Chapter 9 #2
The Persephone looked glumly at Jonah as he approached.
The stage door whined as he opened it, crying out for him to leave, to turn back while his name could still be up in lights and Colbie couldn’t dump a rain shower of bad news onto his parade.
Still, his feet moved him forward; he passed his dressing room and walked up the ridiculous number of stairs all the way to Evie’s office, where Colbie would be lurking.
He could feel her presence as he readied himself to knock on the door, hear her voice speaking animatedly as Evie cackled, and he shuddered.
“Come in, come in,” Evie said once he’d worked up the confidence to knock and peeked his head around the door. Colbie sat
behind the desk, laptop open in front of her, light illuminating her sharp features and constellation of freckles. She flicked
her eyes up to look at him, glasses perched on the end of her nose much like his dad’s used to be when he was completing a
crossword. He took the seat on the opposite side of the desk and prepared himself for the bollocking he thought he was going
to receive the night before.
“I’m going to start doing the rounds for tonight,” Evie said, swiping her phone from the desk while heading to the door. Jonah
wanted to reach for her, to pull on her sleeve and beg her to not leave him alone with possibly the most terrifying person
he’d ever encountered, but his hands stayed firmly in his lap and all he could do was listen as she left the room. The door
clicked shut behind her.
Colbie tapped her nails on the top of her laptop as she looked at him, a grin on her lips as something devious brewed behind
her eyes. “So, last night was rather interesting. Can’t say I was thrilled about the change of blocking in act one, but the
risk paid off,” she said. “You know not to do something like that again without running it by someone first, right?”
Jonah nodded. “Sorry.”
Colbie waved the apology away like a cloud of cigarette smoke. “It’s fine, but it is one of the reasons I called you in here.
Do you think that choreography would work with you and Bastien? I’ve been keeping a close eye on social media today and people
really liked it. They’re excited about coming to see the change.”
“Sure, I think it could work.”
“Great.” She smiled, and for the briefest of moments Jonah allowed himself to relax. “Have you had a look at your socials
today? It seems like the whole of the West End is talking about you and Dexter.”
Jonah nodded. “Yeah, I saw some stuff. I try to keep away from it, though.”
“Sensible,” she said with a hum. “But I’m going to capitalize on this.
I’m going to introduce you and Dexter to Niamh, she manages our marketing.
She thinks we could get you both onto some podcasts and some guest-takeover spots on various social media sites.
It will drum up excitement for the cast change and also cash in on this fascination people seem to have with the two of you. ”
“The fascination comes from people thinking I stole the role of Achilles from him, nothing more.”
“Maybe at first, but now they love you two together, after only one performance!” She turned the screen of her laptop around to show Jonah some posts she’d
bookmarked. “The only issue we have is the fact that you two don’t like each other.”
“Oh,” Jonah said quickly. “No, it’s not—that’s not the case at all.”
“The audience may not notice any animosity between the two of you, but I picked up on it straight away. And here we have people
speculating that you two might actually be in love.” She laughed then, a noise not usually associated with Colbie. “A theatre
romance is better than a theatre rivalry.”
“Romance?”
“It either ends in blissful marriage or devastating heartbreak, and people love it. It’s good publicity, and I don’t want
there to be any whispers of you two not getting along. Dexter will be on for Bastien until he’s better, and it’s the perfect
marketing opportunity for us.”
Jonah narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m a bit confused about what you’re wanting me to do here. Pretend we are together?”
“No, Jonah, this isn’t a rom-com. Look, I’m not asking you to suck his dick or anything, that would be totally unethical and
clearly the last thing either of you want to do. Just make people think you’re sucking his dick, praise him, and he will praise
you. I spoke to Dexter, and he’s fine with it.”
Jonah stared at her, unable to compute that he was actually discussing the topic of sucking dick with the producer of the
show. “So, you’re asking us to be nice to each other? I haven’t been . . . I mean I haven’t been not nice to him.”
“That’s not what Dexter said.”
Jonah rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Fine. I can be nice, I can say nice things, I’m not a monster, Colbie.
But I’m not implying anything when it comes to my private life,” he said, hands clenching into fists in his lap.
“If people want to speculate about some totally made-up romance, I can’t stop that. But I’m not fueling the fire.”
“Do you want our ticket sales to plummet, Jonah?” Colbie asked bluntly. “We are in a cost-of-living crisis, and theatre is
a luxury many people can’t afford. But after the show last night, we had a surge of people booking. If you want to get extended,
then we need to keep it up. You can either help with that or watch everyone lose their jobs. Trust me when I say that animosity
behind the scenes can destroy a production.”
“I’m sure we can be professional with each other. We have been so far.”
Colbie threw her hands in the air with an exasperated sigh. “Jonah. I don’t know what to tell you. I want this show to be
one of the long-standing ones. We need to be up there with Les Mis and Phantom. We can’t ride the high then allow ourselves to crash and burn. My reputation is on the line.”
“So, you think by pushing a narrative that me and Dexter are . . . what? Dating? That will help?”
“It won’t hurt. And you don’t have to even do anything. Just do the press stuff and be nice to each other, post a few photos, social media will do the rest.” She took
a deep breath. “You’re actors, for God’s sake, pretend, at least for a few months until the new cast is settled. Then you
can channel the dislike into killing him each night, okay?”
Well. Fuck. He found himself between a rock and a hard place, smacking against both with no means of crawling his way out
of it. He didn’t want anyone to fabricate romantic ties between him and the West End suck-up, but if they were going to do
it anyway, he could at least make sure tickets were sold because of it. And he couldn’t say no to Colbie, not now, not when
so much could be taken from him. Only now his rivalry came with its own ship name, and it seemed he would drown with it.