All for the Mirrorball

Chapter 14 - Surface Pressure

At rehearsal on Saturday morning, neither of them brought up her date. After a lot of careful consideration the night before - very late the night before - Alan had decided he would rather not ask for details he wasn't sure he could handle, and Ilona now considered the topic to be strictly off limits... plus she still wasn't sure how she felt. They got a lot done that morning, in spite of the elephant in the room, and in the afternoon, they had a short but productive session with Team Goof.

"I literally still can't believe you can lift me up over your head like that, Ilona." Jenna marvelled at her for what was definitely not the first time. "You truly are superwoman."

Ilona blushed at the compliment, but she didn't have a chance to respond before the other goofs did.

"Isn't she amazing?" Alan chimed in. His face was full of pride.

"Seriously - she flips your lanky butt around like a rag doll, Al!" Brandon said as he clapped Alan on the back.

"I fear we don't talk about this enough," Ilona said, shaking her head. "Did you know he's six two?" The room devolved into laughter.

"I still don't know why they told you that! An even six feet is very respectable." Alan choked out between his own laughter.

"Aww... a short king!" Jenn said, looking at Alan with head tilted and hand over her heart. Another round of laughter broke out. (Sasha said nothing.)

Somehow they managed to focus well enough to get through the next hour of rehearsal, though it was broken up by frequent fits of laughter.

Afterwards, Ilona and Alan took Jeff to the park, and she kept comparing ease and quality of the conversation to the one she had with Graham... and let's just say the comparison was not particularly kind to Graham. And Emma would probably agree, she thought, trying to get that Alan-focused voice in her head to pipe down.

—

Sunday and Monday were more of the same. They were fine - though a little less open than usual - but both of them were struggling a bit individually.

Camera blocking for both dances went well, which had Ilona feeling cautiously optimistic about the week.

All of Tuesday afternoon, Alan couldn't help but think just how unfair it was that Ilona looked so hot as a fucking Disney character. That shouldn't be legal. Later, Standing next to her dressed as a much-too-realistic donkey, Alan definitely felt like an ass. Why the fuck did I make them attach this stupid thing to my face?

Too bad he'd talked to the costuming department before he'd decided to really flirt with her in a way that he hoped would make his feelings more obvious. Why would I ever agree to this, let alone suggest it? He was really thankful to have been in the opening number, which meant he didn't have the prosthetic makeup on quite as long.

Ilona, on the other hand, was trying not to focus on the warning text she'd gotten from Olivia - Graham is in the audience - because she still didn't know what she wanted to say to him.

"Oh my god!" Alan's voice pulled her out of her own thoughts.

"What's wrong?" She said as she looked over to his shocked face.

"We forgot to do the shoes yesterday!" He pulled his converse out of his bag. "Two songs this week." He rummaged through the bag for a sharpie before handing both items over to her. She smiled, appreciative of their little tradition, and even more appreciative of his faith in her - he wouldn't have started this custom where he had her write their show songs on his rehearsal shoes before each episode if he hadn't believed she'd get far on the show. She carefully wrote Surface Pressure and I 2 I.