The next day is the read-throughs for the musical and Ellie is very nervous. She knows she shouldn't be nervous, but she just couldn't help it. She always got nervous when she was in front of people. She walked into the room and immediately felt left out of place.

" Hey, you're Ellie, right?"

She looks over to see Gina smiling at her. Ellie wasn't for sure if that smile was real or fake. She hoped it was real.

Ellie nodded. " Yeah, that's me."

" I'm Gina, I'm playing Taylor. It's nice to officially meet you." Gina introduced herself.

Ellie sent her a genuine smile. " You too."

They walked to their respective chairs and soon everyone sat down.

" Please take your neighbor's hand." Miss Jenn said, taking the hands of the people that were on either side of her as everyone else does the same.

Ellie looks over to her right to see Ricky offering his hand to her with a small smile on his face. She smiles nervously smiles back at him and places her hand in his.

She looks over to her left at Gina who sent her a friendly smile as she offered her own hand. Ellie placed her hand in Gina's as she looks across from her, smiling as she sees that Trevor and Avalon were holding hands. Her smile grew when she noticed Avalon was blushing. The two were sat next to each other because Trevor is Ryan and Avalon is Kelsi.

" Feel each other's energy. Let the silence speak volumes. In a world full of no, this is a world full of yes." Miss Jenn smiles.

Carlos whispers to her. " Nice. Did you just come up with that?"

Miss Jenn nods and smiles proudly. " I did."

Ellie raises an eyebrow when Miss Jenn suddenly starts singing 'We're all in this together'. She was confused at why Miss Jenn was singing, but she didn't want to interrupt. She felt something against the back of her hand and looked down, realizing that Ricky was rubbing his thumb gently over the back of her hand and her heart fluttered.

She looked over at him to see he was already looking at her and he sent her a smile. She sent a shy smile back at him and then quickly looked away, hoping that she wasn't blushing, but she was pretty sure she was.

Ellie looked over at Miss Jenn whenever she cringes when Miss Jenn tried hitting that high note. Ashlyn clapped when Miss Jenn finished and Miss Jenn smiled. She looked over at the redhead. " Thanks."

Soon the read-through begins and even though only minutes has happened it felt like hours with Big Red reading the stage lines. Ellie had her head rested on her arm that was propped up against the desk while she listened, wishing it would go over faster.

" Stop." Miss Jenn suddenly says and Big Red goes quiet. " Don't run it all together. Read the punctuation."

Big Red nods and says what he just said a few moments ago, but this time he actually says the punctuation as well and Ellie groans as she lays her head on the desk.

She looks up when she hears the sound of the script closing. " And that's act one. Let's take a break." Miss Jenn said.

Everyone stands up and goes do their own thing until the break is over. Ellie walks over to Trevor and Avalon who both smile at her.

Ellie stares at them weirdly. " What? Why are you smiling creepily at me like that? Stop it."

" You were blushing when you were holding hands with Ricky." Avalon smiled.

Ellie scoffs and shakes her head. " No, I wasn't."

Trevor nods. " Yeah, you were. It was so obvious."

Ellie opens her mouth to protest again, but Miss Jenn then says, " Okay, we're back."

****

The next day Ellie was in the auditorium, drawing in her notebook while she waited with Miss Jenn and Carlos for Ricky since Miss Jenn wanted the two of them to be at practice early or something. She wasn't really for sure what Miss Jenn was trying to do. 

Ellie looked up when she heard rushed footsteps and she couldn't help the smile that formed on her face when she saw Ricky run in.

" I'm so sorry I'm late. I promise it won't happen again." Ricky said as he sat his backpack down on the floor.

Ellie put her notebook down as she stood up and walked forward to the table Miss Jenn and Carlos were sitting at and Ricky walks over as well.

" Thank you both for an early start today. Let's begin." Miss Jenn smiles.

" Um, are we the only ones suppose to be here this early?" Ellie nervously asked, gesturing to her and Ricky.

Miss Jenn hums in response while she nods and then hands each of them a script that was already flipped to the page they were starting on. " We're diving into page 97."

Ricky raises an eyebrow. " You mean the last scene?"

Miss Jenn nods. " Uh-huh."

Ellie tits her head to the side as she looks at Miss Jenn in confusion. " Why do you wanna rehearse this? It's literally just one line. Two counting Ricky's."

Miss Jenn nods once again. " And then there's the kiss."

Ellie's eyes widened in shock and fear and she felt like the wind was knocked out of her. " What?"

" I don't think there's, uh, a kiss at the end of the scene." Ellie managed to say.

" It was very much there in the original film." Miss Jenn tells her.

" I only remember a hug." Ricky says.

" The kiss ended up being cut. Little racy for its time." Miss Jenn shrugs her shoulders.

" Ooh, too far." Carlos mumbled.

