Chapter 30
30
New York
Tech week was always the process of turning chaos into order, but a general sense of impending doom clung to the cast and crew of All’s Well That Bends Well . The quick changes were running ten seconds too slow. The props table had been mislabeled, and two other actors were about to strangle each other over custody of an antique champagne flute. Tom had tripped over the wiring for a practical lamp while the assistant stage manager was hunting down more gaff, and now his knee hurt again. They’d been held over for bonus rehearsals of the final scene, and even Boyd was beginning to look a little sulky because Ximena kept fumbling the cue to sweep him into a dramatic clinch at the climax of their love declarations.
It wasn’t really Ximena’s fault. The director and playwright were still arguing about whether the ending should hint that all three principals would form some kind of happy throuple after the curtain dropped—a patent sop to Boyd’s fans—or whether they’d hew closer to the original Shakespeare, in which Ximena’s character spent the entire play running as fast as she could from Boyd’s affections, only to change her mind in the last scene. The kiss kept getting added, dropped, applied to Tom instead, then put back on Ximena’s reluctant lips.
Tom was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be there. Why was he there instead of with Rosie?
“You’ve got to sell this, or the whole arc falls apart,” the director urged Ximena. “Put your back into it.”
“My back hurts ,” Ximena snarled. “And I need to pee. This isn’t working. I can’t bend him over my hip—he’s like a foot taller than me.”
“Then at least give us a little tongue,” the director said. “Nobody is going to believe you chose him over Tom if you don’t nail this kiss.”
Ximena made a long-suffering face. “Can I slap him on the ass or something instead?”
The director’s lower eyelid twitched, and he wandered offstage to do two minutes of breathing exercises rather than scream at his principal cast.
“Is there ass slapping in Shakespeare?” Boyd wondered aloud, looking at Tom for confirmation.
Tom shrugged. Shakespeare had been kind of a perv and a lot more lowbrow than most people thought, but this play was to All’s Well That Ends Well what the live-action Lion King was to Hamlet .
“If you’re trying to avoid Boyd’s cooties,” Tom drawled to Ximena, “I think that ship has sailed.”
“His cooties are kicking my bladder,” she muttered under her breath, but she walked back to her mark. When the director had recovered, they took it from the last cue: Ximena announced that she’d changed her mind and wanted to marry Boyd, seized him by the shirt collar, and did her best to lay one on him. Even in the original folio, this moment occurred about two pages from the point where Ximena’s character informed the king that Boyd’s character was an irredeemable, lying hooker, so five hundred years of audiences had suspended disbelief about this happy ending.
Ximena finally got Boyd bent backward and their lips glued together, but this time his knees wobbled, Ximena let go of him, and he collapsed to the stage floor, nearly taking out an expensive rented bicycle.
“Sorry, sorry,” Boyd yelped when everyone jumped away from the impact. “I got a little lightheaded.”
“What now ?” the director begged.
“I’m on a mustard fast,” Boyd explained, staggering to his knees. “It’s where you only eat foods that are covered in mustard. I’m doing it with just mustard though, so it works faster.”
“So that’s what you smell like,” Ximena moaned. “I can feel my morning sickness coming back.”
Tom covered his face with both palms, wishing for the fifth time in five minutes that Rosie had come home with him. He really needed her to envision how this embarrassing spectacle of a play was going to lead to future fame, artistic satisfaction, and exciting cast parties.
“Boyd, why the hell are you doing a mustard fast?” Tom asked, speaking through his hands.
“I have my shirt off for the entire second act,” Boyd repeated defensively.
“You need to eat a carb before you pass out onstage,” Tom growled, and Boyd gave him a kicked-puppy blink.
“I’m not angry at you,” Tom immediately retracted. “But seriously. This is not okay. I’m making you an appointment with a nutritionist. One with a science degree.”
“Are you okay?” Boyd rumbled in an undertone.
“Sure,” said Tom.
He wasn’t sure he was. He was still trying to figure out what he could have said to Rosie to convince her.
I promise you don’t have to do it all alone anymore. I promise a million times. He should have said that.
He should have convinced Max first; that would have been the best maneuver. She would have been an easy sell.
Well, Rosie, you can do what you want, but Max and I are going back to New York together. We’re picking up jerk chicken and watching Love Island: Australia until we pass out on the couch. Are you in?
He’d try that next. He’d try that tomorrow.
The director despairingly announced that they’d wrap for the day, and the house lights came back up. Tom didn’t immediately look out at the audience, because he’d pulled his phone out to look up the train schedule. It was Boyd’s happy noise of recognition that alerted him to scan past the crew and theater staff who’d stretched out in the front row to watch them stumble through cue to cue.
