Work of Art

Chapter 25

Saturday came and went, and the set crew group happily found themselves further along towards completion than they had anticipated. They once again ended earlier than they had originally planned, giving Nick some extra time to actually complete her homework before late Sunday night for once. It also served as a wonderful time for her to catch up on sleep, so she arrived at the school on Sunday in a fantastic mood. Alice was back to being her usual chipper self, immediately greeting Nick and launching into a slew of stories. Nick smiled at the talkative girl, unable to get a word in edgewise as Maggie and Jonah approached them.

"What's the plan for today, boss?" Jonah asked with a sly grin towards Nick.

Nick clapped her hands together and glanced around the room. "We just need to move and arrange everything onto the stage and we're free."

The rest of the group had arranged as Nick finished her sentence, leading to a couple of cheers, mainly coming from Nora and she tried to egg Henry on to join her.

Soon everyone got to work, starting with moving all of the smaller items that were meant to be easily interchanged on stage. The walls posed a much greater challenge, just barely fitting through the large doorway. Between the ten of them, it only took around an hour to get everything into place. After taking the next couple of hours to make any touch-ups and adjustments needed, everything looked a little bit different under the stage lighting compared to in the other room, the group decided to go out for a celebratory dinner. It took a while for the group to come to a consensus of what they wanted for dinner, but they settled on going to a small restaurant in Port Angeles called Bella Italia. Gia highly recommended the restaurant, and the group was more than happy to have a decision made. The ten split into two packed cars, one with Meyer driving and the other with Maggie as they both had the most space to offer. As Nick walked towards Maggie's car, the purple-haired girl shooed her away, leaving her to ride shotgun with Meyer. Jonah, Henry, and Nora then squeezed into the back. Before the full car even left the school's parking lot Jonah was already complaining about being stuck in the so-called 'couples car'. All four sets of eyes glared at him as the car was still in park.

"If I hear any one of you being all gushy, I'm throwing myself out the window," he joked as Meyer pulled out onto the road.

Following his words, Nick glanced behind her to find Nora already staring at her with a mischievous grin. Without any words, the pair had already come to a consensus to make Jonah's ride a living hell. Henry looked between the scheming pair worried. He ran an anxious hand through his hair as Nora turned to him.

"Henry dear," she drawled in a sickly sweet voice, "could you please roll down the window," she batted her eyelashes at him and leaned in closer.

Henry noticeably gulped and quickly nodded, complying with her request.

Meyer shook his head laughing, while never taking his eyes off of the road. He'd spent enough time with the group of friends by this point to expect their antics.

Nick now leaned over to Meyer as he breaked at a red light. She placed her hand on his shoulder. "Could I request a special song?" she asked in the same overly sweet voice. Meyer glanced over at her then at her hand that was still resting on his shoulder, before handing Nick his phone. Tilting the screen so no one else could see, Nick queued up a song; within the next minute, the first notes of "careless whisper" were coming through the car's speakers.

Jonah groaned and hit his head against the window with a loud thunk as the girls tried, and failed to control their laughter. Nora nestled closer to Henry in the backseat, causing his face to redden, and Nick's laughter to increase more if possible. "Are we there yet," Jonah complained, which caused the other two boys to join in on the laughter now too.