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“Oh my God,” Piper groaned, burying her face in Leo’s arm.
“Leo and Piper would finally like to announce that they’re in a relationship now,” Emma stated plainly.
“Uh…” Leo looked around nervously. Everyone—except for Elliot, who tactfully avoided his gaze—was staring at him expectantly. He was going to have to sit down with Elliot after this to make sure he knew there were no hard feelings. “I want to assure you that I haven’t been giving Piper preferential treatment. I hope you all have seen how hard I work to keep this environment professional. Matter of fact,” Leo tilted his head toward Piper, “you were a little quiet on your duet with Sam last night, so you need to project more from your diaphragm.”
Piper glared at him. “I don’t think they needed you to show them that you’re not biased, Leo, but thanks.”
“Dude,” Sam scolded him.
“Am I wrong?” Leo asked.
“Not wrong in the literal sense,” Emma said. “But in the way you timed the delivery? Yep.”
“Shit.” Leo’s mouth popped open as he looked down at a fuming Piper. “Sorry,” he whispered.
“I will fix my volume,” Piper bit off.
“I was just trying to prove I wasn’t—”
“No one thinks you’re giving her an edge, man,” one of the members of the ensemble called out from the back.
“Plus, we all figured you’ve been hooking up for a while,” said a girl who played one of the dancers in the Hot Box scene. If there was one thing that could be counted on from theatre kids, it was gossip.
Leo whirled on Sam and Emma. “We said nothing,” Sam declared. “You’re good at telling everyone else what to do, but you can’t seem to control your own facial expressions very well.”
“People were bound to notice that you look like a lovesick puppy every time Piper walks on stage. We didn’t tell them shit.” Emma folded her arms over her chest. Leo’s face heated as he looked over to Piper, whose cheeks were stained red, and he couldn’t help but smile. “Yep. There it is.” Emma laughed.
“Fine. I guess I’m obvious.” Leo shrugged off their teasing and reached out to tip Piper’s head up. “I’m sorry, princesa. I don’t need to point out your flaws to make myself look better, and that wasn’t my intention. Forgive me?”
Piper let out a long sigh and nodded. “Regardless, you were right. I was too quiet. I was just really nervous. I’ll do better tonight.”
“I got distracted when you sang your first song last night and fumbled the ASL interpretation,” Leo said, loud enough for everyone to hear. The little crinkle that said Piper’s smile was real formed on her face, and without thinking at all, he bent to kiss her in front of the entire cast and crew.
The wolf whistles and cheers were ridiculous, but Leo grinned against Piper’s mouth anyway before letting go and facing his team. “Anyway, that’s it. We’re together. You can still expect me to be hard on everyone, and I have several notes on last night’s performance from myself and Moreno that we need to go over before tonight’s show, so let's get to it.”
Sixty
Three months later
PIPER
Piper and Sam hovered over Leo’s shoulder as they looked down at the laptop perched on his lap. The thing was loading so slowly that a new laptop immediately rose to the top of the list of things Piper wanted to get Leo before he left for film school—assuming he got in, which they were about to find out presently. When Leo finally navigated to his inbox, he clicked on the bolded, unopened email sitting at the top, and they waited. Piper was reluctant to look and chose instead to watch his face.
Just as Sam broke out into cheers, Piper watched Leo’s face frown as he stared at his computer. In a panic, she looked at the screen, her eyes landing on the word Congratulations before she relaxed.
“You did it!” Piper squealed and ran around the couch to throw herself at Leo. He set his laptop to the side and caught her cleanly as she wrapped herself around him. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Congratulations, man!” Sam plopped down beside them on the couch, beaming. “You deserve it.”
“I think you’re both going to be really disappointed, then.” Leo cringed.
Piper blinked and quickly grabbed the laptop to make sure Leo really did get in and she wasn’t imagining things. “No, see, it says right here that you just need to enroll in the fall term,” she explained, pointing to the form links attached to the bottom of the email.
“I know I got in,” Leo said calmly.
“Then why the hell would we be disappointed?” Sam furrowed his brow.
“Because I’m not going.”
