Glee: Back to the Top (the third book in the Glee series)

Chapter 29: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

"Listen up guys," said Will as he walked into the choir room for yet another glee club meeting. "I know you're all exhausted but given that three students were diagnosed with severe sex addictions in the last month, Principal Hallman thinks we should have an addiction awareness week."

"In glee club?" Kitty raised an eyebrow.

"In the school," Sue said as she walked in, her arms crossed. Bree tried not to glare as she continued, "Apparently, we haven't had a drug awareness program at McKinley since the 90s, so Principal Hallman thinks it's necessary to have a 'say no to addiction' seminar, which will be taking place now that Holly's delightful sex ed class has ended."

"Delightful?" Marley mouthed to Unique, who shrugged and looked back at their instructors.

Will let out a deep sigh and said, "Miss Holliday will be expecting a lot from you guys this afternoon. Not many of your peers take these seminars seriously and it's a bit daunting to teach such intense topics to a group of young adults so please be respectful. Anyway, onto glee-related matters, Sectionals are this Thursday. Your captains have a few words for you." He gestured towards Julie and Kitty, who got up and walked to the front, facing their peers.

Kitty cleared her throat and said, "Julie and I met this weekend, during which she sacrificed her birthday so that we could spend hours choreographing our numbers."

"I'm sorry," said Harmony, raising a hand. "But we all follow you on Tumblr. We saw the picture war you two had. That and Julie was totally retweeting all sorts of Jimmy Fallon tweets on Twitter so it couldn't have been that big of a sacrifice."

"It was big enough," Kitty told her, lifting her chin up defensively.

"That's what she said," Shana mumbled, making Stefan, Harmony and Alex snicker.

"Yes," Julie nodded, not hearing the comment. "We've got a gorgeous ballet routine that will be going on during my duet with Jake and then a great choreography for the Black-Eyed Peas group number that we think you all are really going to love."

"Let's go ahead and walk you all through it," Kitty nodded, beginning to show the New Directions the moves they'd come up with for them.

***

"So that's why you didn't want to do anything with me for your birthday," Jake began as he and Julie headed to the rest of their lunch.

Julie shrugged. "Birthdays aren't a big deal for me," she replied. "At least not mine. And I figured if I told you you'd want to help out but it looks like things are still a bit iffy with you and Kitty so—"

"What makes you say that?" Jake asked, nervously pulling up the strap from which his backpack hung on his shoulder.

Julie gave him a look. "Umm, the fact that you too hardly speak or look at each other," she said. "Other than, like, online and stuff and only because you two found common ground with posting embarrassing pictures of me all over Tumblr. Other than that... Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to her keeping her distance when it comes to you but she and I have a lot to do. Like..." Julie looked around, making sure nobody was listened. "We've started the Cheerios once again. First tryouts will be tomorrow."

"How?" he asked. "You don't have a budget."

"We think Bree was onto something about that," she told him. "But right now she just needs some serious 'me' time. Anyway, we're going to practice without anything that requires a budget. No equipment or uniforms, just a group of girls wearing their own workout clothes and practicing in whatever spot is empty."

"Good luck finding a venue at this school," he said. "As far as I know, the theatre club is still working on their winter play so you can't have the stage, the volleyball team is beginning to wrap up their season so they get priority over the gym, and the football team gets the track and field."