soulmates ⋮ heroes of olympus au

twenty-four.

P i p e r

☼

Les Misérables had its opening night in two weeks, and the musical cast had just started doing full run-throughs. When Piper mentioned to Jason that they seemed to be making good progress, he looked at her in horror and told her that they should've started doing that the week before. This was confirmed when Piper took a look at the original rehearsal calendar, and she saw that Jason was right.

The cast was running through Act 1, and Piper was incredibly nervous. Even though Piper didn't come in until the latter half of the Act, she had only gone through the scenes individually, never back-to-back. The orchestra rehearsing with the actors made the process even more stressful for Piper.

But there was something about today's rehearsal that made Piper much more nervous. Specifically, it was the fact that Piper was supposed to be kissing Jason today at the end of 'A Heart Full of Love'.

Even though Gwen was constantly teasing Piper about how much Jason was flirting with her, she wasn't even sure Jason was flirting with her. Not only that, the two became incredibly awkward at the thought of a kiss scene in front of everyone. Singing love songs in front of an audience was one thing. Her and Jason were practically doing that every day now

Kissing, however, was a completely different story.

"You're finally kissing Jason!" Gwen teased, poking her in the shoulder. "I thought this day would never come!"

"Would you stop?" Piper shot back as she shoved Gwen in the side. "Don't you think I've been freaking out about this for the past week?"

"No kidding," Gwen grinned as we sat down in the audience, waiting for the rehearsal to begin. "I saw you two talking earlier, and it was quite possibly the most awkward interaction I've ever seen."

"This whole situation is awkward!" I exclaimed before immediately quieting down out of fear of people overhearing. "I've kissed people before, but this is different. It's Jason! Plus, there was a whole incident a few weeks ago where we nearly kissed, and I really don't want to revisit that awkwardness between us."

"Woah, woah, woah! Hold the phone!" Gwen interjected, holding her hand up in front of Piper's face. "Nearly kissed?"

"Shit, I forgot to tell you about that."

"No kidding! Now you need to spill everything."

"You remember that day where Mr. Apollo made fun of Jason tripping during 'A Heart Full of Love'? The day he made us go search for extra roses in the props closet?" Gwen nodded. "Well we ended up really close to each other and both of us started leaning in and I thought we were about to kiss but–"

"But? But what?"

Piper swatted her in the arm. "Let me speak! What happened was that Mr. Apollo called us out, and we ended up pulling apart and never talking about it."

"Are you kidding me right now?" Gwen exclaimed. "Screw that! You guys should've ignored Mr. Apollo and kissed! Honestly, you probably should've done more than that!"

"You're disgusting," Piper groaned, hiding her head in her hands. "This is why I don't tell you anything."

"I'm serious!" Gwen yelled. Piper shushed her, frantically hoping that Jason – who was now sitting a few rows behind them with Travis – hadn't overheard anything. Gwen continued with, "There's been so much romantic and sexual tension between you guys for weeks now. You guys like each other, and you need to confess now."

Piper smiled for a moment before it fell as she thought about the whole situation more. "He doesn't like me, okay? I don't want to get my hopes up."