Fireworks 1 and 2

Jungle: Chapter Forty-Seven

    Drake and Mia rehearsed the same song over and over again. The first few times, Drake remarked that her movements were too stiff, that she looked too uncomfortable.

    "You want to look comfortable onstage," he advised, circling around her. "You want to look like you were born on this stage." He turned and gestured to Future the Prince. "Again."

    She heard a few of the stage hands complaining about hearing the same song over and over again.

    "Fuck them," Drake dismissed with a wave of his hand. "We are going to do whatever it is we have to do to make sure the show we give is perfect. Because guess what? If we give a performance that sucks, the stage hands won't be there sharing the blame with us. The blame will be placed on us. We are accountable for the performance we give. So we do whatever it is we need to do to ensure it's a good performance."

    So they performed the song again. Drake hopped down from the stage and stood in front of it with his arms cross over his chest. He stared up at her and watched her. Audience of one. Mia held the microphone in front of her mouth and started to sing, looking down at him. Then she moved across the stage.

    When she started moving, so did he, walking along the length of the stage while keeping his eyes on her.

    "Don't forget everyone else," he called up to her, shouting over the music.

   She lifted her eyes to the sea of empty seats in the arena.

    He shook his head and climbed back onto the stage. "No...okay, look, how about this...pretend that the audience is already here. All right? This isn't a rehearsal. This is your performance and you have one chance to impress them." He stared at her for a moment, then turned his head and stretched his arm out. "Those seats aren't empty. People are sitting in them. Picture it. Imagine it. Here...I'll perform it with you. Interact with me like we have an audience. All right?"

    She nodded while holding onto her microphone with both hands. Nervousness started to take over. Usually in rehearsals, he was nice with her. Sweet, even. Today, he was taking on the role of drill sergeant and she couldn't tell if it was because he wanted her to do her best, or because he was still pissed at her.

    Narrowing his eyes at her, he raised a hand to her shoulder. "You and I have had conversations about you potentially becoming your own artist. Maybe you haven't made up your mind yet as to whether or not you want to do it. But if there is any chance that the answer is yes, you want to be your own artist, then you will want to take these performances seriously. Performing to an audience of twenty thousand people is no joke. You've performed at OVOFest. For a first performance, it was amazing. Since then, you've performed for other audiences, smaller audiences. You'll want tomorrow's performance to be a statement, a statement that says you are an artist. If you're going to be an artist, then your aim is to be an A-list artist. Period. Nothing else would be acceptable. There will be no room for errors. You want it to be perfect. Okay?"

    "Yeah, I got it," she said, feeling even more nervous than she had a moment ago.

    He turned to Future the Prince and gestured with his hand. "Start the track over."

    They rehearsed together, incorporating stage movements. They each started at opposite ends of the stage, then both started to drift towards the middle, where they faced each other. She sang to him while maintaining eye contact with him.

"Don't you know my soul cries out for you?

Don't you walk out that door,

I'm not myself without you.

We've done all of this be...fore.

How many more times will we do this?

How many...more?

Don't you know my heart bleeds for you?

When you're not near,

All I need in this world is you.

Just to be clear.

How many more times will we do this?

How many...more?

Baby, how many more times will we do this?

Ohhhhh..."

    He smiled at her, then lifted his microphone to his lips and started to rap his verse. With a slow, deliberate movement, he twisted to face the invisible crowd and raised an arm into the air.

    She danced beside him, then moved in front of him. Keeping her back to him, she started to dance on him while he rapped through his verse. She was close enough to him that she could smell his cologne, feel the body heat that radiated from him. As he worked through his verse, she turned to face him, locking eyes with him again.

    He met her gaze.

    She lightly touched his chest while dancing, then lowered into a squat with slow, seductive moves while dragging her hand down the front of his torso.

    His verse ended and he continued staring down at her with his brows drawn together.

    She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and rose to full height as she started to sing the song's hook. Batting her eyelashes at him, she turned on her heel and started to move to the other side of the stage, leaving him staring after her. When the song was over, she whirled around, breathing heavily with anticipation. She'd done well; she could feel it. But still, she asked him, "How did I do?"

    It took him a moment to respond. He cleared his throat and walked over to her. Then he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "You did very well. Very well. That was the performance of a star."

    She beamed up at him. He kissed my forehead...maybe that means that we'll be all right, that we can get past this hiccup. Things are going to be okay.

    A smile started to creep on his lips as if he knew what she was thinking...as if he were thinking the same thing. He reached into his pants pocket with a roll of his eyes and slid his finger across the screen. The smile on his face disappeared.

    I'm almost scared to ask... "What is it?" she asked him.

    The muscle in his jaw was working double-time, jumping. "The story about you and Zach. The kiss in the club. It hit TMZ." He pressed a button on his screen and turned the phone sideways.

    Swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat, she went to stand beside him so she could look at the screen.

    First, TMZ's video displayed the photos of Mia and Zach in the club. Then TMZ had their cameras pointed at Zach LaVine. They'd caught him outside of some club or restaurant, it looked like. "Zach! Zach! Care to comment on the photos that surfaced, the ones of you and Mia Thomas? Are you dating officially? The last we heard, she was with Drake."

    Zach grinned and held up his hands. "Hey, hey, hey...you guys are reaching."

    "So set us straight, then, Zach!" another cameraman shouted.

    Zach licked his lips. "All right, look...Mia is a very nice girl, who I've crushed on since shortly after my ex and I split. Okay? I saw Mia in a club, and...what can I say? I went for it. If you have pictures of the kiss, then you also have pictures of the slap that came afterwards. So...it's safe to say that we're not dating." He paused, then added, "Although, I would change that, if I could."

    Drake exited out of the video and returned his cell phone to his pocket. Then he turned his eyes on Mia. All of the sentiment was gone from his demeanor. He was back to his drill sergeant persona. "Time for us to get back to work," he told her. "Your performance was good. Solid. We'll run through the song one more time, and then we'll move onto the songs that I want you to provide backup vocals for."