Plié and Clout

Chapter 14: That is the crappiest tree I've ever seen anyone draw.

Ah, another chapter

MUSIC: Lowkey - NIKI

-rabid

***

AUGUST-

"Get your stuff, let's bust! I've got bio to stress about." Maya, Luk's friend, is standing in the door, yelling at him. Luk is scrambling around, packing all his ballet stuff into his messy bag and pulling it all haphazardly onto his shoulders. "Oh, Jilly, you dance too?"

"Yeah," She wanders over to Maya and Luk. They smile at her and she's smiling back. I want her to be better friends with them than Belle, who spent the whole class talking about some redhead hockey boy. Not a good idea. I don't need to repeat Lila. Don't need to repeat me. Belle is intense, I don't particularly think Jilly will like that all that much.

"Cool, you seem cool, do you think she seems cool?" Maya pokes Luk and he nods.

"Yeah, I think she's cool."

"You're pretty cool," Maya says. "Alright, dancing boy let's go suffer together."

"Alright." He tags along behind her, walking out to her mom's car outside.

"Steph going to be late today?" I ask Jilly, who's made her way back over to the desk.

"Yeah, basically every day," She smiles. "Nico, his boss, doesn't particularly like letting him out before five. And since this ends at five, he's going to be late every day."

"Nice." I laugh. "I kind of want to ask him to draw a tree for me, just to see."

"Please do," Jilly looks up at me, which isn't too far up. "Because you know he'll do it."

"Why?"

"Because you make him stupid," Jilly blurts. I toss my head back and laugh, yeah, he makes me pretty damn stupid too. "Steph's a pretty simple guy up here," She taps her forehead. "Not much goes on."

"I'm sure plenty goes on in his head." I chuckle.

"Not really." She turns around and he's entering the building at the same time that the last dancer is leaving. He lets them pass and I admire him in work clothes, again. Sleeves up to his elbows, pants held up by a belt that his core slips so incredibly gently into. I take a deep breath.

"Jilly!" He laughs. She smiles at him and he looks around. "Look at that, I'm last again."

"I told August you wanted to pick up embroidery." Jilly pokes him in the stomach and he doesn't react much at all.

"I, yeah?" He looks between us. "I don't know, it looks cool." Jilly gives me the this-is-my-absolute-dumbfuck-of-a-brother look.

"Can you draw a tree?" I blurt. He turns pink.

"What?"

"Jilly told me you couldn't draw trees." I scramble. "So I wanted to see it for myself."

"Do you have paper? I mean, it's going to be awful but if you want me to draw a tree I can." he's wringing his hands.

"Yeah, here." I put a sheet of printer paper on the table and root around for a pen. He pulls one out of his pocket instead. Jilly is trying not to laugh and Steph sticks out his tongue, concentrating.

He's gripping the pen like his life depends on it, and I watch him shakily draw a trunk, and then a blob for leaves.

"Not awful, not good." He looks up at me, and then back down at the paper, then back up at me, then he gets beet red and grabs the pen again. Jilly pokes him in the back and he jumps. He wraps his arm around the paper like he's taking a test and I'm trying to cheat and then scribbles down something at the bottom of the page, my heart climbs into my throat and then out onto my tongue.

His hands are almost visibly sweating and he caps the pen and slams it back into his pocket. He slides the paper forward and I don't even have time to look down at it before he blurts "See you Wednesday!" and spins around.

"See you?" I'm a bit upset he doesn't want to stay and he's red around the ears and all the way down his neck under his collar. I watch them leave and then look down at the paper.

At the bottom, under the tree, in atrocious handwriting, I see his number.

I turn pink and jump up a little into the air, trying really hard not to full out grin like I want to. I pump my fist when I'm sure he's gone.

"Yesssss!" I yell into the empty studio, laughing. I whip out my phone, but I don't do anything about the number written on the page.

"Gabby?????" I say immediately after she picks up.

"Huh?"

"Can you come over like right this damn second." I say, trying not to gush right there on the phone.

"Yeah, I'm on my way, like already," She yawns. "What happened?"

"It's Steph again."

"What'd he do?"

"Drew a tree and picked up embroidery."

"What the hell." She mumbles. "Yeah, okay, I'm going to park and then you're going to have to explain the hell out of this."

"Okay okay uh-huh." I hang up on her and then open my contacts.

Steph Gallagher, you have a contact in my phone now. I stare at the contact for a second, another. Then I grab my bag and head to the stairs in the back, I rent the apartment above the studio, so I just go home after practice.

I flop onto my couch, still staring at the tree.

"You have the biggest damn crush on this boy, I can't even begin to explain." Gabby pushes open my door. "I mean for real."

"I know." I giggle and roll over. "Look, look."

"That tree is atrocious." She looks at it. "Is that? Is that his number?"

"Yeah," I'm absolutely euphoric. "And I've got to tell you a story now."

"Hit me with it."

"Well, we're not going to start with the story because I need to gush about how good he looks in a collared shirt like there's no way he doesn't work out because his forearms are so amazing and you can practically feel his chest from across a room in a work shirt and I'm so totally very very sexually attracted to him aren't I?" I have a moment of self-awareness that slams me back to earth.

"You made that one very clear." She raises her eyebrows at me. "You're lusting over him like you're a damn teenage guy."

"Oh shit," I mumble. "Well let's go through the cute stuff because I'll start talking about his back and that's just not okay."