A Midsummer Night's Fling (Stage Kiss Series Book 1) (41 page)

Their costumes were also a tactile delight of texture, some with scaled black leather, some with shredded silk pieces; one had an amazing corset that looked like wood. The most incredible, though, was Moth's. Somehow, with clear sea glass beads knit with wire, Tierney had fashioned a dress that actually seemed made of water droplets for the Moth character.

Max stood onstage with his fairy court and had Violet take pictures with the digital camera because, of course, he couldn't really see what he looked like with the rest of them. He glanced around. "Where's Nic?" He slipped into Oberon-voice, "Where is my fairy queen?"

Tierney gave him a Cheshire cat smirk. "Best for last, Maxim. You've already seen the dress of the dawn, so I thought we'd start with Titania's 'twilight' look.
Nicola!
"

Nicola emerged, looking like the beauty of a starlit sky made flesh. Staring at her, Max had a hard time catching his breath. The long sheathe of her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders. Her feet were bare which struck
him
as incredibly erotic. The dress was a Grecian style like her other with a low front and a lower back, and the straps pinned at her shoulders – this time with two glittering diamond-like broaches – but the fabric of this one was inky, dark, like starlight in the night draped over her skin. A hundred winking crystals on the fabric shone with her every movement, making her pale, perfect skin glow like a rich pearl.
 

As Nicola walked toward him, her mouth curved with pleasure, and he distantly heard Tierney say, "My whole concept for you two was the sun and the sky. Like in old mythology where the sun and the sky are the first man and woman. Always fighting and making babies. Making love. Perfect for Titania and Oberon. Max, you're the sun – obviously with that yellow head – and Nicola is the sky."

The sky, the stars, the sun, the moon. True north
. Everything to him.
Always
. He blinked and shook his head.
Wow, Fiesengerke. Don't get carried away.

It was a damn fine dress, though. Nicola stopped right in front of him, and he was aching for her, stifled by his armor and tunic and cape. He wanted to lay her back on the stage and make love to her all night. No one but them, the crickets, and a scandalized moon.
 

"Show him the hair," Tierney called.
 

Nicola made a little twist of her mouth. "Tierney and I aren't sure how this will work. It might be distracting during a scene." She slid her hands up her neck into her hair, making her breasts thrust against the sheer fabric of her dress. Max swallowed.

Small lights began to wink and dance in her hair, like fireflies had nestled themselves in her dark curls. The effect was charming and magical all at once. "How are you doing that?" he asked.

"Tierney found these LED lights for hair. I think they're for raver kids, but no reason a fairy queen can't use them, right?"

He cupped the back of her neck. "You look amazing, Nicci."

She reached toward him.
 

"Um, Max, do you want a picture of all the fairies together?" Violet said.

"Right. Yes. Of course." He drew himself up, trying to stand tall. Like a director. Like a fairy king.
Yeah
.

Nicola –
curse her
– giggled.
 

"Quiet you," he muttered.

"The director has
spoken
," she said in a gruff voice.

And then everyone was giggling.

***

Nicola skipped backstage to put on the dawn outfit to make sure it jibed with the other fairy looks. While she changed, Max perused the rude mechanicals' clothes. Everything was perfect, right on track. "Good job, Tee," he called.

Tierney tried to maintain a cool demeanor, but a grin leaked through after that one. The costume designer was humming as she went to chivvy Nicola onstage. Since Tierney had already seen Nicola's dawn costume next to his Oberon one that quite memorable afternoon, Max had already changed into his jeans. Without Nicola's help, unfortunately.
 

Someone thumped into the seat behind Max and punched his shoulder. "Congratulations," Peter murmured. "You seem right at home,
kleiner Bruder
."

"Ah yes, the sweet smell of a power trip," Max said. "Like blood, sweat, and roses."
 

"Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal."

"That's a super intellectual reference for someone who falls off buildings for a living."

"Oh please." Peter rolled his eyes. "I fall backwards onto squashy mattresses. My
stunt men
fall off buildings for a living. I get paid to stand around and look pretty." He leaned over in his chair and peered at Max's face. Peter held his thumb and forefinger up about a millimeter apart. "You're
this
close to puking, aren't you?"

"Pretty much." Max's stomach felt so knotted and queasy he was just used to it now. Although hasty movements weren't a great idea at that particular moment. "I still don't know what Isabelle is thinking. Maybe it's a
Titanic
thing?"

"What?"

Max lowered his voice to make sure none of the others would hear. "You know like, 'This
Midsummer
production is sinking anyway, might as well let Max have a shot at the helm before it goes under and everyone drowns.'"

Peter let out a crack of laughter, but then he must have seen Max's expression because he leaned close again. "Shut the fuck up. You're brilliant, Maximilian. Don't be a jack ass." Then Peter ruffled Max's hair like he used to do when he still had a foot of height on his
kleiner Bruder
.

Max caught his brother's wrist and shoved his hand off. "Go away, Pete. I'm very busy and important."
 

"I heard Nicola killed it as Henry V today," Peter murmured.

"She did." Max was still buzzing over her performance. She always found such wonderful nuances in the lines, and her vocal variety was much better than his. Probably because she could sing and he was tone deaf. She was always so –
 

"How
are
things with Nicola?" Peter said.

"What do you mean?"

Peter held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Just . . . checking in."

"We're fine. We're great."

"So it's official? You guys are dating?"

"Uh." They weren't, were they?
Fuck
. Max blinked and shrugged at his brother. "She and I are exclusive."

