One week until the Showcase
Lucas
“I’m nervous,” Sookie fired off in rapid Korean next to me. “This is one of our final performances before dress rehearsal, and then everyone’s going to see the new songs, and what if—”
“Stop.” He was making me nervous, and I never got nervous. “Just remember the eight count after the chorus speeds up with my lines, all right?”
He nodded. He was one of the main vocalists and usually left everything on stage, but his dancing at times needed more work than the other guys.
Rae, in the corner taking a much-needed break after going over everything with Sookie and Grace, had just returned with our third order of coffees.
“Ey!” Kai slapped me on the chest. “I asked if you were ready.”
“Yeah,” I said quickly, looking away from Grace as she walked over to her chair and sat, though I was aware of her pulling out her phone, checking our schedules.
She was doing her job while I was having a hard time breathing in the same room as her.
“Sookie isn’t the only one who needs to focus,” Kai said under his breath, right before the music started. “You sure you’re doing okay?”
“Just tired.” I hadn’t slept at all the night before. I’d just kept reliving the forbidden kiss over and over again until I was tempted to sprint across the apartments and knock down her door.
One kiss. Really?
I’d kissed girls before.
True, that had been back in school, when I was trainee; I’d kissed exactly two girls, and I’d been fifteen and had no clue what I was doing, Chae-Won could attest to that.
Shit, she could probably sense my inexperience.
I wanted the ground to swallow me up whole.
Our song Move started, and all thoughts of the kiss dissipated as I kept up next to Sookie, Jay, and Kai.
Jay spun out of the formation as Kai and I danced forward and did our break before the rest of the guys joined us again.
Everyone hit their marks, but we weren’t singing yet, which meant things could go to hell the minute we had mics. Not that we couldn’t pull it off, but that was usually what messed up Sookie.
He preferred to hold his mic, but after last week’s performance, we were giving him a head mic—we didn’t want to take any chances.
The song ended with all of us completely winded, and so went practice for the next two hours while we attempted to perfect every last move along with the songs.
Everything came naturally for Rae and Kai, whereas for the rest of us, it always felt like we had to work just a little bit harder.
By the time practice was done, I was exhausted and just wanted a hot shower and food.
Thinking of food just reminded me of Rae and his ramen, which did nothing for my irritated mood.
I grabbed a bottle of water from the table. Grace hadn’t looked up yet, but I didn’t really expect her to, at least not in front of everyone. She’d been all business this morning. Did it affect her the way it did me?
I tried to clear my head and didn’t even notice that Dae-Jung had walked into the room to talk to Solia. He was going to be one of the celebrities tweeting and posting about our new video since it was dropping tomorrow. Even though he was a friend, I hated how flirtatious he was with anything that walked; guys and girls alike, the guy didn’t discriminate; he just liked beauty no matter what package it came in.
Not that he didn’t like a solid personality, but he’d made a reputation for himself that should have gotten him blacklisted. Rumors spread that he was so nice that people forgave a lot when it came to his very public dating life.
Jay stiffened next to me when Dae-Jung walked over. He was dressed in a fitted gray suit with an open black shirt underneath. His wavy hair was styled perfectly, and his attention was solely on Jay.
Of course it was.
“You guys looked good.” He looked between Jay and me. “Do you think you’re ready?”
“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Jay said in a hollow voice that held zero emotion.
It was in moments like this I felt bad for Jay; everyone was drawn to him whether they liked it or not.
“Good.” Dae-Jung’s expression shuttered as he looked between the two of us.
An awkward silence filled the space until Grace came jogging over. “Is it true you filmed at an amusement park today?”
“True.” He laughed. “Why?”
She made a face. “I love amusement parks, and my dad mentioned something about Seoul-Land.” Her face dropped. “Is that where you filmed?”
“It was really fun.” His winning smile spread across his face. “You know they booked it for two days, and if we leave now, I bet we could squeeze in an hour or two of rides as long as we stayed out of the night shots.”
“Sure,” Jay said quicker than I could say no. “Why don’t we all go? We had a really long day and deserve a break.”
“No.” Solia must have been eavesdropping. “Absolutely not. The video drops at midnight tonight; you guys have two reaction videos and another interview—”
“What she’s saying,” Kai continued for her, “is ‘wow, good job guys, you’ve worked so hard, let’s go blow off some steam for an hour, and I’ll help babysit you, so nobody goes crazy and eats a corn dog with extra sugar.’”
Sookie let out a moan.
“Pause.” Grace held up her hand. “Corn dogs have sugar?”
We all looked at each other in amusement before Dae-Jung announced, “Yeah, we’re going—poor girl hasn’t even had a sugared corn dog.”
“I don’t get it. Why would you dip it in sugar?” Grace was adorable, still focused on the sugared corn dog as Dae-Jung turned her toward the door and started to explain.
Rae’s eyes went immediately to his hands on her shoulders. His jaw flexed. I knew that look.
He wasn’t just pissed.
Rae… was jealous.