Fight Song

Chapter 14

Joe's PoV
Dianne and I stayed together in her hotel room drinking water and chatting, knowing we needed to be sober before going into a loud theatre to watch dances. The flashing lights and loud music really didn't mix well with hangovers. Also Shirley would kill me if she found out I'd got wasted midway during Internationals.

"I'm sorry for everything I said about us being rivals," Dianne sighed, leaning into me. "I should've realised just because we're from rival studios doesn't mean we can't be friends...or more than friends."

I laughed. "You don't have to apologise, I understand where your mind was at. Sometimes it's easier to look at things as black and white than to see situations as they really are. I can't be mad at you for that."

Dianne smiled up at me. It was adorable. Just then her phone buzzed, and she picked it up to see her team had gone through to the small group round.

"Dianne that's great!" I grinned, hugging her.

"Thank you," she giggled. "Did your team make it?"

"I don't know yet, they're not competing for another hour and a half," I said. "I'd love to go and see them but if Shirley catches me with a hangover I'm toast."

"Shirley?" she asked, confused.

"Oh, Shirley is the head of our studio," I smiled. "She's an absolute legend, but you don't wanna get on her bad side."

"Okay," Dianne laughed. "I reckon we should try go over to wish them good luck anyway."

"I mean, if you want," I said. "I don't want you to like faint or something though. That would be a big inconvenience."

She hit my arm. "Wow so I'm just a big inconvenience to you then?"

"You know I'm kidding," I laughed, and she just shook her head at me and laughed too.

"We're going, let me just put a hoodie on," she said. "I still have yesterday's makeup on but fuck it, it's not like I'm going on TV today."

"They're not on for over an hour," I laughed. "What's the rush?"

"I'd quite like to see my own team too and honestly I'm getting sick of being in one hotel room, we need air," she said simply.

"Okay," I chuckled.

I let her get changed and then we headed back to my room so I could grab some water for us.

We were making our way into the theatre when we saw Briar, Caspar, Zoe, Neil and Katie all huddled together in a table at the cafe. They looked very suspicious. I didn't even know Briar spoke to Zoe.

"Shh, I wanna hear what they're saying," I said, shoving Dianne's hood up to cover her red hair. She glared at me, but didn't say anything.

We walked normally towards the table behind them, trying not to act suspicious. It was brilliant, we could hear them perfectly from here.

"For the last time, it wasn't against the rules!" Briar was saying.

"Yes it was," Zoe shot back.

"It wasn't, we filmed them when they were at OUR party," Caspar said.

"They were drunk, it doesn't count," Katie said.

"Okay, so you're telling me that if you saw them kissing you wouldn't film it?" Briar sounded annoyed. "You're just bitter because we're winning."

"You're not winning," Neil said. "Your vlogs haven't been uploaded yet."

"Look, they're literally on your teams, me and Casp have such a disadvantage anyway, let us have this!" Briar moaned.