The Private Rehearsal (Caught Up In Love: The Swoony New Reboot of the Contemporary Romance Series Book 4)

by Lauren Blakely

  I clench my fist and release it, releasing the thoughts as well.

  “And if you can’t handle that,” I tell the cast, “if you’re afraid or you’re a precious snowflake, now is the time to leave.” I go to the door and pull it open, inviting anyone to go. “If you can’t leave your goddamn hearts hanging out and beating, then you don’t belong here. If you stay, you better be prepared to slice open a vein on stage. I will accept nothing less.”

  I hold the door open and wait, though I know none of them will leave. Some of them shift in their chairs, glance at each other, peek at the door. When I’ve made my point—this is serious to me, you are not in charge—I shut the door hard, the slam echoing in the studio. That, and their breathing, are all that punctuate the pristine quiet.

  I return to the front of the room, the soles of my shoes sounding on the freshly polished hardwood floors, and face them again. “You are here because you are the best. That got you here, but it’s not enough. I’m going to get you the rest of the way and, on opening night, I want the audience to feel every ounce of your pain, every molecule of your passion. Is that clear?”

  “Davis?”

  I don’t expect a verbal response or want one. So, Alexis’s raised hand is an unwelcome surprise. So is her using my first name, but there are only so many battles I want to fight with her. I save my energy for the bigger ones.

  “Yes, Alexis?”

  “I think I speak for all of us when I say this is going to be the greatest show Broadway has ever seen.” Then she rises from her seat, turns to her castmates, encourages them to stand too, and begins a round of applause. Some stand, some stay seated. Some cheer, some don’t. I glance briefly at Jill. Her hands are resting in her lap.

  She’s looking down at her feet now, but then she lifts her face and her blue eyes meet mine for the briefest instant. The room goes silent, and she’s the only one I see.

  There’s something about her—her humor, her toughness, her vulnerability, her beauty—that has already hammered chunks from the fortress around my heart, threatening to undo me.

  Against all my better judgment.

  I wave off the clapping. “Enough.” Alexis is about to open her mouth, but she’s had her moment, and I hold up a hand. “Let’s get to work.”

  And so, our first rehearsal begins.

  Don is waiting in front of the rehearsal studio the next morning. As soon as I see the pinstriped suit, I groan. The billowing trench coat makes him look even more like a two-bit mobster, and the Bluetooth headset dangling from his ear just makes him look like a douchebag. His pointed glare at his watch is wasted on me. I can’t be late for a meeting that doesn’t exist. In fact, I’m early. The cast isn’t due for another hour, but the stage manager and I need to review which songs and scenes we’ll be rehearsing today.

  I head for the revolving door, hoping to avoid unpleasantries, but doubting I’ll be that lucky. No surprise, he flags me down, and I stop.

  “Davis,” he says in that grating voice.

  “Don.”

  A cold wind whips past us and Don shivers, pulling his coat closer. “We need to talk.”

  “Ah, my four least favorite words. What is it, Don? Make it fast. Shannon and I have a lot of song cues to run through in the next hour.”

  He clucks his tongue. “It’s come to my attention that you might be a little harsh with your cast.”

  I laugh. Oh, this is brilliant. I’d hate for him to have shown his face this fine morning over something childish. “Someone’s run to tell teacher already? That was fast.”

  “No,” Don lies. “But I would like you to tone it down a bit. You could be nicer.”

  “Could I? Would the actors like foot massages too? Later calls so they can sleep in? Or should I order them some nap pods?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. But actors can be sensitive. And when they think you’re kind of mean—”

  “Kind of mean?” I cut him off. “Is this Broadway or the sixth-grade play? I told them to leave if they couldn’t give it their all. If Alexis ran to tell you I was a jerk, then . . .”

  Don affixes his best poker face. “I’m not naming names.”

  It doesn’t take a genius to know Alexis is the narc. I saw on day one that she would be trouble. But couldn’t pretend I didn’t know how this business worked.

  “What is it you want me to do differently?” I asked.

  “Be nicer, okay?” At least he looks slightly embarrassed about it.

