Fever Pitch (8 page)

Elijah's other friend was female. Emily was pretty and petite, always neatly groomed, her hair either in a demure Sandra Dee-like ponytail or held back in an equally 1950s' headband. Her clothes were clearly carefully chosen and fully fashionable—even when she wore a religious T-shirt fifteen other people wore at the same time. She wore smart little pins on the lapel of her cardigan broadcasting quiet moral admonitions and invitations.
Come To My Church With Me.
PRAY HARD. Do You Know Jesus?

The one she wore most often when visiting Elijah was a red marriage-equality equal sign—with a line through it.

Though Reece was openly creepy, Emily was stealth, and she made Aaron nervous. While Reece bellowed Good News in the hallway, Emily stood on the sidelines like a demure hawk. When the Campus Crusaders held their meetings in the main lobby of the union, Emily managed to stand next to earnest young men and talk about a woman knowing her place…while at the same time clearly running the show. She spoke of abstinence and purity while giving not-at-all-subtle bedroom eyes to any hot guy who happened by. If she was somehow still
unsoiled
, as she encouraged her female disciples to be, she was the vampiest virgin Aaron had ever seen.

She had her headlights set on Aaron.

On the day of the Ambassadors' first rehearsal, Emily and Reece came to pick Elijah up as usual. He'd decorated his desk with a few of the religious knickknacks from the bottom drawer before they arrived, and he donned the khakis, short-sleeved shirt and powder-blue tie that made him look like a dryer-shrunk door-to-door salesman. His notebooks vanished to whatever special wormhole he kept them in, and he waited at his desk, surfing Christian websites on his computer, his Bible-study binder and well-worn Bible beside him.

Emily and Reece wore matching shirts: a large rainbow arched over a cross, the words
Take Back the Rainbow
blazed along the colored spectrum in a cheesy font with glitter around it over a dull gray landscape. They were horrifically ugly, though Emily had managed to make hers work with a fire-engine-red cashmere shrug and matching earrings, necklace, bracelet and headband.

She smiled at Aaron, tucking her hair behind her ear and batting her lashes in a move both shy and devastatingly calculated at once. “Can we tempt you along, Aaron? We have a guest speaker talking about how to maintain quality relationships.
Sustained
romantic compatibility is so important in a Christian connection.”

“I have choir practice.” Aaron couldn't stop staring at their shirts, trying to figure them out. He stared at Reece's because Emily's rainbow was tight against her prominent breasts, and he didn't want to encourage her. Reece's cotton straining from the rolls of his belly wasn't attractive but at least wouldn't be misconstrued as an invitation for a sustained Christian relationship.

The shirts made no sense, though, no matter how Aaron studied them. Where were they taking the rainbow? Why? And seriously, who in the hell saw that font and thought,
Man, let's use this?

Reece beamed and tented the shirt away from his body in display. “Aren't they great? I'll get you one when I bring Elijah's.”

Aaron couldn't take it anymore. “But what does it mean?”

“It means we're taking it back.” Reece's already ruddy face went blotchy with indignation. “The homosexuals can go find some other religious symbol to commandeer.”

Oh, that rainbow.

“Make sure you wear it on October 11.” Emily toyed with the end of a lock of hair as she winked at Aaron. “It'll be our silent counterprotest.”

What was October 11? Aaron wasn't going to ask. Clearing his throat, he reached for his backpack. “I have to go. Practice. Um, bye.” He passed a robotic Elijah, who was clutching his binder and Bible as he stared blankly into space, waiting to be activated for Christ.

It was an hour until the rehearsal, but no way in hell was Aaron staying in the room another second. Especially when he googled October 11. It was National Coming Out Day.

The idea that he lived with someone who wanted to
take back the rainbow
when he was just figuring out how to ride it made him uneasy. After wandering aimlessly around the grassy common for a few minutes, Aaron found a secluded spot on the other side of the student union, pulled out his phone and called Walter.

