A Midsummer Night's Fling (Stage Kiss Series Book 1) (17 page)

Nicola wandered away to find Lachlan.
 

Chapter Ten

"Maxim,
no
. You cross down left. If you come in that way you run right into the Indian boy exiting." Rita had her hands on her hips, head cocked in annoyance, and was staring at Max like he'd sprouted a second head. A really ugly second head.
 

He glanced around and realized he'd mixed up the blocking from Act Five with Act Three. "Right. Sorry." Max jogged across to his proper entrance point. Lachlan slid a smirk his way then wiped his face blank as the scene started.

Max didn't have much to do onstage. The main players in this scene were the four lovers, bickering and fighting with each other.

"'Lord, what fools these mortals be!'" Lachlan cackled beside him, and the other man's voice grated along Max's nerve endings.

Max and Lachlan settled into position upstage, back from the main action of the scene. The lovers' dialogue filtered over Max's senses as he waited for his next cue line. The girl playing Helena cried out, "'
What though I be not so in grace as you, but miserable most, to love unloved?'
"

Max had been off all day and wrong entrances weren't the worst of it. Wrong lines. Forgotten stage business. The past week of rehearsal had been shit for him.
Awful
. Ever since that night at The Bore's Head. Lachlan hadn't come home that night, and he had been chummy with Nicola in the week since then. They'd sit together during breaks, eat lunch together, practically beaming a sign that said,
Private Party
. Max hadn't even spoken to Nicola this whole week, except in character as Oberon.

Hermia in the scene was near weeping. "'
I am as fair now as I was erewhile. Since night you loved me; yet since night you left me: Why, then you left me – O, the gods forbid! – In earnest, shall I say?
'"

Her straying lover, Lysander, fired back, "'
Ay, by my life; And never did desire to see thee more. Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt; Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest that I do hate thee . . .
'"

Judith kept trying to set up another meeting with Max; he kept stalling her with flimsier and flimsier excuses. An actor's real job is to search for more work, he knew that, and he did want to play King Henry, but his head wasn't in the game this week.
 

Onstage, the actors playing the lovers masterfully masked their slaps and punches, the two guys realistically jostling with each other, the two women perpetually on the edge of an all-out catfight.
 

Relationships suck
. Or not having a relationship sucked. Dancing around like someone's dog, missing them, wanting them, then having them fall for someone else. It
sucked
.
 

"'I say I love thee more than he can do,
'" Lysander's rival, Demetrius, yelled.

Recognizing a cue, Max stirred himself to motion and mechanically went through the stage action Rita had blocked. Lachlan capered around him, totally in character as Puck. Lachlan's smirk flashed with mischief, and Max heard a familiar feminine laugh at Puck's antics.
 

Max winced.

"'
You thief of love!'
" Hermia cried.

Max had some heavy dialogue with Lachlan at the end of this scene. He found himself wishing the clock would run out and they could break for lunch before getting to Oberon.
 

Not good, Maxim. Not good
.

It was the last week of rehearsal. One week out from Tech and Dress. Two weeks out from actual performances, in front of people, and Max had never felt worse about an acting performance. That was including the movie he'd made seven years ago where he'd been so drunk all during filming he still, years later, couldn't remember
doing
his scenes.
 

The male lovers made their exit, then the two women exited one by one. Waiting for Hermia to crawl offstage, Max opened his mouth to deliver Oberon's line, but Violet, the stage manager, called a halt. "Five minutes everybody!"

Max sagged with relief. Lachlan turned toward him, but Max pretended not to see. He hopped offstage, dodging away from Lachlan, Nicola, everybody, and dropped into the back row of the audience. He needed to get his head together, get himself on track, or he might as well not even be at rehearsal. A cardboard cutout of Tinkerbelle could play a better fairy king than him at just that moment.
 

Collapsing in an audience chair, Max dropped his face into his hands and rubbed his skin hard
. I hated you, Max
. . . Why had that been so hard to hear? He'd hated Nicola too. For a long time. With all his heart.

What had shifted inside him? When had that changed?
 

When she opened her front door two weeks ago
. . .
 

He'd read an Elie Wiesel quote once:
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference
.

He'd never been
indifferent
to Nicola. So, if love and hate weren't opposites but two sides of the same coin, then had he ever really stopped –
 

"
Mijo
." Rita's voice was right above him.
 

He startled into a sitting up position then flashed his teeth in a smile. "Hi, Rita."

She settled into the chair in front of him and leaned against the back, watching him with dark, tired eyes. "What is going on? You don't usually fall apart in the last week of rehearsal. Some of the others, but not you."

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong."

"Maxim, I am not an idiot. Everyone is watching you and Nicola. You circle each other like two cats with their fur all bristled." To demonstrate, Rita lifted one hand and flexed her fingers into claws. "You are sleepwalking through most of your scenes. Except the ones with Nicola. The Oberon and Titania scenes, the fighting, are very real." She grimaced. "But, for me, I could do with less real there and more consistency throughout. Eh,
mijo
?"

He froze in his seat, gut tense, mouth dry, the sun blistering as it poured into the theater.
 

A bead of sweat trickled down Rita's temple and she brushed it away, her hand a little unsteady. Rita really needed to take better care of herself. He'd pull the stage manager Violet aside and make sure she made sure Rita drank enough water on these hot days.
 

Rita gripped his forearm, jiggling it a little. "You and Nicola. Always so good together onstage. But maybe I shouldn't have cast her."

Max clasped Rita's wrist, her profusion of silver bracelets cool against his palm. "No, Rita. The work's been going great. It's fine. We're all fine."

