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

by Beth Matthews

  "Max?"

  He tore his gaze away. "Sorry, Judith. One of the crazies over there is my roommate. I think I should check to make sure he's not too drunk to get home safe. Will you excuse me?"

  Judith's mouth crimped with displeasure, but then she blinked and smiled at him. "No, of course. We can continue this another time."

  Max barely nodded to her before throwing himself out of his chair and chasing after Lachlan.

  And Nicola.

  ***

  Stupid Max. This was the one coherent thought Nicola's warmly boozy brain could hold onto as she stood outside in the cold with Lachlan.

  Of course, Nicola couldn't quite remember what she was mad at Max for this time. Still, she was sure her reasons were sound, her anger righteous.

  Yeah. She rocked on her heels and swayed sideways into Lachlan's solid warmth. His arm banded across her shoulders, steadying her. When she glanced over to smile her thanks, his face was close, raw-boned and beautiful with those blue, blue eyes. His other arm settled around her, urging her to face him as he embraced her. As he leaned in.

  Not Max. But shouldn't that be a plus to her? Something in the "advantages" column? Apparently not. Instead of butterflies, Nicola's stomach seemed filled with lead.

  Lachlan stilled, his lips inches from hers, and his eyebrows quirked in a questioning way, as if to say, Shall I continue?

  Nicola stared at his mouth, feeling almost as if she were outside her body, pushing herself toward him. Or at least pushing herself away from Max. As she tilted toward Lachlan, a grin flashed across his face then was gone. His mouth fastened to hers, soft, warm.

  Not Max.

  She turned from the kiss. "Wait."

  His hands slid to hold her shoulders, rubbing her arms through the fabric of her coat. "Not good? I promise you, Nicola, Tierney exaggerates my sluttish reputation."

  "No, she doesn't."

  Nicola startled as Max's voice rumbled behind them. She whirled toward the sound, but then she bobbled in her slippery flats, falling. Max caught her elbow to keep her upright. When he stared at her from his so great height, anger crackled like blue lightning in his eyes.

  Lachlan shoved his hands deep into his pockets, slouching into his coat. "I do not sleep around."

  Max scoffed. "Lach, you live in my house. I know exactly how many women you bring home."

  “Fuck off.”

  They bristled at each other, two lions abut to come to blows, and Nicola rolled her eyes. "Ah, naked male insecurity: my favorite thing ever. But do you two mind if I sit this round out? I've got a bit of a headache."

  Max's eyes crimped at the corners, as if he were about to laugh but was holding it back to maintain his dignity.

  Eventually, after too long, she remembered to step away from Max's supporting arms.

  Lachlan dug a pack of cigarettes out from his coat. He tapped one free then pulled the smoke the rest of the way out with his teeth. He offered the pack to Nicola, and she shook her head, sighing to herself. Lachlan is handsome, charming, and British; there has to be something wrong with him to keep things fair for the female population of the world.

  Lachlan lit up and the familiar acrid smell burned into her nostrils. She hated cigarettes, ever since her favorite grandfather had smoked himself to death when she was twelve. And how many times had she had to watch Max do the same? How many times when they were younger had she stood outside in the cold, waiting for him to finish his stupid cigarette?

  Lachlan's mouth turned up at one corner as he offered the cigarettes to Max.

  Just like old times. Nicola fisted her hands inside her coat pockets. Dammit.

  Max waved the pack away, and even retreated a step farther from Lachlan as if to avoid the cigarette smoke.

  She blinked, pinching her lips to keep from gaping.

  Max glanced over and must have caught her incredulous expression. "I quit, Nic."

  "Right." She couldn't quite stop her derisive snort. "How many times have I heard that? Did you ever break your three week record?"

  A muscle ticked in Max's jaw, and his eyes were cold. "I haven't had a cigarette in three years."

  "Oh." Nicola swallowed.

  "Dear Maxim," Lachlan said, his voice sharply inflected, over-compensating for his drunkenness. "Did you come out here for a purpose?"

  "Actually, yes. Cassie and I had a conversation through the ladies' room door. She'll get Tierney home. My job is to handle you two."

