Ellie had seated herself in the front row with everyone else, in between Leigh and Sharon and had been enjoying herself, talking about Angel and Adam’s engagement and whether or not they were going to end up being married before or after their baby was born. So far Adam was pushing for before, Angel was pushing for after. Ellie kind of thought Angel might just be pushing for after to get on Adam’s nerves though. She was kind of a brat regularly, always looking for a spanking, and Adam’s gentle handling of her since she’d become pregnant was grating on her nerves. She’d been turning down his proposals for a while too, until he’d finally snapped and taken her in hand. Now that he was back to treating her like glass, she was becoming contrary again.

Then, Jake had sat next to Sharon and she’d taken off, and Michael had taken her place. Sharon and Jake didn’t get along. They were also both definitely attracted to each other, and didn’t want to be - which was probably a big part of why they didn’t get along. Not that either of them admitted to it, but Ellie liked watching people and figuring out what made them tick. She was pretty self-aware about her own hang-ups too, even though knowing what was wrong didn’t lead to being able to fix it.

Which was why, when Michael offered to change seats, seeing how uncomfortable she was, when he said he’d stop approaching her at the club, and stop asking her to scene with him if that’s what she really wanted... Ellie hadn’t been able to answer right away. He’d sounded so sad. The lights dimmed before she could respond, and then Kate led the students out on stage, and Ellie did the only thing she could think of to do - she reached over to take his hand while listening to a choral version of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Okay, maybe there were other things she could have done, but she’d wanted to take Michael’s hand. Even if she didn’t really know what she wanted from Michael, she knew what she didn’t. Maybe it was selfish, but she didn’t want him to stop trying to reach out to her. She didn’t want him to completely give up on her. She thought she’d given up on herself a long time ago, but hearing Michael say he would stay away if she wanted him to... every cell in her body rejected the idea.

The small smile on his lips indicated he was content with her non-verbal response. Which was a relief.