Chapter 6
Four days later, I hugged Charisse backstage as she bounced up to greet us.
Having friends was exhausting. They kept appropriating my gaming time.
But they had given me a memorable experience at the dance—it had been fun dancing with them, until Ni—and then, stupid me, I’d ditched them without a word.
They’d finally pardoned my behavior, but I’d been on parole all week.
Lin and Charisse would lock me up and throw away the key if I missed the play.
No matter how boring. Or how much I wanted to thank Ivory Knight for his advice.
Lin had insisted we be extra early so we could wish Charisse to break a leg. I never understood that saying. Why would anyone want things to go terribly wrong before a performance that took hundreds of hours of sweat and blood?
Charisse was extra bubbly and kept spouting her nonsensical lines. We left her practicing as she waited for her turn at wardrobe, while we went to find our seats.
Perhaps I had read one too many books or watched one too many movies.
But the theater wasn’t draped in red like I expected.
I had spent all semester here and should have guessed that it would be swathed in school colors...
after all, everything else was black and gold.
It also lacked the expected aroma of stale popcorn and sticky-sweet soda spills.
Instead, it exuded hard work, dreams, and hopes.
The well-lit area allowed the audience to move around easily and revealed the age of the floors and the edge of the stage. Despite the wear, our school must have had some decent money for a separate theater like this.
Luckily, the tickets were numbered, so we wouldn’t have to worry about finding a seat.
And almost no one was here yet. Lin and I just needed to find the right ones.
Our seats were front and center. We would be close enough to actually see Charisse!
Lin had probably purchased the best seats.
I wouldn’t put it past her to bribe someone.
We settled into our seats, Lin on my left, while other audience members trickled in. As close as we were to the stage, and with so few people around us talking. I could hear the scraping and thudding of set pieces being moved, and the curtain continuously rippled.
There was a certain energy in the air that I had never experienced in a movie theater before. I was finally beginning to catch the excitement. My seat creaked slightly when I shifted in it. “How much longer before it starts?”
“At least twenty minutes.” Lin kept swiveling in her own chair, scanning the gathering mass of people.
“Is Charisse the main lead?”
“I’m not sure. She usually gets good parts, though she’s almost always the understudy.
” Her attention remained on the entrance doors as she spoke.
I smiled to myself. Lin was still obsessed with Maddox.
I had a mind to tell the burly football player about her crush, but I wouldn’t betray her trust like that.
I wondered if Ni would come to watch the play.
If Charisse saw him, it would make her day.
By now the crowd was thick and finding a single person impossible.
People settled in on either side of us. Lin turned to the person next to her and whispered.
What did she have to whisper about? She pressed back against her chair, and the person on the other side leaned around her toward me.
“Nice to meet you, Molly. I’ve seen you at some of our practices.”
I stared like an idiot at the outstretched, massive hand. Who was this giant touching my friend so intimately?
Lin cleared her throat in warning.
I touched my fingers to his palm, and he engulfed my hand.
“Nice to meet you.” I answered the greeting mechanically. What was he doing here with her? Could it be...?
“Maddox.” He smiled widely and nodded. Thankfully, not crushing my hand in his.
My eyes darted to Lin, squished between his shoulder and her chair. I asked “what the heck?” as silently as I could. This was the Maddox? He looked even bigger in person than he had out on the field.
He was still focused on me, so I continued the awkward conversation while Lin stayed silent. “So, how long have you two been together?”
“Over a year.” He released my hand.
Mind. Blown. He was actually her boyfriend! Not a crush. Not a one-sided, hopeful something. Her actual boyfriend of a year. So she had really ditched him in favor of dancing with me at the Winter Formal?
Lin was more private than I had expected. She had told me—no, Charisse had told me. But she never talked about him or gave details. She just went to practice and watched him from afar. He never came over. I had assumed...
The person on my right shifted in their chair—no squeak from theirs—and cleared their throat.
They bent toward me just as Maddox had, and I scrunched against my seat to avoid them, just as Lin was doing.
An arm extended across me and to my left to catch Maddox’s hand in a complicated and well-rehearsed series of movements.
“Hey, fancy meeting you here.”