  Nicola groaned. "Oh joy."

  Max shot her a dry look. "Well, don't say it like that. You might hurt my feelings."

  Lachlan examined the blazing tip of his cigarette, the light reflecting red in his eyes. "I'm not sure we're quite ready to leave yet. Why don't you go back to the lovely Judith and enjoy the rest of your evening together? Nicola and I will manage." Lachlan puffed a stream of smoke out, right into Max's face.

  Nicola groaned inwardly even as she retreated a step.

  Max shifted on his feet, the line of his jaw standing out strong even through the scruff of stubble. Nicola froze, worried he was about to throw a punch. Max hasn't changed a bit.

  Hissing a breath out, Max sort of rolled his shoulders back and immediately appeared much less menacing. His face assumed a bland, genial expression. "I left Judith all alone at the bar, Lachlan. Maybe you ought to say 'hello' to her. If you can get her away from Jack Arden."

  Lachlan's delicate nostrils flared, and he darted a quick, blazing glance at Nicola that she didn't understand. Then he laughed and tossed his cigarette to the ground. "I think I shall. You'll be all right?" he asked Nicola.

  She glanced over at Max. No. But she nodded. "Sure."

  Lachlan hustled into the pub, even tripped over some loose gravel in his haste.

  "Watch your step!" Max called.

  Lachlan, without a backward glance, gave Max a two-fingered salute, what would be a peace sign to anyone who wasn't British.

  Alone in the dark with Max, the silence lengthened, and Nicola, only to have something to say, blurted out, "Lach just flipped you off."

  Max frowned. "He used two fingers."

  "That's how they do it in merry old England. Haven't you seen Hot Fuzz?"

  "Oh."

  More silence.

  Nicola glowered at the bar. "Huh."

  "What?" Max asked.

  "I . . . I didn't think Lachlan had a thing for Judith." I thought Lachlan had a thing for me. "Is it her breasts? She has great breasts." I do not have great breasts. Nicola sighed.

  Max grinned, and the expression was oddly so much less irritating than it had been for the past few days. In fact, she was feeling distinctly warm. Like a radiator ticking towards hot.

  She swallowed. Lachlan had been throwing himself at her all night – in the most gentlemanly way possible – yet one word from Max had her all horny and bothered? Life is not fair.

  Max jerked his chin toward the pub. "What were you doing with Lachlan?"

  "Is that your business?"

  "He's my roommate. I'm concerned for his reputation. You're probably a bad influence."

  Nicola wrapped her coat closer as the wind kicked up, damp with the smell of coming rain. "Why do I even talk to you?"

  "Because I'm charming. Funny. A great conversationalist, full of verve and keen insight. And because I am possessed of a certain sympathetic ear in times of need."

  "No, I think it's because you're so pretty." She pinched his chin and jiggled his head a bit. "Whenever you start being a jack ass I tune out and admire the scenery."

  "You're very shallow."

  "Hm. Must be the company I keep." His stubble was more beard than stubble now, soft beneath her fingers. She let her hand linger, tracing over the bones of his face, the strength of his jaw, the perfect slope of his cheekbone.

  She heard him swallow, and when her gaze crossed with his, all the laughter had left his eyes. "How much did you drink tonight, Nicci?"

  "Three – no. Four beers." And a half.

 
"Ah, fuck. You're in the tactile phase." Then he sort of . . . grunted and eased his face away from her fingers.

  With a jolt, Nicola remembered Max had been the one to nickname her touchy-feely side when drunk. Because more often than not, Max had been the thing she'd gotten touchy-feely with. Who needed a table when there was a big, sexy man-hunk around to touch?

  History. Ugh. She was falling into the past all the time with him, swimming in it, drowning in it. Heart thumping, she wet her lips. "Max?"

  He turned, his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat, fisted into hard lumps. "What?"

  She laid one hand against the lapel of his coat, her fingers tracing over the soft wool. Too curious to walk away, too embarrassed to meet his gaze, she studied the flat, black buttons on his overcoat. "Max, what were you doing with Judith O'Fallon?"

