Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
GABE
I hear Natalie’s voice before I see her. It’s hushed, and I can’t quite make out what she’s saying.
Having entered the theater by the rear door, the only way onto the stage is via the backstage area and the wings.
Not wanting to deal with meeting another local, I pause, hoping the conversation is wrapping up and whoever she’s talking to is about to leave.
Standing silently behind the curtain, I can just about make out what she’s saying.
“We can do it. We can make this happen. We have to make this happen.” Her voice is quiet, but determined.
Is she talking to herself ?
I lean around the curtain. Thankfully she’s facing away from me, unloading things from a large box with the words Warm Springs Hardware on the side.
She’s wearing different jeans today, looser and paint-stained, and her large gray sweatshirt looks like it belongs to someone more my size than hers. Disappointingly, it hangs low enough to cover her spectacular ass.
A blond ponytail hangs down the back of it, flowing from under the same green beanie she was wearing yesterday.
“It’s all for the kids,” she mutters, pulling a large can of paint from the box. “We can do it.”
She is definitely giving herself a pep talk. And it’s fucking adorable.
I’m no stranger to self-talk. In fact, one of our coaches actively encourages it, along with visualization before games. But having only experienced it in a world where millions of dollars are at stake, seeing a small-town drama teacher hyping herself up over some paint, pieces of plywood, and costumes made from old curtains, is kinda heartwarming.
And it felt good to have Natalie’s gratitude for breaking up the scrap yesterday. Oh, the irony of me stopping a fight on the ice rather than being involved in one.
I couldn’t get her smile out of my head as I made my way home for my PT session. Or as I cooked dinner, then ate two of her Christmas cookies. Or as I watched a show about the elaborate courtship rituals of the South American red-capped manakin. Or as I lay in bed, uncharacteristically unable to nod off.
I cough and make deliberately loud footsteps onto the stage.
“Oh, hi.” She turns to face me with a three-pack of paintbrushes in one hand and a roll of green masking tape in the other.
Her cheeks are pink, and it turns out that the oversized sweatshirt has the words Drama Teachers Do It On Stage across her breasts .
“Have you?” I ask.
“Have I what?” The question crinkles her nose.
I point at her chest. “Done it on stage?”
She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Oh, for goodness’ sake.”
“Well, you can’t wear a shirt like that and not expect the question.”
“I can’t wear this around the kids because they ask what it means. And I guess I can’t wear it around this particular adult because he can’t resist the obvious unfunny joke.”
“Then why wear it at all?” I intend that to mean why not wear something different that doesn’t have a double entendre on the front . But as the words leave my mouth, I’m instantly aware it also sounds like I’m saying maybe you should take it off . Which I definitely am not.
Well, obviously, I’m only human and wouldn’t say no to a peek at what’s under there, especially because I’m certain it would be breathtaking. But I don’t mean she should actually do it. And I certainly don’t want her to think that’s what I mean. Or that I’ve come here to hit on her. Which I definitely haven’t.
Although it probably does sound like I’m hitting on her.
Am I hitting on her?
I need to not hit on her.
Even if she is incredibly attractive, she’s also totally maddening, could not be more opposite of me, and is moving to New Orleans in a few weeks. Anyway, there’s no space in my life for a woman. Particularly after what happened with the last one.
For fuck’s sake, why is my brain spiraling out of control? I haven’t lost my grip on it since that time a Bruins defenseman thought it would be fun to slug it out on center ice after I might’ve suggested his mom was overly friendly with his teammates.
“It’s my set-painting top,” Natalie clarifies. “When the kids aren’t around helping, that is. I like to think ruining it with paint splatters is exactly what the asshole who gave it to me deserves.”
“Oooh, a glimpse into Natalie’s love life. Tell me more.” And for some reason I want to know every minute detail of this story.
Who was he? What made him an asshole? Why aren’t they still together? Does he live in town? What does he do for a living? And what did he do to her to make her hate him?
“I’m telling you nothing.” She puts the pack of brushes on top of the can of paint. “And you might not want to open the subject of relationships.” She straightens and yanks the sweatshirt down at the sides. “Because of course I’ve looked you up. And your history in that department isn’t exactly stellar.”
And there we have it. The internet history that’s impossible to erase. “That is a load of old sh?—”
“Don’t want to hear it.” She holds her palms up to me. “You’re here to help the show go on. Nothing more. We don’t have to like each other. We don’t even have to get along. We just have to remake the scenery and use your muscles to move stuff.”
