by Vi Keeland
Davis
I take a bite of my bagel as we round the first landing, chewing as I watch her walk up the stairs. I should look away, but her legs are an unfair advantage: strong, shapely, and impossibly long. Too bad they’re covered in tights. But then, I reason, as we round another flight, perhaps that barrier is a good thing.
“How’s your coaching going?”
She turns around briefly, casting me a curious look as she keeps walking. The sound of her boots hitting each of the concrete steps echoes. “How did you know I was a running coach?”
“Because I looked you up before I called you in,” I say, with a–matter–of–fact tone. “The Internet is a wonderful thing. I research all actors I’m seriously considering casting.”
“Oh,” she says, and there’s the faintest note of being let down in her voice, as if she wanted me to have looked her up just for her. “Coaching is good,” she continues. “I scaled back a bit when I got the part, but I’m still working with a core group of women who are training for a breast cancer awareness run to raise funds for research.”
“That’s great. Takes a lot of discipline to do that, to run every day. I imagine it takes even more discipline to have run five marathons.”
“Yes. I am immensely disciplined,” she says and there’s something veiled in her answer, so I can’t help but wonder what other areas she is equally disciplined about. “In fact, I’ve learned all the lines already.”
Oh, so that’s what she meant. My mind was drifting off to tawdrier shores.
She stops briefly on the landing to the fourth floor. I stop, too. She turns and wheels on me, and a look of frustration mingled with a hopeless sort of desperation crosses her gorgeous face. “You can’t just do this. You can’t keep coming in and out of my life,” she says, her voice nearly breaking.
I step closer to her, worry pounding through me. “I’m sorry,” I say, but I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. “Are you okay?”
She smiles, the kind you flash when you’ve pulled something off. “It’s from the show. Act II, Scene Five. Near the end.”
“Damn,” I breathe out, shaking my head, and matching her grin. “You had me. You were so convincing that it didn’t even occur to me you were giving me a line. Because I know them all too.” Though I’m not an actor and would never want to be one, I shift into Paolo seamlessly with one tilt of the head, one cocky stare. “But I’m in your life. I’m in it, Ava,” I say, emphatically. We’re no longer in the stairwell. We’re in an art gallery, where this scene takes place and Ava is angry with Paolo because he’s shown up when she didn’t expect him.
With every word crisply enunciated, because Ava is through with all their ups and downs, she commands, “Then be in it.”
“I will if you’ll stop pushing me out.” I step closer to her.
“I never did that and you know it,” she says, fixing me a tough stare, but she doesn’t back away.
I pause. Breathe. Let go of the anger. “Ava, I can’t stand this fighting anymore.”
She raises her eyebrows playfully. “Let’s do something other than fight then.” Then, her eyes soften. She reaches for my face with tentative fingers. “You have something on your…”
I frown, puzzled by the words that don’t fit. “That’s not the next line. The next line is I have something in mind—”
She cuts me off. “No, I was going to say you have a sesame seed right here.” She taps her chin lightly to demonstrate.
“Oh.” I swipe once to wipe it off.
“You missed,” she says softly, and now we’re done with lines. It’s just us. “Davis,” she adds, and it’s halfway to an invitation because she’s talking to me now, not Paolo, and she’s still got that seductive tone in her voice. I want to hear her say Davis in other ways. I want her to say my name because she can’t not. Because she’s reaching for me, and pulling me deeper, and because I’m doing things to her that drive her so wild she says my name in a breathless, fevered way.
I want her to say my name to ask for it, to plead for it, to beg for it.
She sweeps her thumb across my chin gently. I hitch in a breath as she touches me. “I got it,” she whispers, flicking the errant sesame seed quickly to the floor. I don’t know if she’s Jill or Ava anymore, but I don’t care because now she’s running her thumb across my jawline, and the barest touch from her makes me hard.
“Did you find any more?” I ask, in a low, hoarse voice.
