Andante

CXLIX

An hour later Eddy was there, feeling more happy and more relaxed than ever before. He had played through all of the pieces he had been working on recently, and now he put his violin down into rest position and eyed Brett - who had taken his turn lounging on the bed - questioningly. 
"So, what do you think? The Bach?"
Brett nodded enthusiastically. "Absolutely. You rock in that!"
Eddy grinned. "Yeah. Well. What you did to me just now may have had something to do with that, you know."
Suddenly Brett looked all coy, and now it was his turn to blush. 
Eddy grinned as he stepped forward and kissed him once, holding his violin awkwardly away. 
"I do love it when you're coy."
Brett looked up. "Only for you, you know."
Eddy nodded. Yeah, he did know. That's what made it so good. 
"So, Bach, then?"
"Absolutely."

He practised for a bit more, but then it was basically dinner time and he put his violin away for real. 

Lily didn't say a word, when he casually walked into the kitchen to help her set the table or something, but she eyed him out of the corner of her eye and smiled a slightly crooked smile. 
Oh God. 
That little smile told him straight away that she must have known what the long pause in the music meant. He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head softly.
But... then again, did it matter?  This was Lily, after all, no? To his surprise, he found he didn't mind so much that she knew. 
"Hi." he said, simply. 
"Hi. Good practice?"
Now he could basically see the tongue going in her cheek and he had to stop himself from grinning. 
"Great, actually. We've both decided what we'll be playing and Brett is calling Steven now to tell him."
She nodded. "Cool! It sounded great from here, when there was music, that is."
He chuckled at exactly the same time his eyes went up to ceiling.
Lily. Seriously. 
"Uhuh. Thanks." he said, and he picked up the stack of plates she had put out on the counter and walked out of the kitchen, still shaking his head in amusement. 

It was so easy, again, to be here, to be with this little group of people, to be out, to just be himself, to be able to hold Brett's hand above the table, sitting close to him. The food was going to be great too; Lily had made kung pao chicken, this time. He had seen the pans in the kitchen, and he had known straight away that she was cooking this simply because of how much he liked it. So he smiled at his friend fondly as she walked in with the large white china dish, which was steaming and spreading luscious smells all the way over to the table. Then he smiled again as she put the dish on the coaster in the centre of the table. She hadn't even bothered to give Matt a fork any more, this time.
Ha. Awesome.
Lily and he had sat on their bench in their lunch breaks over the last few weeks, and Lily had told him all about how Matt and she had got on. It was great to see now how they were acting with each other. They were even easier, more natural than the last time he'd been here. 
Matt was still sleeping on the couch though, Eddy was going to make damn sure of that. 

After dinner he helped clear the table and he started stacking the dishwasher. 
"Thank you for cooking, Lily. You really are a great cook." he said as he scraped some food from a plate into the bin, before putting it in. "I've actually been thinking I need to learn a bit of cooking, because Brett and I both suck at it. At this rate we'll live on nothing but take-out after we move out."
Lily grinned. "I'm sure you'll manage. But of course you're welcome to cook next time, if you want, instead of spending some one on one time with Brett upstairs?"
He laughed out loud and shoved her shoulder lightly with the back of his hand.
"Yeah, okay. Enough with the ribbing, hey?"
Lily's eyebrows were waggling up and down in amusement. 
"I don't know, ribbing's quite fun, actually."
He shook his head, still grinning, and put the last plate in the dishwasher.