“Hey, babe. What's up?”

Aaron sat under a tree and curled his legs up to his chest. “Is this an okay time to call you?”

“Always an okay time to call me, sweetie. Especially when something's bothering you. Tell Uncle Walter what's going on.”

Aaron gave him a recap of the rainbow encounter—Walter already knew who Reece and Emily were, which made things easier. Even a simple retelling, though, got Aaron riled up all over again. “They want to
give me that shirt
, and they expect me to wear it on National Coming Out Day. What are they going to do if they find out about me?”

“Nothing, because if they do, your campus has antibullying policies. The words
my dad's a lawyer
will probably scare them into silence if nothing else.”

“But I don't want my dad to know. And what do I do with the shirt? Tell them no? What if they ask why?”

“Oh, take the shirt.” Walter's tone was silky and dangerous. “Save it for me. Arrogant Christian assholes. I'll give them their fucking rainbow.” There was a murmur in the background, and when Walter spoke again, his voice was more measured. “Kelly says to tell you not all Christians are assholes. I will grant you his family is great. But beyond that—” He broke off as Kelly's voice got sharper. Walter sighed. “We'll discuss my opinions on Christianity another time.”

“Most of the time you don't notice this is a Lutheran school. These guys are some weird fringe group from what I can tell. I mean, there are Campus Catholics and Methodist Meetings, but all they do is plan homecoming floats and eat cookies. They don't wear antigay buttons. Leave it to my roommate to find the weirdoes.” Aaron frowned. “I would have
sworn
he was gay.”

“He might be. When you come from the kind of crazy it sounds like he was steeped in, sometimes you have to go hard before you come to Gay Jesus. Which, those twelve disciples? Statistics say at least one was gay.”

Aaron got the feeling if Walter ever visited when Emily and Reece stopped by, things would get colorful fast. “I don't want to have to deal with them.”

“Then don't. Put your headphones in when they show up, and don't engage. They'll get the hint, even the virgin vamp queen.”

“I don't get why girls always have to hit on me. I don't do anything to make them think I might be interested.”

“That's why they hit on you, hon. That and you're smoking hot. A scruffy, blue-eyed puppy to hug and squeeze.”

He was pretty sure Emily wanted to do a lot more than hug and squeeze him. She and several other girls, some who were equally creepy, many who were not. He should come out so they'd leave him alone.

Except, then he'd be…out. Aaron shut his eyes and rubbed his temple with his free hand. “I hate this.”

“Let's talk about something else. What are you doing right now?”

“Sitting under a tree, waiting for Ambassador rehearsal. The first one. There's some kind of initiation thing, I guess.”

“Oh boy. If they put a bra on your head, Instagram a pic, please.”

“Let's talk about something even more else. What are you doing?”

“Watching Disney movies with my fiancé. He was able to preorder his DVD of
Frozen
, and now he's in a mood.”

Aaron blinked. Several times. “Disney movies?”

“Yes. Kelly has a thing for them.
Tangled
is his favorite, but
Frozen
has him conflicted, I think. I'm trying to get him to have someone sing ‘Let It Go' at the wedding, because the song is seriously badass, but he says it's not ceremony appropriate.”

Aaron remembered Walter's ringtone for Kelly. “What about ‘Candle on the Water'?”

“Oh
do not
let him hear you say that.”

Ch
apter Eight

Th
e mob outside the choir room as he arrived for the first Ambassadors' rehearsal made Aaron think he'd gone to the wrong place, but it turned out the crowd was there to witness. Several people waved at him as he entered, but just as many elbowed each other in excitement as they glanced at Aaron, which made him nervous.

Inside the choir room it was
only
the new Ambassador recruits. There were six of them total, including the other freshman—a baritone who was also in Aaron's Intro to Theory class. Aaron was the last to arrive. The other five guys sat in chairs in a line in the center of the room, the only chairs in the room that weren't stacked up against the wall. One empty space remained at the end, and Aaron sat in it.

