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From the moment the words “big brother figure” leave Jamie’s lips, EJ is certain his heart slowly breaks over the rest of opening night.
It’s not like he hasn’t thought of a similar outcome. That Gina just wants to be friends and every sign he thinks he sees is just platonic encouragement. That maybe they’re best friends, the kind of close where it’s totally normal to go out alone together for dinner and not make it romantic. That, at the very least, they’d spend the night discussing the musical or their friends or the whole Duke situation.
But brother figure. He hadn’t anticipated that one.
For the rest of the show, all he could see anytime she looked at him from on-stage or the wings was their other interactions. The ones he misinterpreted. The whole “you’re a really good guy” spiel, helping him out with all of Gaston’s dance moves, keeping and wearing his Duke sweatshirt. He’d been too scared to let himself believe it was anything other than a regular friendship, and then he let Carlos get inside his head and he asked her out. And she said yes. Because he never specified it was supposed to be a date.
He doesn’t say all this to Mr. Mazzara during their heart-to-heart after the show. Not when the man clearly needs to discuss all things Miss Jenn-related, even if EJ is itching to warn him to watch himself. To make sure he doesn’t overstep his boundaries or get his hopes up. He knows the feeling.
God, and then he hears her voice.
“Yo, Gastoonnn!” He turns, reluctantly, and seeing her spin around like she’s actually excited for their risotto date does a whole new thing to his heart. Something a lot like ripping out of his chest. Gina just smiles, oblivious to his pain. “Are you ready to go?”
EJ manages to hold up a finger so he can exchange goodbyes with Mazzara. It’s worse, because the man actually looks happy for him. When he turns back to Gina, the light of his life, it’s with a lump in his throat. “About that,” he starts, working extra hard to keep his voice light and even. “I’m not so sure we should.”
Her eyebrows knit together momentarily and it is the single cutest thing in the world and he. Can’t. Do this. “Is this about the whole Slices thing?” she asks, looking confused but understanding. She takes a step closer to him, not reaching for his hand or anything but his traitorous heart skips a beat anyway. “I know we’ve already rescheduled once and we could do it again, but I was really looking forward to—”
“No, it’s not about that.” He cuts her off because he has to, not to see her face fall. He cuts her off because the longer she keeps talking the longer he has to stand in front of her knowing that when he looks at her he sees everything bright and wonderful in the world, and when she looks at him all she sees is a brother figure. A brother. “Can we cancel, actually?”
Gina’s entire face goes blank, all emotions wiped from her expression before she says, “Okay. Can I ask why?”
“I just…” I know how you feel and I’m not about to ruin that, not about to put you in an uncomfortable position. I’m not about to put myself out there again, because I already did and I still got hurt. “I guess I realized that’s not really how we see each other, right? Don’t wanna make things weird.”
He’s not looking at her anymore because he can’t. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine.” There’s another pause during which he just—god, EJ just needs this conversation to be over so he can head to his car and maybe come up with a decent excuse to skip the after-party entirely. “I’ll just catch a ride with someone else.”
“Right.”
“I’ll see you there then.”
And then he knows he’s truly fucked, because he’s still going to Salt Lake Slices. He is. Seeing Gina so happy while he’s in so much pain is one of the worst feelings he’s ever experienced, but on the other hand it’s Gina being happy. He loves seeing her happy. And so he goes.
Gina doesn’t understand what happened. She doesn’t understand it while it’s happening, when EJ can barely look at her as he breaks off their date seconds before it’s supposed to start. She doesn’t understand it while she tracks down Ashlyn and awkwardly asks to carpool with her and Big Red—Big Red, who is still sick and throwing up, but probably okay to operate a motor vehicle if he can put together such a huge surprise for her friend. She doesn’t understand it while they’re on the road, sitting in the backseat instead of the passenger seat, her eyes constantly fighting back tears and her hands clenching and unclenching in her lap. She just doesn’t get it.
She finally had a sign, a real and true sign that EJ felt the same way about her. She’d been scared for too long to put herself back out there when the feelings weren’t mutual, but then she found the right guy. So she took that leap of faith and spent two whole weeks texting and flirting with him, giddy for what comes after opening night much more than the actual show.
And then he just—god, she doesn’t understand. She just knows she’s crushed.