Those brown waves and that jawline looked awfully familiar. A chill went up my spine. A reaction to someone encroaching on my space?
Maddox and my seatmate both settled back in their chairs. I turned my head so I could see in my periphery, and my body went numb.
Inches from me, on my right, was Ni. He smiled that devastating smile. “Hey.”
Did the guy ever say anything else? I blinked a few times. My brain short-circuited. “Um, hi.”
He lowered his hand. “So, you know Maddox’s girlfriend?”
I nodded. I needed to thank him again for the power supply.
Luckily, the lights died down, and the music started, signaling that it was Charisse’s turn for my attention. I’d thank him later.
But now it was dark, and Charisse’s Ni-guy lounged right next to me.
He stretched his legs as far as the cramped seating allowed.
I pushed back into my chair and faced the front. My hands started to sweat. I rubbed them together, but that made it worse. So I wiped them discreetly on my pants.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream began.
The curtains rose, revealing white columns and a clichéd Greek setting. Six people in white tunics and robes stood on the stage. And then the painful Shakespearean English began. Luckily, I had looked up the cheat notes on what the play was about so I could catch the gist of it.
The pounding of my heart in my ears made it even harder to concentrate.
I tried taking slow, deep breaths, but it sounded more like I was hyperventilating.
My body was insanely aware of his every noise and movement he made, which was nonsense because I hadn’t been aware of him at all until I’d seen his face.
Shakespeare was obsessed with star-crossed lovers running away to marry secretly against their parents’ wishes.
Of course, I only knew the storyline of Romeo and Juliet, but so far, this play was proving my theory right.
Ah, the draw of forbidden love. The curtains shut, billowing as they changed the set.
On my right, Ni crossed his feet.
I bit my lip. I didn’t need any love at all. Just Mom. And my games. That was enough for me.
Trees stood where there once had been columns, along with walls of vines. What I assumed were a fairy and a sprite entered the now foresty stage from opposite sides. I had no idea what they were talking about, and my attention wavered to the guy at my side.
He slid his feet to the opposite side, which shifted his shoulder toward me, and I cringed away.
Finally, Charisse had her entrance, and I smiled. If my stomach weren’t so squirmy from Ni’s proximity, I would have laughed. She was a fairy. Titania, the queen of fairies, to be exact. It fit her perfectly.
I also needed Lin and Charisse in my life. They would both kill me if I left. Or never talk to me again. But I was so tempted. Sitting here next to my Parking Lot Angel for the whole play would be torture.
I IGNORED THE PRESENCE next to me that was making my whole body hot. And concentrated on being a good friend. I wasn’t a bag of hormones; this was an example of mind over matter. I upped my intelligence score with extra points.
Surprisingly, the play’s storyline was beginning to make sense. Shakespeare was a little unrealistic because, wow! That Helena woman was totally just throwing herself at a guy who didn’t want her. I would never do such a stupid thing. I could tell when a guy was or wasn’t interested.
Think about Charisse. and Lin. I glanced to my left. Our friendship was already rocky after I ran away from the dance. I couldn’t run again.
I began to worry about my deodorant. Would it stand up to all the sweating? The theater felt very warm, and it was dark, so I inched out of my denim jacket. I accidentally elbowed Ni on my right, and I about died. Thank goodness he didn’t say anything.
The two men and two women running around lost in the forest kept going on about the beauty and love found in eyes.
My Parking Lot Angel had gray eyes, almost clear.
Ack. Parking Lot Angel was the guy sitting next to me.
I needed to stop fantasizing about him. Mom, school, and games were my priorities.
In that order. And my friends. I was here to support Charisse.
The story went off the rails and confusion set in. For some reason, one of the actors now had a horse head. Had I missed something? I couldn’t figure out what was going on.
More rustling to my right brought my attention back to the person I was trying to ignore. And the inexplicable scent of cedar. I hadn’t noticed that before.
I needed a fan, a breeze, an escape. If only I had stayed home and played video games. I scrunched my eyes shut and tried to control my racing heart. I knew nothing about this guy, and here I was just as obsessed with him as I thought Lin had been with Maddox. Lin!
As if reading my thoughts, the lights flicked on and the curtains closed once more. Intermission!