Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
GABE
There are way more cars parked around the theater than I would have expected for a Monday evening ten days before Christmas Eve.
Especially when there can’t be anything going on in there, what with the fire damage and the fact the stage is covered with bits of scenery for the kids’ play.
I find a parking spot along the street and stride back along the salted sidewalk. Once I’ve got this tree painting done, I don’t have to see Natalie ever again. That’s definitely the best thing for both of us.
Turns out I don’t need the huge old key the custodian gave me after all, because the stage door is unlocked. And there’s a hubbub coming from inside that’s loud enough to hear over me stomping off my boots on the mat.
Dammit. So much for my theory that there’d be no one here.
I turn back and grab the door handle again—I should just leave. Engaging in small talk with some locals I’ve never met before and explaining why I’m here isn’t something I’m in the mood for right now. Or ever, for that matter.
But also, if I don’t get this done, I’ll only have to come back another time when Natalie’s here. And I guess being uncomfortable around strangers is preferable to being uncomfortable around her.
So I let go of the door and make my way along the hallway that’s littered with all kinds of theatrical debris including a box that, for some reason, has a toy donkey head sticking out of it. Pulling off my beanie and unzipping my parka, I make my way to the wings and discover the chatter is coming from the stage. There must be a dozen, maybe fifteen people up there—whether it can still hold the weight of that many bodies at once remains to be seen.
They all have their backs to me and are putting on coats and gloves and saying things like “Shame we missed him,” “Maybe next time,” and “I’ll see if I can come again.”
The group parts to reveal Natalie standing on the other side of them facing me. I duck a little farther behind the curtain.
“Thank you for coming though,” she says. “And for doing what you could. It’s great to have you back.”
Out of nowhere a man rounds the curtain and almost smacks right into me.
“Sorry, pal,” he says, then takes a step back to look me up and down. “Hey, he’s here,” he calls at a volume usually used by an opposition fan shouting obscenities from row Z.
Everyone on the stage does a one-eighty to face me. Except Natalie. She just moves her gaze until it meets mine between the bevy of people.
The instant our eyes connect it’s like a slapshot to my heart that forces me back onto my heels. This is exactly what I was afraid of, exactly why I needed to not see her.
“Oh, you found him,” cries a woman with long blond, poofy hair, whose attire and makeup would make you think she was on her way to a nightclub. She click-clacks toward me on heels that can’t be doing much for the stability of the fire-damaged floorboards.
The man grabs my hand—that I was not offering him—and shakes it. “I hate the Apollos.” Good to know. “Like, really hate them. With a passion.” Nice that he’s being clear. “But, man, the way you played against Dallas in last season’s playoffs.” He shakes his head in disbelief that any member of such a loathsome team could possibly be in possession of that kind of skill and finishes with a slap on my upper arm.
Thankfully it was on the side of my good shoulder or he might have found himself wearing that donkey head.
“You look so much better without all that gear on,” Nightclub Woman says, fluttering eyelids that shimmer with more colors than a peacock’s tail. “Doesn’t he?” She turns around and beckons the others forward to inspect the exhibit.
The mutterings of five or six approaching women would suggest that I do indeed look better without “all that gear.”
“Hey, dude.” A middle-aged man pushes his way between the women. “Have you ever thought about having your right hand about two inches farther down the stick? You’d be amazed how much more zip you get.”
No. I have not.
He taps his nose then my chest and drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And just try to straighten your right arm a bit.”
I’ll be sure to write that down.
My personal space is invaded further by the numerous hands extended toward me, which I shake because what the hell else can I do? I’m not even sure I’m smiling. It’s hard when you’re being treated like a sighting of the vaquita—the world’s rarest marine mammal. There’re only about ten of them left.
“Okay, everyone,” Natalie’s voice cuts through. “So great you were all able to suddenly find time in your busy schedules to come in this evening. Such a surprise.” She widens her eyes at me in a we’re-on-the-same-side kind of way, which is not unpleasing. “But I have to get the theater locked up or I’ll be in trouble.”
The gaggle of rubberneckers shuffles past, looking at me and commenting to each other under their breath like I’m a stuffed museum specimen and they can’t quite decide if I’ve lived up to expectations.
“Thank you, thank you,” Natalie says, herding them down the steps from the wings to the hallway that leads to the stage door.
She stands at the top to watch them go, hands on hips, as if to block the way should any of them decide to turn and bolt back inside.
When the door clicks shut behind the last one, we’re left in a silence about as heavy and uncomfortable as a lead blanket.
“Would you fucking believe it?” She swings around to face me, her ponytail lagging slightly behind then reappearing over her opposite shoulder. “Only a week or two ago, they’d all told me they were too busy getting ready for family visits, or going away, or tied up with a thousand other holiday-related things to be involved with the play. Then all of a sudden, after the kids went home and told them you were helping, they all showed up tonight.”
