Julia could definitely play something beautiful. He'd heard her himself. Even if he hadn't, he'd been taking lessons long enough to know that songs you practice in preparation for a recital – be it a recital for your mother in a church basement or a real audience – get engrained into your fingers and your brain and never leave. There had to be a minuet in her somewhere, leftover from the days of yore. She was proving him right a second later, before he could say as much, playing what could only have been a pretty, showy piece that her teacher had her prepare for her parents to prove that she was learning something. He loved those pieces. They reminded him of ice cream, seeing as he always got an ice cream cone if his mum was sufficiently impressed by his playing (and she always was). It had been a very long time since he'd earned himself a chocolate cone in exchange for a melody. He didn't feel like he'd written or played anything deserving of one lately. He was in a creative funk. There was nothing like a good friend to make him feel better about it, though – or try to. 

”That bit you were playing in the commons last night was lovely. And didn’t you see those girls getting all misty eyed watching you? They were falling in love.”

“Is that right?” he asked her with a lazy grin, though he'd definitely noticed his little fans, and he knew that Julia had noticed him noticing them. He'd been flirting with them in his way, making eye contact while he played, and throwing winks around because he thought they made him look cool. “It makes sense, doesn't it? I was playing songs from two years ago. They appeal to the thirteen year old in all of us,” he explained, trying to write off whatever fans he'd earned himself by calling them young and stupid, but in fewer words. 

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever – its loveliness increases, it will never pass into nothingness, but still will keep a bower quiet for us, and a sleep,” he recited from memory, his eyes shut as he rested his head against his arms. His voice wasn't particularly animated, but he spoke slowly, with a certain reverence for the language. “You know John Keats?” he asked her, “Well, that's Keats. That's Keats for you. And you know he died when he was just twenty years old or something?” he asked, opening his eyes again. “Knowing that, I feel like I need to write something that'll make your spine tingle before too long. That's Endymion. Me ma loves Keats. Anyway, that's what I'm thinking about just now,” he said with an abashed little laugh, as though he'd been caught with his hand down the front of his trousers. 


a simple rule that every good man knows by heart: its smarter to be lucky than its lucky to be smart