Gina tries not to let it show too much as the party kicks off, although Nini does cast a glance over in EJ’s direction when Gina walks the whole way across the room instead of sitting down beside him. She gets it, they’ve been practically inseparable for months now. She knows it’s weird. She knows it’s wrong. She knows she’s devastated.
She says she’s fine.
Soon enough Ashlyn and Ricky start with the toasts, lifting their red SLS glasses and taking their time going around the room to both thank and praise everyone. It’s such a feel-good moment full of laughter and happy tears, and it tears Gina apart that she can’t properly enjoy it because right across the room is EJ, instead of right across the table from her at an Italian restaurant. She’d even take the squid risotto he was talking about right now if it meant getting out of here and back to what they were.
Ashlyn lifts her glass even higher and says, “We’ve been under some tight circumstances before, and we all pulled through. Just like tonight.” She makes eye contact with Gina and smiles. “Plus, this time you didn’t have to get a last-minute flight from a friend.”
The comment hurts because it’s not common knowledge who bought her the plane ticket. It never has been. Not because she’s ashamed—quite the opposite, actually. EJ buying her that ticket felt very much like the beginning of the rest of their story, and that was something she wanted to keep close to her heart. Just for them to know.
Now she has to nod and act like the word ‘friend’ doesn’t put bile in her mouth. “Yep. I got to be here the whole time,” she agrees, the playfulness absent from her voice. Even for the heartbreaking aftermath.
Kourtney brings enough joy for the both of them when she says, “But you did kill it out there, just like before. A shining feather duster.”
Gina chuckles darkly and raises her glass. “Right, it’s not like I’ve had the rug pulled out from under me again or anything.” A few of them know about her brother, saw him leaving or heard her gushing about the interaction, and so they automatically pat her arm and murmur soothing things. But Gina’s eyes travel over to meet EJ’s for just a second. She has no clue what made him change his mind, but she thinks she sees the exact moment he realizes she’s talking about him.
His eyes don’t leave her for a few minutes. She can sense his gaze when she chats with Nini, asking about songwriting stuff knowing full well it’s going in one ear and out the other. She can sense his gaze when Howie apologizes for the umpteenth time, earning a round of well-deserved ribbing as well as acceptances. She can sense his gaze when she gets up and says she needs a refill, hearing him say the same and some—fuck, some low ‘ooh’s because of course their friends are rooting for them. So was she.
Gina’s two feet from the door to the kitchen when he reaches her, close enough to speak for only her to hear.
“Can we—Should we talk? In the back?”
It’s stilted and does nothing for her bad mood, but fine. If he wants to talk now instead of back at the school like they should’ve, then whatever. They can talk.
She heads through the door and circles around the island, promptly setting down her glass and searching for a corner farthest from their friends. She’s not quite sure what he wants to say or how she’ll react but she knows if she starts crying then she doesn’t want it to be in front of everyone. Even if she doesn’t want it to be in front of him right now, either.
EJ pauses a moment, trailing after her as she keeps going into the dim lighting. Her arms are crossed tight against her chest and she’s sure there’s a metaphor about armor in there somewhere, but all she hears is him say, “Are you—if I made you upset, I’m sorry.”
Any pretense Gina was going to try to swing is abandoned at that. “Okay, if?” She turns, arms ready to go flying at a second’s notice. “If? Seriously, EJ, that’s a question? You have to ask if you made me upset?”
He looks genuinely confused and it only makes her more frustrated. “I wasn’t trying to—”
“I don’t get it, alright?” She lets her arms drop, aware of her spike in volume but not too worried yet. He needs to know how ridiculous this is. “I’ve been so excited all day long, and even after Nini gave us our cards I thought, ‘oh well, we can just sneak off and that’ll be even more fun, like a super secret date,’ and then—”
“A date?” he interjects, taking a hesitant step forward. His eyebrows are high on his forehead and the expression from before has faded into dubiety. “You thought it was a date?”
What the hell kind of question is that? Her fingers twitch as if searching for her feather duster after holding it for hours. She’s not sure if she’d wave it around or hit him over the head with it because, again, what the hell?
Gina gawks for a second before deciding that she’s not doing this again. She absolutely is not dealing with another boy acting like she misinterpreted a clearly romantic gesture. “Okay, you know what? No. No, I’ve read the signals wrong with Ricky but I did not read them wrong with you. You asked me out on a date, EJ, are you fucking kidding me?”
EJ shakes his head once and says, “No, I know it was a date, I just didn’t… think you wanted it to be.”
