Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) (13 page)

Damon’s hand touched down on her shoulder and she flinched. He laughed and his breath brushed her cheek. He spoke close to her ear. “You haven’t asked me to use the force.”

11: In the Dark

Damon could smell paint, glue and Dalia’s patchouli perfume masking her body odour. She threw herself at him making him stagger backwards, Georgia’s hand flattening on his back to steady him.

“Thank you, Allah, Jehovah, Buddha, Shakespeare and Hitchcock. I can’t believe you agreed to do this, Damo.”

He laughed and hugged her solid form close. She would’ve had no sleep, no food and been running on adrenaline all day. “You’re sure I’m going to be able to do this?”

She pulled out of his hold, but snatched his jaw and gave his head a shake. “Cat got your tongue?”

He purred, then gave her a playful growl which ended in a throat clear. Cartoon cat would have his tongue but not tonight. “You do know I won’t be able to see anything.” He’d lost the sense of where Georgia was. He’d held her arm from the taxi to the warehouse but she’d moved away after Dalia’s onslaught.

“Last I heard you had a working set of ears. I’ve got cans so you can hear the stage manager and I’ll give you a runner.” She patted his arm. “You’ll be fine.”

He cast an arm out to his side, hoping Georgia might take it, then turned the other way when she didn’t. “Georgia?” She touched the back of his hand with the back of hers and it made him smile. She was so tentative when just about everyone else who knew him well, and a few who didn’t, were overly physical. He wanted that from Georgia too.

“Dalia, this is Georgia. She got sucked in to helping me out tonight.” That was putting it politely. “Georgia, Dalia Abedan, playwright, occasional actor, director, impresario, and all round hellion.”

Hands clasped, greetings were said. He took a moment to imagine what Dalia and Georgia would look like together. Dalia was a shortie and could have almost any colour hair or no hair at all. She’d had multiple facial piercings when she dated Jamie. Georgia was tall and slender, she didn’t seem to wear any jewellery, and from Lauren’s description she wasn’t likely to be flamboyant. He knew she wore jeans and a shirt with buttons, no heels. She’d wanted to wear something else once she’d known this was more than helping him out for the night.

“Director and stage manager’s name is Ed. Your runner is Jace.” Dalia stood on her toes and leaned into him, he dropped his head so she could kiss his cheek. “I love you heaps and I won’t forget this.” She pulled clear. “Wait here, Jace will come get you.” Her voice got softer as she moved away. “If I don’t see you afterwards, I’ll call.”

He turned his head towards Georgia. “She gone?”

“Yes.”

“What colour hair did she have?”

“Jelly bean purple.”

He laughed. “You tied your hair back.” He knew that from leaning close to her in the taxi.

“I didn’t want it to get in the way.”

“What would you have worn, if I hadn’t been a dick and asked you out properly?”

She made a small sound, closed mouthed. She was embarrassed. “I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of date night clothes.”

“Let me give you a tip.”

“Okay.” Said as though she thought the word tip was a pseudonym for electric shock.

“Think of it as phone sex.”

Georgia made a kitten whimper mewl.

He laughed. “I mean, imagine we were talking on the phone and I asked that question. What would you say?”

“Depending on the time of day and where I was I—” She stopped. She was so goddamn cute. “You’re telling me I should make something up?” Was she blushing, he heard wry acceptance in her voice. “Um.”

“I’m all ears.” Taylor would’ve pinched him for that.

Georgia’s breathing hummed. “I can’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not creative enough. I’m the most boring person in the world, Damon.”

He leaned his shoulder into her. “Not buying that.”

“Truly. I’m sorry. I’m so disappointing.”

She was the least disappointing, most intriguing thing in his life, but there were running feet coming their way; they were out of time.

“Damon, Georgia. I’m Jace. Come with me.”

Jace led them. He’d been well briefed by Dalia. He walked slightly ahead and kept up a commentary on where they were, what they could expect. The warehouse was an old paper mill, long abandoned. Dalia had found it and badgered the owner until he leased it to her as a home for her theatre company. Damon had helped her fund renovations with a loan she’d since paid back. Tonight the space had been converted into a set that resembled a cut in half house without the roof. The audience wouldn’t sit, they’d move from room to room following the play’s characters, standing in a viewing bay of whatever room of the makeshift house they happened to be in. They could follow any character in any order and move as often as they wanted to or stay in the one spot. The action was continuous and would go on around them.

