Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Colter
I slipped into the theater through the side door.
“You’re late,” Dean muttered.
“Only five minutes.” This time.
“Seven,” he argued.
“Yeah, well, fires and medical emergencies don’t exactly stay confined to standard shift hours.” Thankfully, the rest of the cast and our directorial team were rolling with it, simply saving my scenes for a little later in the night. I didn’t have nearly as many as Swayze.
She was already center stage in full Donna mode as all the women joined her for “Dancing Queen.” Beyond the stage lights and the sweat of exertion, she simply…
glowed. There was something magnetic about her performance that pulled the eye and kept it.
Not just mine, but everyone in the room.
The way she moved, the way she inhabited the character so completely—it was mesmerizing.
It no doubt helped that she’d been in the show before, even as a different character.
But she gave her all to the performance, even in a basic rehearsal.
As if every run-through were the real thing.
As if there were a packed house watching instead of a handful of cast members and crew scattered around the theater.
Her brother’s influence?
Maybe. But she kept taking my breath away.
On stage and off. And after a month of rehearsals and dates and squeezing in as much time together as we could manage between my shifts at the fire station and her work, I could admit—to myself at least—that it was less about how she performed and more about the woman herself.
The way she laughed at my infinite collection of dad jokes.
The way she listened when I talked about Oakleigh.
The way she made me feel like I was doing something right—something for me—for the first time in a long time.
I was falling for Swayze Parish. In a very weird way, I was almost grateful to Wayne McCready for his greed, because if not for that fire, I wasn’t sure if I’d have met her.
I damned sure wouldn’t have gotten to know her as I had.
The number ended to enthusiastic applause. Miss Glory clapped her hands and began giving feedback to the group about the choreography, gesturing with the kind of theatrical flair that came from years of drag performances.
“Okay, take a break, ladies. We’re moving on to ‘Lay All Your Love On Me.’ Let’s have our Sky and Sophie on stage, please.”
As baby bro Gunner and Bristol moved into position, Swayze spotted me in the wings and made a beeline. Her face was flushed from the dancing, her caramel hair slightly damp at the temples, and she was absolutely beautiful.
Her smile was quick. “Hey, you.”
When she stopped a foot away from me, I snagged her around the waist and pulled her in, not caring that we had an audience.
She wriggled a little in my arms, a halfhearted protest. “I’m all sweaty.”
“Don’t care.” I took her mouth in a soft, lingering kiss because it was all I’d been thinking about for the past few hours on shift, in between incident reports and gear maintenance and trying to focus on literally anything else.
She sighed and sank into the kiss, sliding her arms around my shoulders.
The scent of her—jasmine and something uniquely Swayze—filled my senses.
My control slipped a little more at that surrender, and I couldn’t stop myself from taking the kiss a little deeper, until she hummed a little whimper of pleasure that had me thinking about finding a hidden nook with a wall somewhere. Or maybe just the back of my truck.
“Cut!” Uncle Dee’s voice registered, reminding me that we were not, in fact, alone, and this was definitely not the place.
I lifted my head, taking in Swayze’s swollen lips and the faintly glazed look in her eyes. One corner of that mouth tipped up. “Well, hello to you, too.”
“Y’all are being all stiff and awkward,” Uncle Dee observed from his director’s chair in the center of the house. “That’s not the vibe at all. Where’s Swayze?”
She pulled out of my arms and stepped to the edge of the stage, still a little breathless. “Here.”
“You’ve played this role before. Do you have any suggestions for the scene?”
After a moment’s hesitation, she asked, “Can I see it again?”
So Gunner and Bristol ran the scene again.
They were every bit as wooden as Uncle Dee had said, which was weird because Gunner usually had no problem flirting.
The kid could charm the bark off a tree when he wanted to.
That had me paying closer attention to the young librarian playing opposite him.
I didn’t know her—not really. At twenty-four, she was barely out of school.
I got the sense she wasn’t used to being on stage, and possibly she’d only accepted being voluntold into this because she wanted to support her workplace.
Swayze lifted her hand, and the music cut off.
She strode out to join the pair of them on stage.
“Okay, so think about who Sophie really is. She’s this bright-eyed, optimistic girl with her whole life ahead of her.
She’s open and loving and romantic. The foil to her mother, who’s lived life and seen some shit and learned to be cynical about it. ”
Her words had a ring of truth that made me wonder if she related to Donna a lot more than I realized.
