Fever Pitch

by Heidi Cullinan

  Walter’s eyebrow quirked. “Wait—you’re talking to Giles?”

  “Sort of. He’s polite and nice, but he’s not interested. I have to figure this out, because if I don’t, I’ll never—” He cut himself off, because he wasn’t going to start crying again.

  Kelly nodded at the lake. “Let’s take a walk.”

  Aaron didn’t want to look at a lake or ducks or geese or swans, but he went, weaving drunkenly, hunkering into the warmth of his coat though the wind wasn’t too bad, at least for Minnesota. He felt off, like a vampire in the light. He didn’t belong out on a nice afternoon, walking with Kelly and Walter, the most perfect people in the world. Yet there he was, and he was too selfish to keep pointing out they should go home and forget about his sorry ass. They kept talking, sometimes to each other but often to him, commenting on the sunset on the water, the crunch of dead leaves beneath their feet, the bite on the edge of the evening breeze. After a while it seemed almost okay to be with them.

  When Walter discovered Aaron hadn’t eaten anything that day, he jogged to the car, promising to return with Subway. It was the first time Aaron had ever been alone with Kelly.

  Kelly chatted amicably, nudging Aaron into talking about school, asking him about his music. “Are you going to major in it?”

  “I can’t.” The old worry came back, and the sadness. “My dad would never let me.”

  “But you enjoy it so much.”

  “I’ll never get a job in music.”

  “Doesn’t Saint Timothy have music therapy?”

  Aaron shrugged. He’d thought about that, because he could see his dad maybe going for it—but he wasn’t interested in it any more than law. He couldn’t have what he truly wanted, so why do anything even close?

  “I’m sure you’ll work it out.” Kelly tucked his hands behind his back, smiling out at the lake. “This is beautiful. More like what home was for me. I miss the countryside. The lakes. It’s so beautiful and quiet.”

  Aaron could easily picture it. Kelly in his perfect town, perfect house, perfect life. Of course Walter was marrying him. “Did you always know? That you were gay, I mean?”

  It surprised him to see Kelly’s expression shutter. “I did, but it scared me. I tried not to be. I never slept with a girl, but I dated some. My town was really small, and I worried what people would say. Though I think the problem was I wanted something that wasn’t real. I wanted a boyfriend, but I didn’t care half as much about who it was, just that somebody would be that person for me.” He shook his head. “I got lucky. If Walter hadn’t been so jealous of anyone else I talked to, I think I’d have ended up feeling the same way you do right now. Except I’d probably have had one bad experience and hidden away. You’re pretty brave, Aaron. I’m envious.”

  The very idea of Kelly being envious of him made Aaron’s jaw slack. “Are you kidding? I’m a mess. I’m awful. You said Walter was your first. Your only. You did it right. All I’ve done is wrong.”

  “No.” Kelly took Aaron’s hand, clasping it tight. “Don’t say that, ever. I got lucky. I wasn’t smart at all. I was a silly, sentimental fool. I don’t know why Walter wanted me. I try not to think about it too much.”

  “He wants you because you’re perfect,” Aaron blurted.

  Kelly squeezed his hand. “You’re perfect too.”

  “I keep giving everything away. I think they’re the right guy, and then it falls apart.”

  “But have you ever dated a guy? Hanging out with Baz with a bunch of other people isn’t dating. Sitting in a car eating fries isn’t dating. You need to get to know them. Really check them out. That’ll drive a lot of them away—but it’s what you want, right? To stop feeling like they stomp all over you. If they drift off when you won’t put out, at least that’s all they get out of you. You can’t tell me it would be worse to find out someone was a user before they used you.”

  This was true. Except he had hung out with Baz. Though now as he looked back, there were plenty of times they weren’t actually connecting, and Aaron had ignored those parts, too eager to have it work out.

  Aaron hugged himself. “I can’t stand feeling so lonely.”

  “Aaron—I know you like the music program here, but I think you should come to Minneapolis. You could live with us. Go to school with us.”