She shakes her head, her hair moving with the slightest swoosh, enough that I catch a faint scent of her pineapple shampoo that already is her scent to me. The one that will always make me think of her. Now she’s running her index finger across my lower lip, and that’s it. That’s all I can take.
“Jill,” I warn.
“What?”
“If you keep doing that…” I let my voice trail off.
She keeps doing it, tracing my lips with her finger, obliterating all my willpower. I place my coffee and bagel on the stairs then grab her wrists, walk her two steps backward. She’s up against the concrete wall. Her lips are parted and her eyes are full of lust. I hold tight to her wrists as I capture her mouth with mine.
She lets out the tiniest little whimper at the first touch of my lips. I want to kiss her hard and hungry, because she makes me feel that way. But I want her to know I’m in control, that I’m leading now, not her. Without breaking my hold on her wrists, I trace her lips with the tip of my tongue, slowly, torturously. She tries to deepen the kiss, grappling at me with her sinfully delicious mouth but I take my time, tormenting her with my tongue, leaving her no room to think of anything else but how she’d feel if I were doing this to her in other places.
I move to her jawline, kissing her there, then teasing my way to her earlobe, flicking my tongue against her skin. “Is that what you wanted me to do?” I whisper.
“Yes,” she pants.
“Is that why you touched me?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been thinking about me since that day in my office?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
She inhales sharply, then whispers in a ragged voice. “Yes.”
I let go of her wrists, and they fall to her sides. I untie the belt of her jacket looped at her waist, then undo each button on her coat, letting the fabric fall open. “I hate winter,” I say. “Too many layers.” Then I pull back to look at her. She’s wearing a V-neck sweater that makes her breasts look fantastic. Her nipples harden under my gaze. I finger the bottom of her sweater, careful not to take this too far, but dying to know what her skin feels like. I lift the fabric, and run my fingers across the soft skin of her stomach.
She shivers, practically vibrating with sexuality. It’s as if her body is on a low hum, waiting for the right person to turn her all the way up, all the way on. So I give her what she wants, slanting my mouth against hers and kissing her hard and rough, so she’ll still be able feel me later when she’s all alone. She responds instantly, grabbing my hair, pulling me closer, tangling her tongue with mine. It’s a hungry kiss, as I explore her mouth, tasting her lipstick until I nearly lose my mind with the need to know more of her body.
Every inch of her.
Her hands drop to my waist and she tugs harder, as if she’s trying to erase any distance between us. I follow her cues, giving her what she wants, rolling my hips against her. Her hands are on my ass in a second, grappling and yanking me against her. She pushes back, thrusting her body against mine, and it takes all my self-control not to hike up her skirt, to touch her under those tights, to learn exactly how much more she wants.
Instead we kiss like that, frenzied and fast, bodies smashed together, but never quite going too far. At some point we pull apart for air. She’s breathing heavily but she’s smiling too, and everything about her is starting to lower my defenses, from the sweet curve of her lips, to the glow in her blue eyes, to her talent and the way she was meant to play this role. It’s eating me aliv
e not to ask her to have dinner with me. To start something with her. To take her out, and romance her, the way I want to. I let that sweetness she has work its way through me, and I tell her something I shouldn’t be saying.
“I wanted to cast you as Ava. I wanted you over Alexis.”
Her eyes widen. “You did?”
“Yes,” I say and more words pour out because I want her to know what I see in her. I want her to know that she’s my discovery. I found her, I called her in, I chose her. “You were my first choice, Jill. The producers insisted on Alexis because of her credits,” I add, taking a chance that she won’t think me weak for not having the final say. But I risk it. “But I wanted you and only you as Ava.” I leave a quick kiss on her neck that makes her shudder before I speak again. “You can play her, and you will play her. Hell, you are her. I can feel her pain in you. Her secrets. Her sadness. How wounded she is. Most of all, I can feel her hope.”
She bites her lip and breathes out on the last word. I think her cheeks might be turning red. Slowly, as if she’s enchanted, she brings her hand to her heart. “Really?”
