The Love of Her Lives: A BRAND NEW unforgettable and utterly emotional summer romance (Must-read Rom

May, nine years ago

The woots and applause slowly died down, and the house lights came on as audience members began to shuffle out into the warm spring evening. I peered out of the wings to see if the coast was clear to join Bonnie, who’d been clapping wildly in the front row.

“Friends of yours out there?” The soft voice of Chris, a tenor in the Notables, came from behind me. I turned to him with a smile.

“My best friend, Bonnie,” I replied. “She comes to everything I perform in. Positively a Notables groupie — I think you met her at the last afterparty.”

Chris grinned back, rubbing his hand across his black hair. He cast the briefest of glances out to the departing audience before settling his gaze back on me. “Ah yes, your exuberant friend Bonnie. She’s fun. Okay — I’ll leave you to it. Enjoy the wrap party tonight.”

He gave me a screwed-up parting smile with an almost-wink, and turned to head towards the green room. Beyond him, next to the props table, Rufus was watching our exchange with undisguised curiosity. Waiting until Chris had passed, Rufus gave me a pointed double-eyebrow raise.

I knew what that meant.

It meant, “Are we getting together later, or what?”

I gave him a non-committal single-eyebrow quirk in return. He could wait. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t kept me waiting a thousand times. I was feeling too fabulous to be messed around by Rufus tonight. If anything happened later, it would be on my terms.

I stepped out onto the stage and down the side steps into the auditorium, where Bonnie was doing a poor job of gathering her snack detritus. I gave her a hug, an empty Cheetos packet crinkling between us.

“I could hear you from the wings, munching those, all the way through ‘Tonight,’” I said, pulling back and lightly punching her on the shoulder. “Kind of ruined the romance of the moment. Plus you now have orange Cheeto dust all over your dress.”

Bonnie laughed. “Sorry, Mill. If you people will schedule these shows over dinner time, what’s a girl to do? I was starving.” She brushed herself down, somewhat ineffectually.

I shook my head with an affectionate smile. “Well, you could’ve waited an hour. They’ll be bringing out snacks for the party now.”

On cue, several stage hands brought out trays of sandwiches, bowls of chips, and various boxes of cheap wine and beer onto a makeshift bar on the side of the stage. The set was still in street mode as the final scene of the theater group’s West Side Story production, which had been bolstered vocally by the Notables as chorus. All of us women in the cast were dressed in jewel-tone, short, flowy dresses like the Puerto Rican girls in the original movie, and mine was a flared, sunshine-yellow halter neck. The show was easily my favorite production that I’ve ever been in, and the final scene — where bad luck and circumstance cause Maria to be too late to save her Tony — never failed to wrench my heart.

As Bonnie went to discard her trash, I ascended the steps to the stage to set out plastic wine glasses. Emerging from the dark of the wings, Ben, who’d been stage managing the production as the final duty of his internship, stopped by the beer crates.

“Uh, hi, Millie.” He nodded at me, without smiling. “Great show.”

Things had been slightly weird between us ever since that awful moment in the bar when he and Bonnie had seen my texts from Rufus. Ben was still around all the time, mostly in his capacity as theater intern, and he was still... pleasant to me. Friendly, even. But something had changed.

Bonnie, on the other hand, had been surprisingly forgiving. “Look, I get it,” she’d said to me, a few days after that night. “Professor Anderson is a total hottie. But he’s very much taken, and he’s never leaving her for you, Mill. Don’t be a fool for him.” She’d hugged me, my tears dampening her shoulder. “But I still love you.”

I hadn’t heeded her advice, though. Rufus and I had still snuck in a couple of illicit moments, including a ten-minute quickie in my dorm, and one whole night (our first and, so far, only full night together) over Christmas in a downtown hotel. But that was all. The periods in between getting Rufus to myself — those aching, agonizing stretches — were getting longer and longer. And I was getting tired of waiting between snatches of beautiful moments with a man I wanted so badly but would never have to myself. And I was beginning to fully realize how pathetic that made me.

I smiled warmly at Ben, despite the clear reservation in his face. He was looking great — he’d grown out a beard during his year at the campus theater, and it really suited him. He’d moved from unemployed dude-with-guitar to a capable leader; someone people admired.

He’d turned into a man.

“Thanks. It was a really fun production.” I straightened up a row of plastic cups, unnecessarily. “How are you feeling, now your internship is done? Got a plan for what’s next?”