This shut Peter up OK, and yeah Max and Nicola were exclusive, but it was still only a "fling." She was leaving in July. She'd told him that. Told him all that she wanted was the physical parts, some fun.

How had Max let himself forget that?

"Ta-da!" Nicola reemerged, wearing the shimmery dawn dress with no back.
 

Max looked at her, and his heart squeezed.
Because it was Nicola
.
 

Chapter Twenty-Seven

For Nicola the next few days were a blur. Somehow the cast staggered through dress rehearsals and kept right on going through tech. Tech was a grueling process even when you haven't gone through three directors in two weeks, but Max held it together. He was a natural, a calm center around which all the chaos flowed. Nicola couldn't imagine any more experienced director doing a better job of managing such a difficult process. He'd even had energy leftover at the end of each night to make love to her at The Bunkhouse, holding her face and kissing her like the world was ending.
 

 
Somehow, the two of them got through the week of botched lighting cues, missed lines, screwed up quick-changes (several of them her own) and all the fun drama that came with staging a play.
 

This was the cast's last tech run-through before their day off. After the day off, it was time for previews. In front of an actual, real-live audience.
 

This was also the first day where they allegedly had everything in place, all the lights, the sets, the sound cues, the costumes. The goal of the day was to get all the way through without stopping but, as the day wore on, things went wrong. People missed their cues trying to get changed in time. Set pieces fell over or interfered with the planned bit of blocking. Max stood in the wings watching everything unfold and gnawing on a fingernail. If he still smoked, Nicola rather thought he would have gone through a whole pack.
 

It wasn't fair. The production wasn't Max's mess, but it was his job to clean it up now.
 

They had to stop because one of the flats had fallen, nearly braining an Amazon. Max charged onto the stage, uber-regal as the red Oberon cloak billowed behind him. He stared at the flat, which was encrusted with fake vines, then back at the real forest behind the stage. "Violet?" he called.

"Yeah, boss?"

"Do we even need this stupid flat?"

"It was Judith's idea. She wanted more 'atmosphere'."
 

"Lose the flat." Max pointed up the hill. "See that tree. Hide behind that instead. OK?"

The girl nodded and scampered into the woods.
 

They went on.
 

Gil, perhaps because it was all getting real for him, he would be performing
Shakespeare
in front of
people
, had a fairly major freak-out and forgot half the lines in his first scene. Max went out to talk to him, stopping the rehearsal for those few minutes so he could help Gil get his head right.
 

When Max resumed his spot in the wings to watch the action, Nicola clasped his hand. She was surprised to find him shaking. "Max?"

He swallowed and cast a glance at her. Then his eyes widened. He peered around, staring at her fairy handmaidens, and she finally caught up to what was off. Max was on the wrong side of the stage for his own entrance.
 

"Shit." He hung his head and pinched his eyes with his fingers.
 

The rehearsal had to stop again as he, the
director
, schlepped himself across the stage so he could enter from the correct direction. Nicola cringed on his behalf and watched him pace in the wings on the other side, chewing his nail, digging his fingers into his hair, working himself into a frenzied state.
 

Crap
. Usually, she was the one who got in her head, messing things up. Like the other day at the school program with
Henry V
. She would have choked if Max hadn't jumped in to do the lead-in dialogue. Max was always the composed one when they were performing. But he'd never tried to balance directing, being in charge, with being a lead actor as well. Apparently, the week of all-out stress had finally broken him.
 

Lachlan capered around as Puck in all his feathered finery and delivered Max's cue line, "'But, room, fairy! Here comes Oberon.'"

Max entered.
 

Moth, her fairy handmaiden, then said Nicola's cue line, "'And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!'"

Nicola entered.
 

And Max said, "'Tarry, rash wanton.'"

Nicola winced.
 

Violet piped up from the audience. "Sorry, Max. That's a wrong line. It's 'Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.'"
 

Max squeezed his eyes shut, his teeth gritted. Nicola's heart hurt for him. That was only Oberon's most famous line in the whole play, and Max had forgotten it.
Oy
.

Muffled groans filtered from the wings. Nicola imagined she could hear the cast morale flat-lining backstage. They were so close to greatness with this thing, with the cast, the sets, the costumes, and especially with Max in charge. She could feel perfection at the tips of her fingers, an inch out of reach.
 

Dammit, Max, you can do this.
She thought it furiously in his direction as they fumbled their way through the rest of the scene. But he seemed oblivious to her stern looks. He missed a few more lines, forgot important props, and he forgot all of the kissing they'd blocked. He was like a doll, going through the motions of the scene but injecting no life into it.
 

What can I do?
The thought turned over and over in her mind until she was in danger of screwing up her Titania performance. Finally, it was her turn to storm offstage, fairy entourage in tow.
 

As soon as she hit the wings she whirled around to watch Max. She was supposed to be doing her quick change with Tierney into the night dress, but Max was more important. He and Lachlan were finishing the scene together. Max was still wooden, worried.
 

Not good. What would Max do? Whenever she'd been freaked during
R&J
he'd always come up with something to snap her out of it. A funny face. A lewd joke. The infamous mooning incident.
What can I do
–
 

She froze, her stomach swooping. She stared at the other actors gathered in the wings, her fairy court, the stage hands. Quite a lot of people. A
lot
. Of
people
.
 

Max dropped another piece of dialogue and ran into Lachlan when he crossed the wrong way onstage.