Glee: Race to the Finish (the fifth book in the Glee series)

Chapter 2: The Teen Choice Awards

The next week went by pretty quickly and before Julie knew it, it was time for her first ever Teen Choice Awards. Even if she wasn't going to perform, she was still excited to have nominations and to get to present an award.

There were just two things that were bothering her as she prepared herself for the event. The first was that she was going to see Sam for the first time in a few weeks and she wasn't sure what to expect. Would he be angry? Would he ignore her? Would he be sad? Would he smother her with attention? Would he feel nothing?

The second concern was far more pressing. As her stylist pointed out, she didn't fit into her dress.

"You fit just three days ago!" he exclaimed nervously. "I don't understand... Have you been eating those zebra cakes again?"

"No, I stopped, I swear," she responded, though she knew exactly why she wasn't fitting into her dress. She had a baby inside of her, and that beautiful child was growing each and every day.

"Delivery!" said a voice from outside of her hotel room.

"Could you get that, Pierre?" she asked kindly, and he left as she turned to face herself in the mirror. Maybe no one would notice that the zipper didn't go up all the way...

When Pierre returned, he was holding a large white box, which had a beautiful, silver ribbon wrapped around it. Ignoring the box's beauty, Julie ripped it open and saw that it was a dress. She could tell without taking it out of it's wrapping.

"How..." she mumbled, lifting a small note and reading it out loud. "'Hope this helps.' Who sent this?"

"How should I know?" asked Pierre, who was busy lifting up the beautiful gown. "Wow... Juliet, this is a very impressive dress. Expensive, too. One-of-a-kind."

Julie ignored him as he rambled about the designer, considering his information useless; save for the fact that it told her this wasn't a ridiculously extravagant gift from Bree. And while she got into her new dress and prepared for the show, she wondered who could've possibly known that she was going to be in such need of a new gown.

***

Concerned with far more than how her dress was fitted, Santana Lopez paced her hotel room, the TV buzzing in front of her. The assistant she had hesitantly hired over the summer, Luke Walters, was now crouched down on the floor, looking for an earring that she had nervously dropped a few minutes prior.

"Hurry up, will you?" she urged him, turning up the TV volume. Until then, the noise from the box had been background noise to keep her nerves calmed but now the Teen Choice 2021 logo was on the screen and she wanted nothing more than to find out what was going on so far.

"The cast of Teen Beach Movie 5 has already arrived," the reporter was saying. "As we all know, Ross Lynch, star of the movie franchise, will be hosting the award show, alongside the lovely Victoria Justice. They are not at all new to the ceremony, so we can expect many surprises and fun moments to come this evening. I always thought the awards were most important for newcomers and this year there are plenty. The two most watched Breakout Stars of the summer have been Juliet Vasquez and Santana Lopez—"

"Omg, I'm on TV," Santana mumbled. She had been on television plenty of times before but now it felt different. She was watching herself as they showed a clip from her recent appearance on the Today Show.

"Lucky you," Luke grumbled as he reached underneath a cabinet for what he thought was an earring but ended up being a pretzel.

"Both of these women are up for the Choice Breakout Star award against several other promising contenders," the reporter was saying, "so the competition is very steep. Something else to look forward to will be the performances by—"