Ben pulled some beer bottles out of the crate and set them on top of the bar. “Yeah, I’m hoping Rufus will put on my play this fall semester, and hopefully let me direct. It’s that family drama in the ski chalet I wrote a while back, the one I showed you. A Chill in the Air. Being a winter-themed show, it should work for a December run. Rufus is reading it right now.” Ben flinched with evident discomfort at having to mention Rufus. Clearly, this was still an issue for him.

“Oh yeah — I loved reading that one. Probably my favorite of yours so far. It’s really clever. And kinda dark.” I smiled at him again, hoping to thaw him out. I hated this distance between us. “I’m guessing you won’t need the Notables as chorus for that one.”

Ben twisted his mouth. “Sorry.”

He turned away as the stage began to fill with cast members for the party. Bonnie emerged from the green room, now fully de-Cheetoed, with vivid red lips. She nudged me aside and poured herself a plastic cup of red wine from a box, sniffing at it suspiciously.

“Have you and my brother finally made nice? I saw you two chatting.”

I sighed, pouring myself a white wine, which smelled even worse than the red. “Honestly, Bon, I don’t know. He’s been very weird with me, ever since... you know. He’s a harsh judge.”

Bonnie winced as she sipped some of her drink. “Well, he’s a moral, stand-up kinda guy — we all know that. He really didn’t approve of what you were doing with—” she checked around for eavesdroppers — “Rufus. Do you know he now calls him Dufus behind his back?” Bonnie cackled lightly. “He totally can’t stand having to work with him. But the truth is, Rufus is Ben’s best shot at getting a real theater career.”

I nodded, grabbing a slightly stale sandwich-quarter to mitigate the acerbic taste of my wine. “Ben told me he was trying to get A Chill in the Air staged here next semester. That would be incredible.”

Bonnie nodded. “Maybe you could ask Dufus to stage it — assuming you’re still on good terms, since you’re no longer banging him.” She nudged me, not unkindly.

My stomach knotted. I hated lying by omission to Bonnie — and to Ben. I really had to end this thing with Rufus once and for all. At this point, I was being a total asshole by keeping our ongoing hookups from my closest friends.

I gulped my wine with a grimace, and topped up the cup. “I can ask,” I replied. Maybe this really was something I could do for Ben. Even if Ben never found out that I had helped — as long as he was happy.

Plus, it might ease my conscience a little.

Bonnie had abandoned the nasty wine and was switching to a beer. “Anyways, Ben’s been seeing some new girl — Amber — so he’ll be busy until September. They’re doing a big road trip together this summer, down the East Coast, through the Carolinas and Georgia, all the way to Florida and Key West, then back up via Louisiana and Tennessee. Three months. It sounds amazing.”

I frowned, glancing over to where Ben was holding court with some cast members, all of them literally looking up to him. I hadn’t heard anything about this Amber woman, and they were already at the stage of spending the summer together? Then again, Ben wasn’t letting me into his life much these days.

I didn’t like it.

“That’s awesome,” I said with a forced smile. “I’m glad he’s found someone.”

I battled my way through more of the cheap chardonnay during the evening, keeping in my peripheral vision both Rufus — who, in the absence of his partner Amy, was doing his best to attract my attention — and Ben, who seemed to be studiously avoiding me. By the time the cast and crew started drifting away, wishing each other a great summer, my post-show high had been leached from me. Even my yellow dress looked less sunflower and more sickly under the stage lights.

But still I stayed, and drank. Even after Bonnie had left with the cute lighting guy she’d been eyeing for months, and Ben and his buddies had said goodbye, I stayed behind. Only one thing could obliterate my unnamed disappointment, and that would be ripping off Rufus’s clothes, as well as my own. Getting that rush of pleasure from the skin-on-skin moment.

Yes, I’d give him what he was wanting tonight. Pathetic though I knew it was.

On the way back from a long trip to the backstage restroom, where I had tried to fix my make-up so I looked a little more bright-eyed, I stumbled in my red Mary Janes on a cluster of cables in the wings. A familiar pair of male arms caught me before I fell.

“You okay, beautiful?” Rufus murmured into my hair. “Everyone else has gone. I thought you’d left, too — I was about to go home, heartbroken.” He pulled back, stroking my bob from my forehead. “I miss you, sweet girl.”

