Devin puts on some indie rock music as we sweep out the rehearsal hall. It’s a pretty small room, and it’s obviously made for dancers since there are ballet barres and boxes upon boxes of costumes.

“It doesn’t really matter how we package everything up because they’re going to go through it all again later. Just tape up the boxes and we’ll move them out of the room.”

I nod, reaching for the packaging tape and stuffing as many stray costume elements as possible into each box. It’s pretty menial work, so at least I don’t have to put in a whole lot of effort.

It sucks being stuck in here when I’d rather be answering Diary messages. My inbox has never gotten so many messages a day, and frankly, I’m falling behind on answering them. It’s like everyone wants a special peek into my relationship, and while I acknowledge that this is the price of stardom, I’m really running out of energy to keep up.

I maintain a steady internal chant of Please don’t talk to me. Please don’t talk to me. Devin sits down a few feet over and starts packing up boxes, and our work is pleasantly silent.

Then he says, “You’re only in Denver for the summer, right?”

I just nod, keeping my face turned downward.

“Have you had a chance to look around the city? There’s some cool stuff downtown and—”

“I have a boyfriend,” I say, and it crash-lands into the middle of the room like a goddamn UFO.

Devin blinks once and says, “Congratulations?”

I shake my head, looking down before my cheeks can flush. “I just meant, he’s showing me around town. We’re making rounds.”

“Oh, that’s good.”

We fall into silence again, and I’m kind of relieved that I misread his small talk and he’s not actually trying to flirt with me. At least that’s one less thing to worry about.

I’m half waiting for the rest of our team to show up and free me from captivity, but it looks like the crew is just Devin and me, which is basically everything I don’t want for the summer. He keeps making idle chitchat, and I do what I can to make it as obvious as possible that I don’t want to talk since I’m tired and stressed and not really a big fan of “work” in general, but the guy can’t take a damn hint.

And really, I don’t want to snap at him and tell him to fuck off since I know one bad word from him will mean jobless Noah all over again, but between all the pressure from the Diary and not being able to reach Becca and the fact that my phone hasn’t picked up a single signal since I got in, it’s getting harder and harder to avoid. My only hope at this point is that I can stick around long enough for Georgette to give me a second chance when I finally do lose my shit and get a bad report.