I nod. “You’re going to be such a big fucking star, Jill. I want the world to know I discovered you.”
“Thank you,” she says. “I’m so happy to have this chance so early in my career to work with you.”
Her eyes are filled with such genuine happiness, and it’s a look I immediately recognize, one that sends me back in time right along with her words. So early in my career. I can picture Madeline, how thrilled she was when I called her in for an audition after seeing her in a tiny little workshop production, how over the moon she was to be cast in one of her first shows, how hopelessly we fell in love as we worked together on World Enough and Time three years ago in San Diego.
It breaks me, the way Jill looks at me now the way Madeline did then. I know the ending. I can’t go there again, because she is all my weaknesses.
I shake my head. “Fuck. Rehearsal is about to start. I can’t be late. And we can’t keep doing this.”
“Right,” she says in a shaky voice.
“We just can’t,” I repeat, because I’m the one who needs convincing.
“I know,” she says, with resignation now. “This has to stop. The show is too important.”
She thinks it’s because of the show. But it’s more than that. “Jill. I don’t date actresses,” I say in a firm, harsh voice that’s more for me than for her. It comes out more cruelly than I intended.
She rearranges her features, erasing the happiness, erasing the aftereffects of what we just did. “Well, that’s fine with me. Because I’m in love with someone else anyway.”
She adjusts her coat, pulling it closed and walks up the stairs.
“Then you really shouldn’t kiss me like that,” I call out to her, and this time I intend it to sound harsh.
She gives me one sharp cold stare before she pushes open the door to the stairwell. “You’re right. I shouldn’t.”
Chapter 9
Jill
When rehearsal ends I head for the ladies room to reapply my lip gloss. If I can catch Patrick on the way out, I’m going to ask him out. I can’t keep falling into my director’s arms when the man I’ve been waiting for is here at last. I push this morning into the trunk of forgotten memories, then lock it up and throw away the key.
There. Done. Gone.
As I smack my lips together, one of my cast mates, Shelby, pops in. She’s a few years older and a chorus girl too. She’s an amazing dancer and has a sort of ballroom flare to her moves, all hips and sexy sway.
“Hey there,” she says. “The whole cast is going out to Zane’s for drinks. Want to join?”
The whole cast. Yes, that’ll be my chance! “Sure, that sounds great.”
“Cool. I need to grab my bag, so meet me by the elevator.”
I leave the restroom and head for the elevator. I spot Davis talking to Alexis inside the doorway of one of the rehearsal studios. Her hand is on his arm, and something flares inside me when I see them. I try to look away, but I can’t. She’s like a villain in a Marvel comic book, all over-the-top campy, and she has these hideous long red fingernails that she’s digging into his arm, as if she owns him.
“Of course you’re the best, Alexis,” I hear him say in a low voice. “You know there’s no one I’d rather have as Ava. No one in the whole wide world.”
She loosens her grip and then pulls him in for a wide embrace.
What the hell? He told me this morning I’m the one he wanted to cast. He seemed so incredibly sincere. Was he lying to me? Or is he lying to her? Or is he playing us both?
Ding, ding, ding!
I can hear the bell going off in my head, because I’ve figured him out. He thinks we are all fragile little flowers who need praise like we need the sun. So he gives it to us, and that’s how he coaxes out such great performances. Insidiously clever, and totally Machiavellian.
I have to hand it to him. I was fooled. I wanted his words to be true. I want to believe I was his first choice. A hot rush of anger floods my veins, and I’m dying to march up to him and tell him not to toy with me ever again—neither with kisses that I can feel for days, nor those words that undercut. But I won’t give him the satisfaction on either front, so I don’t look at them as I walk by, stepping into the elevator with Shelby.
“That dance number was brutal,” Shelby says, stretching her neck from side to side, as I force myself to eradicate Davis and his puppeteering ways from my brain. I don’t have any extra mental real estate to devote to him. “I thought I was going to die.”
