It was pointless of him to worry; there really was no way she could have said no. She wasn’t ready to walk away just yet, and while she could attribute this to a variety of things- they were friends; they still needed to finish catching up, begin catching up really, there was so much she had missed and hadn’t heard about and almost desperately needed to know and say; and oh, yes, music, can’t forget to appreciate the music, that was what they were doing, right? Just music- that didn’t even begin to cover it all. She wasn’t entirely sure that she was ready to think about just why this was suddenly so important to her, but she pushed that thought from her mind as she followed him up to his room.
“I don’t mind,” she answered, shrugging. It wasn’t that untidy; she couldn’t really understand why he seemed rather nervous about it. Hers was a bit neater, albeit not by a whole lot, but she had seen much worse. She tried to look nonchalant as she scanned the room while he set up. Absently, she wondered why he needed so many guitars- maybe she was just naïve, but two seemed like enough- but what really caught her attention were the books. She resisted the urge to inspect them, see if they were the same books she had been reading, skim his notes both for his opinions and to see if his handwriting was as familiar as she remembered, give some calculated off-hand comment that’d provoke some sort of intellectual debate-
And then what? She was clearly over thinking this whole thing, making this into something when it was nothing- really, it was nothing, why was she even nervous? She wasn’t some silly school girl going up to some bloke’s room for the first time, and this was just James, never mind the fact that he hadn’t been ‘just James’ for years.
It was a good thing he was busy with his guitar or else he may have caught her flush from embarrassment over how ridiculous she was being. She exhaled, brushing a strand of hair out of her face before turning her attention back to him. He looked up at her, and she smiled encouragingly in response. “I’m sure it’ll sound brilliant.”