The easiness of the night before evaporated by Friday morning. Cade wasn’t mad per say, but he wasn’t much of anything really. He didn’t talk to me in the greenroom or sit by me in class. When I joined a conversation, he left it. I was a habit, and he appeared to be quitting cold turkey.
Garrick’s gentle smile in Senior Prep helped. We’d commandeered the computers in the Design lab for the day to do post-grad research. Some were researching graduate schools, others scouring for internships. Kelsey was looking at airline tickets and hostels in random cities around the world.
I was looking at the search engine homepage.
Hands curled around the back of my chair, and Garrick’s body leaned in close to mine. The proximity was altogether distracting.
“What are you thinking, Bliss?”
I should have said, you. Naked. That would have shocked him. Not that I was actually thinking of him naked… well, now that I mentioned it I was… damn.
Like I said, distracting.
I shook my head, because I didn’t have an answer, not one I could say out loud. He stepped around me and leaned on the table, looking at me.
“Acting or Stage Management?” The gaze he fixed on me felt too personal in this room full of my classmates, even if none of them were looking, well, other than Kelsey. She watched pretty much any time Garrick talked to me, which reminded me that we had to be careful.
“I don’t know,” I muttered.
“Okay, well what about a city? You can start looking at apartments. That’s certainly something you’ve got to think about, especially if you’re going to New York.”
I stared at the search engine box. It was taunting me.
“I can’t afford New York,” I told him.
“That’s okay. Most people can’t. There are plenty of regional markets to consider. Philadelphia.” I jerked around to face him. Was he telling me to look at Philadelphia? Where he lived? Was he trying to tell me something or was I reading too far into this. His face was blank as he continued, “Dallas and Houston both have a fair amount of work. Chicago. Seattle. Boston. D.C. There’s plenty to choose from, actually.” I turned back toward my computer, my heart still beating a little too fast. I was definitely reading into this. It wasn’t like we were serious. We’d spent the evening cuddled on my couch. That didn’t mean we were together or that I was ready to move halfway across the country with him.
“Just explore. Look up something,” He said before leaving me to continue walking around the room.
I placed my fingers on the keys, but they felt like lead, too weighted to move. I stared at the key with the letter “P.” I could see Kelsey watching me out of the corner of my eye, and as curious as I was now about Philadelphia, I typed “Stage Management Internships” into the search engine.
Then I clicked from webpage to webpage, watching the clock in the corner of my screen, willing the numbers to change faster.
When class was over, my relief was short-lived.
The cast list had been posted.
I was still Phaedra, which was good. How embarrassing would it have been if Eric had changed his mind? Kelsey got Aphrodite like she wanted. Rusty did get a soldier, just like he’d predicted.
And Cade was Hippolytus.
***
I knocked on Garrick’s door that evening, nervous despite our agreement to take things slow. We hadn’t really talked about doing anything tonight, and despite our tenuous relationship, we’d yet to exchange numbers. So, I hoped I wasn’t being needy by seeking him out a second night in a row. Hamlet, definitely, was glad to have me out of the apartment. We still weren’t coexisting very well.
My worry eased when he opened the door and said, “Oh thank God. I’ve been thinking about coming round to your place for over an hour, but I was afraid I’d knock on the door and you’d have people over or something.”
I laughed.
“Maybe we should actually exchange numbers then.”
He said, “Are you going to put me in your phone under some secret code name so that no one knows who I am when I text you dirty things?”
My eyes widened. “Are you planning to text me dirty things?”
His eyes danced with amusement and that blinding grin was back on his face. “I’m not ruling it out.”
Oh. Oh. My nerves shot back up.
He took my hand, and pulled me into his living room where a book was open on his sofa. It was poetry, of course, because he was perfect, and woefully out of my league. He marked his page, and placed the collection on top of a pile of books at the edge of the sofa.
He reached and laced our fingers together in the space between us. I wanted to lean into him, wrap myself around him, and not move from his arms until I had to, but I still felt awkward. Were we in that place yet where we could just do that? Or did we have to work our way up to it?
“So… Cast list?” He asked.
I groaned and leaned my head back against his couch.
“It’s not that bad, is it?”
“That depends on whether or not Cade is speaking to me by the time rehearsal rolls around in two weeks.”