“Yeah, totally,” I say, even though it’s not true. The dance number was all cardio, and I’m kind of like a wizard at cardio. But I also really like fitting in. So I even tack on an addendum, “I think I might collapse later because of that number.”
Shelby gives me a pointed but playful look. “Drinks before collapsing.”
“But of course.”
At the bar I look around for Patrick, but he’s not here yet. Alexis has joined the crew, though she’s off in the back of the bar with her publicist, so I hang out with the other chorus members at some tables we’ve pulled together. I down a beer and we talk about the show, and other shows we’ve done. When Kelly Clarkson’s “Catch my Breath” starts on the bar’s sound system, a group of us grab our imaginary microphones and start to sing along, loud and boisterous and totally on pitch. When the number ends, the other bar goers clap and cheer, and some even hoot and holler.
I head to the bar to order another beer. As I wait, I take out my phone and text my brother Chris in California. We talk—okay, we text—every day, and I like to keep him up to date on my life. Maybe it’s my way of making up for the things I never told him about Aaron. We were close growing up, and he always looked out for me, but somehow I was never able to get the words out, to sit him down, to tell him what I’d done and all that had gone wrong. The least I can do is give him details of my life now that I’m living on my own in New York City. It’s like I’m making up for my silence years ago.
Rehearsal is great. But director is strange.
I send off the note, wondering briefly why I brought up Davis since I’ve got him figured out. Right? There can’t be any more to him than a master craftsman who knows how to use each tool perfectly. We are the tools. And boy, did he know how to manipulate me by telling me I was the one he really wanted for Ava, and then saying the same thing to Alexis.
Chris writes back quickly. Define strange.
But I don’t know how to define strange and I don’t even know why I wrote to Chris about Davis. I make something up. You know, like Broadway director strange.
He replies: I know this may shock you, but I know nothing of Broadway directors. BTW, I’m probably coming to NYC next month for a work trip. Can you make some time for your big bro?
I nearly squeal. I haven’t seen Chris in a year.
Yes!!!!
I put my phone away and Shelby joins me at the
bar, pushing a hand through her dark, wavy hair. “On a scale of one to ten, how hot is Patrick Carlson?”
I nearly spit out my beer. But then I realize I’m not the only one in the cast with, you know, eyes. Nor am I the only one who is possessed with feminine hormones.
“Ten million,” I admit. “Is he coming tonight?”
“I heard he was on his way. He’s carved by the Gods or something, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.”
“I worked with him in South Pacific two years ago, and everyone was in love with him. You should have seen our dressing room, and heard all the times we talked about how beautiful he is. Pathetic. Like some sort of shrine made by lovesick teenagers. That’s what he does to women. He was dating Christine in Phantom at the time, but we were still practically clinging to him.”
“Is he still with her?”
“Not that I know of. But he’s a freak of nature. A dancing, singing, acting gorgeous straight man who’s also the nicest guy around? He’ll be taken by opening night if he’s not already dating a supermodel.”
“Yeah, he’s a rare find, isn’t he?” I say coolly, but inside my nerves are unraveling. I need to make a move as soon as he arrives tonight. Then it hits me—what if Shelby has her sights set on him? I don’t want to be the kind of woman who goes after a guy her friend is eyeing. Even though I hardly know Shelby, I have a rule—once we sit down for drinks we’re buds, and I don’t violate the girl code. I’m practically crossing all my fingers and toes as I ask the next question. “Are you going to pursue something with him?”
Shelby laughs, and shakes her head. “No, but if you like him you should go for it. I just like to window shop. I’m taken.” She waggles her hand, showing me a gumball-sized sparkly rhinestone ring. “It’s not a real diamond, obviously. More a promise of a ring to come. I’m involved with someone. He’s an actor too.”
“Oh cool. What’s he in?”
She sighs, and her brown eyes look sad. “Nothing right now. He just moved to Los Angeles since pilot season is starting. He’s hoping to land something soon. He’s working as a personal trainer in between auditions.”