In Another Life

Ten

Mitch's audition with Blake for The Only Exception ended up going smoothly.

In fact, smoothly was probably an understatement. The volume of the clapping when they were done was comparable to the reaction Scott got for his Dog Days audition. Mitch definitely didn't think they deserved it that much, but he was extremely flattered.

Even with the incredible reaction they got, however, he was still afraid that he wouldn't get the solo. Lucas had informed everyone that voting would be done singly rather than in pairs, so if they wanted then the group could easily vote for Blake to do the duet with someone else.

But that wasn't what happened.

"Thank you again to all of our auditionees. I can now announce that our soloists for The Only Exception are Blake and Mitch," Lucas told everyone after voting had finished.

Mitch's face completely lit up at the sound of his name. He spun around to face Blake and before he could even say anything found himself being lifted off the ground and spun around. He laughed happily and hugged Blake back tightly, mumbling a 'congratulations' in his ear.

He turned back to face the front of the room once he was finally allowed back on his feet, looking at Lucas just in time to see the rather unimpressed expression on his face. "If you two are done," he began dryly, "I'd like to start rehearsals for the song with the whole group now."

Mitch blushed lightly and nodded. He gave Blake's hand a squeeze before getting into position, thanking everyone who congratulated him on the way there.

They'd already rehearsed the staging for the song earlier in the week with Jasmine and Lucas standing in for the soloists, so they were able to jump straight into performing the whole production.

Mitch put his everything into it, singing with all the passion he had during his audition and then some. And he had to admit: they really did sound good. Despite Mitch's self confidence issues, he knew when he was putting on a good performance, and he felt like this was a good performance.

He wasn't the only one doing well, either. The harmonies were amazing and the choreo really brought the performance together; this was exactly what they had been lacking in their quarterfinals set. He felt like they were all on top of their game tonight.

Except for one person.

"That was the wrong note, Scott," Lucas snapped.

Mitch cut his vocals short as he was interrupted, furrowing his eyebrows together. He hadn't noticed the mistake himself – too caught up in the emotions of the bridge of the song, which was by far the most passionate and important part. So surely his mistake wasn't bad enough to stop the whole performance.

"Let's start again from the beginning. We don't have room for mistakes if we want to win," Lucas said.

Mitch sighed and begrudgingly got back into his starting position, the whole group restarting the song just as ordered.

And then Scott messed up again.

And again, on their third attempt.

It wasn't normal at all. Usually Scott was the most consistent member of the group, behind the two presidents. It wasn't at all like him to mess up so many times.

"Scott," Lucas snapped again. They were on their fourth run through and Mitch thought that maybe they'd make it all the way through this time, but just as Mitch had made it across the room over to Blake, Scott had screwed up again.

Mitch turned his head to look at Scott. The fact that he was messing up so much was already concerning enough, but the look on his face said it all; there was absolutely something wrong.