The One That I Want (17 page)

“Have a seat, if you’d like,” he said, nodding in the direction of the only comfortable-looking armchair in the room. The rest of the seats were short wooden stools.

“I will in a minute. I, um, just want to look around.” There were costumes laid out for the different scenes of the play, and a smattering of props. One of them—a pair of handcuffs, used in Act II—was sitting on top of his dressing table, inches from the mirror. I smiled remembering Dane’s part in that scene, which involved a lady in a cop outfit trying to “arrest” him, and how sexually suggestive that whole onstage interaction was.

He caught me staring at them and picked them up. “Did you want a closer look?” he asked, grinning.

“Oh, no, that’s not necessary.” I felt myself blush. “I’m just surprised to see the cuffs here with your props. I would have thought the actress who played the phony cop would’ve needed them instead.”

“Nah. We tried it that way a few times but, because Lana has to do that somersault-ninja move first, we ran into the problem of the handcuffs falling out of her pocket and clanking onto the middle of the stage. Zach, our director, thought it would work better to have me carry them in my jacket and then secretly slip them to her after that gymnastic bit.”

I hadn’t really put much thought into the details of the choreography, but it occurred to me just then that Dane must be an exceptionally good dancer. Anyone who could remember all of those steps from dozens of scenes and execute them so flawlessly in front of a live audience had to be amazing on the dance floor, too.

“Was it difficult to learn to do that?” I asked. “To remember all of the actions that accompany the dialogue and where, exactly, you need to be at every moment during the play?”

“The blocking?” He shook his head. “Not if you’re into the scene deeply enough. I mean, that’s why we practice so many times, to make sure it feels completely natural. Once it does, then our bodies seem to remember how to pair the words with the movements. Like the way our fingers know which notes to play on a musical instrument, even when we may not consciously recall the specific fingering that comes next. If we stopped to think about it, we might get confused and second guess ourselves. But if we just let our fingers go where they were taught to go…well…” He shrugged.

“Then it’s kinesthetic memory,” I said.

“Right.” He flicked a small latch on the cuffs and they sprung open. “I can show you. Here, take these.”

And before I had a chance to protest or even step back, he thrust the handcuffs at me, twirled me in the same move he used on the actress (“Lana,” apparently), and turned himself in front of me so that his hands were crossed behind his back. To an outsider, it would look as though I’d neatly trapped him and was ready to slap cuffs on his wrists.

“You can put them on me, Julia. Don’t worry.” He laughed. “They’re props. They don’t really lock.”

“Would serve you right if they did.” I tried to make a joke of it and just play along but, as I snapped the handcuffs on Dane Tyler’s strong wrists and swiveled him around to face me, I couldn’t ignore a spark of something sizzling between us. Something that wasn’t either humorous or a mere game.

His blue eyes regarded me seriously for a moment before his lips curved into another smile. “Just because they don’t lock doesn’t mean I can get them off easily.” He tugged at the silver restraints.

I swallowed and walked toward the table with the food, needing to take a few steps away from the man—both literally and figuratively. “Bet this would be a great time to have a sandwich,” I said, lifting the plastic wrap off the tray. “Mmm. Too bad you’re otherwise occupied, huh? They’re all mine now.”

He snorted and leaned back, less gracefully than usual, against the corner of his dressing table until he’d finally managed to rub the cuffs against something jagged enough to flip the latch. He set the cuffs down with an air of deliberation and massaged his wrists. “That was a little tighter than I’d expected. You have some background with S&M or something?”

“Okay, whose idea was it to have me put them on you?” I pointed an accusatory index finger at him, which made him snort again. Then I reached for one of the sandwiches, more as my own personal prop than as any form of sustenance.

He approached me, slow and panther like.

I inhaled quickly and held the sandwich out to him like a shield. “Egg salad?”

He shook his head.

I scanned the sandwich tray and blindly grabbed another offering. “Ham and cheese?”

He just laughed and kept walking toward me.

“Um, I’m not sure, but it looks like there might also be chicken—”

“Julia?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not hungry—for sandwiches.” His gaze hovered at my lips and then rose upward.

My heart was sprinting against itself, as if trying to break a world’s record. Could Shar have been right? Would he really try to kiss me? “I see,” I said.

“I don’t think you do.” He tilted his head and studied me. “We were almost neighbors growing up, you know? You were very nearly the girl next door.” Again with the head tilting and the long analytical look. “We didn’t go to the same high school, and I would have been a few years older than you if we had, but we were probably close to running into each other a hundred times. We lived just a few suburbs apart during our childhoods. And, yet, we never met until three weeks ago.” He exhaled slowly. “I’m so damned glad.”

His words began to sink in. I wasn’t sure I’d heard them correctly. “You’re
glad?
Glad we didn’t meet earlier?”

“Yes. Trust me on this, you would’ve hated me in high school.” He ran both sets of fingers and palms through his professionally highlighted hair. “I would’ve had some crazy-ass crush on you that would’ve only ticked you off. You’d have thought I was an arrogant prick with a chip on my shoulder. It would’ve been bad.”

“And how was that so different from three weeks ago?”

“Ouch!” He clutched at his heart, pretending to be struck.

I burst out laughing. “C’mon, Dane. You know I’m kidding. I got over the shock of our disastrous first meeting at least—oh—four days ago.”

“Thank God.” His blue eyes twinkled at me. “Did you really throw away your Fan Club card? Wish you’d burned it?”

I began to nod, just to tease him, but then shook my head. “Would you believe that I still know where it is?”

“Really?”

“Really. I kept it with my favorite high-school mementos.”

I noticed his gaze dropped for a split second and I caught the briefest glimpse of pride in his expression.

“Thanks for saying that.”

