Tonight the Streets Are Ours

“Is everything okay?” Arden asked, crouching down beside him.

He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. Arden waited for him to speak. Finally he got out, “She broke up with me.” He sucked in his breath and bit down on his knuckles.

Arden pushed her way through the coats so she was sitting on the floor next to Chris. She rubbed his arm. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Where is he?” demanded the stage manager’s voice in her ear.

“This will be for the best, though,” Arden said. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now. But she wasn’t making you happy. You fought all the time. Everything was an argument. Remember?”

Chris nodded, slowly. Then he protested, “But sometimes we were happy,” and his face crumpled again.

Arden put her arm around him. “Not often enough, Chris. And not happy enough. You deserve better. You’re a great guy, and you should have a girl who appreciates you.”

“Not that great, I guess.” He gave a sad little laugh. “I’m sitting in some ladies’ coats when I should be preparing to make my entrance. But Arden, how can I go out there?”

“Because you’re an actor,” Arden said. “Because you’re the real deal. You’re talented, and you’re driven, and you’re thoughtful—”

The next thing she knew, he was kissing her.

When they pulled apart, Arden was breathing hard. So that’s what it feels like to be part of a stage kiss.

“Chris. Why did you … What was that? I mean, thank you. Wow. But … where did that even come from?”

“From eight weeks of dating the wrong girl,” he replied. He stood up and smoothed his hair. “Arden,” Chris said, “will you go out with me?”

Arden stood up, too. After a lifetime of unrequited crushes and secret stalking, how did the answer turn out to be so easy?

“Yes,” she said. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him again. “I’d love to go out with you.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and held her back from him a little, so he could look in her eyes. “But no drama,” he said. “I can’t take any more drama.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “From here on out, all your drama will be strictly on stage. Speaking of…” She looked pointedly at her watch.

“All right, stage crew.” He gave a little salute. “I’ve got it.” His face broke into a grin, and she could see his dimple. Even if Mr. Lansdowne did cast him just because he was cute, that seemed like a good enough reason. “I’ll see you after the play,” Chris said, and, after one more kiss, he jogged off, just in time to make his entrance.

Arden followed after him at a more sedate pace, running her fingers over her lips, trying to make sure that this was real. She, Arden, backstage girl, nice girl, perennially single, lonely girl, had somehow snagged the leading man. And they’d stayed together ever since.





Stalking people, take one

The last guy Arden had been obsessed with, in her pre-Chris days last year, had been Ellzey. Yes, Ellzey of trying-to-smoke-pot-on-Matt-Washington’s-patio fame. The thing was, Ellzey was a tremendous singer. He was in show choir and sang a solo of Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes” so beautifully that it brought tears to Arden’s eyes every time she heard it, which was often, since she liked to watch online videos of the choir when she was supposed to be doing her homework. She had thought Ellzey was the most romantic guy in the world, or at least in Cumberland. There was no way he could sing a song with such depths of emotion if he weren’t.