Chapter Twenty-Three Randall
I realize this is an important week for the play. I suspect no one wants me here.
Urgent care went smoothly enough. Elise is a grown woman who can handle an injury. She’s strong and independent.
In fact, she’s fierce up there, plowing through the pain with as much determination as any athlete I’ve ever worked with.
These observations fail to comfort me.
I’m still getting over the sight of Elise slumped on the sidewalk, holding her injured wrist.
The desire to carry her in my arms and out of the theater is so strong, my hands grip the velvet armrests. I’m ready to launch out of my seat at the hint of her discomfort.
Heaven help anyone who gets in my way if she even winces.
My gaze tracks her movement when she pulls out her phone. My cell pings within seconds.
I’m sending Amber over to you. She can walk you to my place where you’ll be more comfortable. I’m sorry we’re running late, Elise texts.
Me: Don’t worry about me. How can I be useful? Do you guys stop to eat? Why don’t I grab something for everyone.
By everyone, I mean me, because I’m starving.
Elise: We usually get pizza delivered around six or seven.
Me: Let me grab real food. What do you want? Cheeseburgers? Breakfast food? Your own plate of fries?
Elise: There’s a Lebanese place I thought you might like. I would have taken you there tonight if I could get away. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.
Me: We can still have Lebanese food. Leave it to me.
That’s how a cast and crew of over twenty people end up at the back lot of the theater where picnic tables are set for exactly this purpose. I’ve ordered thirty boxed dinners from the Lebanese place, half of them vegetarian.
When the group came outside and saw the delivery, you’d think it was Christmas morning.
“Tough game last night, man. We were all cheering for you,” Kaden says while biting into a chicken kebob.
“Thanks. Elise told me you’re a Tampa Bay fan.”
“Yeah, but she’s converted me into a Mavericks fan.”
“You mean the takeout dinner converted you,” Elise jokes, a fork in her left hand. She’s dropping most of the rice she’s trying to eat.
The group’s conversation moves on to something else, giving me the opportunity to air my grievance.
“If I thought you’d let me feed you, I’d have you over my lap right now,” I whisper in her ear.
Our eyes lock and my dick, half-mast any time she’s within view, stands to fully alert. She turns away abruptly, lifting her mostly empty fork to her lips.
“When you drove out here earlier, is this is what you had in mind?”
She lifts her chin to gesture at the people eating, laughing, and chatting, some of them standing while others lurk at the edges having a smoke.
“I get to hang out with you. That’s all I had in mind,” I answer honestly.
“Hey, Elise,” Marisol, the lead actress, says from the end of the table, “it hurts just looking at your wrist. What do you say we call it a night?”
Amber, who I recognize as Elise’s teaching colleague from Columbus, touches my shoulder.
“You two head home. We’ll wrap up.”
“But—” Elise begins to protest.
“You’re no use to us if your wrist gets worse,” Amber interrupts with a stern glare. Sounds of agreement rise from all corners of our impromptu eating area.
They’re practically cheering for her to go home, and I am here for it.
“Macbeth can wait till tomorrow,” I state, and everything stops.
Everyone. Stops.
No one talks.
No one breathes.
I can hear the radio of a car in the distance, that’s how quiet the group got.
“You can’t say that.” Elise is wide-eyed and more stressed than when she was in the medical examination room.
“Say what? Mac—”
“Stop!” At least half of the cast and crew scream. The rest groans.
“The Scottish play,” Elise says. “When you’re in a theater, you call it the Scottish play.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s cursed,” Kaden says.
“We only say that, um, that name during an actual performance. Otherwise, bad things happen,” Marisol says in a panicked voice.
Are these guys pulling my leg?
“He can undo the curse,” Kaden offers. “If he’s willing and able.”
“There’s no choice. He must try,” Amber pleads, eyes darting between me and Elise.
Elise nods solemnly before addressing me.
“Tradition dictates that you need to spin around three times—”
“And curse in Shakespearean speech!” someone adds.
“And jump! He has to jump!” Another voice calls from behind me.
“While I’m turning?” I ask, trying to keep up, because if someone else gets hurt because of me, I’m crawling under a rock.
If doing cartwheels will break this curse, that’s what I’ll do.
“Yes. Definitely while you’re turning,” Amber nods.
“And seek permission to re-enter the theater,” Elise adds.
“Wait, I thought I’m not allowed to say that inside the theater? We’re outside,” I say, hands up and out.
“True…” she edges.
“We can’t take the chance,” Marisol begs.
I stand on my feet.
“How do I curse like Shakespeare?”
“Scream: Vile worm-eaten maggot-pie!” Amber says with gusto.