  “Honestly? You came here to tell me to play nice?”

  “Yes,” he mumbles.

  “And, if I don’t roll over, are you going to threaten to pay my exit clause?”

  “Davis,” he says, trying for a softer be reasonable voice. “I never did that.”

  I step closer pointing my index finger at his lying face. “You did threaten to can me. And you won that round. But if you keep telling me how to run the show, I’ll walk. Got it?”

  He gulps and says nothing, which isn’t good enough.

  “Don’t push me. Every time you pop up here because Alexis cried wolf, you’re questioning my professionalism, and I won’t have it. You can go find a new director.”

  He swallows again, then nods, looking like a scolded dog.

  “Good.” With that, I return to a more genial voice. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a show to rehearse.”

  I push through the revolving door into the lobby, press the elevator button, and wait, eyes fixed on the elevator doors.

  Only once it’s arrived and I’ve stepped inside do I let out the breath I’ve been holding. I run a hand through my hair and try to shake off my nerves. I hate it when I have to bluff.

  The truth is, I’d never walk. He’ll have to throw me out kicking and screaming. I am madly in love with Crash the Moon. I love this show so much it hurts. And that’s entirely separate from the stunningly gorgeous and talented understudy who will walk into the rehearsal studio in sixty minutes.

  Alone last night, I tasted her lips again, claimed her mouth with mine. I laced my fingers through hers and pressed her up against the wall so she couldn’t move, and she didn’t try, just gave in to the things I made her feel, and say, and scream.

  Sixty minutes and counting . . .

  9

  Jill

  This is fate.

  What else could it be when the subway doors rattle open and Patrick steps inside at the first stop after mine?

  He’s so handsome I have to catch my breath. It’s like looking at a masterpiece that somehow holds the beauty of not just one starry night but every starry night you’ve ever seen or will see. I grip the pole as the car jerks into motion, enjoy the rush of fluttery warmth expanding from my chest all the way to my fingertips. I am staring, which is awkward when he glances my way and we lock eyes, but then he recognizes me.

  “Hey there.” His smile is warm and friendly, but I already knew that.

  “Hi,” I manage, a little breathy, but not enough to telegraph all the years of infatuation and fantasy.

  “You’re in the show, aren’t you?”

  “Chorus. And understudy for Ms. Carbone.”

  “That’s fantastic.” His grin broadens and lights up the train. No wonder he’s a star. “Is this your first show . . .?”

  He waits for me to give my name, and fortunately, I remember it. “Jill. Jill McCormick.”

  “I’m Patrick Carlson.”

  I laugh, some nerves, some irony. “I know who you are.”

  “What did you think of yesterday’s rehearsal? Of Davis’s trademark first day speech?”

  “It was intense.” Like Davis. “But inspiring. Like the locker room pep talk in the third act of a sports movie.”

  Patrick chuckles, and the sound sets off firecrackers inside of me. Patrick Carlson had laughed at something I said. Only, I hadn’t intended it to be at Davis’s expense. It feels a bit sordid talking about him with Patrick at all. I don’t want to talk about him at all except as a director. Any non-pr
ofessional thoughts need to stay locked down tight.

  The train shakes as it slows into the next stop, and I latch on tighter to the pole so I don’t stumble into him. I’m an adult, not a heartsick teen, but I still have a sliver of fear that if we touch, a dam will burst and I’ll blather about all the long, lonely self-loathing nights that dreams of him carried me through. Or I’ll confess how just the possibility of him started to heal the dark places in my heart.

  Patrick tilts his head, considering me. “Stop me if you’ve heard this before”—he flashes a rueful smile—“but I feel like we’ve met somewhere else, outside of Crash the Moon.”

  The smile does me in, and I blurt out the truth. “I saw you in Wicked and we met outside the stage door after. You were very kind and didn’t roll your eyes when I humble-bragged about being in the show at school. We even sang a few lines together.”

  His brows climb and he laughs in surprise. “That was you? Of course, it was you—that’s why you seem familiar. That was a blast.”

