Chapter 11

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"Cut! Cut!!" Louis yelled, the kids on the stage freezing where they were. "You guys, c'mon," he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying desperately to calm down. "We've been over this so many times, the cues never change, the lines are the same. I don't know why this one scene is so difficult."

"Mate," Niall said, putting his arm down and setting his baton on the music stand in front of him. "The amount of time it takes Sara to go down the stairs is too long before she has to sing, it throws everything off. My guys are playing before she even gets a quarter of the way down, and we can only play that riff for so long before it gets old," he said, glancing at his orchestra kids in the pit in front of him.

Louis let out a deep breath as he nodded, noticing that himself. "Sara why is it taking a while to get down the stairs? Are you nervous about falling? Are they wobbly?"

"Uhm... Both," Sara said quietly. "I mean I'll be wearing heels in the actual performance and whenever I walk down them they move."

"Fine, we'll take 45 minutes for dinner then and I'll fix the stairs," Louis said, already heading towards the stage stairs and climbing up them.

The kids let out grateful breaths of relief, having been rehearsing non stop since school was let out. But this is what they get with the musical being just five days away, a little something Louis likes to call hell week. And for him it was definitely pure hell.

Something was always breaking or lost, a person went missing when they're scene came on, or someone missed a cue, be it the stage crew or actors. The only thing that went perfectly was the orchestra and that was because of Niall. Louis was sure that without the Irish lad he would be a right mess and pulling his hair out by now.

"Hey Lou, you got it?" Niall asked as he walked up to the older lad, him trying to drill a few more screws into the staircase.

"Yeah," Louis breathed out, drilling one more screw into the staircase before making sure the entire thing was stable. "I swear this show is going to be a disaster, I can feel it."

"Oh stop that," Niall said as he rolled his eyes. "Everything is going perfectly, you're just overreacting."

Alright, fine, maybe Louis got exceptionally stressed this time of year, but he had the right to. This was his show, he was in charge of everything and if it went bad it reflected on him. Every year it was the same thing, but Louis swears every year he gets worse and worse with nerves, trying to put out the best show possible. His very first year he just wanted to put on a show, but now he had a reputation to uphold.

"Are you not having dinner?" Louis asked, wanting to get off the subject.

"Yeah, of course, but I was waiting for you," Niall said, offering the older lad a hand up.

Louis flashed the younger lad a small smile before looking out towards the seats in the auditorium, the kids already settled and eating their dinners. "Well I was in a rush this morning and didn't have time to pack anything. I think I have some crisps in my bag though."

"Lou that's not a dinner," Niall muttered as they walked down the stage stairs. "I'll give you some of mine, you can't go all day not eating."

Louis shook his head, just about to say something before one of the students stopped him.

"Hey Mr.Tomlinson you recognize this?"

Louis looked over to Michael as he took a seat in one of the front row cushioned chairs next to Niall. But he nearly groaned as he heard the teenager plucking away at a guitar and singing one of the new songs off of Harry's album.

The younger lad's full album wasn't out for another week, but he's already released a few songs and the one Michael was playing was one of them. And of course all of his students just had to give him grief about every single song because there was no doubt that they were about him.

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