AN: Sorry it took me so long to update. I've been really busy trying to fit in band camp and summer homework my school just gave me last week. All of the summer reading here is different then at my old school. : ( . Well anyway I hope you enjoy the chapter.

After my first lesson with Kevin things between us started to get better. He actually taught me some of the fingerings and gave me a short piece to learn... a very short piece to learn. He kept a very cold attitude with me but, at least he showed some approval at my improvement... sometimes.

After the first two weeks of playing French Horn my friends found it in their best interests to tease me over the condition of my lips which, had definitely begun to become chapped.

"O-ooohh... looks like someone has been kissing." Alice had said slyly, "Care to spill on who the lucky guy is."

Ben, who was busy trying to eat a hotdog and finish his Physics homework at the same time, did a double take looking over at me. All of the sudden I felt overly concscious about my lips. Were they really all that bad? I touched them gently and realised that Alice was right, they were blistered.

"Kissing?" Ben asked, sounding a bit hurt.

"No, I wasn't. They're- umm..." I stopped, trying to think up a good excuse for them. "They're just like that because I've been practicing and not paying attention to them..." Not exactly a lie but, it sounded really stupid to me and it must've sounded extremely stupid to her.

She gave me a look that said she was not about to buy that explanation, "Yeah... ri-ight." She turned around to talk to Ben who was still giving me hurt expressions every two seconds. I ignored him and instead ate my lunch. I decided that I would ask Kevin for some extra chapstick at the end of the day.

Two interrogations by Alice, three speeches too many by Larsson, and one class later I was back in the practice room warming up, waiting for Kevin.

He arrived shortly after I started practicing, carrying Larssons metronome and his Horn with a huge stack of music under his arm. He nodded his head at me and closed the door behind him.

"Did you practice the scales and look at the étude I gave you?" He asked, all business as usual but, looking as hot as ever.

"Yeah. It was all good up to the sixth measure and then I kind of had trouble getting the difference with the slurs and the separated notes." I told him, pointing to the trouble part in the étude sitting on the stand.

He took a moment from taking his horn out to look over my shoulders at the part. He didn't say anything just started to warm-up his instrument.

"Hmmm..." He said, letting me know he was at least thinking about my question and not comepletely ignoring it. "Okay for that part just think about it as water." I gave him a look that said 'what-the-heck-are-you-talking-about?'

"Just leave your horn here, we're taking a field trip." He said, taking my hand and guiding me to the music rooms sink that we had for who knew what reason. Mr Larsson was sitting at his podium looking at attendance records.

He looked up at us with curiosity, "Whatcha guys doing?"

"Apparently taking a field trip." I said, Kevin dropped my hand and turned on the sink.

"Actually I'm teaching her a lesson in tonguing." Kevin said, which sounded like an extremely sexual comment to me. I tried to hide a smile but, Larsson saw my amusement and smiled with me. Kevin, being the thick minded person he was, tried to pretend that he didn't know why we were smiling.

Larsson, who was now interested in what we were doing, slid off his chair to stand next to me, "I have to see this." He crossed his arms waiting for Kevin to show the effectiveness of his lesson.

"Okay so when you let air into the horn imagine it like a river." He said, looking at me to make sure I was paying attention. I nodded at him to continue, "You use your tongue to block the passage of air to make a new note." He took his finger and passed it under the water to show his point. "Each time you tongue it's a new note. You kind of use the back of your throat to force out a blockage point. You should feel it right here." He grabbed my neck with his fingers, letting droplets of water run down it. I flinched. I hated it when people touched my neck. He let go, taking no notice of my reaction and continued with his lesson. "When you slur the notes it's just like holding out one note but, you're moving your fingers to add more than one into it. Do you get it?" I nodded. His analogy was actually fairly easy to understand. Plus the whole slurring thing on Horn was basically the same concept as slurring on the cello. Kevin looked at Larsson to see if he wanted to add anything to it, he pursed his lips showing his approval.

