A Christmas Pinn

Chapter 1

Piper:

"Three, two, one and pose." I took in slow, composed breaths as we stood in our ending position. It was Christmas eve and I had agreed to help him on the choreo. It was a little something I could do to share the Christmas, but an hour had just passed and all I wanted to do was to be in my pyjamas with my family, watching trashy Christmas films and playing fun games. 

"That was good. Do you have it down?" I asked. I took a sip from my water bottle and headed for the cubbies. 

"Actually, I messed up the chorus section. Do you think we could go over it one last time?" I refrained from reacting. We had gone over that section a million times; surely he would be able to do it by now. 

I took a deep breath and tried to relax. It was Christmas, and James always said that was the number on time where you shouldn't worry about it. 

I dropped my bag and walked back to the centre of the studio. "Yeah, let's take it from the top." 

I began to mumble the counts under my breath, while Finn preferred to hum the tune. I couldn't lie, it was kind of cute. Even though it got in the way of my counts. 

Nick came out of his office and watched us for a bit. It felt a bit awkward to have someone watch you when you didn't have the intention of performing, but my moves were looking good, so I didn't mind. We ended the final chorus, but this time we didn't need to strike a pose. Nick gave us a little applaud. 

"That was looking good." 

"Thanks," we both said. This time, it was Finn who needed a drink of water. 

"If you guys don't mind, I need to quickly run to the nearest petrol station. There's going to be a snowstorm and the last thing I need is to not be able to drive home." 

"There's going to be a storm?" I asked at the same time Finn said,

"What's petrol?" I looked at him dumbfoundedly. 

"It's British for gas." Nick looked offended that another person couldn't understand his British linguistics. 

"Yes and yes." 

"How bad is it going to be?" The one time I forgot to check my weather app and it just so happened to be that there was a storm on its way. 

"Oh, absolutely horrible," Nick said. Later followed by, "Isn't this exciting." 

No, it was not exciting. He must not be used to the storms we get here compared to the ones in England. 

"If you guys don't mind, can you wait here until I get back. I don't want to leave the studio unattended and it will only take ten minutes." I nodded and watched as he grabbed his keys and headed out the door. 

I sat on the bench and unlocked my phone, scrolling down to find a certain contact. 

I placed the phone to my ear. 

"Who are you calling?" Finn asked.

"My brother," I replied quickly. I had planned on just taking the bus, but it was getting too dark anyway and there was a storm.