The upperclassman beside him gave him a nervous smile. “You ready for this?”

Since Aaron still wasn't exactly sure what
this
was, he doubted it. He shrugged. “I guess.”

The guy next to his seat partner leaned over to address Aaron. “I heard you rehearsing the other day. You're really good.”

Aaron tried not to feel self-conscious. “Thanks.”

“It should be any second now,” another guy farther down said. He stared at the door Aaron and Jilly had exited through after their choir audition.

Aaron had
no
idea what was about to happen. He wasn't too worried, because if he had to wear a bra on his head or something, at least the other guys had to do it too. And yeah, he'd Instagram it. To show Walter he could.

“I'm gonna suck,” somebody murmured.

The door on the other side of the room opened. Baz appeared in the archway, eyes as always hidden by shades.

Leaning on the frame, he belted the opening line to the Black Eyed Peas' “Let's Get It Started”.

It was a slow, spine-tingling slide into the notes, making the hair on Aaron's skin stand on end as the sound echoed in the room and resonated in his chest cavity. As Baz stepped into the room, ten guys poured in singing the baseline.

The Ambassadors surrounded the lineup of chairs, circling the new recruits and singing at the top of their incredibly talented lungs. They sang
at
the recruits, waggling their eyebrows, basically all-out flirting. Baz even lowered his glasses a few times and winked at Aaron. A curly-haired second tenor launched flawlessly into the rap, but when it came time for the chorus, he fell into the throng, part of the wall of sound surrounding Aaron and the others.

When they came to the part where the first tenors hit falsetto, however, the Ambassadors broke into sections, and each of the recruits was ushered into his appropriate place. Sid, a junior and Aaron's first tenor sectional leader, grabbed Aaron and pulled him into a trio with himself and Baz. The two of them sang almost into Aaron's ears, urging him with their voices and bodies to take up the beat, and with a nudge from Sid, Aaron tentatively joined in. Baz left as he claimed another section of the solo, swaying his hips and serenading each of the newbies. Aaron grinned and clapped along. When it was his turn to be sung to, he belted falsetto at Baz, pretty sure he was hitting the right notes.

If this was the initiation, it wasn't so bad.

Honestly, Aaron never wanted this to end. It was like being in the band, except better. Eventually it did end though, winding down with all of them leaning forward in a circle, the basses closing them out with a near whisper of a backbeat. When the song stopped, they remained in their huddle, old and new Ambassadors as one.

Aaron held still, breathless and more excited than he'd ever felt in his life.

Baz tipped his shades down and hummed a note at Marius, the handsome, dark-haired bass from auditions. After a nod, Baz sang. “Kenny, Mickey—one more time.”

Not missing so much as a breath, the veteran Ambassadors launched into the opening of “…Baby One More Time”, which took Aaron a second to identify because he was distracted by the vocalization of what he knew as instrumental lines. The newbie who had greeted Aaron when he'd entered and another recruit smiled nervously and stepped into the center of the circle, clapping along with the beat.

When the first verse started, Kenny and Mickey began to sing the solo together. They fumbled a little, not knowing all the words, but all in all they did pretty well. The other guys in their section helped them out when they stumbled, and by the end of the song, the new Ambassadors were holding their own.

So
this
was the initiation everyone was nervous about. Aaron told himself he could do this. No different from Tanner whipping out something new and making them sweat through a dry run. Piece of cake.

Except when the song switched to a OneRepublic number, three names were called out, none of them Aaron's.

Aaron faltered in his attempts to follow Sid, wondering what this meant. Out of the six recruits, five had been initiated…and only Aaron remained. Were they skipping him? How was that fair?

Were they making him sing alone? The squirrels in his head ran around in circles through the whole song, and when the song ended, Aaron's belly erupted in butterflies.

Baz stood in the center of the circle, grinning.

