Backstage; Wonah/Rester

9: Bright Light

Jonah

"Hey Jonah, Jonah, Jonah!" Andi pulls the earphones from my ears from across the table, signaling me to pay attention to her.

"That's better. It's hard to start a conversation when the other person isn't watching or listening to you," Andi huffs, she tugs at my earphones, bringing one up to the side of her face. "Were you listening to the Hairspray soundtrack again?"

I shrug, "It's for study purposes. Better to know the music before everyone else on set starts singing and knowing the cues and have me scrambling to catch up."

"Right," Andi taps the side of her chin, "not because it reminds you of a certain someone?"

"Of course not," I look down, "purely for study purposes."

"Suit yourself, at least you're not Cyrus, who has grown a personal attachment to 'It takes two', I swear if TJ and him weren't dating, it would be a whole year of constant gushing."

"Isn't it already a whole year of constant gushing?" I ask, knowing that Cyrus talks about TJ more than every other event in his life combined. We don't even really see it as a problem, since I'm pretty sure I would do the same.

"Good point, but I think TJ does more of it." Andi smiles.

"And don't pretend that I haven't seen you stop by rehearsals a few times, Miss Mack. Another certain Kippen catching your eye?" I add on, knowing that Amber has been late to practice more than she should, always blushing, and not because of embarrassment.

"Thats a different story-" now it's Andi's turn to look down. "And don't think I haven't noticed you're way more open to art now. Yesterday you asked me about good presents to by an artist."

"Yeah well-" I try to retort to save my face, but at that moment my phone chimes with a text. My fingers open my home screen immediately to see who it was.

"I wonder who that could be..." Andi mutters, I catch her smug smile out of the corner of my eye.

It's a number I don't already have in my contacts, although something tells me that I know this person even before I read it.

[Unknown Number]: Hey, Jonah. (I know this is probably really weird or whatever) It's Walker.

"Andi-" I whip my head in my friends direction. "How did you-"

"Artists have their ways." She says, "You owe me your life."

"Thank you. I know." I shouldn't be this excited. I really shouldn't, but this is the first non platonic guy to text me in ages. And I don't even care how sad that sounds. Because this one text is hopeful. This one text is different. And it isn't even a pick up line.

"You should probably text him back. It took him hours to even get the courage to ask me for your number." Andi comes over and looks at my phone with me, like it's some important ancient script. Not one, slightly awkward sentence.

"Already ahead of you." I say, typing.

Jonah: Walker hey! Im actually really glad you texted me.

[Unknown Number]: Really?

Jonah: Well its much easy if all the tech crew to have everyone's number

Jonah: Plus I like hearing from you

"Hey guys," TJ says approaching the table. "Why are you looking at Jonah's phone they way Buffy looks when she's playing basketball?"