Page 17 of Crescendo

Lydia

This time, Ella caught me after the morning classes, pushing through the crowds on my way towards the exit, and I felt her hand on my back—a little low on my back, but I didn’t mind. I glanced back at where she gave me a glowing smile, still a little nervous but radiant compared to yesterday.

“Hey,” she said. “Can I ask you a favor?”

“A favor. Well, let’s bargain, then,” I said, stepping off to the side, leaning against the wall. “Tell me what you’re after, and I’ll name my price.”

“Would it be too much bother to ask your help with going over my notes for today? I want to make sure I’m actually learning what’s in the lessons and not fall behind.”

Seemed like her letting her anger out into the piano was good for her, after all.

Or maybe the piano lessons with the two of us on the bench side-by-side.

Or maybe the part where we spent the whole night flirting.

At least one of the above was good for her.

“Going to be a high price for that,” I said with a playful smile, and she raised her eyebrows, meeting my smile.

“I was thinking of buying you lunch.”

“See, I was just going to ask for your radiant smile. But lunch sounds great too.”

She laughed, rolling her eyes affectionately. “Let’s see how well you do and then I’ll decide whether to give you my radiant smile. Won’t do if you get distracted two minutes in, now, will it?”

“Depends on what I get distracted by, Ella.”

She blushed, fumbling and losing her cool for a second, and I stood off from the wall.

“So, what’s for lunch, then? I was going to see if Clara or Bansi had any hangers-on today to have lunch with them, but I’d rather go with you.”

She took me out for the classics—off to the pub just down the street, where we had the dubious pleasure of spotting Eliza and Hannah with a little group of poshies, trying to suck up to them, but we went the long way around and sat down in the far corner under the window.

I helped myself to a grilled halloumi salad at Ella’s recommendation while she got a veggie burger and chips, and we looked over her notes together, me pointing her through the key parts, filling in the gaps she missed, explaining concepts that were referenced and she didn’t know.

By the time we’d polished off our food and helped ourselves to sharing a sticky toffee pudding—which did not look like any pudding I’d ever seen—Ella shut her laptop with a satisfied look of relief.

“Feeling better, then?” I said, and she put a hand on my arm—just a casual little touch, like we’d been doing constantly since we’d played the piano together, since our game of footsie at dinner last night.

“Much,” she said. “Shall I deliver your payment now?”

She gave me a radiant smile. Payment in spades, as far as I was concerned. Wondered how she’d react if I leaned in and kissed her right now, stole a bit of the peach lip gloss she had on.

“You know how to pay out,” I said. “C’mon, let’s get back already. Tempt me and I’ll want to skip the second half of classes to just look at your smile.”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed, as if she wasn’t blushing and avoiding my gaze. I really wasn’t supposed to be flirting with her, given the circumstances, but… it was just a little fun.

I felt the eyes of my mortal enemy and her sidekick watching us as we headed out, and I figured I’d be in for it later, a whole lecture about staying away from Ella. Punctuated by Hannah agreeing with it. But I didn’t care too much about that right now.

The second half of classes went well, and when I landed in a lesson together with Ella this time, she relaxed more into the piano, playing with more of the confident ease she’d carried last night by my side.

The teacher softened this time into what was, I think, the scary-German-woman equivalent of a proud little smile, and I caught Ella’s eyes on the way back trying to say proud of you without a word.

From the sweet smile she gave me, I think the message got delivered.

A good half the students stayed behind after class, using the practice rooms, but Ella and I were in a rush heading out of the building and back down to the apartment, where we’d barely gotten back inside before we wound up at the piano again, chasing that high of yesterday’s practice.

The first song didn’t have it—we fumbled around each other, Ella playing every discordant note on top of my chords and wincing at each one, but by the second one, a bright and uplifting song in G Major, we found the spark again, and we melted into each other, Ella’s melody fitting perfectly into my chords.

I felt something breathless, passionate in it—it had felt almost romantic the last time doing this, our music melding into one, but on top of the little touches and little remarks we’d been having, this time felt almost…

erotic. Like a close, sensual dance, like her melodies caressed between the lines of my chords, breathless harmonies that turned the whole thing electric.