Jace walked them through each of the rooms, where stagehands were still moving about setting up

“This is incredible.” He heard wonder in Georgia’s voice. “If you don’t look up you could believe you’re in someone’s kitchen.”

“Can I smell bread baking?”

Jace answered. “Yep, and if you’re an audience member who chooses to follow someone into the bathroom you’ll smell other things not so pleasant.”

Damon laughed. He felt Georgia’s humour in the shift of her arm. “So why does this thing need a narrator?”

“I’ll answer that.” A new voice. “I’m Ed.” Ed was not what he expected. Ed sat to pee. “Dalia thinks the performance might be too disjointed without a central storytelling function. So we have you to narrate the changes in scenes so the audience realises when something major has happened like the murder itself, but tomorrow night we do the whole thing again without the narrator and see what the audience reaction is. Whatever we get the best feedback on is what we’ll stage.”

Typically ingenious Dalia. “Where do I get my cues from?”

“I’ve got headsets for you both. Jace will stay with you on the gantry and I’ll be in your ear with the cues. You got your copy of the script?”

“Yeah.” Dalia emailed it and his dragon software read it to him. It wasn’t complicated and he’d memorised it.

“We’ve had to make some last minute changes. How do we do this?” There was a nervous edge to Ed’s voice, even over the sound of hammering, and was that a baby wailing?

“I can feed Damon his lines.”

He turned his face from Ed to Georgia. That would work. “Too easy. Is there a baby here?”

“Youngest member of the cast,” said Ed.

“Please don’t tell me the baby did it,” said Georgia.

Ed laughed. Jace said, “I’ll show you the gantry. You’ll need to wait up there after sound check.” He led them to a flight of metal stairs.

Georgia hesitated. “There’s a railing, maybe thirty stairs, straight up, no landing.”

He reached out for the handrail, lifted his foot average step height and stubbed his toe into the edge, before landing on the step. He was right after that. He counted twenty-five and stopped. He’d lost all sense of light now. He was in a black tunnel. For a moment he froze. His eyes were open and he saw nothing, darkness whichever way he turned his head. The wall of his stomach twisted and fluttered in a sudden flare of panic, as if Lina’s moment of reckoning had chosen now to show itself.

“Damon, you okay?”

Footsteps above him ringing on the metal stairs. Concern in Georgia’s voice. If he backed out they’d cope without him because the whole narration was an experiment. But he’d be letting Dalia down and wimping out in front of Georgia. “How many more?”

“Five, six, seven.” Georgia counting. “Eight more.”

She was right in front of him when he got to the top. She put her hand over his on the railing. “It’s dark up here.”

“Damn, left my night vision goggles in the humvee.” His stomach was in full rebellion but his voice was veteran soldier steady.

She laughed softly. “It’s also narrow. I’m going to have to walk directly in front of you. Can you put your hand on my shoulder?” She didn’t wait for an answer, reached for his hand, then pivoted to face the other way.

He could easily trail his hands on the walls but he’d much rather have the contact with Georgia. He let her place his hand on her shoulder and moved after her, keeping an outstretched arm between them. “What can you see?”

“Jace’s back, but there’s more light and a little more space up ahead.”

Jace said, “We’ve set you up in two locations. A and B. From A you can see five of the rooms, from B the rest.”

“Ah. What is it you think I’m going to see?”

“Sorry, mate. Georgia and I will be able to see the action underneath us. That’s so we can cue, because a lot of it is impromptu.”

“And you want me to talk directly to members of the audience as well.”

“Yeah, like you’re the voice of God, man. Looking down on everything. Ed will feed those cues directly to you.”

He could be the god of darkness, the god of sudden crippling nausea, but that was the extent of his range tonight.

Georgia touched her hand to his on her shoulder. “You okay?”

She couldn’t possibly know how not okay he was. He stepped into her space to be nearer her, so he didn’t turn around and beat a way back to the light. This obviously wasn’t the first time he’d been in total darkness, but it had never had this effect on him before because he’d never figured it would be a full-time thing. Denial was a torch, always lit.