  “My dad—”

  “Fuck your dad.” It was alarming to hear the expletive out of Kelly’s pretty mouth, but he didn’t even blush, just kept steamrolling on. “Fuck your dad and his iron fist over your life. Let him cut you off, if that’s what he’s threatening you with. You can get a job if you have to. You can go part time. You shouldn’t be this unhappy, Aaron. Nobody should. If your life makes you this miserable, change it.”

  Walter reappeared, and they focused on eating their food. As the sun began to set, the temperature plummeted, so they went back to campus and got coffee. But the whole time Aaron thought about what Kelly had said. About being lucky. About holding back. About changing his life. He didn’t understand what he was supposed to do with those horrible, heavy, lonely feelings. His dad hadn’t ever threatened to cut him off—Aaron simply toed the line.

  Maybe he should stop doing that.

  He didn’t want to move to Minneapolis, to leave Saint Timothy. He did want to change. He wanted to change here.

  When Walter and Kelly had to go, they were clearly worried, but Aaron did his best to reassure them. They swore they were coming to Christmas with Timothy, and Aaron was to call them every day until then. Call, not text. They both hugged him, Kelly twice. As they pulled out of the guest parking lot, Aaron watched them go, sad and happy at once.

  He wasn’t alone. He was lonely, but he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t quite sure how the distinction worked out yet, but it felt important, and for now that was enough.

  As much as Giles was sure something had been brewing between Aaron and Baz, by Thanksgiving break, it was clear that if they had hooked up, they were over now. When they came back from break and Aaron studiously avoided Baz, Giles was convinced his rival had left the field.

  This would have been a great time to make a move, to act on those instincts he’d figured out at homecoming. Except Giles couldn’t, because between homecoming and Thanksgiving, Giles and Aaron became friends.

  Intellectually he understood friends and lovers weren’t mutually exclusive—his future happiness with a long-term partner depended on that truth, in fact. Giles hadn’t ever thought much about how to navigate the friend part of a potential boyfriend.

  Aaron was a friend—but not like Brian or Mina. Giles could flop onto a futon and whine with either one of them because being with his besties relaxed him. Being with Aaron made him feel like someone had ratcheted his tuning pegs to the breaking point. He dressed more carefully for Salvo rehearsal than he did for twenty-and-under night at the Shack. He sat straighter in his chair beside Aaron while they went over compositions than he did in chamber orchestra. He stashed breath mints in the pocket of all his jackets and kept several packs in his instrument locker for fear he might chat Aaron up with taco breath by accident.

  His breath and clothes were the only way he could come close enough to Aaron’s orbit to even dream of entering it. In addition to being model gorgeous, Aaron was taller than Giles and a lot more filled out, well proportioned where Giles was eternally lanky and awkward. When they worked together at the table in the lounge, Giles would sometimes catch glimpses of their reflection in the mirrored plate between the top and bottom instrument lockers, and the difference between the two of them could have been a comedy sketch. Giles would be hunched over, hair standing on end like he’d stuck his finger in a light socket. Aaron’s hair would be messed up too, and he’d be bent over his work as well, but somehow he always managed to look like a model photo in a brochure for how to study. Either that or an opening scene to a porn shoot.

  They truly were friends,
though—they smiled every time they saw each other, and at a thrilling moment in early December they had, at long last, exchanged numbers.

  They were finishing up a Salvo planning session, and somehow the two of them ended up alone in the room. Aaron was packing up his backpack, no real rush, almost lingering. It occurred to Giles this would be a great moment to ask Aaron out.

  For coffee. Ice cream. Lunch. A movie. It wasn’t hard. All he had to do was open his mouth.

  Do you want to go have a latte? My treat.

  What are you up to right now? Feel like coming over to play some Xbox?

  You hungry? I was thinking about grabbing a burger. Care to come along?

  So many ways to make a date, all of them casual.

  None of them would come out of his mouth. All Giles could do was stand there, paralyzed.

  Aaron glanced up at him and paused with a folder half into his bag. “Is something wrong?”

  Say something. You have to say something now. “Um. I…wondered. If maybe we should exchange phone numbers.”

  Aaron went still. “Oh?”