"Good job." Larsson said, hitting him on the back, "Now go show her how to do that."

By the end of our lesson I had somehow mastered the art of separating notes and going into slurs. Okay so I hadn't completely mastered it but, I had made progress. Apparently enough progress for Kevin to let me go onto the seventh measure.

"So Kevin?" I said, trying to break the icy wall that always froze over at the end of our lessons.

"Hmm?" He said, choosing not to look at me.

"By any chance would you have any extra chapstick?" He glanced my way not answering me. He dug through his horn case and threw a tube over. By some miracle I somehow caught it. I looked at it a bit skeptically wondering if he had used it before. "I haven't used it yet. You can keep it, I have a billion others."

"Oh okay... Thanks." I said, pocketing it. I grabbed all of the music and books that Kevin had stacked in a pile for me. He opened the door for me and then paused before continuing.

"Umm... I have a few band competitions for the next few days so I can't give you a lesson for a little while but, I'll call you when I'm free, okay?"

"Yeah sure... do you want to exchange cell numbers?"

"That'll probably make it easier to reach you." He said, thinking it over in his head. "Then I won't have to bother you in front of your friends."

Yep, he had totally grasped my concept of not letting my friends find out about Horn. At least he caught on about that faster than I was learning the instrument.

He dug into his pocket and pulled it out reading his number off to me fast, barely giving me enough time to write it down. He focused his light blue eyes on mine waiting for me to tell him my number. I stuttered a bit and then finally squeezed the number out somehow. He flipped his phone shut and we walked back into the band room where all of the other bando's were jumping around in excitement. Excitement of what... I don't know.

However, I found out quickly when someone shoved a picture of Larsson's head photo shopped onto the body of a young lady in a red bikini into Kevin's and my face. I looked over at Larsson's reaction. Besides the fact that he had the slightest tinge of embarassment somewhere on his features there was no sign that he was actually phased by this. I have to admit that I cracked up. This was probably the first interaction I had with the marching band that was somewhat aimed towards the positive side of our very screwed up relationship... well that they at least knew of.

The boy that I had seen the other day with drumsticks walked up to me, taking notice of my willingness to laugh and not be a complete prude.

"And who might this be?" He asked Kevin, giving him a wink, telling me he very well knew who I was.

"Fia this is Rob." He said, rolling his eyes at his friends behaviour. Rob took the drumsticks and stuck them in his back pocket so he could shake my hand. He had the stupidest grin on his face and he seemed to be overly cheery. I took his offered hand, wondering why exactly he was acting so weird.

"Be careful of him, he has major damage done to his brain from all of the times he's been hit in the head with his drumsticks." Cheryl said, tapping her head and walking up to Rob knocking his hand out of mine, which he had unwillingly been able to let go of. "What he's trying to say but, doesn't know how to is that he thinks you're hot and that he wants you to go out with him as soon as Kevin here, decides that he doesn't have a thing for you. I'd run away while you still can if I were you."

I didn't know exactly what to say to her but, something made me like the simple, blunt way she had of talking. I watched as Kevin frowned at her and Rob stuttered away, trying to take the damage she had done and turn it the other way around.

"I'm Cheryl, in case you're wondering." She told me. I already knew who she was from our many encounters but, still it was nice to get a proper introduction rather than the usual look of dissaproval she always seemed to be throwing my way. She wasn't so scary now that I seemed to be on her good side.

Her eyes looked me over with the highest level of scrutiny; They reminded me of the way Kevin had looked at me when Larsson told him I was taking up French Horn. It seemed like she was trying to find some quality that set me apart from the rest of my orchestra.

"It's nice to finally meet you." I told her finally, deciding that she and I would become friends. She gave me a small knowing smile that told me she knew more than I did.

" 'Need any help, I'm here." She said, turning around and grabbing Rob by the shoulder and taking him with her before she could embarass him anymore.

"Hey! Can't you see that she and I were having a conversation?" Rob reasoned with her.

