Chapter 27 #2
“I’m thinking about it.” I don’t know why I lie here. To impress him? To establish some flimsy barrier between us? I knew Listings was over (I thought it was, anyway), but it never occurred to me that it could come back. The idea of returning feels so wrong.
“Well,” he says. “You deserve success. If you want it.” He clears his throat.
I’m reminded again of my realization about Helena, how like me she is, how she holds herself in such low esteem—literally a dog on the ground—that she will take any scrap of Demetrius’s attention.
It was so incredible to me that Nick would want me, that I was within his notice.
It never occurred to me to consider what I wanted from him.
Now here is this lovely man, who is good and kind and generous and uncomplicated. The only chaos between us is all my doing. I like him. I feel like if I let us tip into each other again, it could be more, it could be everything. I’m not sure what to do with that.
“So,” I say. “This damn play.” I pull out my script and pencil.
“Yes.” He does the same.
“I’m really glad to have you back,” I say again. “We all are. Everyone.”
“Not just you.” He smiles.
“Nope. Barely me at all, really.” I smile.
Our eyes lock again. I am thinking about that moment at the bar, our hands laced together, that sense that any second now one of us would lean in.
The feeling is here now. My heart is racing.
We face each other, not moving. Then he reaches toward me and slips a strand of hair behind my ear, as comfortably and casually as if he does it every day.
His fingers linger in the space under my ear where my jaw meets my throat, feeling out the hollow there, feeling out my eyes as he steps toward me.
I want to kiss him. I want to run my hands through his hair and feel his arms around me, I want heat to build, I want our tongues to find each other, I want to fall to the ground, I want everything, all of it, and a version of me would go for it too, if I let her.
But I am tingling with my new self, my new realization that I want to be seen, and here is someone who might really see me. I have a chance to see myself.
I catch his hand. Then I give it back to him, pressing my hand and his to his chest. I can feel his heart.
“You’re not wrong,” I say. “There is . . . something here.” He knows.
He nods. “My . . . romantic life has caused this production enough chaos.” That casual phrase, “love life,” suddenly feels so potent.
“I’m just here for the summer, and it’s half over, and I feel like .
. . I can’t risk it.” I am clinging to this narrative like it’s a lifeboat.
“So you keep saying. You’re the one holding my hand.”
“Maybe that’s where we leave it for now?” I say.
“But you like me back?” That half smile. He’s killing me.
“I like you back.”
“So, what are we supposed to do with that?” he asks. “We keep almost happening . . .”
“I don’t know.”
“So, we just . . . hold hands until further notice?”
“I feel like that’s the smart move.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t move.
“Okay.”
The truth is that I’ve never let a production get in the way of a hookup.
I have freely hooked up with castmates before—everyone does, I think.
It’s not a big deal. You keep it professional on set, and whatever happens between you off set is your business.
But that was before Nick. That got messy, emotional.
People got hurt. The more I get to know Will, the more I know that this wouldn’t be just for the summer.
This would be so real. I have never done real. I am afraid to hurt him.
I release his hand and step back.
“Ooof,” I say. “Emotions.”
He laughs hoarsely. “Yeah.”
“So, okay, um, Shakespeare play. Where are you at with the lines? I know we have, like, no time . . .”
“I know them.”
“What? How?”
“Well, I had learned a lot of them before . . .”
“Before you were rudely ousted.”
He laughs. “Yeah. And I just reviewed a lot this weekend.”
“So, you’re telling me you just happen to remember a whole role in iambic pentameter because you have a good memory.”
He shifts uncomfortably. “Yes?”
I narrow my eyes. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you knew you’d be coming back.”
He laughs awkwardly.
“Just a good memory, I guess,” he says. I stare at him. “What? I didn’t push him off the stage. Much as I would have liked to.” I still say nothing.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“I . . .Yes . . . No, sort of? It’s stupid, okay?”
I put my script down. “Tell me.”
He sighs. “It’s . . . it just sounds weird, is all.” I wait. “Ugh. Okay. My grandmother told me I should just keep a handle on the lines.”
“Your grandmother.” I shake my head. “What does your grandmother have to do with it?”
He gives me a funny look. “Barb is my grandmother. You didn’t know that?”
“Barb, the fairy?!”
He chuckles. “Among other things, yes, Barb the fairy.”
“So why did she tell you that? That you needed to know your lines?” I gasp. “Is Barb psychic or something?” I wouldn’t put it past those witches.
“No, no,” he says. “I mean, maybe she likes to think so? No, it was because she was worried about Nick.”
I gasp again. “Wait, was Nick’s accident some voodoo shit? I am seriously afraid of Peg . . .”
“No, God, I hope not. They are just a bunch of weird old ladies.”
“And Ron.”
“And Ron. My grandma, she was worried he was going to screw it up . . .”
“Which he did.”
“Well, sure, and we have lunch every week, and she made me run lines with her.” He shrugs. “It’s lame, I know.”
“Okay,” I say. “So, you know your lines. I have to say, that’s a huge relief.
That’s . . . Honestly, the rest of it is easy.
Thank you,” I say. I still want to kiss him, this man who has lunch every week with his weird, witchy grandmother, who has let her bully him into knowing his lines, who is now essentially saving the show.
Who I get to spend the next three weeks chasing through an enchanted forest.
“So, it’s just the blocking, then,” I say. “Let’s get started.”