Her outrage is adorable. And amusing—or at least it would be if I weren’t equally as outraged by it.
“Bastards.” I run my fingers through my hair for the first time since pulling off my hat.
“And look what they’ve done.” She strides back out onto the stage, arms outstretched, indicating everything strewn on it. “They were here two hours and look what they’ve done.”
I step behind her, not close enough to smell her hair, but close enough that I could touch it if I reached out.
“What have they done?” I ask. “It looks pretty much like we left it yesterday. But maybe a bit messier.”
“Exactly.” She spins around to face me. “Fucking nothing, is what they’ve done. They were only here to see you, the big la-di-da sports star.”
She does a funny little wiggle when she says la-di-da , and I have to bite my lip because it’s obvious that showing any sign of being amused by her would be an incredibly bad idea.
“They weren’t interested in helping at all.” She flings her arms wide. “They moved a few things from one place to another for no reason whatsoever. One of them took the lid off that can of brown paint. Then put it back on again. And look.” She points at the trees I’d come here to paint. “They’ve not even finished standing them up in a line along the back.”
She presses her fist against her forehead and screws up her eyes. “There is so much to do. So. Much. To. Do.” She thumps her head with each of the last few words.
My heart goes out to her and, before I know it, my hand is on her shoulder. And once it’s there, what else can I do but give her a little squeeze?
“Hey, we’ll get it done. The whole reason I came is to get it done. I didn’t expect you or anyone to be here. I thought the place would be empty and I could get the trees finished.”
“Really?” She opens her eyes and looks up at me, gratitude written all over her beautiful features. “They all came because Monday evenings are the usual working-on-the-play nights. So I guess they thought you’d be here. And I’m here because…” She huffs out a sigh. “Well, because I have no idea how I’m going to get everything ready and rewrite the script to make it work on ice and get the kids to learn it, and then there’s the rehearsals, and…” She shakes her head.
The tension in her face, her jaw, her neck, fills me with the need to fix it all for her, to take away her stress and make her smile again.
It’s impossible not to respect her commitment to doing a good job, to making the kids happy and providing the best possible experience and memories for them. Maybe she’s not so annoying after all.
I draw my hand from her shoulder down her arm until her hand drops into mine. Then I squeeze that too.
This is the exact opposite of what I came here to do. But, holy shit, holding part of her is a real fucking rush.
I take a breath to try to quell my racing heart.
“One thing at a time, Bugs. That’s how we deal with things in hockey. You can’t look at the whole game. You can only look at one play at a time. And tonight’s play is to get the scenery painted. So let’s think about just that and get it done. ”
She nods and squeezes my hand back, and my heart thumps harder, pumping blood straight to my groin. But there’s no time for any of this squeezy-feelings bullshit. We have the front of a mayor’s house and a shit-ton of trees to paint.
I let go of her hand and pull off my coat. “Okay. You go over there and work on the front of the house. I’ll do what I can with the trees. Over here.”
I clearly indicate that we’ll be as far apart on the stage as it’s possible to be. There will be no accidental brushing past each other, no chance for deep looks into one another’s eyes, and I will definitely not be within touching distance of her.
Because the way I currently feel, looking at her expression, which has transformed from the brink of tear-filled panic to focus and positivity, purely because of my team pep talk, I don’t trust myself now either.
“I’ll play some music to spur us on.” She pulls her phone from her pocket and a few taps later, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” emerges from the speaker at the front of the stage.
The jangling harmony sends an involuntary shudder through me.
“Thought I was going to be here alone,” she says, “so I connected my phone to the sound system before the Gabe-gawkers got here.”
And she dances her way to the other side of the stage with hip-swings that take my mind right off the hideous din and make me want to take her in my arms and have her right here on the stage.
I push my hands into my jeans pockets to hide what’s going on behind my zipper.
“Ankle’s clearly better then,” I call louder than the song lyrics.
“Yup, all good.” She turns to look at me and continues dancing backward, smiling and making the situation in my pants worse. “But of course it is. I know how to fix these things because I’m a top injury manipulation and repair expert, remember?”
I turn away and toss my coat over the edge of the stage and into the first row of seats. I have to look away. For my own good as well as hers. I simply cannot entertain any of the multiple things her backward dancing and ironic smile make me want to do.
So, instead of having the holidays I wanted, holed up in my house on the hill in glorious isolation, without so much as a bauble to annoy me, what do I do? I pick up two brushes, two cans of paint, and head to my side of the stage in a local community theater, where I will spend the evening painting Christmas trees and listening to god-awful Christmas music while the most festive person I know, who I kissed yesterday, sings and dances along.
But somehow— somehow —instead of wanting to run for my hill, I just want to kiss her again.
I mean really want to.