Great. Now that she’s read all that shit, she’s going to think I’m even more of a dick than she did before.
Since I’ll never see her again after this whole play thing is over, that shouldn’t bother me.
But it does. It gnaws at my stomach like a rottweiler grinding its teeth on an indestructible bone .
She strides past me to a pile of new two-dimensional trees. A waft of something faintly floral follows her—not that old lady, gives-you-a-headache floral, more light and fresh.
“We’re too short of time to cut out the shapes for the scenery ourselves, so I had the hardware store do it.” Her tone is all back-to-business again. “They remade the forest and the front of the mayor’s house from the same designs as before. They even screwed bases on them so they’ll stand up on the ice and didn’t charge because they feel sorry for the kids.”
This town seems to be riddled with compassion even when it comes to fake trees.
“You can line these up along the back wall and get to work.” She grabs a plywood tree and carries it to the back of the stage to indicate exactly where I should form my line of forest.
I pick up another and follow her.
She puts hers down and spins around without realizing I’m right behind her.
“And then—” Whatever she’s starting to say ends in a muffled oomph as she face-plants straight into my left pec.
“Sorry,” I say as she rubs the tip of her nose. “Thought you knew I was here.”
Peeping over her hand are eyes as blue as this town’s vast winter sky.
She stills, hand frozen mid-rub.
And in an instant the atmosphere changes.
The air between us is no longer ordinary theater air that smells of stale dust and fire smoke.
It’s alive.
A whole living being with a heartbeat all its own.
It crackles with how much we irritate each other. How opposite we are. And how damn fucking attracted I am to her.
Something inside me shifts, moving to a place it knows better than to shift to.
“My fault,” she says, her voice the softest I’ve heard it. “Didn’t hear you follow me.”
Thirty seconds ago, my instinct would have been to tell her that of course she didn’t hear me, she was too busy yakking about how to lay out the trees in a military row.
But not now.
Now, I don’t know what to do with myself. My chest rises and falls heavily under my jacket, like my body thinks it needs to take a deep breath to prepare itself for something.
“You walk surprisingly quietly for someone so”—she pauses, her eyes grazing my neck, shoulders, chest, and arms so slowly and deliberately I can almost feel their touch—“not quiet-looking.”
Her sentence tails off almost into a whisper. A breathy whisper that makes me wonder what else I could do that might make her talk that way.
Her comment also brings an amused smile to my lips. “How does someone look not quiet ?”
She finally drops her hand from the end of her nose to use it to point at me from the top of my hat to the soles of my sneakers. “By looking the exact opposite of a tiny quiet mouse.”
I can’t suppress a chuckle any longer. And it snaps me out of my Natalie-induced stupor.
Moving back from such close proximity feels like the most unnatural thing I’ve ever done. But the thing that would come naturally to me at the moment would be a dangerous idea for all concerned. And might, quite deservedly, get me a slap across the face. I mean, it’s not like she’s not been clear she doesn’t like me. You can’t get much clearer than I don’t like you .
I step around her. “Your nose okay? Or do you need me to make ice packs again?”
And now, as I set my pine tree down next to the one she put at the back of the stage, I’m thinking about pressing the ice-filled tea towel against her ankle as she sat on my sofa three nights ago.
Was it really only three nights ago?
Man, I feel like I’ve been teasing this woman about how annoying she is since we were in kindergarten. It’s just about the most normal thing in the world.
And she is a bit annoying.
And she definitely doesn’t like me.
So…
I rub my hands together. “I hate to tell you this, but I have about as much artistic skill in my body as that mop does.” I point to a stack of cleaning materials propped against a wall next to a bucket of murky water.
“Here.” She picks up two small buckets of paint and holds them toward me at arm’s length. Presumably to make sure I don’t get too close again. “Brown and green. It’s easy.”
“The original ones were fancier than just two colors.” I nod at the pile of charred trees stacked with all the other burned remains waiting to be trashed.
“How about you start with these and work your way up.”
“Bet that’s what you say to the six-year-olds.”
“Not at all.” Her voice has dropped ever so slightly back toward that husky tone. “They can manage all the colors on the first try.”
This woman sure does give good banter. And she sure does make me smile inconveniently often.
I shake my head and sigh. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I reach to take the cans from her, making a real effort not to make contact with her hands, but still my fingers brush against hers like they just can’t help themselves.
And there’s that feeling in my chest again—a tremor accompanied by heavy breathing.