Or maybe I was just horny. Ella was gorgeous and did not hide the fact that she wanted me—or didn’t hide it very well, at least—so my mind kept wandering there. I should have minded it more than I did.

We went through a good few songs before a text from Bansi interrupted us at the same time my stomach growling said we probably did want to take him up on his offer of dinner at his and Clara’s apartment, and Ella and I parted, reluctantly, from the piano and headed out together to the apartment barely twenty steps away from ours.

Bansi, to nobody’s surprise, had made it a party, a whole host of students I recognized from the program squeezing in for small talk and drinks and heaps of roti and dal.

Ella stuck close enough to my side the whole time—probably out of necessity with how crowded the place was, but I didn’t think she was sad about it either—that it felt like attending a party with a date, and when Bansi greeted us in the kitchen with enthusiastic cheek kisses, he must have thought the same, because he beamed and said, “You two are so cute.”

“Oh, er—” Ella flushed, looking quickly between me and Bansi. “That’s not—we’re not a couple or anything,” she said.

Under normal circumstances, I’d have said what I said to everyone, I’m not dating a girl in London while I have a life in LA.

But for no reason at all, I didn’t want to say that in front of Ella.

“She’s just clinging to my side to make sure we don’t get lost in the crowd,” I said lightly.

“But, to be clear, I’m not complaining about a cute girl holding onto my arm. ”

“Oh, my god, Lydia, ” Ella said, swatting my arm, face inflamed. The Londoner accent with that slight scolding tone was really doing it for me.

Bansi raised his eyebrows. “Oh… really? I’d heard it going around a little bit…”

“Oh… probably Eliza’s work,” I sighed. “She saw me and Ella out at the pub together to go over our notes and gave me a pointed look. I thought she was just gazing longingly at me, but—I guess her newest plan to cut me down to size is to tell everyone how I have a beautiful date. She has a really… creative approach,” I said, enjoying more than a little the way Ella seemed to be dying over it.

Bansi didn’t look fully convinced, but he gestured us to the plates of food already on the table, which clearly wasn’t enough for him, judging by the three pots on the stove. “Well, don’t be silly, anyway, eat, eat.”

We took food and made small talk, but if there were rumors about me and Ella going around, then we weren’t doing a very good job fighting them, Ella sticking close to my side the whole time.

And when we squeezed as many of us as we could around the kitchen table, Ella pressed into my side next to me, I couldn’t help myself under the table this time either, and casually, without giving any signs I was doing anything, I let my hand rest on her knee.

She tensed up, just a little, I could see, out of the corner of my eye, hands gripping her silverware more tightly. I wondered how her face would change if I moved my hand higher.

“Ella probably has it even worse,” someone said—Tania, across the table, a Spanish girl who was a multi-instrumental virtuoso, from seeing her in lessons. That wasn’t first on my mind compared to Ella coming hazily back to the conversation, her mind very clearly not there.

“With… what?” she said, and Tania raised her eyebrows.

“Oh, you know—being busy and everything. Medicine is a tough field, isn’t it?”

“Oh. It is, but—it’s the kind of thing where you get so consumed by it that you don’t realize—”

I moved my hand a little higher. Just a little, but it was enough to send Ella completely offline again, stuttering and restarting, her face going red. Casually, with my other hand, I took a bite of the food, listening like anyone else at the table, as she fumbled back to the conversation.

I didn’t tease her much more—once she finished fighting her way through an exchange, I fanned my fingers over her thigh once before I lifted my hand away, moving it above the table to pick up my drink.

Distantly, somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized I wasn’t making it two months with this girl. That should have been a problem.

∞∞∞

The next few days had the same rhythm—mornings with Ella, and sometimes a friend coming and crashing our place, and heading to classes, where Ella and I stuck side-by-side going over our notes together, and took lunches with Ella, whether just the two of us or with our friends.

And after we finished classes, we’d rush back to the apartment, both of us anxious to get to what had quickly become my favorite part of the day, the piano lessons alongside Ella.

We got our first major assignment on Friday: a composition to write, no specific requirements for the first one except standard symphonic arrangement and a target length, and our whole liaison group met at the pub for lunch that day, all gushing about what we were doing with it.