"Okay guys, that was pretty good." Nick strolled around the room watching a few of his actors perform a scene from an upcoming show. "Now at this point, Joey would enter, but he's late... anyone heard from him?" he asked the group.
"Well I know he got back from LA on Saturday night, he probably spent all Sunday sleeping and eating. I haven't seen him all day." Darren informed Nick as the director lost more patience.
"He would've called if he wasn't coming in, maybe he just forgot we were starting rehearsals today." Julia tried to reassure him, but to no avail as he started pacing around the room.
"He was only away for a month, there's no way he would just forget he was in the show. Lauren? Have you seen him around since he got back?" Nick asked.
"Wha? N.. No, of course not, why would I have seen him anywhere?" she stuttered out as she fidgeted on the floor, cursing herself for giving such a flustered answer to a simple question.
"What about Rosenthal?, surely his own roommate knows where he is." Nick was getting desperate.
"Brian's out of town too. He doesn't get back until Wednesday." Julia replied.
A few moments later the door to the rehearsal room flung open and Joey entered and began apologising to an exasperated Nick.
"I'm so sorry I'm late guys. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, I must still be a little jet lagged. And my car wouldn't start for like, 30 minutes this morning." he looked around the room at all of his friends, briefly locking eyes with Lauren before looking back at Nick, who didn't seem like he sympathised with Joey's excuse.
"Well, you're here now so let's start from the top." Nick calmly said amidst groans from the other actors.
"Nice scarf, bold fashion statement." Julia teased as Joey removed his sweater but left a bright scarf wrapped tightly around his neck.
"It's for the show. I'm a method actor, I'm playing a pretentious douche so I thought I'd dress like one. Also it's fucking freezing out there."
"Whatever! You LA boys are so soft." she pointed at Joey and Darren, who had his arms pulled deep inside the sleeves of a thick sweater. "You go back to sunny California for a few weeks and you act like this place is the North Pole."
An hour of rehearsals passed by before Nick gathered the cast around.
"Alright, I wanna move on to the restaurant scene next..." he said as he scanned around the room. "Damn... I forgot to bring some chairs. Lauren, you're not in this scene, do you mind getting some?"
Lauren bounced up to her feet and walked towards the door,
"Sure, how many?"
"Like 5 or 6. Joey, you don't enter this scene til the very end, can you give her a hand?"
"No problem." he strolled over to the the door and held it open as the two of them made their way silently through the halls of the theatre department. Finally coming to a stop outside a small room used for assorted props and supplies. Lauren walked in to the room first and headed towards several stacks of chairs, Joey followed and after closing the door behind him, pulled his scarf off pointing at a bruise on his neck.
"Mind explaining yourself Lopez!" he whispered angrily.
"What?! I hadn't seen you in a month! I got carried away..." she shyly looked at her feet.
"You could've told me you did it. If I hadn't walked past a mirror on my way out this morning I probably wouldn't have noticed it. You keep saying you want this to stay a secret but you're doing a terrible job of it."
YOU ARE READING
Yet another Richpez fic
FanfictionJust some ideas I've had after reading some of your great fics on here. It's a little rough around the edges, I'm not really pre-planning anything, just writing as it comes to me. Any comments and feedback are more than welcome :-) Also if you have...
