Playing With Her Heart (Caught Up In Love #4)(13)
Author: Lauren Blakely

Sixty minutes and counting…

Chapter 7

Jill

It has to be fate.

What else could it be when the subway doors rattle open and Patrick steps inside at the next stop after mine?

He’s so handsome I have to catch my breath. It’s like looking at a Monet; he’s beautiful in the way that only masterpieces can be. I grip the pole and I can literally feel a rush of warmth expanding from my chest all the way to my fingertips. I am fluttery being near him, and when he locks eyes with me a spark of recognition flares.

“Hey there,” he says, his eyes smiling.

“Hi,” I manage to say, hoping it doesn’t come out in a breathy whisper that reveals all the years I’ve longed for him.

“You’re in the show, aren’t you?”

“Chorus. And understudy for Ms. Carbone.”

“That’s fantastic,” he says and his smile lights up the train. “Is this your first show…?” He pauses and waits for me to say my name.

“Jill. Jill McCormick.”

“I’m Patrick Carlson.”

I laugh nervously. “I know who you are.”

“What did you think of yesterday’s rehearsal? Of Davis’ patented first day speech?”

I don’t want to talk about Davis with Patrick. I’ve filed away all thoughts of my director that are less than professional. “It was great. Like it was scripted in some intense sports movie,” I add, though there’s a part of me that feels sordid for discussing him at all with Patrick.

The train shakes as it slows into the next stop and I grab harder onto the pole otherwise I might bump into him, and if I did that, I’d probably shiver and shudder and blabber on about how he got me through many lonely nights full of self-loathing. How the possibility of him started to heal all the dark places in my heart—places where I hated myself.

Patrick tilts his head to the side. “You know, you look familiar. And I don’t mean because of rehearsal. But I feel like we’ve met before.”

I blurt out the truth. “We met when you did Guys and Dolls. We talked and sang a few lines together.”

His eyes widen, and a huge grin plays on his lips. “Holy crap. That was you? Of course that was you. That was a blast.” Seeing his gorgeous features brighten as he remembers that moment fondly makes me want to bounce on my toes and punch a fist in the air. Praise the Lord—Patrick remembers me. “We did a hell of a duet, didn’t we?”

“I’m not sure why we haven’t been offered a recording contract yet,” I say.

He laughs, and it’s such an incredible feeling to have made Patrick laugh. “We should rectify that, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely.”

He’s flirting with me. I can’t wait to tell Kat that we’re having a movie moment, that we’re connecting like the leads in a romantic comedy do. Soon, we’ll be making the audience swoon and say aw.

“Why don’t we come up with some numbers and put together a demo for the record labels? We’ll do all the great duets in musical theater history. ‘You and I’ from Chess. ‘Light my Candle’ from Rent,” he says, and I love that he’s cleverly rattling off the best love songs, and I’m about to toss in “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease when something shifts in his expression. He furrows his eyebrows together. “Wait a second. You’re the one who sent me flowers, didn’t you?”

My face flames beet red as the train crawls into the theater district. Forget our movie moment. Now he’s going to think I’m a stalker creep.

“Yes.” I look down, out the door, away from him.

“The flowers were beautiful, Jill,” he says as we reach our stop. The doors open and he guides me out, placing his hand on my back protectively, as if he’s shielding me from any rushed, frenzied New Yorkers who might bump into me. Crowds press around us, the sardine-like pack of New Yorkers in the morning racing to work.

“Thank you,” I mutter.

“Hey.” He stops walking before we reach the turnstiles, tugs me away from the crowd to make me look at him and meet his gaze. “I loved the flowers. They lit up my dressing room at the Gershwin. And I wanted to respond in kind. I wanted to say yes. But I was involved with someone and, besides, I knew you were in high school. And I didn’t want to do anything inappropriate.”

I gulp, crowds fanning out around us. He’s a gentleman, too. Now I know the reason he never responded to the flowers. He could never break my heart. He was kind then, and thoughtful, always a good guy.

I needed a good guy after all that went wrong with Aaron. After all those things he said and did and wrote when we broke up. The notes and the letters and the pleas. I’ve kept them locked up in a wooden box by my nightstand, but they seep in and out of my life at the most inopportune times.

“That’s okay. It was just a fun thing to do. I’ve admired you for so long,” I say as he holds out his arm, letting me pass through the turnstiles first.

“And now we’re acting together. Perhaps it’s fate.”

My heart skips all its beats. It’s fate he was on the subway. It’s fate we’re in the same show. It’s fate I saw him in Guys and Dolls. Because back then my life was falling apart. Back then, my heart was splintering into a thousand shards, and nobody knew why because I never told anyone. When I was seventeen everything changed, and I kept it all to myself. Rather than open my mouth and tell someone—my mother, one of my brothers, one of my friends—running became my therapy, acting my salvation, Patrick my pure, unbroken heart.

I could never be with anyone else and so I haven’t. I’ve been completely alone since Aaron. No one but me has touched me. Because no one else has given me what this man has. Love that doesn’t hurt.

I need to find the perfect way to make this real with him.

* * *

I do lunges as Kat packs. She’s heading to Mystic tomorrow to see her parents, and to be feted at their gift shop where her necklaces have been selling like crazy. She invited me to go with her and I want to be there, but rehearsal lasts until six and her party is at seven, so there’s no way I can make it. She graduated from MBA school a few weeks ago, and her Kat Harper necklaces have become amazingly popular and are now carried in boutiques and in the fancy Elizabeth’s department stores around the country. She’s running her jewelry business full-time, and planning a summer wedding in Mystic where she and Bryan first met.