𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍 - 𝐖𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐇 𝐗 𝐎𝐂 - 𝐓𝐍𝐒

08

"Didn't Emily, Stephanie and Tiffany have a competition this weekend?" Eldon asked as he stood with James, Riley, Michelle, Ava in studio A.

"I don't know," Riley fiddled around with her fingers. "I've tried to avoid talking about dance around my sister."

"Me and my sister keep our personal lives separate and I really don't want this thing that's going on at the studio to affect our lives at home."

Speak of the devil, the trio walked in a blue and gold trophy sparkling in Tiff's hands, the studio head following closely behind them. "Hey!" Emily smiled proudly.

"How'd you guys do?" James asked looking down at the award.

"Oh, well, we came in second," Emily remarked, annoyed they couldn't snatch first place. In her books, second place was just first loser. The other dancers gathered round the e-girls, clapping their hands and whooping at the achievement.

"A trio competition is where you go with a trio, so there's solos which is one person, duets which is two, and trios which is three," the blonde explained.

"We went out there to kind of remember what it's like to be on stage in front of and audience and we can go into regionals not being so nervous."

"Second?" James repeated. "Who came in first?"

"Elite," Emily shrugged.

"Elite Dance Academy is our... okay, well, they're everyone's main competition," the dance captain rolled her eyes at the thought of them. "They win a lot."

"It's been The Next Step's goal to beat them for as long as I've been here."

"You should have seen Elite. They were amazing," Emily marvelled.

Steph pulled out her phone from her pocket getting a video up. "You guys have to see this." Holding out her phone, Stephanie pressed play as A-troupe watched. Their tricks were amazing! Everyone was in time, they were clean, they were just incredible.

"I taped the footage of Elite because I wanted to show people what we lost against."

"Okay, okay, that's enough. That's enough!" Emily held a hand up, almost jealous the attention wasn't on herself or her routine. "Look, I say we take a little road trip to Elite, sneak into their studio, see what they're doing for regionals and come back and work on ours. What does everyone think?"

"Oh- I- I could-," Riley began taking a step towards her sister before Emily held a hand up letting out a scoff. "Wait. You weren't thinking you were invited, we're you?"

The brunette shrugged looking down. "No."

"Good."

"Why would I want Riley to come? She's so negative about everything. She can stay here alone to learn her lesson."

"I really thought things with Emily would have been better by now. My relationship with Emily is... not really getting to heal as fast as I thought it would."

"So, who's going to come?" the blonde looked hopefully around the room.

"Oh! Oh! I'm coming!" Eldon immediately stepped forward raising his hand. He probably didn't even know what was going on, he just wanted to follow Emily around. Probably thinks it's a date as well.

"I'm happy to go on this road trip with Emily. I'm even going to pretend like it's kind of a date."

"Stop," the dance captain haunted the blonde in his tracks. "Back."

"I really hope he doesn't think this is a date or something."

"Okay, James, how about you?" Emily looked to the dark haired boy hopeful to have a normal person accompanying her.