"Oh yes?"

"Sure."
 

"If you say so," Rita murmured. "Oh, also, go to the costume shop? Tierney thought you and some of the others should try your costumes. I want to see if you can move in them."

"As snug as Tierney is making my pants, that's a good idea."

"Good. It's settled." Rita stood, but immediately she swayed, falling against the aisle chair.

Max jumped to his feet and caught her by the shoulders, steadying her. "Rita?"
 

She waved him off, bracelets jangling, then rubbed at her eyes. "Fine. Fine. A small headache only, mijo." She lurched away from him, her usual grace muted as she shuffled toward the stage.
 

Max watched her go, his brain buzzing. Tight pants. Nicola. Drama. Theater. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed
. I'm getting a headache too
.

***

"Lachlan, you know everyone thinks we're sleeping together." Nicola sat in the front row of the audience with the Brit. She was scrunched in her seat, her knees draped over the back of the chair in front of her. Lachlan was more spread out, sprawled in the seat beside her, his crossed ankles sticking out into the aisle.

She waited for him to make some sort of response, but he remained still beside her, his eyes closed, his face serene. "Lachlan?"

"And?" was all he said.

"What?"

"Everyone thinks we're sleeping together and . . . you think I should care?"

"You have no feelings about this?"

"I have
absolutely
no feelings about this." He did a sort of trill with his voice on "absolutely." Showing off.

"You understand we aren't
going
to sleep together, right? I'm not getting in the middle of your pissing match with Max."

Lachlan grimaced. "Now there's an image."

"
Ew
."
 

He produced a cigarette and a skull lighter that looked a lot like Tierney's. "Pity about the sex. I'm a good shag. Ask your friend Cassie." He lit up, took a long drag, then blew the smoke out in a long stream – away from her, at least.

"Should you be doing that in here?"

"We
are
outside." At her exasperated look, he shrugged and sucked in another deep puff so that his cheeks hollowed out. "It's a gray area," he said, speaking smoke like a blue-eyed dragon.

"
Lachlan, put out the freaking cigarette!
" The stage manager hollered from the orchestra pit.

Nicola bumped him with her elbow. "Gray area, huh?"

With a serpentine smirk, he dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out with his toe. "You think I'm pursuing you because of Max?"

"I don't really care. I suspect you'd be flirting with me even if I wasn't Max's ex-girlfriend. But I also suspect your singular focus on me has a lot more to do with your rivalry with Max than any particular charms of mine."

"Don't sell yourself short. You're quite a pretty little armful." He leered toward her, eyebrows madly wiggling. "You're not rejecting me because I shagged your sexy Asian friend last week?"

"
Please
, Cassie probably chewed you up and spat you out. When we did
Les Mis
she had every Revolutionary in the place sniffing at her skirts. She doesn't get territorial about her . . . um."

"Leftovers." He grinned. "That was more or less my assessment. Still, she and I had fun the other week." After their jaunt at the Bore's Head, Nicola and Lachlan had ended up at Cassie's apartment with her. Their poor, put upon designated driver had had work in the morning and no time to run everybody home. Perhaps as compensation for the ride, Cassie had taken Lachlan to her bed – and left Nicola to the tender mercies of the couch.

Nicola flicked Lachlan's nose, laughing. "What I'm saying is: You can turn off the charm. I'm not going to date anyone in the cast. Not you. Not Max. I'm never dating a costar again. But I do like you, and I'd like to be friends. If you want."

"Friends?"

"Yes." She sucked in a deep breath, ignoring the smoke tinted air as she braced herself. "Because, Lachlan, I desperately need help with the Shakespeare stuff or Judith is going to eat me alive."

"You can't ask dear Maxim to help you?"

"Does he know this stuff better than you?"

"Certainly not."

She beamed at him, batting her eyelashes. "Then why would I ask Max?"

He studied her from under furrowed brows then leaned back and actually cackled. "Dear heart, I do believe this is the start of a most beautiful friendship."

"Good." But as she stared into his keen, gleaming eyes, her stomach prickled with unease.
A beautiful friendship, sure. But are we Hermia and Helena . . . or Othello and Iago?

"Get your script," he said.

Nicola pulled
Midsummer
out and flipped to her first scene. "Judith's always telling me to 'think faster' but she won't explain what that means."

"
Hmm
."

"Just tell me, Lach."

"You're too naturalistic," he said at last. "You take too many pauses.
Use the words
. Shakespeare's got it in there, the rhythm is in the text already. That's the trouble with you Yanks. You think you have to
feel
everything,
think
everything before you say one bloody line."

Lachlan had been as vehement as Judith, but slightly less scathing. Still, Nicola's cheeks burned. "Pick up my cues. Anything else?"

"Mija."

At the sound of her director's voice, Nicola whirled around in her seat. "Hey, Rita."

Rita seemed exhausted, about as derelict as they would all look come tech week. A bad sign. What was wrong with the show that Rita already appeared so done in?

The answer came at once:
Me and Max
. Nicola bit her lip with guilt.

That whole week, Nicola had been playing all of Titania's scenes with Oberon a little too angry, but she had been powerless to stop herself. Ever since he'd gone home with that skank, Judith, Nicola had barely been able to look at Max. Having to do scenes with him, pretend to be his wife, kiss him . . . was just too much.
 

"I need you to go to the costume shop for a fitting, mi belleza."

"Me too?" Lachlan asked.

"No, mijo." Rita smiled, and her tired eyes were abruptly sharper. "Only Nicola."