  As the wind kicked up again, Max didn't reply, but he reached forward and turned up the collar of her jacket. His knuckles brushed against her chin, and she forced herself to look up as skin touched skin, the one spot of heat in the chill evening.

  He titled his head to the side, his face wry. "What were you doing with Lachlan, Nicci?"

  "Flirting. What were you doing with Judith, Maximilian?"

  "That was a business meeting."

  "In a pub. At night. Just the two of you."

  "Yeah." Max frowned, but the expression became more worried, thoughtful rather than angry. "Yeah . . . "

  "It seems we're both out in the cold since Lachlan practically ran in there for a shot at Judith. Aren't you worried he's stealing your date?"

  "He doesn't have a thing for Judith. He has a thing for King Henry."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Judith's directing Henry V in the fall. Lachlan and I are the two most obvious candidates from within the company. He wants to get a chance to bend her ear without me around." Max folded his arms and leaned against a car. His face was shadowed by the streetlamp above, but his voice was smug.

  "Great." She turned toward the pub, the buzz of pleasure she'd been building all night freezing away, going brittle with her suddenly bad mood. I should have made out with Lachlan. Just closed her eyes and thought of England or something – whatever was required to get the Max-disease out of her system. "So Lachlan ditched me for a part. Well, at least I'm used to it."

  "Hey."

  "What?" She whipped toward Max to find him towering above her, his brow knotted in a frown.

  "I never ditched you. Not for a part. Not for anything."

  She flung her hands up and got right up in his face – or as close as she could get without a step ladder. "Oh please, Max. Have you forgotten who you're talking to? You ditched me for everything. For parts and parties and friends and business and booze. You left me, you ripped my fucking heart out so you could go make that stupid tearjerker. You didn't even care when I was gone. I saw the pictures, Max. All those wild parties right after we broke up. Was there a single party-girl starlet you didn't make out with?" Tears stung her eyes, and the freezing wind fanned across her wet cheeks. "Were you so relieved to get rid of me?"

  "That's not what happened."

  "Oh?" Nicola whipped her phone out, pulled up a browser, and typed max fiesengerke drunk in image search. The first row of pictures alone showed a much younger Max in a sweaty clench with three different girls in various night clubs. And there were at least a dozen pages of image results. Nicola's gut swooped in a sickening rush, and she shivered. She hadn't looked at these pictures in years. She shoved her phone toward him. "Now tell me I'm wrong."

  He flinched and a muscle in his jaw ticked. "I was in a shitty place back then, I don't deny it. But you left me the second time. We were already over when all of these pictures were taken. Was I supposed to become a monk?"

  "Oh fuck you." She swiped at her eyes, feeling some thin wall of defense inside her shred to pieces, like a layer of her skin had been peeled away, and now she was standing there, with him, throbbing with these old memories, raw and aching. "You were happy it was over. You never loved me."

  He rocked back on his heels like she'd slapped him. "What the fuck? Nicola, I worshipped you."

  "I hated you, Max. For years. I used to get so pissed when I thought about you. For a long time I couldn't even say your name because the sound of it made me so angry." Her breath was coming fast and painful from her chest, her voice shaking with emotion. "And now, now you want to be friends. Like it never happened. Like we never mattered."

  "Wait a minute.You're trying to say I didn't love you enough then because I don't hate you now?"

  "Yes." It was true. It had to be true. She'd loved him so much, needed him so much – how could he have had all of that feeling inside him too? How could he have felt the way she did, and not hate her?

  Because she did hate Max. Violently. Desperately. Hated him for being everything to her then, and hated him so much for being nothing to her now.

  Exhausted, empty, she smeared her cheeks against her sleeve, scrubbing her skin dry. "I'm going back inside."

  "To find Lachlan."

  "Yes." She walked toward the pub, and heard him fall in step behind her, his boots heavy against the gravel. "You should go find Judith."

  His steps stopped, and Nicola's heart ached, imagining the expression on his face, the anger, the hurt.

  "Right," he said, voice tight. He started walking, and his long strides carried him past her so that she watched his stiff, braced shoulders as he entered the pub.

  When she walked into The Bore's Head, Max sat at a table laughing with Judith, looking happy.

  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 –