Chapter 3
Reggie’s first class (science) went by quickly. The teacher gave them disclosures to read over, and then let them chill, with a promise to assign lab partners the next day. Unfortunately, neither Willie nor Kayla had first hour with him, but one of the girls Kayla had introduced to him, Julie, was there, and she waved at him from across the room. Reggie got to chatting to his deskmate, a girl named Carrie, and by the end of the period it seemed he had a new friend.
“So, what class do you have next?” Carrie asked as they walked out the door.
“Uh,” Reggie struggled to pull his schedule out of his back pocket. “Music.”
“Yay!” Carrie smiled and grabbed his arm. “Me too! I’ll show you the way.” She began dragging him down the hall.
“Hey, Carrie, Reggie!” Someone behind them shouted, and the girl stopped abruptly. Reggie turned to see Julie jogging to catch up to them. “Hi guys! Can I walk with you?”
“Sure. You know Reggie?” Carrie said, looking between the two.
“Oh, yeah. He’s Nick’s cousin’s friend. I met him this morning.”
“Nick’s cousin Kayla’s friend?” Carrie asked, looking slightly alarmed.
“Yeah!” Reggie said. “Do you know her?”
“Not really. Nick told me she was moving here. Its all hes been able to talk about since he heard, but i still haven’t met her.”A look of realization crossed her face. “Oh. I think Nick might have mentioned you too.”
Reggie glanced at the floor, bracing himself for pitying reassurances. When they didn’t come, he looked back at Carrie. While her expression was reassuring, there was no pity. Just a small smile and an empathetic gaze. She reached out and squeezed his hand. “I know what its like to have family problems.”
He smiled back at her. He had told Kayla it was okay to tell people the circumstances of his move, figuring it was better for people to get to know him fully rather than figure out he’d been hiding things all along, and he was glad that the information had reached Carrie. Knowing there was someone who understood his problems was really comforting.
Carrie turned back to Julie, not letting go of Reggie's hand, and said, “Come on. Lets get to class.”
That shocked Reggie out of his daze. Alarm bells went off in his head as he realized they had spent over half of their time standing outside the science classroom. Luckily, Carrie accounted for the lost time by dragging both Julie and Reggie through the halls and shoving past the lingering students. She pulled them through a door and shoved them into seats mere moments before the bell rang.
“Just in time! Julie, Carrie, and…”
“Reggie,” Julie supplied, which Reggie shook out of his daze, his brain finally catching up with the rest of him. He smiled at the woman who had spoken, who he presumed to be the teacher, and waved. She gently shook her head at him, which would have been concerning if she hadn’t also been smiling bemusedly.
“All right class. I am Ms. Harrison, and I will be your music teacher this year! Now, for those of you who’ve gone here for a while, I assume you remember how we usually start off the year by reviewing everything you learned last year in this class?” a collective groan rose up from over half the students in the room. Ms. Harrison just chuckled. “Well, lucky for you, we’re not doing that this year.” Everyone simultaneously sighed in relief, even Reggie, who had no idea what was going on.
“You are all Juniors now. You all should be at or above the skill level expected of you. So, we are beginning the year with group performances. You will divide into groups of two to three, staying in your instrument categories- with the exception of percussion, who can join with anyone they please- and prepare a cover to perform friday of next week. That is in twelve days.” Everyone started chattering excitedly, turning to their friends.
“Settle down everyone!” Ms. Harrison called above the noise. “The guidelines of this assignment will be on your disclosures. You will get twenty minutes of class time each day to analyze the piece you choose, taking notes of the chord progressions and melodies utilized, as well as the history of the song. Your notes will be presented to me the day before the performances. Every other day you will get the class period to practice the piece, but if you want to truly excel at this assignment i suggest you get together outside of school. Now. Go wild. Come to my desk if you have any questions.” She walked to the back of the room, leaving the mass of kids to chaotically shove their way to their friends.
Reggie sat still for a moment, processing her words. He barely had a second to worry about who he would partner with, before someone grabbed his arm and he was tugged out of his seat and across the room.
“Nick, Reggie’s joining our group,” Carrie stated as she dumped Reggie into a chair. He looked up to see Nick smiling at him. “This is gonna be fun!”
Around them, the others were forming there own chair pods. Reggie spotted Willie sitting with Alex and Flynn and smiled over at him, before turning back to Carrie and Nick.
“So, Reggie. What instruments do you play?” Carrie prompted, poking him in the side.
“Uhhh, i play bass? And the banjo. And keyboard. And acoustic guitar? I think thats it…” He trailed off as he realised the way they were looking at him. Carrie had a surprised yet brilliant smile on her face, and Nick looked a bit dumbstruck. “What?”
“Um, wow,” Nick stuttered. There was something in his expression that Reggie couldn’t read, but it was adorable. “Thats impressive.”
Reggie sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, i guess so. I had a lot of time alone when i was a kid, and i guess i just picked things up.”
Carrie glanced between the two before speaking up. “Well. This gives us a lot of options! Normally its just me and Nick playing different guitar parts, but now we can add more variety! So. Anyone got any song ideas?” She went back to looking back and forth between them.
Nick shook his head and looked to Reggie.
“Uh, well.” He thought for a second. “I have one idea?”
Carrie perked up. “Lets hear it! Usually it takes us hours to come up with our choice.”
“Okay. Do you guys know the bon jovi song ‘it’s my life’?” Carrie and Nick both nodded. “Well, there’s this altered version made for a Juke Box musical called ‘& Juliet’, and its really good. I think it has parts all of us can play.”
“Hold up a sec-” Carrie interjected, pulling out her phone and some headphones. “‘Its my life’ & Juliet, right?”
