Andante

LXXXIII

"Hey, how did it go last night?" Todd asked him. "And look, just say if I need to butt out, okay?"
Todd had his serious face on, that face that he reserved for the people he cared about. The jokes and the bravado were absent when his face was like that, and Eddy knew that he could trust him to keep anything he said between them. 
They were walking back from the men's room to the rest of their little group, who were in the red seats, listening to the orchestra rehearse. 
Eddy had no idea how much of this stuff it was normal to discuss with a friend, but to be honest he could really do with Todd's insight. He was feeling a lot of stuff, and he had to admit that it wouldn't have been very hard at all to go further than just kissing, this morning, with Brett. 
But was he ready for that? Was Brett? 
"It went really well, Todd. He... I asked him if he's my boyfriend now and he said yes."
Todd grinned slightly. 
"Well, if you ask me he's been that for three years, but it's awesome it's official now. You... well, if you were a girl I'd say you were glowing."
Eddy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, great, mate. That's just what I need, to be glowing around people who are going to wonder why."
"Don't worry about it. Even if they see, why would they know why?"
That was true, Eddy guessed. Gah, this hiding thing was complicated... he couldn't wait to get older so they wouldn't need to anymore. 
"Todd..." he found himself asking hesitantly, his voice small. "How... how do you... as in, how do you decide what to do with someone?"
They were approaching the entrance to the main hall now, so Todd stopped and looked around him to see if they were still alone. Then he smiled one of his very kind smiles and put his hand on Eddy's shoulder. 
"Don't worry about it, Eddy. Just follow your gut, okay? And keep talking to him. There's no right or wrong way to do this, and half of the fun is in discovering each other. Okay?"
Eddy nodded, wondering, trying to see if he could just follow his gut. Usually his brain had a lot to say about things too. And his brain got loud. 
"I'll try that." he said then. "Thanks, Todd."
Todd nodded. "Of course, mate. Oh, and by the way, for what it's worth: I don't think, from the way he looks at you at the moment, Brett will have any objection to anything you come up with."
He could feel the colour flying to his cheeks and the heat coursing through his system again instantly, and Todd laughed quietly. 
"Calm down, mate, it'll be fine. You'll see, Eddy."

At the end of the rehearsal the conductor came over to the four of them as they were packing up their instruments. 
"It's going very well, you guys." he said. "In fact, I'm thinking maybe you should go for a change of scenery tomorrow."
Four pairs of eyes turned towards him in the same millisecond. A change of scenery? What was he talking about? 
Mr. Davids smiled. "Yeah, I've made a little plan. Your quartet is coming along swimmingly, and I could use the extra rehearsal time with the orchestra. So I've asked a couple of friends of mine if they would work with each of you tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon there'll be a surprise for you. Get plenty of sleep, I would say, because you'll want to be on your a-game. So, be here tomorrow morning at ten, and bring some solo repertoire." "
Eddy quickly looked at Brett, and saw the exact same question that was screaming in his own head reflected in Brett's eyes. What? Who were these mystery friends of mr. Davids? And what surprise could he possibly be talking about? Solo repertoire?
What? 
But he could see clearly in mr. Davids' cheeky expression that he wasn't going to tell them any more. Gah! 
And just like that, Eddy had yet another thing to be excited and nervous about.