He winces disappointedly. “Maybe tomorrow night, then.”
“Great job tonight,” I reiterate before pushing into the hallway.
Only three people are left in the dressing room by the time I return. I pack away my makeup and stow all my things into the cabinet above my station, figuring it to be safe there for tomorrow night’s show. With a smirk, I drop by the costumes rack and find Victoria’s crew apron hanging there. I roll up the autographed program and stash it into the apron pocket; that’ll prove to be a most welcome surprise.
Then, I give my tired face one last, long look in the mirror before dismissing myself from the room with an unsatisfied sigh.
Whipping around the corner, I make my trek down the long hall to the lobby, only to find it completely empty now. Even Eric and his friends have taken off. I stare at the vacant chairs for a while, lost in the memory of how noisy and awful it was just thirty or forty minutes ago.
Why does the silence feel so much louder?
“Dessie.”
I turn. Clayton stands there by the auditorium doors dressed in his crew blacks: a black t-shirt that pulls across his chest, black slacks that hang loose at his hips, and a pair of black boots that give his feet such a dominant quality. He wears a leather cuff around one wrist, too, which I notice when his hand goes up to the wall, bracing himself as he leans against it.
And my eyes meet his, dark and focused on me as if he’d been watching me all night. Well, he had been—from the lighting booth.
“Clayton,” I return.
“If your parents could hear you sing,” he says, shaking his head. “If they could see what you do to a room full of people with that beautiful voice of yours …”
“You ran into my dad in the restroom.”
His eyebrows pull together. “What?”
“You ran,” I take a step toward him, “into my dad,” I take another step, “in the restroom.”
His eyes flash with realization. Then, he chuckles unexpectedly.
“What’s so funny?” I prompt him.
“What the fuck is it,” he mumbles, “with me meeting people you know … in fucking bathrooms?”
I shake my head. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind,” he finishes with a smirk. “You were saying?”
“Well, about my dad,” I continue, trying to sign at the same time. “He said something about us not … appreciating … what we have when we have it.” Instead of signing the word “appreciating”, which I don’t know, I spell it out. “Is that something you told him?”
His eyes are so intense right now. He looks fucking famished, like a wolf that’s been left in the wild for days with no food.
I see the answer in his eyes. “I may have not given you the chance you deserve,” I whisper, drawing close enough so that the spicy scent of his cologne can intoxicate me. I lean against the wall, inches from his face. “Are you afraid of hurting me?”
“I’m always afraid of that,” he whispers and signs.
I poke a finger into his chest. “I want to know the real you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I’m Desdemona Lebeau,” I tell him unblinkingly. “I’m a pebble in the shadow of my fabulous, talented sister. I’m a blot on my mother’s golden name. I came to this campus and lied about who I was,” I keep on, signing as much as I know while pausing to spell out what I don’t, “while being afraid of men lying to me about who they are, and … suddenly I wonder if I even have a right to be afraid at all. Am I just as bad as the men who’ve lied to me in my past?”
He brings a finger to my hair, drawing a strand of it out of my face. Just the sensation of that sends a shiver of anticipation down the whole length of my body.
“So, yes,” I conclude, finding my voice again. “That’s … the real me. And I want to know you, Clayton Watts. I want to know it all.”
“Maybe I’m just afraid,” he says slowly, “that when you get to know the real me, you’ll make the unfortunate discovery that I’m … really boring.”
I smile. “I doubt that.”
His every breath pours over my forehead. Heat rises to my cheeks as my body instinctively inclines toward him. I don’t know how much longer I can contain myself. This week has been an emotional mess without my Clayton.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispers to my ear.
Electricity lances its way down my neck, through my chest, into my stomach, and branching off far below. I crave his touch so bad that I’m worried I might hurt him if I give him every ounce of my hunger right now. I could demolish him.