Folding his arms on the table, he leans over and grunts, “Me too.”
I smile. I just said I wouldn’t push this subject, but I can’t help myself. “So … are we a thing?”
He seems to read my words perfectly this time, as I see a hint of a smirk teasing onto his lips as he studies me pensively. His hesitation almost worries me until he mumbles, “I sure as fuck hope so.”
The answer sets a cage of butterflies loose inside me. That sensation never gets old.
Not around Clayton.
Unfortunately, that sensation also happens every time I set foot into rehearsal. Moving to the main stage for rehearsals has pressed the sobering reality onto me that opening night will be on me before I know it and the auditorium will be full of people who’ve bought tickets to see me in my wonderfully subpar and highly disappointing rendition of Emily Webb in Our Town. Nina does nothing to bolster my confidence, constantly barking at me and asking weird questions that seem rhetorical, yet she wants a response each time. And annoying Nina clearly doesn’t earn me any love from the rest of the cast.
After an especially grueling Friday rehearsal where I royally flubbed at least five of my lines in act three, destroying any sense of dramatic tension that existed, I meet Eric by the exit door and sigh, asking, “When exactly am I supposed to stop sucking at rehearsal?”
To that, he responds, “Yesterday,” with an apologetic wince.
But there is one perk to rehearsing on the main stage: Clayton is periodically around, focusing lights in the grid, discussing things with Kellen somewhere in the back of the auditorium, or even backstage as he organizes things and helps the set and props crew. Despite our proximity, we keep everything professional during rehearsal.
Also, I’m rather amazed at how well things seem to be going between him and Kellen. Although, I really wouldn’t mind Kellen accidentally slipping on a banana peel in the grid and plummeting to the stage below with a shriek and a bone-crunching splat.
Wow. My bitterness over his presence really knows how to pull the dark and morbid out of me.
It becomes a regular joy of mine to visit the Throng every Saturday night for a performance. I meet up with the musicians in my free time, practicing new songs. They help me with melody and song structure, which makes me half-appreciate the attention that Sam gives her own work, with all that knowhow she gains from her classes. I may suck like hell when I’m handed an acting role, but put me in front of a microphone with some keen musicians and I will sing a ship full of men into the rocks at the shore.
Twice, I’ve caught Victoria at the Throng. One time, she seemed to be listening to my song, but with half-opened, unimpressed eyes. The second time, she was carrying on a conversation with the orange-bearded Freddie in the very back during my whole performance.
I don’t mind, really. It totally doesn’t make my blood boil.
But Clayton Watts sure does, because he’s always in that audience, and both of his roommates have taken quite a liking to me. Every Saturday after my gig is over, the musicians compliment me, give me high-fives like I’m just another dude in the band, then throw out their ideas for what they want me to come up with next weekend. “Please write a song about my ex,” the guitarist begs me. “She set fire to my bed. She’s a fucking lunatic.” Then, the moment I step offstage, I meet with Clayton and his roommates, who have taken to sitting with Eric and Chloe. Nothing’s official, but I think Chloe might be warming up to Brant, and I may be totally off, but I think there’s a spark or two flying between Eric and Dmitri. Clayton did tell me that Dmitri swings both ways, and I can’t help but notice how cutely clingy Eric’s gotten toward Dmitri, insisting on sitting next to him during my gigs.
“Want to crash at my place?” Clayton always asks, as if he still needs to, even four Saturdays later.
“Good idea,” I always tease him back.
And then another night of sweating, wrinkled bed sheets, and slamming his headboard against the wall commences.
I always worry that his roommates get tired of me being around all the time, but they seem to be more amused by it. On my way out one Sunday morning, Brant looks at me over his cup of coffee and says, “You mean you can still walk after last night?”
I give him the finger.
He gives me two—placed over his mouth with his tongue wiggling between them.
Good ol’ Brant.
It isn’t until Monday after my acting class that I run into Victoria and Chloe in the lobby. Chloe’s face is a mess of black ink running from her eyes to her chin. Victoria sits next to her with a consoling hand on her back, and the moment she sees me, her eyes turn dark.