“As some of you know, we have a
special
recruit to the Ambassadors this year. If you're a tenor, you've heard him in sectionals, and a few of us were there at his choir audition, where he gave us quite an acoustic treat. It was Keane that day, but he promised us he knew some Florence. And you'd better deliver, honey, because poor Damien and I sweated bullets to arrange this one.”

Are they talking about me?
Aaron wondered. Except they had to be—
he
had sung Keane at his audition and almost did Florence + the Machine. Aaron squirmed at the attention, feeling nervous and upset. This wasn't fair at all, and he already wanted it over.

Baz held his hands out, backing way. “Mr. Aaron Seavers—please tell us all about it, ‘Lover to Lover'.”

Aaron stepped forward, squirrel brain and belly butterflies ready for the Thunderdome. He kept trying to find the safe place to be inside his head, but there was nowhere, only this horrible spotlight, everyone waiting for him to sing. They wanted him to sing ‘Lover to Lover'? Here, now,
by himself
?

The first and second tenors vocalized what was normally the piano introduction as the basses and baritones clapped. Yep, this was ‘Lover to Lover' all right.

In a few bars Aaron was supposed to sing. A few notes now, actually. When was he supposed to come in? Were they going to cue him?

What the fucking hell?

Aaron glanced at Sid, desperate for a lifeline. Sid tossed him a sly smile, mouthing the opening words.

How will I get the right note?

Then, as if someone else took over his body, Aaron began to sing.

Tentatively at first—it helped that the opening was soft. He got bolder as Marius and the other basses came in with the bottom, filling out the sound, making his skin tingle.
Talk about color.
It was a great arrangement too. The composer in him lifted his head, shaking off cobwebs, admiring the arrangements, taking notes and occasionally thinking,
I'd have done it differently.

This was fun. Nerve-wracking, but all kinds of fucking fun.

Baz and Sid joined him in harmony at the chorus, and as the Ambassadors swelled around him, Aaron's heart beat like a fat hammer in his chest, powered by joy taking him higher with each additional triumphant note. He knew every inch of this song, had sung it in the car and in the shower and at his keyboard ever since he first downloaded the album, but never had he sung it with fifteen other guys.

This was amazing. He wanted to do this every damn day for the rest of his fucking life.

At the second verse, Baz came into the center with him, taking harmony and twerking. Self-consciousness washed away in the high of the song, Aaron danced with him, never so much as dropping a beat. He and Baz had a big-ass belting sing-off during the next chorus, joining as one voice for the bridge. They crouched together on the floor as Aaron all but whispered the song, heart dancing because he knew what was coming.

Give it to us,
Baz's expression begged.

Aaron's soul roared as he slid into the rise, lifting his body, opening his throat, sending the song in his heart all the way up to the heavens.

His whole
body
vibrated with vocal color through the last chorus. If he'd had wings, he would have soared through the roof and into the atmosphere. He could read the surprise and pleasure on the others' faces, and that only spun him higher.

This.
This
was what he wanted. If he could major in
this
feeling, he'd sign up right now.

As his vocals ended and the Ambassadors wound down the arpeggios with gentle, expert care, Aaron simply stood in the center of it and soaked it all in. After the last note they kept still, the connectivity among the sixteen of them a living thing inside the air.

Baz hummed out a note, and the veterans sang together in eight-part harmony.

“Welcome to the Ambassadors, Kenny, Mickey, Rob, Drew, Trevor and Aaron.” They clapped, the sound echoing in a roar in the hallway.

The doors opened as Nussy swept inside. “Well done, boys.” He clapped a few times, but he took the podium with clear intent to get to work. “Grab a chair and take your place from last year. Section leaders, show the new members where they should go.”

“Off to the left, right beside me,” Sid said as he hurried off to get a chair, but not before he also squeezed Aaron's shoulder. “Good job.”

Aaron followed Sid's direction, still half lost in his song. He caught Nussy's eye, and the conductor winked at him. He looked proud.