  Was that panic on Aaron’s face? Revulsion? Surprise? Mayday. Mayday. Abort. Abort. “F-for Salvo. In case.” His mouth went dry, his hands became clammy. “Planning. Stuff.”

  And what was that expression? Relief? Regret? Gas? “Sure.”

  They’d exchanged numbers. Neither one had yet to use them.

  Giles got nervous around Aaron. To-his-bones awkward and unsure. He’d never been shy—the closest he’d come was when he was four and walked up to strangers to announce he was shy, so please don’t talk to him. With Aaron, Giles could only dream of being bold. A lot of that, though, was because every time he opened his mouth he feared something stupid coming out of it. He’d tell Aaron how gorgeous he was, how talented, how hot it was when he bit his bottom lip as he worked on a score. Sometimes when Aaron got lost in his work, Giles would sit across the table and stare at him, trying to be subtle as he breathed in deep lungfuls of cologne.

  It wasn’t just Aaron’s body Giles worshipped either, not anymore. Aaron was a freaky genius when it came to music. He didn’t seem to get how gifted he was—Giles was no slouch, but he looked like a dummy next to Aaron. Aaron didn’t simply have perfect pitch. He understood music theory on some kind of bone-deep level, could see notes in a way Giles couldn’t follow, not until Aaron put them down on the page. Aaron picked melodies out of thin air, instinctively knowing when to lean on one voice or another, what to put underneath for support. This was raw talent too, with only the barest bit of formal training under him. When he got through four years of music classes, he’d be a savant.

  Of course, with the preparations for Christmas with Timothy, Giles wouldn’t have had time to date Aaron. Between orchestra, chamber, his quartet and now Salvo, the only thing he did besides rehearse was sleep and struggle to keep up in his coursework. The performances were during finals week, which seemed fantastically cruel. His mom was livid because the final performance was Sunday, December 21, which was supposed to be the family Christmas at her parents’ house.

  There were two concerts at Saint Timothy—Thursday and the final one Sunday—but Friday and Saturday’s shows were in Minneapolis. Saturday was at the State Theater, Friday at some crazy-huge Lutheran church in Burnsville. Before all these performances there were Christmas with Timothy dinners, where regents and administration wined and dined alumni and potential donors while small groups from all the various choirs and orchestras performed at locales sprinkled around the Cities.

  Giles and Aaron only rehearsed together during Salvo, but Giles felt weird if he didn’t see Aaron at least four times a day. After scarfing down takeout for dinner in the student lounge, it was the two of them working together, sometimes for hours. Salvo was included in Christmas with Timothy, which apparently had come only after sharp arguments between the Drs. Nussenbaum and the board of regents. Salvo would perform two numbers during the official performance, taking one away from the Ambassadors and adding five minutes to the already epically long production. Salvo would also be part of the preshow dinners.

  This meant Giles and Aaron had to have seven performance-ready songs. The ones for the official show were Christmas themed, but the dinner pieces were to be modeled the same way as the Ambassadors—a few Christmas numbers bookending the more traditional pop numbers.

  It should have been a superhuman effort, but when the two of them worked together, nothing seemed impossible, not when it came to music. The one thing Aaron wasn’t great at was filling in who should sing what. Giles had a better understanding of which of the girls would do better on what line. He didn’t think it was much of a help, but the girls loved how he arranged them and told him over and over again he made them sound better than they deserved to be. Aaron always seconded them, smiling as he told Giles he couldn’t imagine arranging parts without him.

  “You’re like Gilbert and Sullivan, or Menken and Ashman,” Karen told them one day at the end of rehearsal.

  The other girls chimed in with agreement and effusive praise for their talents as Aaron looked abashed and Giles’s ears heated at the tips.

  Then, in the back of the room, someone whispered a little too loudly, “They should totally be a couple.”

  As Giles’s blush covered him like an ugly rash and Aaron ducked his head and shrank into his sweatshirt, the girls broke into giggles. Rehearsal was over, so they started filing out, all but Aaron and Giles, who sat frozen at their table.

  As Mina passed by, she jerked her head at Aaron and mouthed to Giles, Ask him out, now.

