Page 8 of The Baritone's Rival

“I was saying that you and Oscar will be going first, next week, so you’ll need to learn the piece fairly quickly. Is that okay?”

Trent nodded, fighting to keep the annoyance off his face. “Sure.”

“Great. The two of you will have your private lesson with me together on Friday. We’ll start work on it then.” Anthony winked at him.

Trent shook his head, confused. He’d obviously missed something. “Wait, what are we singing?”

“Dio, che nell’alma infonderefromDon Carlo.”Anthony smiled. “And no, you can’t do it in French, even though it was written in the language. You’re far more likely to be asked to perform it in Italian in the states. Regardless, you two are both ready to push into heavier rep. This will be a good step in that direction.”

Oh god. Trent swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. It was a beautiful duet, one of Verdi’s best, but it was also a declaration of love between two lifelong friends. It was almost romantic. It was bad enough he had to sing with Oscar. Now he had to pretend to like him? Tolovehim? Couldn’t Anthony have chosen something more antagonistic?

Trent caught a glimpse of Oscar out of the corner of his eye. He turned to Trent with a big smirk on his face andwinked.

Oscar was a shameless flirt. Not that it had any effect on Trent, despite the little flip his stomach had just done. Which was nothing. Probably the food truck bacon, egg, and cheese he’d had for breakfast settling. Trent was straight. But Oscar loved to troll the straight guys in class. He was probably delighted at the chance to torture Trent.

Trent understood that he was being ridiculous. He was ascribing all sorts of motives to a man he barely knew. But was it too much to ask to be able to work alone? Group projectswere the worst, and Oscar was absolutely the kind of person who would do none of the work and take all the credit. Maybe singing a duet wasn’texactlylike making a grade-school diorama together, but Trent hated the thought of someone else’s blasé attitude tanking his GPA.

And Oscar was one of his main competitors for the Manhattan Lyric program. Maybethemain competitor, although Trent couldn’t understand why everyone liked his singing so much. His voice was fine. Probably just because he was a tenor. Everybody loved a tenor.

Trent forced his attention back to his teacher as Anthony dove into a lecture about the stylistic concerns of the songs. He tried to put the impending musical disaster out of his mind.

Five days later,Trent stood in Anthony’s studio, his score resting on the music stand in front of him. Julie sat at the piano, scrolling on her phone. Anthony tapped on an ornate wooden side table with the cap end of his pen.

Trent couldn’t contain himself anymore. “Do you think?—”

“He’ll be here.” Anthony’s tone made it clear any further argument would be useless.

Trent shrugged. If Anthony said so. He’d had very low expectations of Oscar’s behavior going into today, and he had yet to even meet those. Maybe if he simply didn’t show, Trent could get out of this altogether.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Trent squinted at Anthony. “Huh?”

“I can tell you are scheming, hoping to find a way to work alone. Not going to happen.”

“I wasn’t?—”

Anthony cut him off with an eyebrow raise.

“Fine,” Trent capitulated. Escape wasn’t an option.

He was about to ask Julie to run through his part a fourth time when the door sprang open. Oscar rushed in, babbling as he did.

“Sorry I’m late everyone, the M was running behind, so I tried to take the 1, and that was a disaster, there’s construction down at Sixth Avenueagain?—”

Trent bristled at the stream of excuses, annoyed that Oscar was wasting yetmoretime with all his justifications. Maybe if the man didn’t spend so many hours getting ready. He wore a plaid Vineyard Vines blazer and a white button-down shirt, and his long brown hair rested on his shoulders as if it had been placed there by a stylist. Even rushing from the subway, Oscar looked handsome and put together, like he’d just stepped out of a photoshoot. It was so annoying.

“—so I ended up giving the homeless guy my sandwich, and then I had to grab a snack because I’ve got a class right after this.”

There was silence as Trent, Anthony, and Julie all stared at him.

“What?”

“Can we start?” Julie said from the piano, her voice flat.

“Of course!” Oscar opened his giant leather tote. “Let me just locate my score. One moment.”

Trent doodled in his music to prevent himself from starting a fight as Oscar rummaged through his bag. Oscar began taking things out and putting them on top of the piano. An unopened pack of pens. A small leather-bound book. A travel-sized bottle of lube.

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