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"But why haven't you answered my texts?" Nadia heard EJ ask Nini as the two of them neared the outside of the rehearsal room where everyone was waiting, since Carlos and Gina were helping Natalie Bagley find her emotional-support hamster.
"Could we not do this right now, please?" Nini said, turning around to look at him.
"Do what? Are you mad at me?" EJ asked and Nini looked back at the group behind her with a sigh before looking back at EJ. "You're mad at me. Look, there was no fitting at lunch."
"Fine. Wanna know where I was at lunch? I was at the computer lab, bribing some hacker to crack into my phone to recover a message you deleted when you stole it," Nini told him, stepping towards him angrily.
"Did you...?" Ashlyn trailed off in a whisper, looking at Nadia with furrowed brows. Nadia shook her head, looking back at EJ and Nini, also with furrowed brows. How did she find out?
"Wait. Why do you think that I—"
"Oh, please!" Nini cut him off. "Gina's not the Wonderstudy I need to worry about, is she?" Nini questioned and EJ looked behind her at the group, his gaze lingering on Nadia longer before he looked back to Nini.
"Can we talk about this over—"
"Don't," she cut him off again, pushing his hand away.
"Nini, I was spiraling, okay? I told you I loved you and you couldn't even say it back. Hey, you said it to Ricky and now I see the way he looks at you and I know you guys have a lot more history than we do—"
"Yeah. Ricky would never steal my phone," she countered.
"No, I know, he just leaves sad-face messages on it asking if you shared a moment over a song," EJ said, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Don't make this about Ricky!" Nini said, her voice louder than before.
"That is what this is about! Look, I'm just trying to hold onto what we had over the summer," EJ told her.
"Yeah, I was too. But you know what? Summer's over," Nini said and Nadia's eyes widened. Did they just...unofficially break up? she thought, sending Ashlyn a look. "Hey, is the door locked or something? Why can't we get in?" Nini then asked after she walked away from EJ.
"Oh, Natalie Bagley's missing her emotional-support hamster. He got loose. Carlos and Gina are helping her find her. Him. It," Ashlyn told her before there was a high-pitched scream that came from inside the room. "I think they found it."
"Oh, they definitely did," Nadia muttered, causing some of her cast mates to laugh.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Sometimes a relationship needs one person looking after the other. It wasn't divine intervention that got you into Marian the Librarian's costume," EJ said to Nini.
