Light of My Life: A Newsies Soulmate College AU

Chapter 11

~ Time Skip, it's the second semester now ~

Maddie's POV:

My phone buzzed in my pocket, signaling a notification. A text from Medda to the entire newsies groupchat read, Jack and I just set up the fly wires! You can come test them out if you want to! All of the newsies were practically pros with fly wires since Medda had taught us how to use them from a young age. A lot of the newsies were already in on the opportunity, so I grabbed my backpack and started toward the theater. As I was walking, I texted Davey, asking if he wanted to come too. Sure enough, I had my response in a few seconds. He'd be there in 10 minutes, just enough time for me to get strapped into a harness and set up a little prank.

When I walked into the lecture hall, Jojo and Albert were already up in harnesses, zipping around in the air with prop weapons, engaged in a suspended sword fight. Jack and Medda were at the front of the stage, disentangling harnesses and finding carabiner clips for them.

"Oh yeah, I want in on this!" I shouted, grabbing a bow and a quiver of arrows from our prop closet and tossing them up to Jojo, who hid them in the rafters. While I was getting strapped into a harness, I explained my plan to everyone else. In just a few minutes, I was in position, hiding in suspension behind a curtain where I could still see downstage, but the people downstage couldn't see me. I did a few flips backstage, both forward and backward, and hung upside down for a bit, warming up for my little act.

I didn't have to wait long before my glow started shining, full and bright, thankfully hidden behind the curtain. "Hey everyone! Where's Maddie?" Davey asked, walking up the stairs and onto the stage.

"No idea." Albert answered, flipping away from Jojo's sword.

"Well, I know she's here at least." Davey responded. "What's an English major gotta do to get into one of these things?" He asked, kneeling down to observe the pile of harnesses on the ground.

Now was the perfect time. I carefully slunk out from behind my curtain of safety, making sure that my fly wire didn't make a lot of noise. I did a partial flip, making sure I landed upside down and stayed there, moving my legs into what I liked to call the "Spiderman" position. Davey had since stood up, and Jack was trying his hardest to look nonchalant as I slowly lowered myself down to Davey's shoulder level. He was going to burst any second now if I didn't act soon. I plummeted myself the rest of the way down, stopping myself not a moment too soon.

"Hi!" I said excitedly, grinning from ear to ear. Davey shouted in surprise, jumping away from me. Everyone burst out laughing as soon as Davey recovered.

"You should've seen your face!" Jojo was bent over in his harness with laughter, clearly unable to contain himself.

After getting myself flipped upright again, I retrieved my weapon of choice from its hiding spot in the rafters.

"Playing cupid again?" Jojo queried.

"Maybe!" I replied with a cheeky grin, taking aim with the foam tipped arrow. I released the blunt weapon, hitting Jojo right in the shoulder.