon as he could he went upstairs and fired up the computer, where he found several messages from Brett. His heart was instantly in his throat. 

    'Hey, bro, I hope you had fun last night!'

    'Did you dance? ;-)'

The winky smiley made him laugh. He'd told Brett all about his lack of talent in that department yesterday. 

    'Wanna play video games later, after homework?'

Oh my God. What was he going to say? It's not like he could say 'No, mate, I can't because this big giant thing happened and I have no idea what I'm going to tell you?'
No, it was time to put his big boy pants on. He remembered what Lily had said. Just tell him the truth, and you can work it out together. 
So he took a deep breath and typed. 

    'Hey bro! Yes to the video games. I'll tell you everything else later! Yes, I danced, but only briefly and I sucked big style.'

It didn't take long for Brett's message to come back.

   'Haha! I'd pay good money to see videographic evidence. See you at three?'

Eddy grinned to himself, before he remembered that it would be a monumentally bad idea for Brett to see videographic evidence. 

   ' Sounds good, bro! See you then.'