Just for a Moment

34 | Comfort

She's been in there for a long time. Joshua keeps looking over his shoulder to see if Olivia's coming out of her bedroom, but there's no sign of her.

"You hungry?" Matt whispers to him.

"What?" he responds.

"You keep looking at the kitchen. If you want more food, go get some." Joshua looks back in the direction of Olivia's bedroom and realizes it does look like he's looking into the kitchen.

"Uh, yeah." He decides to go in there to seem less suspicious. He's leaning against the countertop, occasionally taking sips of his coke until he feels like he's stalled enough.

Once the time is right, he leaves the kitchen but not before almost running into something. Or someone. "Sorry," he and Olivia say at the same time. They both chuckle at their never-ending habit.

"You ok?" she asks.

"Yeah," he answers. She looks up at him, and he's confused. Her eyes were a little glossed over, and her cheeks were a light red.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah, why?" She's lying, he knows it, and she knows that he knows that she's lying.

"It- nothing." He waves it off, and they both go back into the living room.

As everyone continues to laugh at the cringy scenes, Joshua knows that Olivia's smile's fake. He doesn't want to say anything in front of everyone, but he might try later. Might.

*After the Second Movie*
"You guys know it's almost 6, right?" Joe says, glancing at his phone.

"Really, wow," Dara adds.

"What should we do now?" Frankie asks.

"Ooh, I know," Joshua says, getting up and going into his room. He comes back a few minutes later with a deck of cards. "Spicy Uno?" Everyone nods excitedly.

*Two Hours Later*
"That makes another win!!" Frankie yells. Yes, they've been playing for two hours. Almost everyone has won at least one round.

"I can't believe it's been two hours," Julia says, yawning.

"I know," Dara says, also yawning.

"Should we do more movies?" Matt suggests.

"We can. Let's do a long one though," Sofia says.

"Blank Panther is just over two hours," Joshua chimes in.

"Perfect," Larry says.

*Yet Another Movie Later*
"I'm getting so tired," Matt yawns.

"Should we all head into our rooms? Just so we don't fall asleep in here," Larry suggests.

"Probably," Dara agrees.

"So see you guys tomorrow," Olivia says as they get up to leave. They nod.

"Hey, I actually had some ideas for the song... if you're up for working on it a little," Joshua says once the last person leaves.

"Ok."

They get their instruments from behind the couch, and Joshua says, "Ok, so since the whole show surrounds them rekindling because of the musical, what if our song kinda centered around that? You know, the singing, stage, lights, cast, etc."

"Yeah, that might be a good place to start. All we have are random melodies. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a key piece of this song is the words," she jokes.

"They might be just a teeny tiny bit necessary," he laughs, bringing his fingers close together.

"Let's start," she says excitedly.