His free hand went to her hip and he leaned in to the comfort of her. “Are you?”

“I’m nervous about how this is going to go.”

“Me too.” Easy to admit that. It stood in for the near terror he was feeling.

“You’ll be fine.” Jace from up ahead. “This is A.”

“What can you see, Georgia?”

“Two bedrooms, the lounge and dining and the garage.”

“Murder takes place in the garage,” said Jace. “I’ll take you through to B.” From B Georgia could see the remaining rooms. They were going to need to move frequently between these two locations. Back in A, Jace set them both up with gear and they did a sound check and practiced cueing with Ed, who was front of house on the set. Jace left then, saying he’d return fifteen minutes before show time.

“There’s one stool. You should sit.”

He should offer it to Georgia, but he was so disoriented it’d be better if he sat so he didn’t argue.

“Take a step back. And another.”

He felt the stool brush his thighs. Georgia had a hand on his arm. He sat, reached for her and spun her so she was standing between his legs, her back to him. He expected her to pull away, but maybe the darkness had gotten to her as well. She rested a hand on his thigh. She didn’t say a word and he was grateful. He needed to collect his wits. He closed his eyes and focused on her breathing, one hand at her waist, the other dropped at his side. It took a moment to realise she was breathing short, shallow breaths.

He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer, curved over her. She tensed and he let go with a sigh.

“Sorry, Damon. I. I.”

“No, that was—”

“Nice, that was really nice. You can, um.”

He wrapped both arms around her and hugged her back against him, like he would’ve done with Taylor, only he didn’t feel like he did when he was hugging Taylor.

He didn’t know if it was his heightened state of tension or the way Georgia smelled, or knowing they were very alone up here away from the world. Whatever it was, he liked it much better than the sense of panic he’d felt coming up those stairs into the sightless night.

“This all right?” Her breathing was still fast, so he couldn’t be sure.

She nodded and he felt it and didn’t press her to talk, just held her. Her hands came up to grip his forearm and she took a deep breath. He felt that too. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m. I’m. I’m wearing a red dress.” Her grip on his forearm tightened.

He smiled. “How red?”

“Christmas red. It ties around my neck but leaves my back bare.”

He dropped his head so he could whisper in her ear. “How short?”

“Not short. To my knees. But very fitted.”

“What else?”

“It plunges, the neckline, it plunges to the waist. No bra.”

He hissed. He could see this dress. Not something she owned, but fantasised about wearing, pleasing someone in.

“No other underwear, because you’d see lines.”

“Hot.” Much hotter than the standard scene she might’ve written; suspenders and corsets. She was giving him a vision that pleased her first.

“Am I doing this right?”

“So very right. Shoes?”

“Black, patent leather, heels, high, soles painted red like the dress. They make me taller. They change my posture.”

They’d arch her spine, thrust her breasts out. They made him risk pressing his face to her neck. He couldn’t believe his shy Georgia was leading this dance. If it was show time now he’d be insensible, not from panic but from surging lust.

“My hair is pinned up. I’m wearing diamonds like mini chandeliers in my ears and expensive perfume.”

“You smell amazing enough without that.”

She moved her head; she was giving him access to her neck. He took it, pressing his lips there and holding still. Not quite a kiss, but a taste. Her hand came up to his head, fingers threading through his hair, and he rubbed his nose over her jaw.

“My makeup is faultless and it’s the kind that doesn’t rub off so when you kiss me it doesn’t get messed up.”

Oh fuck
, was that an invitation? Her breathing had changed again, it was race ran short, it was heated and calling to his. How did they get here so quickly from her embarrassment in the taxi? Why did he think he’d had to lie to her to win her attention?

“Georgia?” The rest of his question got lost when her head dropped back against his shoulder. He didn’t want to scare her off, make her retreat into the self-consciousness she usually walled between them, but he was going to kiss her.

Footsteps clanging on the stairs. Jace was back. Damon groaned, but dropped his arms, sat up straighter and Georgia shifted away.

A hand on his shoulder. “Cans.” He lifted his hand and Jace put the headset with a mic in his palm. “We’re live in ten.”