“It’s true.” I shrugged, trying to appear less affected by him than I clearly was. Just below the surface of my skin, my pulse was doing some kind of syncopated dance that felt suspiciously like the flamenco.

He cleared his throat and took another step forward. “Uh, Julia—”

A knock on the door interrupted us.

“Yes?” he called.

“Makeup in five minutes,” a woman’s voice called back.

“Gotcha. Thanks.” Then, to me, he said, “The next few hours are going to be a circus back here. You’re welcome to watch the play from the auditorium, if you’d like. Or, if you’d rather not see it again—one viewing of ‘The Bachelor Pad’ was probably plenty—you can make yourself at home in my dressing room or in the green room. Your choice.”

“Actually, I’d really love to watch the play again. I can sit in the back, though, if seats are scarce.”

He smiled. “No worries. We’ll find you a good one.” He paused and cleared his throat again. “What I was going to say earlier, Julia, was thanks. If, somehow, I forget to tell you later, I’m really glad you came tonight. You’ve already made this a great evening.”

~*~

Dane got me a premier seat. Of course. Third row center, and a few rows closer to the stage than the VIP tickets would have placed me, had I kept them.

I knew this for a fact because Elsie and Shar were sitting in those very seats. I spoke with them a few minutes before the curtain was slated to go up.

“Oh, honey, you look like a vision!” Elsie gushed.

I thanked her and pointed at Shar with my play program. She was grinning at me like a sweet but slightly egotistical little sister. Then again, she’d known what she was doing. “I wouldn’t have managed to wear anything but jeans and a pullover without Shar’s help,” I told Elsie.

My best friend rolled her eyes. “Wasn’t much of a trick, girlfriend. You looked fabulous before, but now you’re glowing.” And when Elsie wasn’t looking, Shar leaned close to me and whispered, “Did he make a pass at you backstage? Try to feel you up? You’ve gotta give me something juicy here.”

“No, he didn’t. And, no, I don’t.”

She frowned. “Spoilsport.”

Then we both started giggling until the lights blinked three times and Elsie said, “It’s showtime!” She patted my arm and added, “See you at intermission, dearie.”

Shar just fist-bumped me and winked. “Later, Gator.”

~*~

As I settled into my seat and the house lights darkened, I couldn’t help but compare this viewing of “The Bachelor Pad” to the one back in June. My stomach had been fluttering with excitement that night, too, but the cause was different this time. Well, everything was different this time. I got to watch Dane Tyler—my
friend
—onstage tonight, rather than just getting a voyeuristic viewing of the dream man from my teen years.

When I saw Dane step into the spotlight, my pulse began to hopscotch, and I was filled with an emotion that was as complicated as it was wholly unexpected: Pride.

I was
proud
of Dane.

Watching him perform Act I so cleanly. The way he held the audience in the palm of his hand so expertly and charmingly. I appreciated his efforts like an impressed critic, rather than merely a longtime fan. I recognized some of the little changes he and the cast had made over these past few weeks to improve their dynamics onstage and heighten the comedy.

He was just so
good
.

I wanted to give him a standing ovation after only the first scene.

And, although I knew the bright lights had to make it impossible for the actors to see anyone out in the audience, I could have sworn that Dane looked directly at me in that moment when the opening scene ended.

And again, a few scenes later.

And again at a number of places during Act II. Too many times to count. It was almost unsettling.

I told myself this was probably just my imagination at work. Dane was and would always be exceptionally professional. He would never break character in an obvious way. He’d most likely worked on this “searching gaze” thing in the weeks since the dress rehearsal. Maybe the director had even suggested it? (I pondered that for a while.) I’d bet half the women in this crowded theater felt as if he could be looking right at them.

During intermission, I spoke briefly to Elsie and Shar, then slipped off to a quiet place to text Analise and to remind her that I would be up at her camp for Parents’ Day tomorrow. She’d been going through one of her “down” days on this week’s emotional roller coaster so, when the play ended—after much cheering and multiple curtain calls—I stood as unobtrusively as possible off to the side to check my phone again, just in case she’d sent any new messages during Act II.

There was one.

“Parents can start coming in at 10 tomorrow morning,” she’d texted. “Don’t be late, okay?”

I exhaled in relief. This request I could handle, unlike her last one (which involved having me hire a professional helicopter pilot to fly her out of camp before bedtime).

“Okay,” I texted back, and then added a row of “XOXOX.”

“Hey. How’s everything?” Dane’s breath tickled my neck.

I turned around to answer but was struck anew at how handsome the guy was. He’d changed quickly out of his last costume, scrubbed his face free of all stage makeup, and dressed himself in a dark suit and tie.

He was, in a word, HOT.

For a moment, I just stared at him, aware that I was gaping but unable to stop myself.

“F-Fine,” I managed to say. “That was a fast change. Is there anything else you need to do here before we go?”

“Nope.” He pointed vaguely in the direction of the front doors. “I just saw your friends, Shar and Elsie, heading out to the reception. Ready to join the party?”

Was I ready? Hardly. But I said, “Sure.”

Before I knew it, he’d ushered me out into the parking lot—“I’ll drive,” he suggested—then into his rental car, and then onto the road. We were at the private Carmody Room, located in a sectioned off floor of Dane’s swanky hotel, in under fifteen minutes.

After Dane gave the keys to the valet in charge, got our names checked off by the security guard manning the private elevator, and escorted me into the heart of the reception, I thought, “Now it’s
really
showtime.”

The VIP party, for want of a better description, was like an office holiday party on steroids. Everyone was dressed beautifully and, initially, they were on their very best behavior. As the first half hour turned into the second half hour, guests began to drop their guard, the alcohol began to flow more freely, and the dancing started, which signaled the beginning of the end of most formalities and proprieties.