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“Come on. We better get going or people really will start talking,” Arlo said.

Bren hadn’t made it more than two steps before another crack echoed through the room. He looked over his shoulder, hand rubbing his stinging left cheek.

“When’d you get so cheeky?”

“If anyone’s cheeky, it’s you,” Arlo said.

“You haven’t seen Dustin in his wee costume yet.”

“Why do you think I came out of my stall?”

Arlo was already two stairs away by the time Bren recovered and scampered up to the auditorium.

Another greenhouse laugh.

He’d been trying to decide whether or not he was keen on the fact that he came by them easier this side of the Atlantic. In this moment, clad from neck to ankle in skintight Lycra, he decided that more was better.

He shook the grin from his face before he joined Arlo at the top of the stairs. Best to not let the lad know what those smiles did to him.

Not yet anyway.

***

Mrs. Dénommée clapped her hands. “OK, can we take it from the throw, please? I’m still not happy with it.”

A.J. pulled himself up from the stage floor where he’d landed in what he’d hoped was a very feline manner. He was two feet from Bren, whose brows were knit together.

“Bren, you need to get your hands on A.J.’s hips as he pops up.”

Mrs. Dénommée walked in a circle around them, her lower lip sucked in at the corner.

“And A.J., if you squat down a bit more, then come up into a jump when he grips you, he’ll be able to get more leverage and you’ll get more distance.”

A.J. nodded, staring ahead until he caught the quizzical expressions on his castmates faces.

“Oh!”

He turned back to face Bren, who hesitated before he put a hand on either side of his hips.

Somebody wolf whistled. Mrs. Dénommée looked like she wanted to address it, but before she could, Mrs. Lovell said, “Let’s be mature, please.”

Bren’s arms twitched and his hands drifted enough that his fingertips weren’t quite brushing his hips anymore.

“Right. But not until he pops up. So could you give that a try, please, A.J.?” Mrs. Dénommée asked. A.J. could practically hear the suppressed sigh in her words.

“Oh! Right. Sorry!”

He crouched down on the balls of his feet and sprang back up. But Bren hadn’t been ready and his hands hadn’t found him before he was already jumping. Bren gave him a half-hearted push, and he landed inches from where he’d started.

Mrs. Dénommée didn’t hold her sigh back this time.

“Maybe it’ll help if you can see it.” She looked around the feline castmates, the corner of her mouth still tucked in. “Dustin, do you mind giving it a try so Bren can see how it should look?”

Dustin’s smile faltered as fellow jock Troy muttered something and shouldered him forward.

“Gotta be a team player, eh?”

He gave Bren an apologetic look which he waved off, then took his spot in front of A.J.