"She's not interested." She said, with a commanding tone of finality. Her whole aura seemed to be teeming over with power that was both scary and amazing to see.

"Nice to meet you Rob." I said, trying to be polite.

"See? That is what I call being interested." Rob retaliated. Kevin rolled his eyes at his friends.

"You don't have to acknowledge him, y'know?" Kevin said, smirking. I looked over at him and the awkward conversation Cheryl had had with me about Kevin liking me and Rob waiting to make his move came back. That definitely made me feel a little uncomfortable and I could sense that Kevin was starting to feel that way too.

I decided not to say anything about Kevin's statement of not acknowledging Rob and instead excused myself to go get my cello. "Call me when you're ready to have our next lesson."

That night at about six-thirty I felt my cell vibrating across my bed. I grabbed it up thinking it was Alice wanting to talk to me.

"Hello?" I said, wondering what Alice wanted to tell me.

"Hey." I was surprised when a very masculine voice came out my side of the phone. I took the phone from my ear in surprise to look at the caller i.d. It said...

"Kevin!"

I must've sounded completely shocked because he said, "Is it a bad time to call?"

"No-no! I'm fine. What did you need?" I stood up and started pacing around my room, a habit I had developed when I talked on the phone.

I heard him sigh on the other end. "I kinda put Larsson's music score in with all of your other music by accident."

My eyes darted over to the stack of music laying on my chair. "Wait I'll check... Does it have a title."

"No, it just had the date scrawled on the top of a thin white binder in Larsson's really crappy hand writing." He told me. I heard a voice shouting 'hey!' on Kevin's side of the phone and I figured that must've been Larsson's protest to what Kevin just said.

I started going through the stack throwing all of the music on my bed. I found it and waved it up in the air, for really no apparent reason, "Found it!"

"Great! I'm in the middle of practice right now but, is there anyway you can get it to me within the next fifteen minutes. I think Larsson is about to kill me." He said.

I chuckled a bit, "Yeah, no problem. I'll hitch a ride from my cousin. See ya soon." I said, hanging up the phone before he could say anything else. I ran down the hall to Eric's room still hugging the music to my chest.

I banged on the door, "Eric! Can you give me a ride to the school?"

"Why?" I heard Eric's muffled voice say.

"I need to drop something off with my teacher." I told him.

He opened the door holding his keys in his hand, "I didn't know teachers stayed this late."

"For sports they do." I told him.

"Okay let's go." He said.

We were in his truck and on the way to the school faster than I thought we would be. With the luck we had we would be down there in about ten minutes. Everything was completely silent, and it felt as if the silence would help us get to the school faster.

Eric pulled into the football fields parking lot and I jumped out to go find Kevin. I walked into the stadium to find all of the band in uniform. I stood to the side of the bleachers looking for Kevin. It was kind of hard to find him though when he blended in with the sea of black, gold, and red known as the band.

He was eventually the one to spot me however and ran off the field. He looked awesome in his uniform the black pants fitting him perfectly and the red and gold matching his hair. He took his hat off as soon as he reached me letting the black plume hit me in the face. I squinted my face trying to get a feather out of my mouth.

"Sorry."

"It's okay." I said, holding the binder out to him, "Here's the binder."

"Thank you." He leaned forward a bit to whisper, "I think Larsson was about to kill me."

I chuckled a bit, "Good thing I brought it then."

"Williams!" Larsson's voice carried out across the field so everyone could here, "Stop flirting and bring that to me!"

That made us both blush. "Coming!" He shouted impatiently at Larsson, he turned back to me and worded 'sorry' before walking back onto the field where the band stood trying to hide their snickers.

"Kevin." He turned around, walking backwards. "Where's your next performance?"

"Carter Hills High School at four o'clock on the field." He said, waving good bye to me.

I left laughing when I heard Larsson say to the band, "That's twenty push-ups for all of you for breaking attention!"

AN: Well I hope you liked the chappie. Tell me what you think R&R: ) Thank you!