Here's chapter 3! Exciting :-) Thanks so much again for all the reviews/favorites/story alerts and everything. And really, just thank you for reading! So without further ado, here's chapter 3! I hope you guys like it!
Disclaimer: I still don't own Hannah Montana or the Jonas Brothers. Darn.
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Chapter 3
A few days later, Joe was rehearsing a scene with Nick in one of the classrooms at the high school, but his mind wasn't really there. Ever since the porch incident with Lilly, he was having a hard time thinking of anything else but her. Even when he was running through lines, she was there in the back of his mind.
Joe had been about to kiss her, and the only reason that he didn't was because he suddenly realized that he had known the girl for less than a day. He had wantedto kiss Lilly then, and three days later, he still wanted to kiss her. This overwhelming feeling of attraction was so sudden and so intense that it scared him a little. So Joe pretended like nothing happened, like there hadn't been a moment between them. Maybe it was a stupid move, but it was a gut reaction. Joe had known Lilly for all of three days. He didn't know how he felt about her; for all he knew, maybe the only thing he'd like about her was that she was pretty. Had he not been spending the summer with her on a movie set, Joe would totally have made a move, but as it was, if it didn't work out he didn't want it to be awkward. Not that things weren't a little awkward already…
"Joe!" Nick's voice cut into his thoughts. "Joe! You in there?"
Joe ran his hands through his hair. "Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Just spaced for a second. Where were we?"
Nick snickered, ignoring the question. "You were thinking about her again, weren't you?"
Joe nodded absentmindedly, and then did a double take. "Yeah—no! What her?"
"I believe her name starts with an 'L' and ends with an 'illy,'" Kevin quipped from his spot on the floor where he had been sitting cross-legged, "supervising" the rehearsal.
"Cute," Joe smirked, looking down. "Not. There is no 'her.'"
Kevin merely let out a sound of disbelief. "Please, you come home after dropping her off avoiding all human contact like the plague, then the day after that you avoid her for most of the day and since then you've barely said talked to her. Something's up."
"Everything is fine. I mean, I don't know what you're talking about," Joe said dumbly, hoping that his brothers would drop the subject.
"Nuh-uh. Not happening," Nick retorted. "We know something's going on, and we'll get it out of you eventually."
"The only thing you're getting out of me is a lesson in acting," Joe taunted. Then he started rapping. "So let's go, little bro, what you waitin' fo'? Let's start the show, before I give you some mo'."
"And DJ Danja reemerges, which means we get nothing normal out of him today," Kevin sighed.
"You mean he says normal things otherwise?" Nick questioned teasingly.
Joe glowered at his brothers. "Funny. Now are we rehearsing or what?"
Kevin nodded reluctantly. "But don't think that Nick and I are gonna drop this."
But Joe really hoped that they would, at least until he had figured out the situation himself.
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For her part, Lilly was watching Miley, Mikayla and Olivia rehearse one of the pivotal scenes in the movie under Kenny's watchful eye. It was one of the more pivotal scenes in which Mikayla and Miley's characters finally stood up to Olivia and broke away from the clique-iness.
Lilly wasn't really paying attention though. She was thinking about Joe. Since that moment on the porch (after that initial first day of avoidance, which was completely mutual), he had acted like nothing out of the ordinary had happened, so she did the same. Because really, nothing had happened so Lilly had no idea why she kept thinking about the moment that wasn't a moment. In fact, she probably imagined that the "moment" had even happened to begin with due to the fact that Miley had been talking about Joe all day and the fact that she was spending the summer with one of her favorite bands. Any fluttering in Lilly's stomach must have been a side affect of Miley singing Joe's praises all the time. That had to be it. She felt nothing fro him. From now on, Lilly was just going to focus on having a good time and maybe helping Miley and Joe get together.
A little argument among the actresses shifted Lilly's attention to them.
Mikayla was shrieking at Miley. "You stepped on my toe! Watch we're you're going!"
