Chapter 1

"So, you like my lyrics?" Sebastian looked down at the cute girl who had surprised him with a kiss the night before, as they walked across the field through the dispersing madness. He had barely caught a glimpse of her then, but now struggled to look away.

"Ya, like I couldn't possibly be that poetic myself but I felt the words the second I read them." She smiled and glanced up at him. "Where do you come up with them?"

"Uh, I don't know, I guess I've always just wanted to put my most dramatic thoughts into song," he laughed, "and I get a lot of inspiration from a lot of different genres of music, I grew up listening to everything." Sebastian listed off a menagerie of artists, watching Olivia as she nodded along to see who she might acknowledge. Olivia laughed when he listed Weird Al.

"Well I'm almost as impressed by his cleverness as I am your eloquence!" She smiled at him. "I could not manage either."

"What about music? Who do you like? Do you play an instrument?" He reminded himself to ask her questions too, as his sister had tried to help him with, in the past, but he did genuinely want to know about this girl. Her smiling eyes and appreciation of his talent had him more than intrigued.

"Piano," she smiled at the ground this time, "but my hands were always a little small. That was my first job though, teaching kids lessons! I've done that on and off… For music, to be honest I listen to a lot of pop," she giggled, slightly embarrassed after his long eclectic list, "but I actually love classical. Claire de Lune is one of my favorite pieces." Sebastian was in awe. On top of being gorgeous and sweet, she knew music, too, and seemed so worldly.. and she liked him! Wait. Does she like me? She likes my lyrics, but she doesn't know me yet. Dude don't screw this up. What did Viola do that she liked? Hang on, what did she like about Viola? Does that matter?

"So you're not into any sports?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. There was a hesitancy in her voice and she wondered why she felt a tinge of disappointment at the thought of him not being any sort of athlete.

"Nah, I've pretty much always just been all in on my music, Vi's the sports nut… we are not about stereotypes in this family!"

"Ya, I kinda picked up on that." She nodded, then stopped to face him as they had reached the parking lot.

He realized he had been quiet for a little too long having gotten caught in her very deep blue eyes as they blinked up at him. "Sooo you're cute, musical, like my lyrics, aaanndd.." he paused then said quickly, "so are you actually a boy too? Because this is too good to be true." He sent up a little prayer that she'd laugh at that and it wouldn't be too weird. Olivia laughed.

"Definitely not a boy, but don't think for a second I'm flashing you!" As she teased him with a playfully stern look, the image of Viola's bare chest appeared in her mind and she felt the blood rush to her cheeks, and tried to immediately shake it out of her thoughts before anyone might have noticed the reaction and suspected as much.

"No no, call me old fashioned but I like to take a girl on at least one date before expecting partial nudity." He assured he and she laughed back.

"Do you… want to go on a date, sometime?"

Olivia held their eye contact and softly shared a, "ya" through her smile. She bit her lip and glanced down, letting her smile fade, then squinted as she looked back up and offered, "This was all really weird though." She felt like she should say more but had no idea how, the words all swirling around in her head.

"Ya ya, totally, I can only imagine. This is all still a surprise to me too!" He paused to laugh and rub the back of his neck, showing his nerves. "But, when you feel like you might be ready to hang out… I'd love to take you to lunch, or dinner, or something? We can um, connect over how weird this whole thing is?! Orrr never bring it up again?" Olivia laughed and he thanked god she wasn't totally put off by that, since he hadn't thought it through before blurting it out. Maybe you can just catch me up on the guy you thought I was the last two weeks, and what you liked about 'me' so I can keep doing that. Ya I'll just ask that.

"Ya, I'd like that, " She smiled genuinely as she looked into his unfamiliar green eyes. "Oh, actually-"

They were interrupted briefly by two very large, brightly colored mascots crashing over the fence wrestling and rolling through a couple of innocent bystanders and Coach Dinklage following close behind yelling some English obscenities. They gave the scene a few seconds of their attention, then Olivia asked, "Actually, would you like to be my escort to the Junior League Debutante Ball tonight? You'll basically just have to dress up and walk me across a stage and down some steps, without either of us falling on our faces. Maybe charm a few old ladies" She laughed out the last few words, then added, "and maybe dance with me a bit?" She ventured a flirtatious tone.

"I can bring some moves tonight you have never seen," he teased. "So funny you're going to that though, my mom's been forcing my sister to do this thing for years. I do some of the junior league stuff too… I haven't talked to her yet since I've been back, but I'm sure she's already roped into going. I can get a ride with them. I'm down." He agreed and smiled.

"Great it's a date." Olivia smiled back.

. . . . . .

Of course she'll be there tonight. She hadn't really thought about it, and it wouldn't have mattered before the events that had unfolded in the last few hours. But, Viola hadn't spoken to her since coming out as Viola, other than to introduce her to her brother, the actual Sebastian. She really didn't want to think about how that made her feel. She wanted to go with the flow. Which seemed to mean, flirt with the real Sebastian, pretend it was essentially him all along, (it wasn't), get along with Viola as if, what? We've been friends this whole time? But I've only met Viola once, technically. This was too weird. Olivia had been trying to sort through her thoughts on the walk back to her dorm.

As soon as she finished changing into sweats, Maria came through the door with way more energy than Olivia wanted to experience right then.

"OH. MY. GOD. OLIVIA!" Maria had stormed in and sat quickly down on her bed, bouncing slightly from the abrupt descent, and staring wide-eyed at her blonde roommate. "WHAT the hell just happened?! What are you going to do?! Did I see you get the real Sebastian's number? Did VIOLA even TALK to you after the game about anything?! Ohhhohoho my gosh I can't believe this!" Maria's voice rose at the end in excitement. Olivia had no idea what to respond to first or if she even should grant her the gift of one. She opened her mouth to begin, then sighed and closed her eyes and tried to answer as simply as she could.

"Yes, I gave the real Sebastian my number, and no, Viola didn't really talk to me at all." She interrupted herself to whisper, "God, Viola…" As if she still needed to get used to the name. "And, no I don't really know what I'm going to do. I asked him to escort me at the ball, but this is all really weird and I think I just need some time to like, digest it." She shook her head as she finished and looked down at her hands, a little ashamed that she was allowing her roommate to see the frustrated side of her, instead of the go-with-the-flow debutante that she was trying so hard to maintain.

"Liv, I don't even know what I would do if I was you. .. I mean, WOW. ...He's cute at least?! And umm, not lacking in any departments, am I right?!" She grinned and paused, as Olivia looked at her with an unimpressed gaze, but she didn't wait for a response. "Okay but Viola! I'm kinda pissed at her! She's just going to dismiss this like, I mean she KNEW you liked her as a him, right?! You guys were lab partners and spent all that time together under this pretense! So she's just going to pretend that wasn't a thing?!"

"Okay Maria, I think we're good here. Can we just, put this all on pause and- just- just... for a bit?" She stammered out a barely formed sentence, hoping her friend would just understand. She did, thankfully, and Olivia got to sit, and think. Maybe she could weed through some of the events and mentally prepare for this evening.. And could only hope it wouldn't end up another Hastings hurricane of drama.

. . . . . .