Page 16 of Crescendo

“Are you calling me an elephant? That’s not very nice now, is it?” Lydia asked, full of fake outrage.

Sian laughed, unfazed. “Not at all. I’m saying the fact that our best friend is shacking up with one of the world’s biggest living composers is an absolutely enormous elephant we’re not talking about.”

“Shacking up?” I squeaked, feeling the place where Lydia’s foot still touched mine radiating through my entire body and soul.

“Ah, well, I’m glad to see my reputation precedes me. And that you can handle that better than some people can,” Lydia said, clearly referencing Eliza.

Sian shot me a look I didn’t like right before she told Lydia, “Oh, I’m sure we’re capable of handling anything you’re dishing out.”

I wanted to scream—and ask Sian what the hell she was doing.

And whether she was trying to come onto Lydia.

We’d never had the same tastes, and, last I heard, she was seeing someone.

It was casual but had promise. However, the alternative was that she was…

what? Flirting with one of the world’s best composers for me?

Lydia laughed. “I guess we’ll see about that, won’t we? But, go ahead, ask your questions.”

Before I could worry that she was flirting back, she moved slightly under the table. The foot that had already been against mine stayed put. Her other slid slowly up my calf, just for a second, and I felt myself melting into a puddle in my seat.

I grabbed for my drink, a little clumsy in my distraction, gulping it down as I saw the delighted expression on Lydia’s face, even as she seemed to be focusing on Sian and her many questions. I could feel her touch pulsing in my core.

“I actually went on a date to watch The Night in concert at the Royal Albert Hall,” Sian said. “You know, when they air the film with a live orchestra performing the score? You lot were just there for a tour, right? Probably pretty weird touring a place where you’re a star.”

Lydia grinned. “Well, it had been a minute since I was last there, but this time was better. I got to go with Ella.”

I sucked in a breath when she said my name, entirely unprepared for it, and tried to disguise it as a cough. Alisha patted my back but I didn’t think she truly bought the act.

“Right,” Sian said. “You and Ella, just students, roomies, casual acquaintances going on your school trips.”

“Oh, I think it’s safe to say we’re friends,” Lydia countered, something bubbling just under the surface in her voice. “I make friends easily.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Did you have a good date while you were listening to my music? Did he, she, they enjoy it?”

Sian laughed. “Yeah, not bad. She enjoyed it too. And, yeah, we went out again, if that’s what you’re asking?”

“You’re welcome,” Lydia said lightly.

“Sorry?”

Alisha laughed and cut in. “She created the soundtrack to your date, so she’s taking credit for its success.”

“Music does have a lot of power,” Bansi said, too in awe of Lydia and music to quite catch the edge of the conversation, but he wasn’t wrong.

Sian shrugged. “True, but I still don’t think a movie soundtrack can change the entire course of a date. If it had been going badly, I don’t think Lydia’s music—no matter how skilled she might be—would have changed things.”

“I don’t know,” Bansi said, his eyes wide. “It would change a lot for me.”

Sian turned to me suddenly. “What about you, Ella? Think music can change your whole day around?”

I hummed. It certainly seemed to have done so today.

Lydia’s music in particular, like a secret language just the two of us had been speaking, and, so long as she was speaking that to me, I could find myself through the haze and the hate I’d been experiencing as I sat down at the piano. “Yeah, I think it can.”

∞∞∞

Alisha stopped me a house down from mine and Lydia’s flat as they walked back with the rest of the group from the pub. It was kind of on their way to the Tube after all.

“Everything okay?” I asked her, frowning.

She paused for a moment before smiling slightly. “You seem better tonight than you were this morning.”

“Oh. Yeah. Erm.” My muscles felt like they weren’t arranged correctly in my body. “Lydia helped me work through some of the music stuff. It… helped.”

“You played for her?” Her eyes went wide.

“Sort of? She played chords and just had me… playing with the melody.”

“You played for her,” she said again, a little more in awe this time.

“I guess. I don’t think that counts as playing, though. More like… what a child does.”

“It counts.” She smiled, glancing over my shoulder. “She’s good for you.”

I turned, following her gaze, and my stomach dropped when I noticed Sian had cornered Lydia at our door. I hoped she wasn’t interrogating her. Or saying anything embarrassing. “Well. I don’t know about that. She’s helping, but, you know, she’s here for her own things and…”

Alisha laughed. “It’s okay to just have good things and enjoy them. God knows you’ve waited long enough.”

I refused to get dragged back down into my earlier emotional pit. I knew it would come again but, for now, I needed to just be a normal woman who had been on a nice night out with her friends. I didn’t have the emotional space for anything else.

I smiled at Alisha. “I’m grateful to you both for coming tonight. Sorry for not answering your messages.”

She waved my apology off. “Now, we don’t have to worry too much. We’re still here for you, but you’ve got Lydia too.”

“I don’t—”

“She’s hot,” Sian said, appearing from behind me and keeping her momentum going to drag Alisha with her towards the Tube. “Have fun. Text you tomorrow.”

“Sian,” I spluttered, but it was no use, the two of them yelled their goodbyes as they hurried off into the night, leaving me to turn back to my own flat alone.

Lydia was standing waiting at the door. She hadn’t even unlocked it yet.

I climbed the stairs towards her, feeling her watching my every move.

“Well, that was fun,” she said as I stopped in front of her.

“It was.”

“Your friends are entertaining.”

I grimaced and hummed. “They’re great, if a little… enthusiastic.”

Lydia laughed and I finally met her gaze, seeing that look in her eyes again, the one she’d had when I thought she might kiss me.

She nodded towards the door. “Ready?”

“Yes,” I said, though I had no idea what she was really asking. Probably the obvious, but it felt like something more.

Either way, the only answer in me was yes.