What. The. Hell. “I literally said yes.”
“I know that—”
“Why would I say yes if I didn’t want to go on a date with you?” She’s not speaking French again, right? This is an actual conversation that she’s having, over whether or not her accepting a date invitation meant she actually wanted to go on said date? With EJ of all people?
He doesn’t even bother looking less confused, just shakes his head again and averts his eyes. “Look, I… I met your brother, and he made it very clear how you feel about me and I didn’t. I wasn’t going to push you into something you weren’t feeling.”
There’s a lot to unpack there, one being when he met Jamie. She was under the impression her brother ducked out as soon as she ran off for Act II, but if EJ met him, then… “What did Jamie say that was that bad to scare you off? That I hated you or something?” It’s mainly a joke. A non sequitur against all of their interactions, even including this one where they’re half in the dark and Gina’s half on the verge of tears.
And then EJ says in a sullen tone, “He said I was a good big brother figure to you,” and her vision turns red.
Gina’s not one for physical violence or wishing harmful things upon others—at least not anymore—but she seriously considers sending up a prayer for Jamie to actually break a leg. She just exhales for a moment, trying not to fume even though she’s sure she looks like a raging bull right now. Not exactly the best look to tell the guy she likes that she’s into him but clearly she doesn’t have a choice.
“I haven’t seen or talked to my brother in years, alright?” she starts slowly, voice pitched low, but that’s quickly thrown out the window as the words start coming out faster. “If he knows anything about me it’s because he talked to our mom, and she only knows what I told her, and maybe things got lost in translation but either way I doubt Jamie would want to acknowledge the boy that I’m crazy about—”
“Wait, wait.” He stops her, not because she’s indiscernible but because—god, the look on his face is breaking her heart. He doesn’t know how to believe her. “What?”
Gina blinks, feeling all the anger in her system start to leave her body as she realizes this isn’t even about Jamie, or her, or the date, really. This is about EJ believing he likes another girl who doesn’t want him, that he’s unworthy. “Eej. Oh my god, come on, I wanted to go on a date with you.”
He’s shaking his head again. “But—but he didn’t clarify—”
And alright, she didn’t picture it this way, in the backroom of Salt Lake Slices with all of their friends celebrating in the next room, but she did imagine it with EJ. So she steps just close enough to hold his face as she kisses him, parting her lips the right way and holding her breath despite knowing she doesn’t have to. It’s her first kiss; sue her.
There’s a moment of stillness, neither Gina nor EJ moving. She pulls back after that, hands still framing his face. His perplexed, gorgeous face. If she has to spell it out for him, then she will. She’ll do anything. It comes out breathily, her gaze flickering over his face as she takes in the moment before he understands, “If any of what he said was true, would I have done that?”
The confusion fully clears in the next instant and then his arms circle her waist, tugging her just that little bit closer so their lips touch again, his head bent and one of her hands moving from his face to around his shoulders. His broad shoulders, his soft cheek, his intoxicating lips. She can feel his newly-invigorated enthusiasm through where their mouths meet, from the way his hands scrunch the elastic of her skirt together. It’s a complete 180 from how he looked two minutes ago and she loves it. She loves everything about it. She probably loves—
Eventually EJ pulls back, their noses and foreheads still touching. If her breathing was different before then it’s nothing compared to how staggered it is now. She thinks she likes it.
Gina doesn’t make a joke, per se, but she does nudge her nose more firmly against his and say, “Risotto’s code word for date night. You know that, right?”
A genuine smile stretches across his face, his eyes lighting up. His eyes are even more mesmerizing up close. “That was fake dating, though. I wasn’t sure.”
She tucks her lower lip between her teeth, fighting the grin that wants to overcome her. “Guess we’ll have to change that.”
“Right now?” He’s kidding. He knows the after-party is twenty feet from them.
“Yeah. Let’s go.” She’s not kidding. The same with back out there, she sees the moment he understands she’s serious.
EJ leans back just enough to look at her more clearly but not far enough to break the bubble they’ve entered. “Really?”
“We should’ve already been there, actually,” she says pointedly, and this time she’s making a joke. He looks sheepish though so she leans forward and pecks his lips again. “It’s okay. You can make it up to me.”
The embarrassment is gone when he exhales, arms dropping from her waist. He’s starting to smile again. “Right now.”
Gina links their hands, not bothering to hide her grin now. “Right now, babe.”