Jiley Oneshots

Worries, dance and perfection

Season 4, after Jiley get back together

Riley's POV:

I check my phone for the fifth time in a row but the time was still the same as the last time I checked. Mounts of paperwork remained in front of me on my desk and the laptop I had pushed to the side was still buffering, failing to connect to the internet. I groan as the music from Studio A fills my ears while James helped them with the choreo to the finals dance, and as I look down, I notice that I still hadn't submitted the forms for as to who was attending Regionals.

Rolling my eyes, I stretch my arm out to where I kept my bowl of jelly beans, but when I do, my hand hits nothing but a cold, metal surface. I raise my head and divert my eyes to where my hand was, but see that the bowl was empty. "Ugh, for god's sake!" I yell, a little too loudly. James rotates his head to look inside the office and when my eyes meet his, I quickly look back down again, resting my head in my arms on top of the table.

James's POV:

I sigh as I see Riley sat in her office, clearly stressing after she had groaned ever so loudly and almost bangs her head on the table. As the music comes to an end, I keep my eyes on the dancers, making sure they all held their positions before they break apart.

"Okay, Piper, you're in charge for the next couple of minutes. I need to go and talk to Riley," I state, about to leave until I hear Skylar call after me.

"But I'm dance captain?"

"Yeah, except I don't really care right now. Piper's in charge. Run the dance over again and make sure everything's clean. We still need to make a few changes with partnering since there's obviously some dramas going on between you all right now that needs to be sorted out." 

I don't say anything else or listen to any more of their complaints as I make my way inside Riley's office where I find her sulking, making noises as though she was crying. I shake my head a little and close the door behind me before approaching her and sitting on the edge of her desk. "What's wrong, babe?" I ask softly, placing my hand over the top of her hair and brushing her locks out slightly.

She raises her head up and looks at me, her eyes bloodshot as she played with the cuffs of her sleeves of her cardigan, her recently done nails digging into her palm. "Everything's wrong, James," she says. "I have so much on my mind right now. There's still so much paperwork to go through, dances to perfect, Emily's no longer here to help but everything was fine when she was in control, the internet's not working for me to read and respond to e-mails, the dancers are fighting and all have their own personal drama, I've run out of jelly beans and . . ." She breathes out a little as she looks up at me, trying to steady herself. 

"Look in your cupboard," I tell her.

"What?"

"Open the first drawer and look inside it." 

She looks at me weirdly but does as I say. I remove my hand from her hair and place it over the top of my lap, watching as she uses the key to unlock the draw before pulling it open. She takes out a purple and white painted gift box and then places it on the table, still looking at me as if I was insane.

"What even is this, and how did it get in my drawer?" she asks. I smirk at her, nodding my head forward.

"Open it then." She rolls her eyes and takes the lid off, placing it aside and then taking hold of the yellow post-it note which had previously been placed in there. 

"Riley's stress box," she mumbles, raising an eyebrow at me. "This better be good," she huffs as she puts the note aside and then takes out of the tiny presents which had been badly wrapped a couple of weeks ago. She pulls at the tape and tears the gift open to find a supply of sweets.