I said nothing. Instead, I grabbed his shirt collar and kissed him, hard and long. He laughed low in his chest, and kissed me back, his tongue exploring my mouth. It was full of promise — I knew very well what that tongue was capable of. Our kissing became more feverish, more frantic. Rufus guided me back towards the props table, pausing in his kisses just long enough to sweep the table clear of some props used in the show, and to lift me onto the edge of the table. He pushed my silky yellow skirt up to my waist, and reached up to pull my lace thong down over my butt, down my legs, and over my shoes. “A thong?” he murmured, amused, between kisses, my underwear dangling from his finger. He dropped it theatrically on the floor.

I chuckled, but didn’t answer. Rufus wouldn’t comprehend the challenges of visible underwear lines beneath silk dresses, especially under stage lights. Let him think it was all for him.

Rufus unzipped the fly of his bulging jeans, which were a little tight for him at the best of times, and tore open a condom packet that he already had to hand. He slid it on and pushed into me as I lay back on the table with a cry of pleasure. With one hand on my braless, silk-covered right breast and the other gripping the table to stop it being pushed away, Rufus pumped with increasing speed and determination, my ankles crossed behind his waist, my Mary Janes bobbing. We both climaxed quickly, calling out at the same moment, this time unafraid of eavesdroppers in the empty theater. We usually had to be so quiet.

Rufus slumped onto the table beside me with a soft laugh, then rolled over so we lay side by side, legs dangling off the edge. It wasn’t the most comfortable post-coital moment we’d ever had, but I’d take it.

I moved onto my side, propping myself up on my elbow to look at him, tucking my bare legs behind me.

“Another great performance,” I said, giving him a smile that was more enthusiastic than I felt. The post-coital shame was already starting to creep in. Was it worth lying to my friends and committing a form of adultery for a brief moment of gratification? A moment that was already over?

Rufus responded with a belly laugh. “In more ways than one,” he replied. He reached up to stroke my cheek. “Seriously, though. I’m really going to miss you this summer. I hope there’s another production you’ll be in next semester.”

I remembered my conversation with Bonnie earlier, and saw my chance. “I don’t know... maybe. But I also hope you’ll consider staging Ben’s new drama. I read it last year and I think it’s brilliant. Maybe it’s time to do a smaller, more serious play? It can’t all be musicals and big-cast productions.”

Rufus nodded, thoughtfully. “You’re probably right. And yeah, it’s a great play — the kid has a lot of talent. If you think it’s a good idea... yeah, okay. I’ll tell him yes.”

I leaned down to thank him with a kiss to the cheek.

“What the fuck . . . ?”

A woman’s voice, broken and strange, from a few feet behind me. Rufus froze, eyes wide. We both turned our heads towards the interruption. Standing in the wings, a bouquet of tropical flowers in her arms, mouth agape, staring at my bare butt, was Rufus’s partner Amy.

“Oh, shit.” Rufus bolted upright, slid off the table, and quickly turned away to zip up his fly. Cringing with utter mortification, I dropped off the props table and smoothed down my skirt.

I couldn’t look at Amy. The poor, poor woman. What a way to find out your partner is cheating. A flood of guilt washed over me, hot and prickly.

Rufus, tucking in his shirt with one hand, was reaching the other towards Amy. “My love. I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.” I raised my eyebrows at this — he was making it sound like this was the only time. “We got caught up in a moment — but I know it was so wrong. It’s you I love, honey. Only you.”

Amy was still rooted to the spot, although the bouquet — no doubt a congratulations on the closing night of the show — was slowly slipping from her grasp. She didn’t seem to notice as it tumbled to the floor, the orange bird-of-paradise blooms getting crushed beneath its weight.

Rufus was still rambling. “I swear, my love, she’s just a cast member, and I had way too much to drink. There’s nothing between us, I promise.” He turned to me. “Tell her, Millie. Tell her. That we aren’t anything.”

I’d never felt more ashamed.

“I’m going to go,” I said in a very small voice. “I’m so very sorry.” This was directed towards Amy, although I still couldn’t look at her. I slipped out of the side door, stumbling on the same cluster of cables as I had on my way in.

I deserved to fall flat on my face and break my nose. I deserved much worse, even.

What in the hell had I been thinking?

One thing was for sure, though. It was definitely over with Rufus.