The Line | seaycee au

The Rehearsal

interview with Dancers Deluxe Magazine, 2013 (months after they first met)

interviewer: Kaycee, what would you say is your biggest pet peeve?
kaycee: *after a couple beats of silence* I'd say it's definitely Sean Lew
interviewer: Sean Lew is your biggest... pet peeve?
kaycee: Absolutely. Just listen to him speak. The dude is a walking Youtube ad that you can't close out of

••

Lunch was a usual occurrence in Gabe and Kaycee's relationship.

They may not be together every hour of every day, and they may not see each other daily, but something consistent between the two was lunch at least once a week.

Last week, Kaycee had bluntly asked if he was seeing someone else. This week, the two sat in a sort of awkward silence, unsure of what to talk about. Kaycee's quiet munching on her salad seemed amplified, and she set her fork down, racking her brain for anything she could bring up to get things back to normal.

"So.." she began with a grin, fiddling with the edge of her napkin, "I've got a dance project I'm working on"

Gabe had been looking down at his phone, and glanced back up again at the sudden introduction of conversation. "Oh really?"

"Yeah, I'm heading there for our first rehearsal right after this" Kaycee explains, thankful to be talking about something.

"Are you working with anyone on it?"

The question suddenly makes her realize that it may have been a bad idea to bring it up, because she definitely was working with someone, and he would not like it when he figured out who it was. With an air of nonchalance, she waited until he was looking back down at his phone to say, "Yeah, a couple people. Tessandra, Sean..."

The mention of his name made the other boy's head shoot up. Kaycee continued though, pretending nothing out of the ordinary happened. "Oh, I think Tim's helping too, with the camera work. It'll be pretty cool, and Tessandra says-"

"Wait, who'd you say?" He asks quickly.

She hesitates. "I said Tim's doing camera work?-"

"You know what I meant. You're working with Sean on it?" Gabe interjects, the mood hanging over the two changing swiftly into something negative. Kaycee almost wishes they had the awkward silence back, and part of her wonders why he even asked if he heard her the first time. "Kayc, for real?"

"Don't do that. I had no choice in who Tessandra picked to be my partner. It's her choreography, her decisions. Plus, I didn't even know until I had already accepted it"

He laughs, but it's filled with frustration rather than humor. "You have the option to turn it down, though. Or just change your mind. I don't see why you keep doing things with him when you know I don't like the kid"

"You're the same age, first of all" Kaycee states, "And secondly, it's to help my dance career, Gabe. I don't choose who I get to work with, I've already said that. If I could change partners, obviously I would, but for now this is what I've got"

"Did you just defend him?" He asks coldly.

Kaycee looks at him incredulously. "Is that what you got out of that? Are you serious?"