As soon as Lauren entered the first rehearsal, she made a beeline for Elise. The tall blonde was once again completely absorbed in talk with Megan, but Lauren would take any awkwardness of her entering that conversation over having to talk to Joey. She didn't even know if he was here yet, not wanting to look around the room and risk meeting his eye. The truth was, she was over her annoyance at Joey by now, but she wasn't quite ready to let go of her grudge.
"Hi," she said with a hesitant smile as she approached the two girls. "I'm Lauren," she introduced herself to Megan.
"Megan," the other girl beamed, instantly making Lauren feel welcome. "Are you looking forward to doing the show?"
"Yeah!" Lauren said brightly. "Well, mostly."
"Is this about Joey?" Elise asked, surprising Lauren with the brusqueness.
"How did you know?" she laughed.
The other girl shrugged. "Something seemed off between you last time. It didn't seem like you liked him much."
Lauren rolled her eyes. "I was pissed because he took my parking space."
"You're still mad at me about that?" Joey said exasperatedly, entering the room at precisely the wrong moment.
Lauren turned to him, stifling a growl of annoyance. She'd rather Joey hadn't heard that, seeing as she had been hoping to make amends with him soon in spite of their differences, but she couldn't back down now.
"Yeah, I am," she said, her cheeks flushing. Megan and Elise's conversation trailed off, but all Lauren was aware of was her inexplicable anger towards Joey.
"It's not like it had your name on it," he said.
"That's not the point! It was so obviously where I was going."
"I told you, I wasn't having a good morning. I know I should have paid more attention, but it wasn't intentional!"
"That's not an excuse! Wait... are you crouching?" she exclaimed, suddenly realising she and Joey were face to face despite their foot height difference.
Joey looked down, noticing for the first time his bent knees, and went to laugh, but stopped abruptly at Lauren's glare.
"Look, I just came to try and apologise again, but you obviously don't want to hear it," he said tiredly as he stood up straight. "Maybe you can at least try to be civil." He took a seat at the edge of the room beside Isaac. Lauren felt her face burn with shame. She was acting childishly, and she knew it. She couldn't apologise to Joey, though, because David called them all in for a warmup.
"We're going to do a line through and maybe try to get some blocking today," he said.
This was one of the most dull parts of being an actor for Lauren. The rehearsal was slow, and there was a lot of sitting around as other people stumbled through their lines. She had to admit, though, that the monologue Joey delivered was good, and she tried not to watch with too much interest.
David seemed to agree, because he clapped Joey on the back when he was done. "Great job."
Joey smiled proudly. "Thanks Dave."
Lauren had been standing close enough to overhear the exchange. "Dave?" she said quietly as Joey passed her, one eyebrow raised.
Joey turned to her, seeming surprised that she was talking to him. "We know each other, he taught one of my acting classes last year."
"Huh."
He sighed. "What?"
"You got the job because you're friendly with the director, right?" she said. She wondered why she hadn't seen him at her first audition.