  Giles wasn’t sure what the hell he should do. Leaving felt…wrong, but sitting here was all kinds of awkward. He wished he knew what it meant that Aaron still sat there, rigid, with his head bowed. Giles tried to tell himself Aaron was freaked about being outed, except it didn’t wash because after Baz, everybody knew.

  Obviously Giles had gotten that memo long before anyone else.

  When the silence got too heavy, Giles cleared his throat. Say something benign. Just be a fucking human long enough to smooth this over. “So.”

  Are you doing anything for dinner?

  Would you like to go out for coffee?

  Could I blow you?

  Giles got so nervous his jaw ached, sending weird, throbbing bands of nervousness down the front of his neck into his chest until he thought he might be having a heart attack. Speech was out of the question. Now all he wanted to do was not pass out.

  Aaron cleared his throat too, but when he spoke, his voice was thick and rough, not its usual melodious self. “I…I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

  Holy shit. Giles could barely breathe, let alone speak. “Yes?”

  Aaron’s hands opened and closed over the music in front of him, crinkling it and smearing the pencil. “I…I wondered if you…if we…”

  Ohmyfuckinggod. Giles felt dizzy. Was it going to happen? Was Aaron asking…? A “Hallelujah” chorus cued up in Giles’s head.

  Aaron flexed his hands nervously. “I wondered if…you could…give me a violin lesson.”

  The “Hallelujah” chorus skipped, scratched and crashed in a fiery inferno to the earth. “You want…violin lessons?”

  Giles took a good look at Aaron—flushed cheeks, dilated pupils, the now completely balled-up manuscript paper under his hands. “Yeah.” He sounded as disappointed as Giles. “Never mind. That was a stupid thing to ask.”

  It was a weird thing to ask, is what—except Giles would have put hard money on Aaron being about to ask him out and chickening out at the edge of the diving board. Which all but assured him Aaron would be receptive to being asked out.

  Except Giles still couldn’t do it. Instead he said, “It’s not stupid. I’d give you a violin lesson anytime you wanted. Right now, if you want.”

  Aaron lifted his head. Unlike Giles, his blush only m
ade him that much hotter. “You don’t have to.”

  “But I’d love to.”

  For the first time since the they should be a couple comment, Aaron met Giles’s gaze. He looked terrified, embarrassed, ready to run. Giles’s heart turned over, and he had to actively fight an urge to fold Aaron into his arms and make the world go away.

  That was when Giles realized what the friend part of boyfriend was—he wanted to protect Aaron, make everything okay. Not just like he did for Min, but…more. To know his partner so well he knew not only when he was upset but how to make the hurt go away.

  Violin lesson. Fuck yeah.

  “I don’t think anyone’s in this room until seven. I could borrow Karen’s instrument to teach you, or we could share mine.”

  It was kind of funny, actually, how thrown Aaron looked. “Um…sure. If you really don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.” He nodded at the music stands and chairs on the other side of the room. “Set up two chairs and stands next to each other, and I’ll be right back.”

  As he headed out the door, Giles glanced over his shoulder. Aaron stood at the table, terrified and nervous.

  And hopeful.

  Giles shut his eyes and savored it a moment. Then he hurried out of the rehearsal hall and into the student lounge to fetch his violin.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Giles returned to the choir room, the chairs and stands were set up, but Aaron paced by the fire exit. Giles hefted his violin, brandishing it with a waggle of his eyebrows. “You ready?”

  Aaron looked as unready as they came. “Sure.”

  “I was too late to catch Karen, but this will work fine. I’ve never shown anyone how to play before though, so you’ll have to bear with my clumsiness.”

  Aaron sat down when Giles did, rubbing his palms self-consciously on his jeans. “It’s nice of you to teach me.”

  “Not at all.” Giles rested his violin on his lap, the bow beside it. “Okay, first things first: the parts. The bow is obvious, but it has sections as well. The tip, which is always farthest away from your hand. The hair, which is what passes over the strings. The stick, which holds the hair taut. The bow grip, which will come into play in a minute. The eyelet is this dot here, this spot underneath is the frog, and this is the end screw, where you loosen and tighten the hair.”