Just for a Moment

98 | Ranking

I posted another one-shot last Thursday to celebrate the fact that I finally got my license. Check it out if you haven't already!

🍪🍪🍪

Fortunately, the rest of episode nine rehearsal was a success: once the rope system was fixed, they tested it with a mannequin. Granted, it obviously doesn't weigh as much as Joshua, but if something goes wrong again, it's better to have a plastic person fall than a real one. (He was still hesitant about doing it and wanted to put that scene off for a while.)

Once the day was considered done, everyone quickly ran out to their trailers to change, exhausted. Well, almost everyone; Olivia was stopped by Tim on her way out. "Hey, just wanted to ask how the song was coming along," he said.

Crap, I forgot about that. "Oh, uh, yeah. I, um... Still trying to think of ideas for it." Not a complete lie, yet still far from the truth.

"Glad to hear it. Just so you know, it'd be best to have it in... in about... the next few days."

Olivia had to keep herself from blowing up; that wasn't near as much time as she and Joshua had, and she wasn't sure if she'd be able to write a whole song by herself with that time constraint. "Mhm," she nodded. "Yeah, I can... totally do that."

"Great! I can't wait to see what you come up with." He then walked out of the auditorium.

"That makes two of us," she mumbled to herself. She walked out of East High too, seeing everyone else already standing outside their trailers. She wasn't entirely sure what they were talking about since she was now so distracted by the song she needed to write in one week.

"Ok, what movie should we watch tonight?" Matt asked. "Classic or something newer?"

"What if we started a series as a group?" Larry proposed.

"Probably not the best idea," Sofia said. "Then, there isn't an end; we'll just keep saying one more episode until we've accidentally binged an entire season of something."

"That's a good point," Joe said.

"Ooh, what if we did an old Disney Channel Original?" Frankie suggested.

"How old we talking? I was born in 2004," Sofia chortled.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I feel like the golden era was around 2008 to 2012."

"I'll look stuff up now," Dara said eagerly.

As Olivia approached them, she noticed Joshua wasn't out yet. "Hey," she greeted, "where's Josh?"

"Oh, he's probably still in his trailer," Matt said.

"What did Tim want?" Sofia asked.

"Oh, he wanted to ask how the song was coming along. The tricky thing is that... it only partially exists."

"How much time is he giving you for it?" Julia wondered.

Olivia chuckled dryly. "See, there's the funny part. I have around... two days... if that."

"Aw, does that mean you can't join us for movie night?" Joe asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I'm gonna go get Josh now."

She trudged away from the group and to the trailer that wasn't far away. She knocked first yet didn't get an answer back. "Josh?"

"I'd say just go in!" Larry called.

Olivia just chortled to herself before going into the trailer. "Josh?" He was still laying on his back on the thin-cushioned couch, only now in the clothes that he arrived in and a large coat under his head as a pillow; the Troy Bolton jersey was hanging neatly on a cabinet knob.

"Joshy," she said gently, not wanting to startle him. His right hand was still holding onto his left arm. She smiled since he actually looked to be kind of at peace.

"Joshy," she said again, kneeling down to his level. She reached her hand out to shake him but took it back because she was afraid of accidentally hurting him. She presumed that saying his name would be futile since he struggled to wake up to an alarm.

She was literally sitting on his trailer floor, trying to come up with an easy way to wake him up while just staring at him (not that she hated the view).

Olivia slowly brought a shaky hand up to his head, pushing some of his curls away from his face only for them to come back to their original position. She ended up once again trying to fix the single curl that was refusing to move away from his forehead like all the others.

After about half a minute of this, he began to stir the slightest, so she stopped. His eyes gradually opened, squinting from the bit of sunlight coming in. His head slowly turned toward her, his curls flopping over once again, and he smiled. "Hi."

"Hi," she said, her smile mirroring his.

"Was that you a second ago?" he asked, carefully sitting up.

Olivia helped him to an upright position and then looked at the ground. "Uh, yeah. Your, uh... hair was a bit of a... wreck."

Joshua chuckled, finding this adorable. "Really? I've already told you: Herbie can not be contained," he said, throwing his head back and then pointing his eyes upward to emphasize the fact that his hair still looked the same.

"Yeah, well, I tried. Plus, you weren't waking up; I didn't think anything was going to work."

He looked at the ground. "Yeah, well... I didn't mind." He kept his eyes on his own feet to hide whatever tomato and beet mix his face had become. (Olivia looked about the same.)

"Oh, um, well... the others are waiting on us," she stammered.

"Oh, of course. Let's get going." Joshua stood, and the two exited the trailer.

"Finally!" Frankie exclaimed.

"Come on, let's get going," Sofia said, urging the pair along.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ok, so while you two were doing... whatever it was that was taking so long," Dara began, "we have devised the ultimate movie marathon."

They have arrived back at the apartments (in Sofia's room this time), and the other seven were giving this whole presentation on their movie plan. "We found a bunch of Disney movies and have paired them by year," Larry added.

"Look," Julia said, showing her notebook. It was in the style of a bracket similar to the NBA.

When did they have time to do all this? Olivia wondered.

"Our movie is Princess Protection Program for night one," Matt said. "It's from 2009 and has been paired with Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie."

"Why two with Selena Gomez?" Joshua asked.

"Because why not?" Frankie countered.

"And there weren't as many movies made in 2009 as we thought," Joe chimed in.

"Anyway, let's get started," Julia said.

Everyone helped in getting snacks and drinks ready, littering the coffee table with family-sized soda bottles and huge bowls. The beginning of the movie began playing on the TV; everyone was crowded and squished on the couch, entirely engaged.

"Wait," Joshua interrupted.

"Sh!" Frankie hissed.

Joshua continued anyway. "What exactly is it that we're judging?"

"Anything," Matt answered. "It's open-ended."

Olivia tapped his shoulder and shrugged, signifying that she didn't understand it all entirely either. He smiled and grabbed a bowl of popcorn to put in his lap. Olivia leaned on his shoulder (not the injured one) as she has done every movie night and ate the popcorn along with him. Bestest best friend ever.

🍪🍪🍪

It might feel like a lot since I do weekly updates, but it's only been about a few days since Olivia was offered the solo song opportunity (chapter 92). (Just figured I should mention that.)