Jiley Oneshots

Confi-dance

Season 3, when Ella steals Ri's solo

Riley's POV:

"Riley you've got another solo you can do, don't you?" Michelle asks interrogatively as she stood by my side. My hand was linked with James's as his other remained on my back and rubbed it in a soothing circle, though it far from calmed me down. I could hardly hear over the top of the cheers coming from the crowds and commentating from the presenters in the booths above. I couldn't think straight and all that came out of my mouth in response was a simple stutter.

"She does. I saw her doing one," Eldon says. "And what about the one she did for the battles?" he inquires, raising an eyebrow. I shake my head and scratch the middle of it, the tip of my nail intruding my skin.

"I spent an hour choreographing that, it's not Internationals ready," I say to him, dropping my arm back down by my side in resent as I looked up and took in the smug grin on Ella's face whilst she was still in the box-splits on the floor. She's doing my dance. My movements. My representation of dance. All those moves I choreographed and put together were personal to me and myself but she had to cheat. She had to betray our friendship after I loaded all of my trust onto her. I risked my relationship with my boyfriend because of her, and yet she couldn't care less about it.

"Ri," James says softly from behind me as his hand stopped moving and remained lightly placed over my spine. The tenderness of his tone made me turn and look up at him but I bit my lip to stop it from quivering due to the amount of worry inside of me. I already struggled with confidence when we were competing for Regionals but James helped me to build it up. Now it's shattering all over again. "Come with me," he says.

He takes my hand and leads me past everyone as we go backstage. Kate looked as if she was hanging on the edge, clearly growing agitated considering we were due to go on any minute now and yet we had no clue who was going to be performing. James sets me in front of him and holds both of my hands in his as he looked at my face solemnly with care etched among his eyes and lips. His eyebrows were softened rather than furrowed and it was almost enough to relax me.

"Riley, you're going on that stage and you're going to dance your hardest," he tells me. His voice was stern but firm, the same way it was when we were preparing to battle against each other for a space on the team. That memory still bothers me when I think about it.

"I can't, James," I tell him, my voice breaking as soon as I let the second word escape my lips. He shakes his head and corrects me by saying,

"Yes, you can, baby. I believe in you and so does everyone else. It doesn't have to be a perfect dance and it doesn't have to be rehearsed, either." He pauses and looks around him as he clicks his tongue once before redrawing eye-contact with me to lift my chin up with one finger. "Tell me why you dance, Riles."

"Because it connects me to you," I tell him, thinking he was aiming for me to say something to complement him, but to my surprise, he shakes his head in dismissal.

"Before you and I started dating, why did you dance?"

"Because it makes me happy and when I dance, I communicate and let out all the feelings that I'm keeping bolted up inside," I say this time to which he nods.

"Exactly. So go on there and do just that. Forget Ella. Forget the team. Forget winning. You said you dance because it connects us together, so when you're up there dancing, just know that I'm watching. We don't need to win this round. All we need to win back is your confidence," he tells me, then leans forward to kiss my forehead and tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "I love you," he says. "You're amazing."

"I love you, too," I tell him back, then step forward and hug him tightly at the same time as the speakers call for The Next Step dancer to take the stage.