When he reached the top of the stairs, Jack took a deep breath before searching for apartment 3A. He walked down one hallway, only to find when he reached the end of it that it was not the right one. It was hallway B. Jack groaned and clenched his fists. He was nervous, so nervous he couldn't even find hallway A, and it was one of the seven letters of the alphabet every band geek should know. Taking another deep breath, he checked every faded bronze letter on the first door in the hallway until he finally found it, door 1A. There was 2A, and finally, 3A.
Fixing his hair quickly, and making sure he had his saxophone and music, he knocked on the door. It swung open almost immediately. There stood two little kids he assumed were Ralph's brothers. They were shorter, younger versions of Ralph, with the same blond hair and blue eyes.
They stared up at Jack for a couple of seconds before one of them said, "My name is Sam. Are you Ralph's new boyfriend?"
Jack just stood there and spluttered out incoherent things before the other one said, "Oh, so you're not his boyfriend, but you wanna be right? My name is Eric"
"Um, well, the thing is…"
"You're no fun, why don't you just admit that you like him? It's pretty obvious from the way you keep stuttering." Sam said.
"Yeah, how about we play a game?" Eric said, a grin slowly forming on their faces.
"What game?" Jack said cautiously.
"If you admit that you like Ralph, we'll let you in, and you can go out with him," they said in unison.
Jack fidgeted for a moment, desperately looking over their short heads for Ralph, but he was nowhere to be found, and the twins seemed pretty intent on not letting him in. He sighed and said, "Fine, I like Ralph. Can I come in now?"
"Samneric, what are you guys doing?" Ralph appeared as if from nowhere, hands on his hips, giving the big-brother-stare-down. Jack noticed Ralph's cheeks looked slightly pinker than usual, but he cast the thought aside. He was probably just imagining it.
Samneric squealed and ran away quickly. "Sorry about that," Ralph sighed, "They're little troublemakers."
"Hey, no big deal, my little sister does stuff like that all the time," Jack said, scratching the back of his head thoughtfully.
Ralph stepped back slightly to welcome Jack inside, "So, are you gonna stand there all day, or should we go practice?"
Jack deliberately stepped into the apartment, suppressing the tiny voice in his head that screamed, "Get out of there, you idiot!"
It was small, but homey. When you stepped in the door, there was four ways you could go, either to a bedroom and bathroom, another bedroom and bathroom, to the living room, or to the kitchen. Tucked behind the kitchen was the dining room; that had a round table with four mismatched chairs. Jack got a glance of all of this as Ralph led him down the hallway to the left to what Jack assumed was his bedroom. It was plain; beige walls and a neatly made twin bed with white sheets a generic desk on which sat generic light. Altogether, a boring room, except for the books, they were piled high on every available surface. Everything from "Catcher in the Rye," to two piles of manga sitting in the corner by his closet.
"Sorry, I forgot to move all of these. I usually have them in my closet, but I was cataloging them," Ralph apologized, sweeping a pile from his bed, and pulling up a music stand Jack hadn't noticed before, "I only have one stand, so we're going to have to share. Is that okay?"
Jack willed himself not to blush as he said, "Yeah that's fine."
"So have you already marked your music?" Ralph asked casually as he put his flute together.
"Kind of, just what I could get done in class. I have all the accidentals; I need to work on some of the rhythms though," Jack said around the reed in his mouth, "Simon made me go over to his house right after school, so I didn't get a chance to practice on my own."
Ralph stiffened slightly at the mention of Simon. "So, Simon's your friend?"
Jack leaned, trying to crack his back, "Yeah. Except when he's with Roger, then I don't exist. Sheesh, couples right?"
Ralph relaxed. "Simon and Roger are dating?"
Jack adjusted his neck strap and set up his music on his half of the stand, "Yeah, it started out cool, now it's getting kind of obnoxious, ya know?"
Ralph let out a sigh. "Yeah, I know."
Jack smiled widely, "Let's get playing, shall we?"
"We shall," Ralph said with a grin before bringing his flute up to his lips and starting to play.
The music flew through the room like, well, music. It curled around the piles of books, reached it's tendrils of sound up to the ceiling and sought out any place it hadn't already invaded. Jack's fingers soared on the keys, melding his harmony to Ralph's melody, and feeling his heart lift when Ralph returned the favor.
When they had finished, Jack just sat there, panting a little while Ralph went through the music with a little frown on his face, circling and marking places they went wrong.
"So," he said, after he was finished, "I think we need to work on measures twelve through- mmf!"
Jack pulled back, shocked by what he had just done. He took off his saxophone, set it carefully on the bed, and ran out of the apartment as fast as he possibly could. He didn't stop until he got back to Simon's house. Not even ringing the bell, he burst in. Simon poked his head out of his bedroom and raised an eyebrow.
"Jack? What happened?"
"I think I kissed him."
Author's Note: Dun Dun Dunn! I'm sorry it took me forever to update, you know, life, band et cetera. I got first chair in band, the ultimate nerdy goal, despite getting it in the crappier band at mah school. Review! Favorite! Follow! Don't hate me for not updating as much as I/you want me to!