  Praise the Lord and glory be. He remembers me. Well, he definitely remembers that moment, and fondly, because his gorgeous face brightens so genuinely I don’t know how I’m not breaking out in song and dance right now.

  “We did a hell of a duet, didn’t we?” he says.

  I nod, solemnly. “If there were any justice in the world, and anyone in the alley besides us and the rats, we’d have a recording contract by now.”

  He laughs, and my heart trips along in rhythm because this time I’d meant to amuse him so I feel like I’ve done something right.

  “I dunno,” he says. “I hear we got rave reviews in Theatre Squeak. Maybe we could parlay that into some backing.”

  “From who?”

  He’s flirting with me. Or maybe it’s banter. It makes no difference because we are having a rom-com movie moment and I can’t wait to tell Kat.

  Patrick exaggerates a thoughtful look. “Hmm . . . Pizza Rat? It was a while ago, but ever since he went viral, he’s been—”

  “The big cheese?”

  We say it at the same time, and maybe it is Fate that he stepped onto my subway car because we both laugh, looking into each other’s eyes, and both glance away.

  None of the perfectly scripted moments with the possibility of Patrick felt like this. It might be the first time I preferred real to the safe haven of pretend.

  Patrick clears his throat. “What numbers should we put into our demo for the record labels? I’m thinking a retrospective of the great duets in musical theater history. ‘You and I’ from Chess. 'All I Ask Of You’ from Phantom. ‘Light my Candle’ from Rent . . .”

  “Excellent choices.”

  “And, of course, our signature piece from Wicked.” As he says it, something shifts in his expression, and he frowns. “Wait a second. You’re the one who sent me flowers, aren’t you?”

  My face flames, and as the train crawls into the theater district, I want to crawl under a seat. Forget our flirty banter. Right now, he must be rewriting our rom-com into a stalker movie.

  “Yes.” I look down, out the door, anywhere but at him.

  “The flowers were beautiful, Jill,” he says to the top of my head as we reach our stop. The doors open, and he guides me out, with a protective hand on my back, shielding me from the frenzied sardine pack of New Yorkers racing to work in the morning.

  “Thank you,” I mutter. We’re going to the same place, so there’s no getting away.

  It wasn’t just the awkwardness. My heart hurt like I’d had a glimpse of something I wouldn’t dare wish for and then the door slammed in my face. Twice—once then and once now.

  “Hey.” Before we reach the turnstiles, Patrick tugs me away from the crowd, turning me toward him so I meet his gaze. “I loved the flowers. They lit up my dressing room at the Gershwin. And under different circumstances, I’d have said yes. I’d enjoyed talking to you. But I was involved with someone at the time.”

  I gulp to hide the hitch in my breath. A gorgeous and talented guy like him? Of course he’d been seeing someone. “That’s good to know.”

  He adds with a touch of humor, “Well, I also knew you were in high school, and I didn’t want to do anything inappropriate. Which, despite my youthful good looks, it would have been.”

  And he’s a gentleman too. He didn’t want to lead me on then, and he’s being straight with me now. The Patrick I imagined him to be was a good guy, so I’m glad to know it hadn’t been wishful thinking.

  Taking my cue from him, I lighten my tone as we rejoin the flow of foot traffic. “It’s okay. It was just an impulse. I was so impressed with the way you jumped into that role, and you were the first Broadway actor I’d ever met. I’ve admired you ever since.”

  He gestures for me to go through the turnstile ahead of him. “And now we’re acting together. Perhaps it’s fate.”

  My heart skips all its beats, and I manage not to blurt, “That’s what I was just thinking!” Fate we’re in the same show. Fate he took the subway.

  It’s impossible to talk while navigating the crowds on the stairs and the traffic at street level. That’s just as well, because what I’m thinking—that it’s fate, too, that I saw him in Wicked—doesn’t need saying.

  All that went wrong with Aaron—the things he said and did when we broke up, the letters and calls and pleas—it wrecked me. Everything changed, only nobody knew it because I held myself together by my fingernails while my heart splintered invisibly inside of me.