Aaron grinned so wide he thought he might split his face.

Th
e first day of Ambassadors had been fun, but actual rehearsals were even better. The guys were friendly, especially Damien—J.Crew guy from auditions, the student conductor of the full chorale—and his best friends Baz (sunglasses guy) and Marius (the bassiest bass in the world). Baz was a huge flirt and always made Aaron blush. Marius's beautiful voice wrapped around Aaron like a blanket every time he spoke. Ambassadors rehearsal was always a highlight of Aaron's day.

But lessons with Dr. Mrs. Nussenbaum? They were the best part of Aaron's week.

He hated how he'd let himself get cut off from piano for so long, and in his efforts to make up for lost time, he practiced every single second he could.

“You have a wonderful ear,” Dr. Nussenbaum said at the end of one of their lessons in late September. “I understand from Dr. Allison you're excelling in his theory class as well, and you have a particular talent for composition.”

“I love composing. I'd done some in high school before I moved, just for fun, but now I feel as if I've been trying to paint and someone finally introduced me to brushes.”

“Well, you're making a fine start.”

She kept smiling at Aaron, which made his head ring, because Dr. Mrs. never smiled. She was beautiful—board-straight dark brown hair gleaming at her shoulders, shimmering when she turned her head—but she was a cold beauty. Except today she beamed at Aaron, and she took his breath away.

The smile loosened his tongue as effectively as a tub of alcohol.

“I wanted to tell you, Dr. Nussenbaum, how grateful I am for these lessons. For your time. I don't—” He faltered, self-consciousness getting the better of him for a moment, but he pushed through. “It means so much to me. Between you and Dr. Allison—” Here he cut himself off. It would take a lot more than a smile from Dr. Mrs. to get him to confess music at Saint Timothy was saving his soul.

“Not my husband?” She chuckled when Aaron sputtered. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't tease you. I'm not often cited over my spouse, however.”

“I don't want to sound ungrateful. Sometimes he's too much, is all.”

If he'd thought she'd smiled at him before, he didn't know what to call the gesture she gave him next—a veil lifting, allowing Aaron a glimpse of the woman beneath. “It's fine, Aaron. I understand.” She put her hand over his. Her skin was cold, but as the clasp lingered, warmth seeped through before she let him go with a brisk pat. “Let's try the Chopin again. I think you could finish off the last measure with clearer lift.”

Aaron
did
finish it better, to both his and Dr. Nussenbaum's satisfaction. The whole lesson was such a rush that when he went to the student lounge after, he drifted on a cloud.

Jilly elbowed him playfully. “You look all stoned out. You been playing footsie with someone in a practice room?”

Aaron rattled into full sobriety. “No! God, no. I had a great lesson with Dr. Nussenbaum, is all. Dr. Mrs., I mean.” He swallowed the title, suddenly aware of how cheap it was.

The stack of sheet music Jilly carried rustled as her arms slackened. “A lesson with
her
made you this happy?”

Aaron stilled. “Um, yeah?”

“
Nobody
has a good lesson with Dr. Mrs., ever. Most of her students leave her office crying. I know two girls who've already switched their majors because of her. She's a
hard
-ass.”

Aaron bristled. “She's strict, yes, but that's because she's so good. She's ten times as talented as Nussy, but he's always dancing and flirting, so of course everyone likes him better. And for the record, I don't care for the Dr. Mrs. thing. Why is she the Mrs. and Nussy isn't Dr. Mr.?”

Jilly held up a hand. “Down, boy.”

Aaron withdrew. “Sorry.”

“No, don't apologize.” Jilly regarded him thoughtfully. “
God.
How did I not see that about the title? I feel gross. I'm a
girl
. I should have seen it right off.” Jilly leaned against an instrument locker. “It's the whole department. Everything is misogynistic. Look at choir: there are so many women lining up to sing they had to make a ghetto chorus, but the
guys
get the special a cappella troupe.”