Glee: World of Chances (the fourth book in the Glee series)

Chapter 7: Entourage

"Which girl should I date?" Jared asked Stewart as the two sat at a glee club meeting in which the final choice for the fall musical was to be made. Kayli, Brianna and Jeremy were very involved in the decision-making, blurting out options left and right, while the other ones either listened or lazily stayed out of it.

"I don't care," Stewart told him, brainstorming musicals on a notebook in front of him.

But Jared didn't really hear him, too busy looking around at all the girls in the room. "Autumn is super cute, but she's just a freshman. That'd make me a creep. And she's too smart. Kayli's smokin' but she's a bitch and too much drama. Debby and Adrianna... Just no..."

Stewart rolled his eyes and, wanting him to leave him alone, said, "Fine then date Drew. Cheerio, jock. Perfect."

"Not perfect," Jared said. "We grew up on the same block and our moms are really close. That'd be like making out with my sister. Let's see, Brianna's a stick-in-the mud, though her flexibility could make for a fun time... Riley's too much trouble. I mean, it took all weekend for her to get back to where she's staying now and I don't need that kind of baggage in my trunk. That leaves Helen. Perfect. I'll date Helen."

"The hottest girl in the junior class who never dates anyone?" Stewart scoffed. "Keep dreaming. Why do you have to date someone in glee club, anyway? I'm sure there are over a hundred girls near this school who'd date you."

"But I'd have to keep my rep and any girl not in glee club won't understand the struggle that comes along with it," he answered. "One day it's cool, one day it's not. Like, have you ever noticed how when we sing in the auditorium, nobody shows up? And in the lunchroom, they throw food at us? Out in the courtyard, they ignore us and then when we do it in the blackbox stage in the gym, everyone goes crazy about us. It doesn't make much sense but I've gotten used to it over the years. Just need someone else who's also in on the crazy. So it looks like I'll be asking Helen out."

"Not so fast," said Stewart, nodding at Jackson, who was leaning in and whispering something that made Helen laugh. "Looks like she prefers hockey to football."

"That's crazy talk," Jared shook his head. "Jackson's an idiot."

"You both are..." Stewart muttered, making a vow to ignore him for the rest of the day.

"That's perfect!" Finn exclaimed suddenly, smiling at Brianna after she'd suggested Footloose.

He'd been dying to work on that for years but other musicals had always seemed more appropriate for the group he had. However, now that he looked around, he realized not very many of them were good dancers, so the leads would be obvious.

He sighed and said, "We can talk about that later. To be honest, the fall musical isn't really a priority right now. We need to push it aside a little to work on this week's Invitationals. We can always do something different and less time consuming, but this friendly competition is really important to the future of glee club."

Jackson, who was now leaning back in his seat, carelessly said, "Why do we have to do that again? We've been in the game for, like, a decade."

"Yeah," Finn shrugged, feeling old. "But the Warblers are a new team now and it may be nice to get a sense of the competition beforehand. We won't actually be going against them, at least not for Sectionals, but Vocal Adrenaline is. And whoever wins from those two will be our competition for Regionals, without a doubt. It's been a while since we've faced them off that early in the year, and though we have until March, it's never too early to stop practicing. We're lucky enough to have it be here at McKinley so let's not look a gift horse in the mouth. So let's start choosing songs. We need two of them to really showcase what we're working with."