- ˏˋ " Okay, I'm freaking out about this. First of all, why are we starting with the end of the musical? It doesn't make any sense. And second of all, why do Ricky and I have to kiss? Not that kissing him wouldn't be great, that's not what I'm saying at all. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore because I'm too busy freaking out!" ˎˊ-

Ellie was in Miss Jenn's office now, talking to her about the kiss. " Why is there a kiss at the end? I..." she swallows nervously. " Me and Ricky barely even know each other."

Miss Jenn just smiled at her. " That might be true, but I see a real connection between the two of you. And I added the kiss because the production needed it."

Ellie sighs as she tries to calm down her heart that was still beating rapidly. " I've also added a cowbell, a power ballad for the drama teacher, and a Wildcat cheer for the curtain call." Miss Jenn said as she looked off of a paper.

Ellie forms a small smile. " That's great, but I..." she sighs. " I don't think I can kiss Ricky."

Miss Jenn waves her hand around. " Oh, sure you can."

Ellie violently shakes her head and Miss Jenn raises a hand to stop her.
" Okay, stop doing that before your head falls off. Ellie, you shouldn't have to worry about this. It will be over before you know and who knows, "

Miss Jenn smiles at her. " maybe you'll like it. Just trust the process and I'm sure everything will be fine."

Ellie takes a shaky breath. " I hope you're right."

****

" I'm kinda lost if the plays over why are we still dancing?" Ricky asks Carlos during practice.

" It's a curtain call." Carlos chuckles.

" Even I knew that." Ellie quips and Ricky rolls his eyes even though there was a small smile on his face.

" You're the last two to come out. We want to bring the audience to their feet." Carlos explains.

" Teach them the dance." Ricky suggests.

" Where's Miss Jenn?" Ellie asks as she looks at Carlos.

" She's tracking down a prop and asked me to create a crescendo, people, so let's stop swirling and start twirling." Carlos says and then chuckles, but it seemed like Ricky still didn't get it.

" But why are we practicing the boys when we haven't even practiced the play?" Ricky questions and Ellie was starting to get annoyed with how many questions Ricky had. Did he know nothing about plays or musicals?

" Because you start with the hardest dance that takes the longest to learn." Carlos tells him. " It's in the Big Book of Broadway."

" Page 374." Carlos and as Ellie look over she realized Gina had said it along with Carlos. Carlos looks at her impressed and they high five before she walks off to the other side of the room.

" Okay, people, let's take it from three counts of eight right before Troy and Gabriella's entrance for the bows." Carlos says to everyone and everyone takes their place as the Seb starts playing the piano.

The people start dancing and whenever it's their time to go, Ellie walks from one side of the room to the middle as Ricky does the same from the other side of the room and they meet in the middle.

As the dancers back away, they start dancing, but it seemed like Ricky wasn't getting the dance down and Ellie was confused as he stopped dancing.

" I'm sorry." he apologized as Seb stopped playing the piano and Ricky looked over at Carlos.

" What is he doing?" Nini asked.

" Are you talking to him? I'm right here." Ricky pointed to himself.

" 'Cause your not here." Nini shook her head. " At least not for the right reasons."

Ricky furrowed his eyebrows.
" What's that supposed to mean?"

" I said what I said." Nini told him.

Ellie felt uncomfortable and awkward just standing there as she watched Ricky and Nini fight and she was sure everyone else felt that way too.

" You hate musicals." Nini continues to say. " You're only doing this so you can hang out with me."

" Let's get back to the dance, please." Carlos pushes Ricky and Ellie forward, not wanting the fight to continue, but it sadly did as everyone went back to their places.

" And you're wasting everyone's time by making fun of something that the rest of us take seriously." Nini tells him.

Ellie frowns, honestly feeling bad for Ricky and not liking Nini at the moment. " Okay, that's a five, everybody, break. Everybody out. Get out." Carlos tells everyone and everyone starts to leave the room.

Ellie glances at Ricky as she walks over to where Trevor and Avalon were standing. " Okay, what was that about?" Trevor asked and Ellie shrugs.

" I have no idea and I'm worried." Ellie admits.

Avalon raised a brow. " About?"

Trevor looked over at Ellie's shy face as she looks away from them and he grinned. " You're worried about Ricky."

Ellie scoffs as the three of them walk into the hallway. " No, I'm not."

Avalon chuckles and nods. " Yeah, you are. You just won't admit it."

The three of them look over as Ricky runs out of the room and down the hallway. They look at each other with confusion. " What was that about?" Avalon asked the question they were all thinking.

Carlos walks out of the room seconds later. " Carlos, " Ellie says, getting his attention. " What happened? Why did he run out?"

Carlos sighs. " Him and Nini, I guess, had a fight or something and now it appears that he isn't doing the show anymore."

Ellie's eyes widened and her heartbeat quickened as a mixture of fear and concern look forms on her face. " What?"

A/N I'm happy I finally got this updated and I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! don't forget to check out some of my other books!