Ryder's POV
"Ok, here's the music," I said as I handed sheets out to the band. "Any questions?" They all stared at the sheets for a seconds and then shook their heads. "Alright good- hit it!" I stood in the middle of the stage and began to sing, well- rap. I was taking one for the team with this performance. The kids started cheering and joined me on stage as I started dancing too. They seemed pleased and when I looked over at Mr. Schue in the audience, he was just laughing and clapping his hands.
Once I was done, I took a few deep breaths before talking, "I wrote that song when I was a freshman and 'the jerk' was still cool. I hope you will follow my example, allowing yourself to have fun and take inspiration from your favorite songs." I looked out across the seats in the audience and I saw Jess smiling behind a hand- ok, maybe she was still laughing. I smiled and shook my head. One of the boys regained my attention by suggesting that they do a song inspired by Lady Gaga. Another guy groaned, "We sing too much Gaga already. We need to do something unique. That's the whole point of writing an original song." Suddenly, they started getting into a fight so I had to stand in between them. "Guys, chill. It's just a song." And that's when there was a huge gasp from everyone. "Excuse me, we are national champions- we need to keep this title," a goth girl glared. Before I could explain what I meant, Mr. Schue came to the rescue. He got on stage and ordered everyone to get in a circle. "How about we have everyone write down a mock-song of their favorite artist's most popular album? Bring in your pieces on Thursday and we will get to work. For now, everyone go home and calm down." I thanked him quietly as everyone left the stage. "Watch what you say about music in here, they take is extremely serious. Everything is a big deal when you're in high school." I nodded and thanked him again before heading over to Jess.
"Wow, you rip off 'the jerk' and get high schoolers to fight all in less than a half hour- how do you do it?" she teased me. "Ha ha," I stuck my tongue out at her. "Thanks for coming though, I'm happy you got to see my amazing talent," I chuckled. She shook her head and smiled, looking at the ground, mumbling. "Huh?" I asked, moving closer to her. "I said it was actually really cute," she rolled her eyes and pushed me back. I smirked and nodded, "Hm. Thanks." She thinks I'm cute. Oh gosh, I sound like Rudolph. "What are you doing tonight?" I looked at her shocked, "Uh, I was just planning on working on homework, why?" She shrugged and grabbed her purse from the seat, "Just wondered what you do when you're not trying to rap songs from 10 years ago." "Oh, right. Just wait until I have you join me for a duet- what's that band you like? ABBA?" I smirked at her. She gasped, "I'm going to kill Liz!"