“Yeah.”
She handed an earbud to Nick and pressed play. They were all quiet for a moment. When the song finished, Nick smiled widely.
“This sounds awesome!”
“You like it? We’d have to cut out the excess dialogue, or we could also just do the regular version if you guys like that better, or we could just choose a completely different song if you guys want-”
“Reggie,” Nick reached out a hand and put it on Reggie's arm. “I think this is a great choice.” He had a soft smile on his face, and it made Reggie's heart beat a little quicker.
Carrie cleared her throat, smirking knowingly at them, and the boys broke their eye contact to look at her. “I agree that this song is perfect. All votes in?” She held up her hand and raised her eyebrows at them. Reggie and Nick both hurriedly lifted their hands as well. She smiled at them, and jotted down a note in her notebook. “All right. Lets start divvying up parts. Reggie, can you sing?”
***
The first two periods of Kayla's day were very boring. First, she had had history, where the teacher started teaching the minute they walked in the door. Sure this was school, but where’s the first day chill? After that she’d had math, where they’d taken a review test. That was slightly better, since she’d heard Reggie's voice in her head from their facetime study sessions, but it was still not very fun.
Third period was a million times better, because Reggie was there. He sat two seats over, and he kept making funny faces at her. After the teacher had given them the rundown of how things were going to work this year, she let them go sit with their friends to work on a review page. Although it was only about ten minutes, Reggie and Kayla quickly finished the paper and spent the rest of the time chatting.
As they checked their schedules for fourth period, they branched off in different directions. Reggie gave Kayla a quick peck on the cheek before hopping off to math, and she started off to the gym for dance class.
The very first thing she noticed as she walked in was Willie. He sat on the bleachers, discreetly checking his phone, and she walked over to meet him.
“Whatcha doin’?” she asked, jumping up behind him.
He nearly jumped out of his skin. “AGHH! KAYLA DONT DO THAT!”
She smiled innocently at him. “Do what? Anyways, do you know how this class works? Are we gonna do partner projects or like group performances or smthn…”
“KAYLA!” someone shouted, interrupting whatever Willie was going to say. Kayla turned to see Nick running toward her, dragging a girl behind him. Behind them, walking more leisurely, were Julie, Alex, and Flynn.
Nick and the girl skidded to a halt, both breathing heavily. “Kayla,” Nick panted, “This is Carrie, my best friend.” Willie raised an eyebrow at something that he said, but didn’t comment. “Carrie, this Kayla, my best cousin and also one of my best friends.”
Carrie smiled and held out a hand. “Hi! Nick mentions you a lot!”
“He’s mentioned you too! You’re the girlfriend right?”
“Oh, not anymore. We decided we’re better as friends.” At that, everyone raised their eyebrows. Julie and Alex, who had just caught up, shared a confused glance. Flynn’s eyes grew very wide. Willie blinked. Even Nick looked surprised for a moment, before smiling, an odd expression on his face.
Kayla briefly wondered why Nick hadn’t told her, before discarding the tunnel thought and smiling back at Carrie. “Cool!”
The teacher called the class to attention. “Alright Everyone! We’re gonna run through some partner exercises, so pair off.”
Kayla immediately grabbed Willie’s arm, but for the rest of the group there was a mess of confusion.
“Nick honey, I love you but there is no way i am dancing with you,” said Carrie.
“I’ll dance with you Nick!”
“Julie!” Flynn gasped. “You can’t leave me!”
“Hey Carrie, would you be willing to dance with me?”
“Alex! Yes!” Carrie quickly clung to his arm.
“Julie! You cannot leave me with Luke!”
“Whats wrong with me?” Luke, who had just sprinted in, asked.
“Dude. Are you seriously asking me that.”
“Leave him alone, hes a good dancer. And its too late, I’m dancing with Nick.”
“JULIE,” Flynn groaned.
“Like i said! Too late! Come on Nick!” Julie grabbed his arm and tore off across the gym. Flynn groaned and rolled her eyes, before poking luke in the chest and walking away. He obediently followed her. Carrie smiled at Kayla brightly, before prancing off with Alex. Willie stared after them for a second, before gently tugging Kayla to an empty space on the floor.
The teacher started leading them through some simple warm ups, and Kayla had a chance to talk to Willie.
“So. What was that earlier? Everyone seem shocked by what Carrie said.”
He shrugged. “I guess none of us had known they broke up. They’ve sort of been the ‘it’ couple for a while. I’m mostly surprised because it seems like they didn’t even tell their friends.”
“Huh.” Kayla smirked as she remembered something from that morning. “Alright, since we’re equally clueless about that situation, how ‘bout we talk about something else. Alex is hotdog, huh?”
Willie blushed bright red and stuttered.
Kayla’s smirk grew and she wiggled her eyebrows at him. Glancing in the direction where Carrie and Alex were dancing, she said, “I see why you like him. Hes cute, and he can dance.”
Willie blushed even more. “Yeah… he’s perfect isn’t he?” he sighed.
“Yup. Now you just have to ask him out.”
Willie stuttered more. “But what if he says no?”
Kayla stopped doing the warm up and turned directly to him. “Are you serious? Did you not see the way he was looking at you this morning? His blush when you called him a nickname? That boy is into you. Now buckle up those big boy pants and ask him out. You guys deserve to be happy.” She smiled at him, before turning back to the teacher and resuming the warmup. “You don't have to do it right away, obviously. Do it when you’re ready. But don't let doubt and fear keep you from getting there.”
He smiled kissed the top of her head. “Thanks for the advice.”
“Always, skater boy.”