“This number is meant to be sexy, yeah—and that might be throwing you a bit. But above all of that, it’s playful.” She demonstrated with a twirl and a grin. “Like you’re playing with someone you absolutely trust.”
Bristol stared at her feet, a couple of spots of color burning in her cheeks. Did she have a little crush on my brother? That would explain the awkwardness.
“You two are engaged,” Swayze continued. “You’re getting married tomorrow. Gunner, this is your girl. She’s turned your whole life upside down. You should be looking at her like she’s the freaking sun. You can’t be afraid to touch each other.”
I looked over to find him tucking his hands in his back pockets, as if he had to stop himself from doing exactly that.
Well, wasn’t that interesting? There hadn’t been anyone to seriously catch his interest in a long time.
Not since that girl in high school who’d moved away.
I’d have to ask Uncle Dee what he thought about that later.
“Would it help to see what I mean?” Swayze asked.
Bristol nodded immediately, relief washing over her features.
“Okay.” Swayze caught my eye and waved me onto the stage. “No offense, Gunner, but I can’t do this with you.”
“Fair.” He stepped back with equal gratitude.
Swayze positioned me where she wanted me, adjusting my stance with light touches. “Do you know the music for his part?”
“You’ve met my uncle.” Of course I knew it. I probably had almost as good a knowledge of musical theater numbers as she did.
With a chuckle, she looped her arms around my neck, and suddenly the entire theater seemed to shrink down to just the two of us. “Okay, picking up from here.”
For a long moment, she closed her eyes, as if she needed to center herself in the character. When she opened them again, it was with an expression of raw vulnerability I hadn’t expected. Something real beneath the performance.
“Whatever happens, you’ll never leave me, will you?”
With that expression on her face, I was ready to promise her the damned world. But that wasn’t the line, so I stuck to the script. “Are you crazy? You’ve turned my world upside down—”
As the music started, and I backed away from her to begin Gunner’s part, all I could think was how accurate it was. “I wasn’t jealous before we met—”
Swayze’s eyes followed me, that innocence and vulnerability turning to something else as she launched into Sophie’s section. Something heated and knowing. “Don’t go wasting your emotion
Lay all your love on me.”
She continued her verse, dancing around me like a siren as she described the start of their affair.
Or maybe she was thinking of ours as she slipped closer to me, running her hands up my chest as she sang directly to me.
Her fingers traced patterns over my shirt, and I felt the heat of them through the fabric.
“Unsatisfied
I skip my pride
I beg you, dear—”
My hands tightened on her hips as I bent her back, intent on making her do exactly that as I sang the next lines. “Don’t go wasting your emotion
Lay all your love on me.”
I lowered my head to take her mouth, but the music abruptly cut off and Uncle Dee shouted, “Yes! That is it!”
We weren’t alone. Nowhere close. The entire cast was watching.
Yet I didn’t move. Couldn’t do anything more than stay where I was, stretched out over her, wanting to fall into those hugely dilated eyes.
We were both breathing too hard, and I didn’t want to think about what the rest of the cast and crew would see when I stood up.
Because that whole interlude hadn’t just been some kind of demonstration. It had been foreplay. Pure and simple.
And we both knew it.
Swayze swallowed, and her voice rasped out low enough that only I could hear. “When we finish rehearsal, you should take me home.”
There was no question what she meant. And I was beyond able to hold back anymore. We’d been dancing around this for weeks, building toward it with every stolen kiss and heated glance. Instead, I pressed my brow to hers and breathed, “Yeah.”
Then I helped her to her feet, and we got out of the way so rehearsal could continue.
I had no idea if Gunner or Bristol managed to capture even a tenth of the heat we’d left on that stage.
I was too busy counting the minutes until this rehearsal ended and we could finally, finally have what we both wanted.
Every second felt like an eternity as I watched the clock on the back wall tick forward at a pace bordering on agony.
Uncle Dee and Miss Glory found fault with every performance, with copious notes and reruns of the scenes. We were getting to the point where I wondered if they were just dragging things out to torture me when they finally called it.
“Okay, y’all are tired. Go home. Get some rest—” Uncle Dee shot me a knowing look. “—And come back having practiced more, okay?”
The cast fled the theater like rats leaving a sinking ship.
Swayze scooped up her bag from where she’d left it in the second row.
“Did you drive?” I asked.
“No. I was working from the bakery before rehearsal, so I walked over.”
“Then you should ride home with me.”
Her eyes sparked, but she maintained an otherwise neutral face. “I should.”
I held a hand toward the door. “After you.”