"I'm sorry!" Miley apologized calmly. "Kenny told me to step back after I delivered that last line because she's coming forward."
"I don't remember that!" Mikayla countered testily. "You made that up. You're trying to sabotage me, aren't you?"
Olivia cut in then. "No, Mikayla. It's in the blocking Kenny gave us ten minutes ago. I have it written down here."
"You're conspiring against me. I don't have it in my script."
Kenny stepped in. "You must not have heard me, then, because I did say it. Let's take the scene from the top."
The scene went smoothly up until that point. Miley stepped back then Olivia stepped forward and delivered her line. "Of course I control you. In case you haven't noticed, I run this school."
"Not anymore," Mikayla said woodenly from behind Miley. "Look around you. You're alone."
"Stop!" Kenny cried. "Mikayla, your script says to step forward and get in her face."
"I don't see that in here—oh! Sorry, I didn't see it."
Kenny looked exasperated. "Mikayla have you even looked at the script since you got it? Have you written anything down?"
"I don't need to do any of that crap," Mikayla snapped. "I'm Mikayla."
"Well, Mikayla, right now your performance is far below that of any of the other actors, so I'm going to need you to step it up," Kenny commanded. "It sounds like it's the first time you're reading your lines out loud. You need to practice more."
"That's what we're doing now, isn't it?" Mikayla muttered.
"You need to put in more time, show that you actually care about this project!" Kenny exclaimed.
"I care! And I would care more if I had the lead role!" Mikayla practically screeched.
"We've had this argument before, Mikayla. It's not going to happen. Now again from the top."
Lilly watched the rehearsal go on with increasingly frequent outbursts from Mikayla. After a particularly bad one, Lilly decided that it would be safer for to leave the room. She stealthily snuck out and had just gotten out the door when she bumped into a solid figure that knocked her off her feet.
"Ooomph! Ouch," she muttered, rubbing a sore elbow, which had hit the floor when she fell. "Watch it."
"Sorry about that," a voice replied warmly. Lilly looked up; it was a boy. A cute boy, who looked about 19 or 20. The guy was tall, well built, with fair hair and deep blue, friendly eyes. He held out a hand and helped her up. "Are you okay?"
Lilly smiled ruefully as she took her hand back. "Thanks. Sorry for snapping at you."
"Don't worry about it. I'd probably snap at me, too. The drama getting to be too much for you?" he asked, gesturing towards the furious Mikayla, who they could see through the classroom door.
"A little, yeah," she answered with a grin.
The boy smirked. "Don't worry about her. She's always like that. I was on another movie set with her last year and she was worse."
Lilly looked confused. "Wait, I thought that this was Mikayla's first movie?"
"It is. She got fired from the last one. I'm Carl, by the way," he said, stretching out his hand towards her. "I'm interning here for the summer."
She shook his hand. "Lilly. Nice to meet you. I'm spending the summer here with Miley. She's my best friend."
"That's pretty awesome. And here I was thinking that you looked like a movie star," he said with a grin, still holding on to her hand.
Lilly blushed prettily. "That's sweet of you to say."
"I'm only saying it because it's true," he countered smoothly. "Are you having fun on set so far?"
"Definitely!" Lilly answered enthusiastically. "I've never been on a movie set before, so this is so cool! But you're probably used to all of this by now."
"Nah, I still think it's fun. I'm planning to spend the rest of my life on movie sets. I'm studying film at USC."
"That sounds amazing!"
"Yeah, and this interning thing really helps me get my feet wet. It's a lot of work, though. I'm actually about to go on my break right now. Do you want to grab some lunch together?"
Before Lilly could respond, she saw Nick and Joe coming down the hallway and she hastily extracted her hand from where it had still been resting in Carl's. "Actually, I'm meeting up with friends right now. But thanks for the invite. Maybe some other time?"
