Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
JULIET
CHRISTMAS EVE
F our weeks of rehearsals, fourteen shows, and I still had no idea what the plot actually was. Brett kept calling me the Ice Queen, Tanya kept calling me the Snow Fairy, and Mason continued to be infuriatingly charming.
To his credit, he didn’t call me out for pretending not to know him. That didn’t stop him from flirting or casually asking if I had plans after work. He wasn’t pushy or creepy about it, like those guys who can’t take no for an answer. No, Mason had this way of making it seem like he was just checking to see if I’d changed my mind–if his charms had finally worked on me.
Little by little, he was wearing me down, chipping his way past my walls. But I couldn’t afford to slip. Notwhen our jobs literally involved having our hands all over each other and being up in each other’s business. Mason was on stage more than I was. He got to lead the dancers in “battle” before I came out to heal him at the end–or maybe he died, and I was taking him to heaven, since that was when he learned to fly. Either way, I made my big entrance from the rafters and then handed the ropes over to him. He took them and did a few flips before going up in the air for a couple of tricks of his own before coming back down for me.
That’s when things got interesting.
He’d scoop me up bridal-style, supporting not only my weight but his own with nothing but the ropes wrapped around his arms. Then I’d started moving, performing my own maneuvers, all while he held me twenty feet off the ground.
No. Letting him past my walls could only lead to disaster. I saw how he was with the other women in the cast. Mr. Perfect and Charming with every single one. Mason Wood, with all his perfection, had never had a girl sneak out on him–of that I was certain. That made me a challenge. As soon as I stopped saying no, he’d get bored and move on. I’d be left heartbroken, and we would still have to work together. It was a disaster waiting to happen. Even after this run ended in a week and a half, it wasn’t an option. I’d overheard him and Brett talking about the Mardi Gras auditions–the same ones I had circled on my calendar.
There would be no escaping him. I had to figure out how to strengthen the walls around my heart. Make them invulnerable to his charm.
At least I only had to make it through one more show tonight.
“Hey Jules,” a pretty African American girl named Dannajah called from the other side of the breakroom. She and several of the other dancers were playing cards with Mason. “You want to come to the Rusty Gator tonight?”
Peak Week–or Hell Week, depending on who you asked–started on Christmas Day and ran until January 2 nd . It was the busiest week of the year, with every theme park in Orlando dangerously close to capacity. Our schedule would go from five daily shows to seven. I couldn’t blame the rest of the cast for wanting to blow off a little steam with booze and unhealthy food while they still could.
I just wouldn’t be joining them.
I forced myself to smile.
“Sorry, I can’t. I have plans tonight.”
It wasn’t a lie. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I would be spending Christmas Eve in my own bed watching a marathon of Christmas movies. It was a tradition my sister and I had started years ago, until it had been waylaid by my traveling and performing. Melody would be sound asleep by the time I got home–it was too late in London to even video chat–but it made me feel closer to her.