A Little Time to Get to You

tech rehearsal

"Question." I say as Ricky swings an arm around my shoulders, leading us to through the halls of East High after our weekend flew faster than it ever had before. (Probably because we spent the entire thing curled up watching movies together and making out, avoiding all responsibilities and heavy emotional topics.)

"Answer" Ricky grins, and I roll my eyes. "Are you done with your college applications?" I ask and he nods, steering us towards our lockers and opening his the second we reach them. I lean against the wall. "Yeah and a whole two weeks before the deadline too. You're rubbing off on me darling." He smiles and I grin back.

"Okay I'm only hearing bits and pieces, but from what I can assume, can we keep the dirty talk to a minimum when we're in school?" We hear as my Kourtney approaches us and I laugh, covering my mouth. "Oh fuck off, there was nothing dirty about that. When it's dirty, you won't have to assume." Ricky says, giving me a wink in the process and my laugh sobers up immediately and I blush. "Oh... oh" I mumble and he smirks, proud of the fact that he barely had to do anything to get me flustered.

"Okay gross." Kourtney says. Ricky shrugs and leans next to me against the lockers. "So what do you want?" He asks Kourtney and she recoils in offense. "Um hi hello? I'm her best friend." She says, pointing at me and I smile.

"So you don't want anything?" Ricky asks and she hesitates. "Okay no I needed to let y'all know that our tech rehearsals for the musical are gonna be held at the theater down the street all week." She says and I furrow my eyebrows. "Wait why?" I ask. She shrugs and takes a deep breath. "Apparently Miss Jen told Carlos that it would benefit us to feel like real performers with real jobs, and the theater will help us do that." She says, relaying the information. I nod slowly and Kourtney giggles, fluffing her hair. "But girlie, who doesn't love to be in a real theater doing makeup for my lovelies and acting on a real stage?" She asks and I grin excitedly. "Okay when you put it like that I'm unrealistically excited." I say and she grins. "It's gonna be awesome but y'all need to be there by 4 today." Ricky groans and looks at me. "It's so much more work to get there." He says, chiming into the conversation for the first time.

I giggle at his childishness and push on his shoulder. "Well you chose this year to join theater." I say and he squints. "I chose to join theater because..."

The bell rings and Kourtney blows a kiss to me as I reach past Ricky to shut his locker. "Time for class!" I say and that earns a groan too. "What? Is that also too far for you?"

I earn a death glare and a hard squeeze of my ass as we walk.

***

Arriving at the theater after school, I'm jittery and anxious. Yes, there wasn't going to be anyone in the audience, and yes, unless we heard otherwise, we weren't actually going to be performing here for opening night, but for the very first time, I was a leading character and for an entire week, I get to stand on a real theater stage and perform like one.

I shake my head and smile at the fact that Miss Jen's tactic had already worked.

But unfortunately for me, my plans of performing on the stage (at least for today) were terminated when Miss Jen lines us up to give the rehearsal itinerary.

As Miss Jen rambles on about our duties and our jobs while we were all here this week, I tense up when I feel a hand on my back, someone touching me from behind, but when I feel it gently massaging my spine I melt into the touch.

Ricky and I had decided to keep our relationship from Miss Jen. We didn't want her to think that the relationship would affect our roles in any way and we didn't want her to deem us unprofessional in rehearsal, something that might be elevated if she knew about us. The rest of the cast believed it was a good decision as well, believing that what Miss Jen didn't know wouldn't hurt her, but unfortunately for me and Ricky, it was hours of our day pretending like we weren't together.