Page 34 of Crescendo

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 sayproud of youwithout 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 melodiescaressed 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.

“I won’t be settling for less than perfection,” was how Eliza launched into conversation as soon as we were all there. “This is my first real chance to show Lydia—to show everyone that I’m the one to surpass Lydia.”

Bansi, without a single ill thought towards anyone in his life, accidentally shut down Eliza completely, by giving her an innocently curious look and saying, “I thought it wasn’t helpful to set goals based on other people?”

Eliza scowled at him. I tried not to smile too widely.

“I’m not,” Eliza said after a second. “I’m setting this goal for myself. Butincidentally,unless Lydia pulls a miracle, I think this will be the moment our competition really gets heated. Hannah, too,” she said, elbowing her lackey lightly. “She’s not about to accept anything less than a hundred percent on this as well.”

“Oh, uh,” Hannah said, shifting uncomfortably. “I was actually thinking this one, sort of more wanted to have a little fun with it… I mean, it’s just the first one, isn’t it?”

Eliza scrunched up her face at Hannah. I was all on board with Hannah developing her own damn personality at some point during these two months, so I grinned at her. “Rocking out on it a little?”

“Yeah, actually,” she said, sitting up taller. “I think I really want to do something big and loud, do something that takes up space. Lots of driving energy, something sorta… classic songwriting structure, all around one chord progression, but something Beatles-y, complex.”

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