“No, no, say: Thou art a boil, a plague sore!” someone calls out.
Murmurs are mixed with more suggestions because apparently Shakespeare had a ton of insults at his disposal. Before they can add to it, I get the ritual over with.
“Vile, worm, maggot, boil, plague!” I yell while jumping and turning three times. Hoots and hollers build to a collective roar when I’m finished.
“May I enter the theater, now?”
Elise is laughing so hysterically, tears fall from the corners of her eyes.
“Do it again! I didn’t get the video!” Kaden yells.
“Had your chance,” I say, shaking my head. “Shall we?” I hold my hand out for Elise, inviting her to leave.
When she relents, I give her no time to overthink the decision. Gathering her unfinished food, I help Elise out of the picnic table. She grabs her things from inside the theater on our way out.
Elise’s apartment is within walking distance, so it takes less than five minutes to drive to the building.
I’m carrying her purse as she inputs the main door’s entry code. Me, carrying a woman’s purse? If you showed this to my teammates, they’d say the picture was photoshopped. And yet holding her things and bracing her lower back while she climbs the stairs feels natural.
Turning the key to her dead bolt, she asks, “Are you ready to meet Yorick?”
I burst out laughing when the door opens to reveal the clown mannequin wearing a hockey jersey. My jersey.
“Yorick Haughland is the theater-loving brother I never realized I needed.”
Elise leads me into the tight kitchen.
“Can I get you a drink?”
“No, but you can relax while I get more ice for your wrist.”
“I don’t have peas,” she says, opening her freezer door and peering inside.
“I’ll figure it out. Do you have a ziplock bag and ice?”
“You’re good at this.”
“Believe it or not, even hockey players get hurt.”
“You were great last night. Did I say that yet?” She comes closer, so we’re toe to toe in the tight kitchen.
My arms tingle with the impulse to engulf her.
“Sit down so I can take care of you, Elise,” I say instead.
The only instinct more powerful than holding her is caring for her.
“Why are you really here?”
“I told you why.”
“Say it again.”
“I don’t want to be anywhere else.” That’s the truth, as simply as I can put it.
“Why, Randall?”
“Elise, please, I’m begging you. Let me take care of you.”
“How exactly do you plan to take care of me?” Her question is playful, as Elise tends to be when we’re circling each other. Yet there’s an edge to it. A hesitation that’s uncharacteristic.
“Let’s get the swelling down first,” I manage to say.
She glances at my pants and raises her brow.
“Let’s get the swelling down on your wrist,” I insist, ignoring the proverbial elephant in the room with its raised trunk. “And we’re not doing anything to make your injury worse, so stop looking at me like that.”
I’m stern, ignoring the likelihood that the lust I see on her face is ten times worse if I looked in the mirror.
“Last I checked, the wrist isn’t imperative for hooking up,” she states wryly.
Her description of the circumstances does not sit well.
“I’m not here to hook up, Elise. I really did want to see you. There was no expectation beyond that,” I say, shaking my head.
“Right,” she quips. “No need to be coy with me, Haughland.”
“Wait, you think I drove here to get laid?”
I’m so insulted, the blood from my cock rushes to my face. This is a new direction.
“Are you saying you don’t want to get laid?”
“Yes. I mean no. I mean, that’s not the main reason. Goddamn, Elise, your wrist is not getting better. Sit the fuck down and rest. Please.”
A better man would handle this situation differently. Maybe not be such a bossy ogre or a pathetic puppy dog. How I manage to be the worst of both scenarios is truly pathetic.
“No. Not until we’re clear about…” She pauses.
Suddenly, nothing is more important that filling the pause with all the truths I’ve been denying myself.
“About the fact that the only reason I wasn’t here sooner is because of the goddamn Stanley Cup playoffs? That I wanted to crawl through my cell phone every single night so I could hold your hand or smell your hair. Maybe we ought to be clear about how seeing you get hurt today felt like someone swung a hammer into my chest.”
I should stop.
Now would be a good time to ease up.
Except, apparently, a little thing called dignity got left in Columbus this morning.
When I speak again, my vocal cords sound like they’re ground in glass.
“Or did you need me to be clear about how much I think about you when I shouldn’t. How much I want you when I shouldn’t. Maybe I should admit that every time I see you it’s a little hard to breathe, but I expect it, Elise. I expect the atmosphere to change around you because you’re so goddamn incredible. Being near you makes my skin feel tight because I’m bursting. Fucking bursting with how much you do to me.”
Elise is leaning against the kitchen counter. I brace my hands on each side of her body and bend down.
We’re not touching, but our gazes lock.
“Now sit. The hell. Down.”