Andante

XCVII

They were both quiet for a moment, just looking at each other, each of them understanding very well the implications of what had just been said. 
Then Eddy smiled again, hardly believing that they were really talking about this. 
"S...so... maybe I can do... do that tonight?" 
Brett answered simply by throwing his arms around him. He rest his cheek against Eddy's and pulled him close. 
"I'd love that very much." he whispered, his breath warm against Eddy's mandible. Eddy felt another shiver, racing all over his body. 
Oh my God. Was this really happening? He could barely wait for this evening now, but they weren't in the hotel yet, and they still had important stuff to do, first. It was the general rehearsal that afternoon after all, and Eddy knew he'd have to bring his A-game, but suddenly everything had taken on a different meaning. 

"We... we'd better go and rehearse, no?" he said softly, his cheek still against Brett's. 
He felt the change in Brett's stance the second he said it. He went from soft, from asking, from wanting, straight back into musician mode in an instant. 
"Yeah." he said then as he let go and grinned at Eddy. "Let's go and rehearse and try not to think about it too much."
Eddy grinned as well now. "Yeah. I don't know how easy that will be, though." 
Brett leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. 
"I'm positive you'll be just fine. Come on, let's pee and get going."
Eddy nodded and followed him to the men's room. 

He breathed deeply all the way back to the auditorium, feeling the presence of Brett beside him more keenly than ever before, trying with all his might to get himself under control. 
Doesn't matter what you're planning, mate. You got shit to DO! 
Yeah. He did have shit to do, and by the time he took his seat in the auditorium to wait for the quartet's turn he was pretty much back online. He didn't miss Todd's smile and appraising eyes coming from the other side of Brett's seat, though. So he shot Todd the most innocent smile he could muster and then he focused all of his attention on what was happening on the big stage in front of him. 

The orchestra had clearly worked very hard this week. They'd not been bad at all to begin with, of course, but Eddy was really impressed now. Mr. Davids was showing once again how good he was, because the violins sang, the brass was under control and warm, the woodwinds soared. And as he sat there, sinking further and further back into music mode, he smiled. Because this was awesome. 
The four of them got up towards the end of the piece to make sure they'd be all ready to get up on the stage. Eddy followed Todd and Brett as they went to the side to pick up their instruments. He shot the others a quick look, grabbing the neck of his violin just that little bit more firmly as they waited for the final chord.
Yeah. This really was next level.
The orchestra would stay on stage for the whole of their quartet performance, so when Mr. Davids motioned for them to come on up it really was just like walking on stage as a soloist, and he was exhilarated as he walked up the narrow stairs, past the violins to their places, and saw the rows and rows of red seats in the auditorium, which tomorrow would all be filled by the audience. 
The quartet stood in a row and neatly bowed to the non-existent crowd, and then they took the seats that had been put out for them by the chair guy.  

But suddenly then, without warning, Eddy felt giant nauseating waves of nerves coursing through him as he sat down on the first chair, and he inhaled quickly and deeply, trying to push them back down. But somehow... somehow he couldn't shift them. It was like all of his insecurities pressed up at him as they started the piece, and they were pushing his bow off centre, making it bounce where it shouldn't. They were making his fingers go just those two millimetres off.
And two millimetres didn't sound like very much at all, did they? Not until you played the violin. When you played the violin those two millimetres were the difference between great and absolutely awful.
So of course it wasn't long before Brett shot him a worried look, as he must have heard him struggling.
And worse, it wasn't long before Brett made some mistakes of his own. 

The first movement mercifully ended and Eddy scrunched his eyes firmly shut for a moment before he started the second movement.
Fuck! Mate! Get your act together! Is this the first time you've fucking well held a violin?
But what could he do? So he breathed deeply one more time to steel himself as much as he could and then he gave the first violinists' exaggerated bow movement to start the quartet again.