Wanting You - Mandy Gonzalez X Chris Jackson - COMPLETED

9 - Douglas?

A week later Chris and I are on our way to our final rehearsals together. We've done all four of our duet songs, we've also learned our partner sections in 'the club', 'blackout' and the 'finale'. We spent Thursday doing our spoken words, that was originally scheduled for after I'd done all my songs, but we had an extra day because I'd picked it up so well. It also helped that Chris and I both felt a romantic connection with each other, like Benny and Nina, I wasn't meant to know he liked me and he didn't know I felt the same way as him. Although, whenever someone asked why we were able to pick it up so quickly, we always said it's because we can rehearse together at home. As planned today was when we had to run through everything and hopefully get it right first time. The aim was to do it all in the morning, make a few tweaks then and do it all again in the afternoon with any modifications.

There was only one problem we had to cope with today. Douglas's pre-school was closed due to there being a huge illness that caused half the staff to be off sick. They didn't have enough to open and we couldn't find a sitter in time, so he had to come to work with us. We just hoped that the others wouldn't mind as long as he stayed quiet. We knew he would be fine, since he was always quiet and watched us when we rehearsed at home, the kid had seen the work more than the rest of the cast had done. Chris and I walked it to the studio together. I had Doug on my hip, with his arms around my neck as he leaned on my shoulder. I supported him with left arm as Chris held my right hand. Like friends would.

"Hey guys." Chris said as we saw the others working on a new song for Karen and Lin to sing near the end.

"Hey Chris, Hey Mandy, Hey... Guys why do you have a kid with you?" I looked up at Chris, did Andy really not know that he and Veronica had a child.

"It's my kid, Andy. Remember us talking about Douglas. Veronica and I's child. This is him." Chris explained why we had him with us as I set him down in a corner of the room with his toys. I heard Chris mention to them that I was known as Mandy and not as Mom to him. We just didn't want them so say to him something like 'Aren't mama and daddy cute?' I knew something like that would hurt Chris because in the ideal world, it would have been his mom up there, not me.

"Mandy, I know it's not a song with Chris, but can you do Breathe to start with? Just to make sure it's still in your mind, as it's been two weeks since we did it."

"Of course." Chris went and sat in the corner and he put Doug on his lap. I saw him whisper something to his son. I figured it was about me as they both looked up towards me as I started. I went through the full song word, note and movement perfect. "Just...Breathe..." I ended and ran off to where Abuela's stoop would be. I came back when I heard the applause coming from the corner. I smiled at Chris and Doug who smiled back at me.

Doug made grabby hands at me, I crouched down and opened my arms for him. Chris stood the child up and let him go. He instantly ran towards me, a huge smile on his face, and jumped into my arms. I stood up and spun around, holding onto him tightly, as he giggled. Once I was a bit dizzy I stopped. "You were great Mandy." He said as he leaned on my shoulder.

"Thanks bud, you were very well behaved as well, I'm proud of you. If you are like that all day, I'll get you a special treat. But only if you don't interrupt Daddy and I when we are performing, Okay?"

"Okay, I love you Mandy."

"I love you too Dougy." I kissed his cheek as I put him back down on the ground. "Go play with your toys and when Daddy and I are singing you can watch us."

"Okay." He said once on the ground. He began to walk back when he turned again and looked up at me. "Mandy?"

"Yes Doug." I said, as I kneeled down again, so I was eye level with him.

"Thank you for making Daddy happy again." He gave me a kiss on the cheek, before I stood back up and took his hand, walking back to Chris with him. I had a few tears of happiness spill from my eyes.

Douglas sat down and played with his stuffed animals, as Chris stood up and looked me in the eye. "You okay Honey?" He asked as he wiped away the few tears.

"Never been better Chris." I threw my arms around his neck and held him close. He rubbed my back, in the soothing way he always did.

"Okay you two, let's get to work." Lin said, while smiling at us, after a few minutes of us hugging. I knew he was smiling because of what we did that was slightly romantic in his eyes. I knew that both Chris and I saw them as romantic gestures, but he said they were friendly gestures, not knowing how much I liked him romantically.

We went through all the songs we had learnt and all our dialogue scenes. Doug clapped after each one, before turning back to his toys.

Once we were done we went out for lunch together with Douglas. Usually we got sandwich's from the little cafe in the studio complex, but given he had been so well behaved, we decided to treat him, and ourselves. We went to this cute little family run Italian restaurant and ate there. Doug and I shared a bowl of pasta with tomato sauce and Chris had a pizza. I may have stolen one of his slices though. It was the first time we had taken Douglas to a restaurant together. Chris and Veronica had taken him to a few places before but we had never taken him out since. The lunch was enjoyable and it was nice to spend time out of the house and the studio with the boys.