A Perfect Broadway Cover Up (Alex Brightman/Beetlejuice x Reader)

Chapter 6

I walked into the Winter Garden theater the next day with my earbuds in, listening to "Snuff Out the Light (Yzma's Song)" because that song is such a bop and I was still so mad that it never made it into the final film.

Oh, well. At least they released it so I could listen to it and think about what could have been.

As I was vibing with Yzma, I bumped into (not literally) Mystaree. She greeted me with a grin and a friendly wave. I pulled out an earbud and smiled back. "Hey! Sorry I haven't been responding to your texts lately, I've been helping my sister settle in with me."

She waved away my apology. "Don't worry about it, dude. I totally understand that. How is your sister doing with the move and starting college?"

I sighed, a weary smile on my face. "She's doing fine... It's my sanity I'm worried about," I admitted, brushing some fly-always out of my eyes. "I just have so much to do now, and not enough time in the day to do them..."

Mystaree nodded. "Yeah, I get that. It's hard to juggle a million and one things all at once, especially a demanding Broadway musical." She smiled reassuringly at me. "But, hey. If I can do it, I know you can, too."

I grinned back at her thankfully. "You should really be Delia, you know."

She laughed, and I chuckled along with her.

"So..... Have you talked to Alex since..."

I looked over at her. "Since he was staring at my butt? No. No, I haven't." I looked straight ahead and grimaced. "I just can't see that conversation going well. I kinda want to just forget about the whole thing."

Mystaree shrugged. "Then forget about it. Move on. Maybe give him the benefit of the doubt, if that's what you wanna do."

I looked back over at my friend, wondering if what she said could really be true. Could I really just forget about it? Pretend nothing ever happened? Could it be as easy as she put it?

Who was I kidding? I was super used to pretending to be fine way before this, so I could definitely do it again.

I let out a determined breath. "Yeah, you're right. I don't need to let one measly little incident ruin my entire experience. I'm just going to pretend like nothing ever happened and just, I don't know, try to be his friend."

"Good, because he's headed this way," Mystaree said, giving me a couple of quick pats before disappearing down the hallway. I was left staring after her and having a mental freak out session.

Oh well, forced confrontation was better than postponing the inevitable, right?

"Hey, (Y/N)..."

I plastered a smile to my face. "Oh, hey, Alex."

"You don't have to pretend to smile, it's okay."

Wow. Okay.

"What's, uh... what's up?" I asked, my smile slowly slipping from my face.

"Look, I just wanted to apologize for the other day. I never wanted to make you feel weird or awkward, I just... Was walking behind you and-"

"No no, it's fine, my pants were really really tight and my shirt had ridden up," I said quickly, graciously cutting the poor man off.

We both kinda laughed a little.

"You know, as awkward as this has been, I'm glad we both kinda are okay now...." He snuck a glance over to me. "We are okay, right?"

I smiled at him and nodded. "Yeah. We're okay."

He gave me his signature grin that made my heart go brrrrrrrrrr.

"So.... you wanna start over?"

I nodded, fighting the urge to blush. It's fine. We were just friends. That's all. That's all it would ever be.

Right? Right. Totally.

"Well, would you maybe wanna grab dinner with Sophia and I after practice sometime?" he asked me, shoving his hands deep into his sweatpants pockets.

I was a little surprised by this sudden invitation. I mean, I hadn't really even met Sophia yet, so I was bound to be awkward. But I wasn't about to let my social anxiety ruin this opportunity. "I'd love to!"

"Sweet! Well, we're about to start, so I'll talk to you after!" he said in parting, giving me a light, playful punch on the shoulder. I laughed and watched him hurry over to the rest of the main cast, feeling better about him already.

"Well, that went much better than I expected."

I turned around to find Mystaree emerging from around the corner behind me. No doubt she had hidden and listened the entire time. I didn't really mind, honestly. It was nice to know she cared enough to hang around in case things got dicey.

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah, it really did."

"So you're going out with him, huh?" she asked me with a cocked brow, smirking teasingly.

I blushed a bit. "No, I'm going with him and Sophia. Not just him."

"Yeah, I know, but it's a step in the right direction."

I rolled my eyes, laughing in spite of myself. "Whatever you say, Myst."

She grinned and gave me finger guns. I chuckled.

"Oh by the way," my friend continued, growing serious, "did you hear about Dana?"

I shook my head, my brow furrowing. "Is she okay?"

Mystaree nodded, causing me to let out a small sigh of relief. "Yeah, she's okay, she's just going to be out of town for a couple of weeks to see family, so Presley's gonna be taking over her role until she gets back."

I nodded. "Right, but who's understudying Sophia?"

"That's where things get interesting. I overheard some of the other cast members saying that they're holding try outs to be her understudy."

My eyes widened as I looked at my friend. "Are you serious??"

She smiled and nodded. "Yeah, man. You should so totally try out. I've heard you singing 'Dead Mom', and I think you'd be a perfect fit."

I beamed at her. "You know, I just might do that."

She squeezed me tight in excitement. And as I hugged her back, I couldn't help but feel like the pieces of my life were all starting to fall into place.

Little did I know that something was going to shake those pieces loose again. And very quickly.