This time she looks away quickly, like she doesn’t want a repeat of whatever the hell it was that passed between us a moment ago.
“I’ll help you set up a production line,” she says. “Then I’ll work on the front of the mayor’s house. You clearly can’t be trusted with that if you’re panicking about the trees.”
She points to the large shape of the front of a grand house that’s propped up on the other side of the stage. She couldn’t have set our two painting projects farther apart.
“One good thing about the fire damage,” Natalie says, as we walk back and forth taking trees from the pile and standing them up along the back. “You can slosh paint around on the stage as much as you like since it needs to be rebuilt.”
“How long’s the theater been here?”
“Since just after World War Two.”
I pause to look out toward the auditorium and upward, absorbing the ornate moldings, the gold accents, the murals between pillars on each side of the room, the multilevel ceiling. Of course I noticed them yesterday, but didn’t really take them in.
“It’s unexpectedly elaborate for a small-town theater,” I remark.
She moves beside me and looks out at the same view. “ It was designed by someone who was obsessed with the Beacon Theater in Manhattan. And they kind of copied it. There’s a whole section about it at the historical society, if you’re interested.”
I turn my attention from the red velvet seats and the gilded trim around the exit archways to Natalie. “Of course this town has a historical society.”
She screws up one side of her mouth, making her lips pucker, and shoots me a look from the corner of her eye. “They also have a display about the legend of Wendolyn and Lord Percival that you might enjoy.”
“Maybe some other time.” There will never be that other time. “For now, scenery painting. I just need a couple of brushes.”
At exactly the same moment, we bend down to pick up the pack of brushes that are resting on top of the can of white paint and our foreheads smack together.
We cry out and grab our heads.
“Jesus Christ,” she says, “haven’t you injured me enough already without headbutting me as well?”
“It hurt me too,” I object, rubbing the point of impact.
“But you were only hit by my dainty girly head. I was hit by your big burly hockey hero one that’s more like a block of concrete than part of a human body.”
Fuck me, did I hurt her again? “Let me see.”
She looks up at me and sucks in her lips before dropping her hand to reveal a red circle in the corner of her forehead.
It looks fine. A bit red, but no broken skin.
But right this second, I have an excuse to touch it. An excuse I might not get again to learn what her skin feels like.
So, against every sensible cell in my brain, I do.
Her eyes don’t leave me as I trace my fingers slowly around the sore patch. “Am I hurting you?” I ask.
“No.” She breathes it more than says it.
I let my fingers draw another completely unnecessary circle on her soft skin. This time, as my chest rises and falls it also vibrates. And the tremors trickle lower.
“I think it’ll be fine.” My eyes slip from the scene of the crime to those goddamn blue fucking eyes that suck me right back in.
“It’s not so bad anymore,” she says, holding my gaze. “It was probably just the surprise that made it feel worse.”
“Yeah, okay.” My fingers slide down her hairline. What the fuck are they doing? They’ve lost their minds. I’ve lost my mind. My brain has dissolved right here in those glistening pools of blueness, and I don’t know how to get it back.
My fingers are sentient beings in their own right, operating without any reference to anything that I know is good sense. They glide along her jawline at a snail’s pace, then stop at her chin.
No other part of either of us moves a muscle.
Apart from Natalie’s eyelids, which blink.
I don’t dare blink. In case it breaks whatever magic spell has just been conjured between us.
As I tip her face up a little, the bright stage lights catch the golden highlights in her hair, and her mouth parts just the tiniest amount.
Oh, Christ, this is a bad idea. The most terrible idea. There could not be a worse idea at this moment than kissing Natalie Bourne on the fire-damaged stage of a 1940s theater where I should be painting the row of trees lined up like soldiers behind me.
But I lean down toward her anyway .
And it’s at this moment that whoever’s driving the sensible part of my brain wakes up and whacks it into reverse.
I almost jump back, letting go of her smooth chin and rubbing my own bearded one instead.
“I’m sorry, Natalie. Sorry. I shouldn’t… I’m sorry.” I take a step toward the trees. “I’ll get on with the paint?—”
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” she says, grabbing a fistful of my jacket and pulling me down as she rises on her tiptoes so her lips can meet mine.
All my life has been about intimidating my opponents. About never showing even the slightest glimpse of vulnerability. Yet this woman who’s a fraction of my size has taken me on, taken charge of me. And suddenly, Christmas doesn’t seem quite so bad after all.