  Then I met Patrick at the stage door of the Gershwin, and he’d been gorgeous, talented, charismatic . . . and kind. Kinder than I was being to myself, if I’m honest.

  Instead of admitting to anyone—my mother, any of my brothers, one of my friends—my life was in tatters, I found my way through—running when I wanted to explode, acting when I needed to escape, and when I wished for comfort, there was the daydream of Patrick Carlson and love that doesn’t hurt.

  I haven’t been with anyone since Aaron. No one has touched me but me. Why risk the heartache when no other man can give me what the mere idea of Patrick can?

  Only he’s not only an idea now. Those tingles that race from the tips of my fingers and toes to my chest where they bloom into shivers . . . When had I last felt attracted to anyone?

  Weeks ago. Davis’s office. When he had his mouth and hands all over you.

  I don’t think that should count, but I can’t think of a good reason why not.

  I do lunges as Kat packs. She’s heading to Mystic tomorrow to see her parents, and to be feted at their gift shop where her necklaces have been selling like crazy. She invited me to go with her and I want to be there, but rehearsal lasts until six and her party is at seven, so there’s no way I can make it. She graduated from MBA school a few weeks ago, and her Kat Harper necklaces have become amazingly popular, carried in boutiques and in the fancy Elizabeth’s department stores around the country. She’s running her jewelry business full-time and planning a summer wedding in Mystic where she and Bryan first met.

  I’d say it was a charmed life if I didn’t know how hard she’s worked for it, and the twisty road she and Bryan have taken to get to their happy-ever-after. Besides, I love her to the moon and back, and want all good things for her.

  She considers a purple scarf with white stars, looping it around her neck and pouting at me like a glamour queen. “What do you think?”

  “Oh, darling,” I drawl. “Purple is so your color.”

  She tosses the scarf on top of her other clothes. “You really can’t leave rehearsal early?”

  I switch legs and do more lunges. I rarely sit still.

  “Have you met Davis Milo? If you’re late, he paddles you.”

  She laughs. “Really? Got a BDSM director there, do you?”

  I shrug and look at the floor. Why am I even making stupid jokes about Davis? But I can’t seem to stop. “I wouldn’t be surprised. I bet he ties up all his conquests.”

  “Maybe I should leave the scarf with y
ou then,” she says, then winks.

  “His conquests, Kat.” I roll my eyes, and specify, “Not me, in any case.” Even joking around, it feels important to draw a line between Davis and me. I haven’t told Kat that he kissed me at his office, or that I’d asked him to. It was a mistake, and we agreed that it won’t happen again. It was a non-starter and a non-issue.

  “Have you ever been? You know, tied up?” Kat asks. “Or handcuffed or anything? Like by Stefan maybe? I could see him as the type.”

  I focus intently on a framed vintage poster of Paris on Kat’s wall. “No.”

  It’s true, but it feels like a lie. Nearly everything she believes about Stefan is an invention. She thinks I slept with him, and that he’s some sort of wizard in the sack, based on some assumptions she made that I didn’t correct. That story was much more interesting than my actual love life, or lack thereof, that I rolled with it, and then broke it off with “Stefan” before I had to admit the real Stefan and I had gone out a few times and kissed exactly once.

  I trust Kat more than anyone, but it’s easier to let her assume I have a semi-normal dating life than to explain why I don’t. I can’t talk about what happened. I couldn’t bear for any of my friends to know. What if it was my fault, like Aaron said?

  Besides, I’ve kept the story a secret for so long that I wouldn’t know where to begin to excavate it. Why conduct a full-scale archaeological dig for a relic I don’t want uncovered? What happened with Aaron can stay buried, and I’m fine with that.

  Am I fine, though?

  I’m a twenty-three-year-old single gal in the city who’s gone six years without sex. At least, sex that’s a duet, not a solo. I have a good imagination, an e-library of racy books, and a healthy libido, at least according to the articles in Cosmo. I dream of passionate kisses, of lips and hands that can’t get enough, of bodies entangled and heated encounters and promises of more.