Fever Pitch by Heidi Cullinan: Review, Excerpt, and Giveaway!!!

“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 made 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.