Enter Rose Kelly, stage left, once again. She was seated in the second row with her embroidery hoop and big purse, ankles delicately crossed as she waited for Tom to finish rehearsal. Dressed in the Manhattan commuter’s uniform of waterproof jacket and comfortable sneakers, like she’d stopped by to pick him up on her way home from work. Max was on the aisle to her right, walker folded behind her seat, a journal in her lap like she was going to give him some notes on today’s rehearsal.
Tom dizzily walked toward the edge of the stage as Rosie put her things away and approached from the audience. She folded her arms on the edge of the stage and made big eyes up at him, the same face she made when she pulled a perfect birthday gift out of hiding. Waiting for his reaction.
“Hey, don’t we have security? How’d you get in?” Ximena called before Tom could say anything.
Rosie shot her a quick smirk. “Showed them my boobs. Same way I got Tom into bars freshman year.”
“That’ll do it,” Tom breathed, a giddy wave of relief floating up from his toes.
“So we only have to worry about stalkers with good boobs?” Ximena groused.
“I can live with that,” Boyd said confidently.
Tom waved at them to shut up. This was important.
“Did Adrian drive you down? Are you guys moving in?” he asked.
Rosie nodded. “He and Caroline are unloading her SUV at your apartment right now. Though Caroline was disappointed to miss rehearsal. She made me promise to get some good pictures of you making out with Boyd for the Christmas card this year.”
“Did you get any?” he asked, throat feeling tight. “For our Christmas card?”
Rosie nodded slowly, a shy smile spreading across her face. “Though I’m not sure they’ll make the highlights after we host BoyCon this summer. I was thinking the theme could be Vikings. You know: Bonfires. Feats of strength. Roast meats. I started putting together a Pinterest board on the drive down. Snowy’s been in touch.”
She nervously tucked her hair back behind her ear. A glint of metal during the movement caught Tom’s eye and froze him again.
“I want to hear more about your vision,” Boyd said. “I love roast meats.”
Tom loved her . His heart filled his entire chest, choking him speechless for once in his life.
“Guys, I know you’re having a moment here, but let’s not just brush past the security concerns,” Ximena said. “Are we really going to live with groupies wandering in and out like they did on the island?”
“Actually,” Rosie said, clearing her throat and looking up at Tom with a shy tilt to her head, “I didn’t flash my boobs. Security checked my ID. They may have thought I was your wife?”
She made it into a question. As though he actually had the opportunity to say it now and make it true: Rose Kelly Wilczewski was his wife; she was his, and they were going to be together for the rest of their lives, the way they should have been from the moment they first met. Tom’s pulse started to pound, so fast he wondered whether he might be the next one to pass out onstage. “I think you are too,” he said.
The corners of Rosie’s pink lips trembled upward. “I guess that means we’re married?” she said tentatively.
Tom finally vaulted down off the stage and grabbed Rosie’s left wrist so that he could examine her hand. He recognized the ring on it, even though it was so large on her dainty little ring finger that it was in danger of sliding off.
He retrieved it and slid the ring back onto his own hand. Still fit perfectly. But that left her without one.
“I’ll get you a new one,” he promised Rosie. “Boyd’s probably got a corporate sponsor who’ll give me a discount. I could even get you something made of real gold this time if you don’t mind a logo for a testosterone supplements company on it.”
“I don’t think anyone’s ever given me a ring, but I got a watch made of space-grade titanium last week,” Boyd immediately offered. “And it’s waterproof to two hundred meters. Do you want that?”
Rose looked at her bare hand. “No, I think I have something that’ll work,” she said.
She bent to rustle through her purse, coming out with a ring of door keys. “Just in case you gave me your only copies, I made you a bunch of spares,” she said. She carefully peeled the keys off a little steel spiral, then slid it onto her ring finger.
And just like that, it was done. The entire arc of Tom’s life snapped back into place like a broken bone that had finally been set. Rosie held up her hand, displaying the band of cheap metal.
“Ready to go home?” she asked, body tense but tone casual.
Rosie loved a big moment, and she loved a party, and she’d loved his first proposal, with a sunset and a real ring and Adrian taking pictures. But she’d done this for him so that he’d know there were no tests to pass, no apologies to deliver, no more promises to make.
After a decade, he was finally going home.
Rosie’s small, hopeful smile spread into a real one as he wrapped his arms around her and tugged her against his body. They had a bit of an audience right now, which made it even better when he rolled her over his hip and bent her backward in a move he’d been working on since they were eighteen. One perfect kiss, projecting love from every angle, dramatic and over the top and totally, totally sincere.
Rosie’s tiny fists curled in his shirt as he savored the endless moment with her lips against his.
“That! That is what you’re supposed to be doing,” the director yelled to Ximena. “Do what he’s doing there.”
Couldn’t be done, Tom thought smugly. Nobody did this like him and Rosie.