Flying (Fight Song Book 2)

Chapter 11: Sophia

Joe's PoV
Sophia is being particularly annoying today. I don't know why, I really don't, but she's flirting with me, Mikey and Alfie. As much as it irritates me, I can tell it's really annoying Dianne and Zoe. Mikey seems to be loving the attention, but Alfie has been looking like he wants to punch her in the face on several occasions in the past half hour. I'm just thanking my lucky stars that we can only spend 45 minutes on their routines today. Dianne and I need to get started on our own duet, because we've been kind of neglecting it recently. We have a decent concept and have rough choreography for the first thirty seconds, but it's not much. We've been wrapped up doing other things - homework, extra classes, teaching B Troupe brats, helping out in J Troupe classes and obviously working on our Nationals group routines. It gets tiring, and when you don't have Shirley yelling at you, it can often be easy to forget you even have to have another dance and your whole team is relying on you.

"Can I have a sec?" Dianne comes up to me and taps me on the shoulder.

"Sure," I say, glad for the interruption.

My girlfriend takes my hand and leads me out the room, walking a bit down the corridor.

"I want to swap partners," she says, chewing her lip.

"What?!" I gape. "With who?! And why?!"

"No you idiot," she slaps me. "I mean I want to have Sophia and Mikey and you can have Alfie and Cinzia. I just don't feel comfortable with Sophia being this flirty when I'm not around."

I pause. I could say yes, and get out of Sophia's annoying advances, but I also really like the routine we're doing. So, I opt for no.

"It's fine," I assure her, resting a hand on her shoulder. "She's not gonna do anything, she knows I'm with you and she knows that's not going to change. Plus, Zoe is in there as well as Mikey, Alfie, Cinzia and you the majority of the time. She wouldn't try anything."

Dianne pauses, but nods slowly, then heads back inside. I sigh, following her.

"Can we go train in the other room again?" Alfie asks Dianne when she returns, clearly gagging to get out of Sophia's presence. Understandable.

"Sure," Dianne says, waving a hand and sighing. They all pick up their stuff and head into the other room, so it's only me, Sophia, Mikey and Zoe left standing.

"So Joeeeeee, how do you think I'm doing?" Sophia asks for maybe the fourth time today. I stare at the clock. Half an hour left.

"Yeah it's looking great," I say. "You and Mikey work really well together."

At this, Mikey beams. Sophia doesn't look quite as pleased, but she seems happy I've complimented her on her dancing. It's well deserved to be fair. She's dancing better than I've seen her dance hip hop before. I genuinely think they could beat Dianne's duet, which would make my year.

I notice Zoe had just sat on the floor on her phone, clearly uninterested.

"Zoella, what's up?" I ask, sitting down next to her as my students keep dancing.

"I wanna go see Alf dance," she sighs. "But I know Sophia is intent on wanting you to leave Dianne for her and I want to supervise because I know she'd never try anything too big while I'm here."

"I can handle her," I laugh. "Go see your boyfriend. Plus, Mikey is here too, it's not like it's just us."

Zoe looks conflicted for a moment before she nods her head and agrees to leave. Her mood immediately lightens. Sophia looks absolutely delighted at her departure, but I don't know why. I love Dianne, it's not like she could ever break us up.

"I'm really proud of this," Mikey laughs as the music finishes. We've choreographed the whole thing now, and even I have to admit they look like A Troupe dancers. Should people leave, I reckon they stand a pretty good shot of making the team.

"You should be," I congratulate them both, pulling them in for a group hug. "You're both amazing dancers and quite honestly I think this stands a really good shot of winning your duet competition."

"Maybe we could finish up here?" Mikey asks. "I don't want to over-rehearse it and I'm a bit tired."

I nod. A brilliant idea on his part. This means I get to spend more time with Dianne and we get a longer duet rehearsal. Plus, if she thinks I'm doing better than her it will freak her out about her duet. And an even better added bonus, I'll finally get Sophia out of my presence.

"I'll go grab Dianne for you," Mikey says, picking his stuff up and leaving the room.

It's just me and Sophia.

"So you really think I'm good, huh?" she smiles, her voice quiet and sweet.

"Yeah," I shrug. I'm not letting her try and make a move on me. She needs to realise I don't like her in that way.

"Maybe we could do a duet sometime," she glances up at me.

Absolutely not. Abort immediately. No way in hell am I going to do a duet with Sophia, especially when she'd be all over me.

Yet somehow I find myself saying, "sure, maybe after Nationals when I'm not focusing on my Nationals duet with Dianne."

Sophia grins, hugs me and leaves.

Ten seconds later, Dianne walks in, looking at me suspiciously.

"Why'd you let them go early?" she asks. "You can't be finished, you're doing a hip hop routine."

"A fabulous hip hop routine," I wink. "Mines almost perfect, actually. Surely you're almost there too?"

"We've had four rehearsals," she glares at me. "If mine were ready it wouldn't be perfect. Clearly I'm the better choreographer."

"In your dreams," I laugh.

Her face breaks out into a smile and she kisses me softly. "I love you," she says as she rests her head on my shoulder.

"I love you too," I whisper back, stroking her hair. Nothing felt more right than holding her in my arms. When I was with Dianne, it felt like home. I can't ever let Sophia take her from me. I don't know what I'd do without her.

After a few moments, we break apart, and start working on our Nationals duet. It's pretty good if I do say so myself. Maybe not the style I would've chosen, because it's predominantly ballet and lyrical, which isn't really my favourite style, and there wasn't any cool tricks or anything, but I'd wanted to please Dianne, to show her how much I love her and how much I'll do for her. I've made sure in the choreography that it kinda showcases her, with her flexibility and technique being flawless. I look great too, and our lifts and remarkable, but at the back of my mind I just know it could be better. But I can't say anything. With all the Sophia stuff, I can't let her think for even a second I don't love her more than anything else in the world. She means too much to me for that.

She smiles at me, and I smile back. She's perfect. She's all I need. She'll always be the only thing I need.

This is my third chapter in September, I'm getting better and I'm getting more into the rhythm of things. I had my first uni class of second year today, and I don't quite know how tired I'm gonna be with classes, trampolining and panto rehearsals, but I'll try and put this on my priority list! - Bee xo