[Book 3] Thereafter

Chapter 24

Ellie was busy working on her home's Sala area when she received a call from her coach's daughter Nicole.

"Hey Nix! What's up?"

"Ate! Can you help me?"

"Sure? What's it about?"

"We have an art project where we need to draw and color a view from outside of a house."

"Uhm. Okay? How can I help?"

"I was wondering.. If I can use your outside patio as my subject ate.."

"Oh, I see. Sure! Let me send you a picture of it." El said as she tries to look at the view they were talking about. The patio can actually be seen from her spot at the couch.

"Hey Ellie, it's Lea. You're on speaker." the young woman got startled as she hears her coach's voice suddenly.

"Oh. Hey coach!"

"We are actually wondering if we can just drop by at your place today."

"Ohh.. I'm actually working but yeah sure. I'll have kuya Jonny open up the gates for you."

"Alright! That's settled then. Don't worry we won't bother you much. There you go Nix you heard your ate El. Go grab your things na. 

We'll be there in 20 minutes."

Ellie just smiles as she hears how the kid gets excited on the other end of the line. "See you in a bit."

-----

In a short while, Nicole and her mom arrived at El's famed white mansion in their village.

The young woman welcomed the two as she greets her guests who came in wearing their comfy clothes and flip flops.

Nix hugged her ate then went straight to the couches. As for the Broadway star, she kissed her protege on the forehead instead of a bezo. The two ladies just chuckled at what the singer did.

"You said it would be twenty but you guys came here within ten minutes only. You planned for it no?"

Nix just grinned at El as the two older ladies each took their seats at the couch as well.

"Well, we're both ready to go here even before the moment we called you. We're just hoping you'd agree for us to drop by."

"When did I ever say no to you guys? Haha."

"None that I can think of." the Broadway star smiles. She motioned for her daughter to go do her business on her protege's patio. Nicole then grabbed all her art materials and started working on her project.

Lea noticed El's laptop turned on placed atop on the center table. She remembered her protege saying earlier that she was in the middle of a work. "You can continue working, don't mind us. Nix just really wants to use your patio for her drawing. I'll just be quiet here." the singer grabbed one of the books placed on the table and started to skim through its pages.

"Are you sure it's alright?"

"Of course." Lea smiled at her protege and lover. El then took her laptop and continued typing on its keypad while a playlist of Meghan Trainor's songs can be heard playing at the Sala. The young woman offers to turn it off or to switch it to a different music but Lea just went with it knowing it was one of her protege's favorite playlist.

The theater veteran does not really process the contents of the book she's reading as she subtly observe and watch how Ellie works with her laptop. She can't help but adore this woman more as she could see how focused she is when it comes to her work.

"Why are you smiling?" Ellie asks without even turning away from her laptop screen.

"Nothing. I'm just starting to agree with mom saying you're workaholic."

El smiles as she gives a glance at her coach. "I'm not really that workaholic like what they say.."

"Oh come on. I've heard you already submitted your finale scripts for your ongoing dramas at Abs. And yet, here you are working on another one."

Ellie slightly laughed as she paused typing to properly hold a conversation with her coach. "Well yeah, this is a new one. So I want to have a big head start on it."

"Tsk. You should have taken works more on singing or in theater. That way, we'll get the chance to work together." It has been long since Lea got to be on a same project with the young woman and she missed the feeling of working with her side by side. She not just love to be with her lover most times but Lea is known to like those people who work professionally and fun at the same time. And Ellie just proves to be one of them.

"By chance, are you interested acting on a fantasy series?"

Lea's eyes widen up as her protege seems to be pitching a project for her.
"You know I don't take in local acting projects right? And on TV at that."

"Yep. But no. This is not entirely going to be for TV. And uh.. It's not really locally either."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm writing what's supposed to be an 'original' for an online platform viewing."

The Broadway star tried to understand what she meant by it. "When you say online platform, you mean like Netflix and stuff alike?"

"Exactly."

"What do you mean 'exactly'?"

"Exactly for Netflix."

"Wow. For real?" It's not that Lea is doubtful of Ellie's writing abilities, but she just feels amazed that her lover's work will be showing up in this platform where there are millions of viewers subscribed.

"Yeah. Daniel helped me make it happen. The project's timeline will be for next year, I've been asked to prepare scripts for four seasons. Though they will gauge from the first season's performance if they will show all four of them."

"But still, that's already a done deal right?"

"Yep. The production team assigned to it will be having their auditions five months from now. So you can still think about it if you'd like to be part of it. It's not like you really have to audition yourself. We could just have you signed."

"I'm not sure if my schedule will permit shootings like that."

"There's this central role that doesn't have much screen time so that's fine. It's still one of the main protagonists." Whenever Ellie is writing a script, she had always made it a point to think of a character that her coach could play. She always wanted to have her be part of the cast even if the Broadway star's busy enough to agree to any of it.

"I'll print out the details for you to read it at home on your convenience."

"Seriously, you're not going through mom for this?" the singer smiles at her protege. Both of them knew that Ligaya Salonga had been always strict when it comes to accepting projects for Lea.

"Haha. Let me hear your feedback first, then we'll start from there. If you like the idea, then I'll try to convince your mom. Since it's for a 'series' I pretty much get the premonition that tita Ligaya would outright reject it eh. Haha."

The Broadway star just laughed out loud as El accurately points out how her mom's reaction would be. It was a good decision for her to stay at her protege's place for today. The latter just makes up her day as she feels so happy whenever she's around.