Carl looked disappointed, but nodded affably. "I'll hold you to that."
"Well then, I'm looking forward to it. See you around!" Lilly gave him a little wave and skipped over to the Jonas boys. Joe looked like he was in a bad mood. "Hey guys! What's up?"
"Not much, Lil," Nick answered easily. With a nod towards the classroom that Carl had just disappeared into, he asked, "Who's your new friend?"
"His name's Carl. He's an intern."
"He looks like a stuck up schmuck," Joe muttered petulantly.
Lilly frowned at him. "He's a really nice guy."
Joe pouted. "Yeah? Then why aren't you hanging out with him, then?"
"Well, I was going to see if you guys wanted to grab lunch when Miley was done, but I can go tell Carl that I changed my mind," Lilly replied haughtily, arching an eyebrow.
"Don't mind Joe," Nick interjected before an argument could start. "Joe's just a little…surly today. And lunch sounds good, if Joe hasn't scared you away. Kevin's in our trailer now, cooking for at least six if you're interested."
Lilly shot a glare in Joe's direction, then turned to smile at Nick. "That sounds great. Miley and Olivia should be done soon, so we can go then."
For the next fifteen minutes, Lilly ignored Joe and made small talk with Nick before Miley, Mikayla, and Olivia final exited the classroom looking frazzled and more than a little bit irritated.
"Olivia! Miley!" Lilly called to the two girls, waving them over. "We're eating lunch in the Jonas trailer!" She saw Mikayla look over at them, a flash of hurt in her eyes at being deliberately excluded, but Lilly squished that small niggling guilt that had suddenly welled up.
"Thank God!" Miley exclaimed. "I'm starved, and that rehearsal was more painful than watching Uncle Earl getting his back waxed."
Lilly grimaced. "That is so not an image I needed."
"It sounds pretty gross," Nick agreed.
"Just be glad you haven't actually seen her Uncle Earl," Lilly muttered. "Let's go."
"So Joe, how has your rehearsal been?" Miley asked, sidling up to the boy in question, looping her arm in his.
"It was…it was good. We got a lot done," Joe answered, not quite as sulky as he had been a few minutes ago.
She smiled at him. "That's great! Just be lucky you didn't have to deal with Mikayla all morning…she was in some kind of mood."
"Great…" Joe groaned, rolling his eyes. "I'm not excited about rehearsing with her later. Since we have a lot of scenes together Kenny wants us to go over them a lot. He said something about us lacking chemistry?"
"Yeah, well, I can't imagine Mikayla having great chemistry with anyone. That gives me an idea!" Miley clapped her hands in delight, her arm still looped through Joe's. "We have some scenes together, so maybe we can practice those later. Although I'm sure we'd have great chemistry."
Joe gave her small smile. "Um, yeah sure. Just let me know whenever is good for you."
"I will," Miley answered a little breathlessly. Joe smiled, patted her hand where it rested on his arm, then gently extracted himself to talk to Nick and Lilly, leaving Miley sighing behind him.
"Hey, Lilly," Joe said as he walked up to them. "Are we good?" It was his way of apologizing for being kind of a jerk, not just today, but for the past few days.
Lilly gave him a long considering look. "You tell me."
Joe took a deep breath. "We are. I think we are."
"Good," Lilly said coolly. "Friends?"
"Yeah," Joe replied with a sigh of relief. "Friends."
Lilly smiled at him and turned back to Nick.
"Friends," Joe repeated quietly, muttering under his breath. That was good. Right?
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So yeah, I hope you guys liked chapter 3! Now the real fun starts :-p
On a personal note, I got braces yesterday. And all I can say is ouch. I tried to eat a donut this morning and it so did not work…sad panda…It definitely made working on this chapter hard (the braces, not the donut) because the pain made writing hard.
Anyway, I would love it if you guys reviewed to let me know what you thought! Constructive criticism is amazing!
Thanks for
reading!
-v
