He Shoots, She scores

Chapter Twenty-Five: Gracie | Success

This week has been a chaotic rush. But in a good way. On Monday, I had my audition for 'Footloose' (which I crushed in my opinion.) On Tuesday, I worked a full day shift at Starbucks following two back-to-back classes (I accidentally fell asleep on the bus ride home and had to call Eli to come pick me up in this foreign city.) On Wednesday I was at the library hustling on assignments. Thursday, I get a call back for Footloose (I had to sing alongside the potential Ren McCormack), and on Friday I found out I got the part. Which brings us to right now where I'm screaming my head off in the kitchen.

"Yes, thank you, thank you so much! Uh-huh, of course, I'll see Monday! Bye!" I hang up the phone, where the casting director just informed me that we start rehearsals after the weekend, and then I'm screaming some more. Weston and Eli have class, so it's just RJ at home who's forced to suffer through my high-pitched excitement.

As if on cue, he strolls into the kitchen with two palms covering both ears. "Geez! Yell louder, why don't you?"

"Sorry." I'm smiling so wide my cheeks are getting sore. "Guess what?"

"You got a boyfriend?" RJ roots through the fridge and emerges with a Tupperware container which I know contains nothing but green salad and chicken. "Ugh, gross. Why does Weston have to be so healthy?" He wrinkles his nose.

"I got the part of Ariel!"

"You auditioned for Little Mermaid?"

"No, you dummy! For Footloose, remember?!"

RJ snaps his neck up. "Oh, shit!" He's dropping the container and then we're hugging. RJ grabs my waist and spins me around and around until we both get dizzy. I'm laughing so hard my stomach hurts. It's a euphoric feeling I want to bottle up forever.

The front door opens and Weston walks in wearing a hint of a smile. He drops his gym bag on the ground, and it lands with a thud as he watches me and RJ with an expression I can't pinpoint. "What's up?" RJ says.

"Hi" I add.

"Hey." When I inspect his line of vision, I notice that he's not looking directly at me or RJ per say, but at the placement of RJ's hand. A.K.A my waist. His smile drops a millimeter before it returns just as quickly. Weston flickers his gaze away. I step away from RJ at the same time he rips his hand off me like I've caught on fire. We're no longer touching which for some reason feels like the appropriate thing to do.

"What are we celebrating?" Weston asks, leaning his hip against the island.

I tug some stray hair behind my ears. "I got the lead role!"

Weston's smile is back. Better than that, he's beaming. Avery Weston is beaming. At me, of all people. It throws me back. "Shut up" he says, still beaming.

"You shut up."

His arms snake around my waist and he pulls me in for a hug. 

Avery Weston is hugging me.

I feel like I've time travelled to an alternate dimension. I do believe that people can change, which is why I'm willing to accept Weston's hug (maybe a little too much) without a grain of salt. Last week on the balcony felt like our breakthrough moment. We talked for hours. I'm not sure how, but we both ended up spilling secrets about ourselves that we had never told each other before. In fact, there were some facts that I had never relayed to anyone, let alone Avery Weston. After I returned to my room, I had to pinch myself several times to ensure I wasn't dreaming. The most jarring part was how easy it was to talk to him when we weren't butting heads. And what I didn't expect was how much we had in common. He grew up with a single dad, I grew up with a single mom. We trauma bonded over how weird it was at times growing up around the holidays, specifically on Mothers/Fathers day. I told him how I'd always longed for a sibling, which is why I want five kids of my own one day. He told me about his very first job waiting tables in high school, and how he got fired halfway through his first shift because the customers were pissing him off.