Playing With Her Heart (Caught Up In Love #4)(2)
Author: Lauren Blakely

Because I am, shockingly—me—a good girl.

“I am only here to learn.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “I am teaching you.”

Ava wants to correct him, to tell him he’s not, that he’s crossing lines, even though the crossing of them feels good to this young woman who’s felt far too much of the not-good in life for far too long. Ava’s not ready for this yet. She wheels on him, fire in her eyes, lashing out with the first sung lines in a heated duet.

“You don’t have permission to lay your hands on me.”

He plays the gentleman, giving a gesture of surrender. “Forgive me. I only touch you as your teacher,” he sings softly, but powerfully in that tenor that could melt igloos.

“That’s not teaching.”

“Then find your own way to paint.”

He starts to walk off.

Ava huffs, crosses her arms, looks away, and sings roughly of all the ways this man makes her crazy. He tells her how her brushstrokes are too controlled, her head is too much in the way, she needs to throw her body into the act of painting. And I hate it, and him, because he feels like the one thing that stands between true creativity and me.

I sing an angry lament, a furious plea to the universe to send me elsewhere. But yet, there is no place else for me, nowhere to go. I’ve been left all alone, and all I have is my art, and he’s the only one who can make it better.

Make me better.

I chase him before he leaves the empty classroom. Ava detests aloneness, even though it’s the thing she knows best. He’s nearly off-stage, and I grab his shirt, and he gives me this look—satisfaction and curiosity.

“I see you’ve changed your mind…”

My shoulders fall in resignation of Ava’s reality. I will only succeed with him. “I need you, Professor Paolo.”

“Don’t call me professor.”

“What should I call you?”

“Don’t call me. Kiss me.”

And then he casually runs a strand of my hair in his fingers and lets it fall. I grab him, bestowing a hard, wet kiss on his lips.

Patrick’s lips. Paolo’s lips.

Oh God. He tastes divine. Paolo. Patrick. My teacher. The actor I idolize. They all collide at once—reality, make believe, years of crushing, a moment of pretending. I don’t know if the way I feel right now comes from me or from Ava, but all I know is—without even opening my eyes, without even hearing ‘end scene’—we have a crazy kind of chemistry that can’t be faked.

Then I break the kiss and run offstage where I slam into Alexis Carbone, all bleached blond, bosomy, and pipes like nobody’s business.

I don’t stand a chance.

* * *

“Watch where you’re going next time,” Alexis says in a perfectly sweet soprano, a voice so pure and lovely that it nearly masks what’s underneath. Because—call me crazy—but I’m pretty sure when you say ‘Watch where you’re going’ that you’re not actually looking out for the other person. But I’m still flustered from the kiss to end all kisses so I mutter a quick “sorry” as I try to move past her in the wings.

“Of course you’re sorry. I’m here,” she says with a plastered-on smile, and a haughty tilt of the head.

Her words burn, but while I’m not a doormat, I won’t take her bait. I’ll do what I do well. Pretend. “Why, I have no idea what you could possibly mean. It’s delightful to see you, Alexis,” I say like a Southern belle, then turn quickly for backstage.

I leave because if I stay within her vicinity she might completely ruin my Patrick Carlson buzz, and I need a few moments to relive what just happened on stage, especially since I’m going to replay it tonight when I’m alone in my darkened bedroom and imagining Patrick is with me, as I do nearly every night. Patrick has done so many things to me already, has said all the words I want to hear, has kissed me in all the ways I want to be kissed. He has touched me under the covers in my imaginary life. Now I’ve had a sampling of the real thing, and I can’t bear to let it slip from my fingers so quickly. I press past the dressing rooms, saying a quick goodbye to a stagehand wheeling a dolly in a cramped hallway, then make my way to the stage door, pushing it open into the alleyway that runs along the back of the theater.

Greeted by a snap of cold air, I lean against the brick wall, drop my bag, and run a finger across my lips as if I can reactivate that kiss, recall it back into existence like it’s a hologram. I close my eyes and replay. Patrick’s breath, so soft. The slightest bit of stubble on his jawline. The way he tasted faintly of cinnamon.

The real thing—even staged—is so much more potent than what I imagined, and he’s had the starring role in all my fantasies for years. I’ve been with him a thousand times over, touched him, felt him, tasted him. Let him do the same to me. If I hadn’t been in love with this man since I saw him play Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls when I was seventeen and desperately needed to escape from all the things that had fallen to pieces that awful year of my life when I did everything wrong, then this moment would have sealed the deal.

I want this part so badly. I want it for me. I want it for my career, and I want it so I can finally be more than just a person in the audience for him.

So I can be as real to him as he’s felt to me.

I force myself to leave this alleyway, and get on with my day before the director and producer and Stillman himself call the NYPD on the crazy stalker actress outside the theater. I head straight for nearby Bryant Park where my good friend Reeve said he’d be waiting for me. He’s an actor too, and I find him quickly, lounging at one of the metal tables, reading the script for the movie he’s working on. He has his girlfriend’s dog with him—a little brown and tan chihuahua-mini pin in his lap. It’s adorable how Reeve has not only fallen hard for Sutton, but also for her dog. He puts the dog and pages down, stands up and holds his arms out wide, an expectant look on his face. “So, do we have a reason to celebrate? Are you the new ingenue of old Broadway?”

I shake my head, and that’s when the reality comes crashing down. I will never have the chance to act in this show. It’s as if I finished first in the uneven bars, and then Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas appeared out of the blue to school me and win gold. “I highly doubt it. Alexis Carbone showed up right after me,” I say, and my heart feels heavy knowing the show I want is likely out of my grasp.