�Wake up man!� Frankie was pushing Chris to wake up, �We have rehearsal! GET UP!� �Why don�t we stick his hand in warm water?� Jesse joked. Chris launched up from his bed. �Alright, alright! Gosh! I�ll wake up!� It had been 4 days since Chris talked to Charity online. Ever since then Chris and Charity hardly communicated with each other. He didn�t know whether Charity got back together with Cameron or if Adrienne still had a boyfriend. But by that day, Chris had forgotten about it all. When Chris, Frankie, and Jesse made it to the rehearsal Greg and Matt were already there waiting. Claudia, their choreographer, was giving Greg and Matt some helpful hints when Adam came into the room. �Congratulations Dream Street! �It Happens Every Time� made number one on the charts!� All five of the Dream Street boys cheered on. �I bet the ladies liked our song,� Greg laughed. �There�s going to be a celebration party this weekend. Bring your little girlfriends if you want. Haha!� Adam left the room after announcing that. �Awesome! Jordan is going to be siked! I�m definitely bringing her to our party,� Greg called out, �Matt, are you bringing your girlfriend?� �Are you kidding me? Hell yeah! Kate will really want to come,� Matt exclaimed. �I�m probably going to bring Britt. She�s just a close friend, you know. One of my best friends,� Jesse replied. �Yeah right! She�s probably your future girlfriend,� Frankie teased, �Naa. I�m just kidding. I�ll ask Nina to come. She�s been busy so I don�t know if she�ll come.� �Hope she comes cuz we are all going to have our girlfriends there,� Matt said. Jesse cleared his throat aloud; reminding them that Britt wasn�t his girlfriend. They all turned to Chris, who had kept his head down the whole time. �Who are you bringing Chris?� Jesse asked. �Huh? Oh, I�ll think of someone,� Chris said gloomily. He stared back towards the ground. What if he couldn�t find someone? He�d be the only one without a girl to bring. He would be all alone at the party. Chris started to concentrate on dancing. �CHRISTOPHER RYAN TROUSDALE!� Claudia shouted. Chris didn�t realize he was in his own world for the past 5 minutes. �What?� Chris said in a far away voice. �What�s wrong? You keep on flapping your hands around and kicking your feet around. We are working on the dance moves to Sugar Rush, not the Hoky Poky!� Claudia laughed. �Well, rehearsal�s over anyway. Chris, don�t forget to work on your dancing!� Jesse and Frankie started to leave and Matt was packing up his stuff. Greg walked over to Chris and asked, �This whole date for the party thing got ya, didn�t it?� Greg and the rest of the group knew that Chris and Charity weren�t hitting it off. They also knew that Chris still didn�t recover from seeing Adrienne with her boyfriend. �I don�t know. I�ll figure something out,� Chris replied. �You know if you need a girl we could hook you up. All you got to do is ask,� Greg assured Chris. After dancing for 4 hours straight Chris made it home. No one else was home, yet. His brother was somewhere with Brendan and his parents were at work. Chris pulled out a sheet of notebook paper from his drawer and pen from his desk. He started to list all his close girl friends: Adrienne, Kate, Sarah, Lydia, Jen, Madeleine, Kat, Jackie, Charity, Christine, and Angela. Chris went down the list and started crossing off people. Chris skipped Adrienne�s name and went onto Kate. �Kate�s on vacation,� Chris crossed her off the list, �Sarah lives in Virginia and Lydia�s in Florida right now. Jen�s at basketball camp and Madeleine has a boyfriend. Kat wouldn�t come and Jackie�s grounded.� Chris crossed off all those people. He looked at Charity�s name for a good 5 minutes. �To invite or not to invite. That is the question,� Chris said, mocking Shakespeare. He ended up skipping her and looked at the other names on the list. �The guys hate Christine and Angela would flirt with Greg and Jesse the whole time.� Chris had finished looking through his list. The only names not crossed out were Adrienne and Charity. �Adrienne probably still has a boyfriend,� Chris had a confused look on his face. He crossed off Adrienne�s name. Chris grabbed the phone and started dialing the first three digits of Charity�s number. He didn�t manage to dial her number all the way. He had second thoughts and decided to hang up. Chris juggled the phone back and forth between his hands for 10 minutes before dialing Charity�s number again. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Charity was just finishing up her spaghetti before the phone rang. She picked it up on the third ring. �Hello?� There wasn�t any answer on the other end. �Helllloooo?� �Hi,� Chris said on the other line. What could Chris possibly be calling her for? They haven�t been talking for days and suddenly he decides to call? She had to admit that she was relieved that their whole relationship wasn�t going down the drain. Charity: Oh, hey! What�s up? Chris: Nothing, you? Charity: Same. Chris: Actually, there is something I have to talk to you about. Charity: Yeah? Chris: Our song �It Happens Every Time� made it to number one on the charts. Charity: That�s awesome! I heard it on the radio a couple times. Chris: Yeah. Adam is throwing a party this weekend for it, and everyone�s bringing a friend. Soo�. Charity smiled. She was glad Chris thought of her as a friend, considering what happened before. Charity: Sure. I�d- Chris: WAIT! Hold that thought! I just got an idea. Charity: Oh boy. Chris: Haha. I was thinking�you�re not over Cameron yet, right? Charity: Yeah, I guess. Chris: And I sort of still have feelings for Adrienne. So lets have some fun with this thing. Charity put on a confused look. She had no idea what Chris was talking about. Charity: Fill me in?? Chris: If you have to ask, you�re not as smart as you think you are. Charity: Hey! So what? Tell me. Chris: Well, we should make a scene. If we pretend to go out, we could make Adrienne and Cameron jealous of us. We can get back the people we want. The Press always gets into Dream Street�s love life. Adrienne would find out, and we could go back to New Jersey to- Charity: Whoa! This is an extreme, Chris. But, it�s worth trying. You got a brilliant beyond brilliant idea. Chris: I know�I told you I wasn�t stupid. Charity (smiling): So when�s this party? Chris: I thought you�d never ask. It starts at 6:00, but I�ll pick you up at 5:30 at your house. K? Charity: It�s a date! Chris: Hahaha�I could get used to this fake relationship thing. Charity: Later Chris: See ya! Click Click
Chapter 8~
Brilliant Beyond Brilliant Idea
