Free How to Get Ainsley Bishop to Fall in Love With You by T. M. Franklin

mine—I told Viney to cover for me and slipped into the shadows to where Ms. Sherman’s bag and clipboard sat next to the third row. I swiped a copy of Ainsley’s play and quickly walked back to the sound booth and shoved it into my backpack.
    “You know those aren’t supposed to leave the theater,” Viney said quietly. Ms. Sherman was adamant that we, as students, were incredibly irresponsible and if we were given the opportunity to take copies of the play home, we’d leave them there or lose them and she’d be left with having to make more copies every afternoon rather than run the rehearsals.
    I had to admit, she had a point.
    But I had an idea.
    “Is it really necessary to state the obvious?” I asked Viney, grinning at Ms. Sherman when she looked back at us, probably to check to make sure we weren’t doing anything untoward, like throwing spit wads or setting the sound booth on fire.
    Or stealing copies of the play.
    Her eyes narrowed like she suspected just such untowardness, but she turned back to the group. “Now, Eric, you’re the train conductor, and the rest of you are on a trip to the circus . . .”
    Viney snorted. “If Eric’s driving, they’ll never get to the circus.” We sat and watched the group settle on two rows of plastic chairs, bouncing like they were riding on a train. Then Viney turned his attention back to me. “What are you going to do with it?”
    I shrugged. “Ainsley wanted my ideas of how to make it better.”
    “Really?” Viney drew out the word and threw out a fist to bump. “Nicely done.”
    “It doesn’t mean anything,” I said, but I bumped his fist anyway. “I don’t really have any ideas to give her.”
    Viney reached down under the sound booth and snuck a sip of his Big Gulp, ignoring the Absolutely No Food or Drink in the Sound Booth. This means you! sign taped to the wall. “So what are you going to do?”
    I grinned. “I’m going to take it to someone who will.”
       
    My plan was derailed, or at least delayed, when Ms. Sherman asked Viney and me to stay after practice to go over a few lighting cues. She’d had the custodian change a couple of the bulbs and gels—the school insurance wouldn’t cover it if a student were injured up on a twelve-foot ladder—and she wanted to make sure we knew what we were doing before rehearsal the next day. We got out about twenty minutes after the rest of the club, and I was surprised to see Ainsley and Ian standing next to his car, talking in the parking lot.
    “Trouble in paradise?” Viney murmured before he leaned down to unlock his bike.
    “Looks like it.”
    Ian had his back to me, but I could see Ainsley’s arms crossed over her chest, her mouth twisted in a frown. After a moment, Ian patted down his pockets, then turned on his heel, and stalked toward the stairs leading down to the football field. Ainsley leaned back against the car and rubbed her hands over her face. She looked toward me and sighed, then raised a hand in a halfhearted wave.
    “I think that’s my cue to leave,” Viney said, nudging me with his elbow before he climbed onto his bike. “See ya.”
    “See ya.”
    He rode away, and I took a second to psych myself up, glancing once toward the stairs where Ian had vanished before approaching Ainsley.
    “Everything okay?” I asked, shoving my trembling hands into my jeans pockets.
    She sighed. “Yeah, sure.”
    “Not very convincing.” I ducked my head to meet her eyes, and she shook her head and smiled.
    “Ian left his keys in the locker room.”
    I raised my eyebrows, waiting.
    She huffed. “Okay, fine. I told him that I was thinking about changing the play,” she said. “He’s . . . not really on board.”
    “Oh.”
    “Yeah.” She scuffed her shoes against the pavement. “So I told him I’d leave it.”
    I stilled. “You what?”
    She shrugged. “It’s not really that big a deal. And he really likes it the way it is.”
    “But—”
    “It’s something we did