by Maggie Riley
Joanna needed to know the next show we were doing. And I needed to decide on one. I picked up the bottle of whiskey, watching the amber liquid swirl around inside the glass. It was rare I indulged and even more rare that I drank more than what I had already imbibed. But booze was a part of the creative process, wasn’t it? Weren’t there stories about all the amazing things that had been accomplished while an artist had been intoxicated? It was a proud tradition in the theatre. Hell, Shakespeare probably drank more beer than water.
I poured myself another glass, a healthy pour this time. There was method acting, wasn’t there? Well, maybe this was a form of method directing. Connecting to the greats of the stage through booze.
And since nothing had worked so far, why not give it a try?
JOSH
I wasn’t proud of myself, but I did my best to hide in the shadows for the remainder of the reception. Not that I saw Reagan milling around—in fact, she seemed to have disappeared soon after our dance, making me feel even worse about what I had said to her.
This was the reason I preferred to spend time by myself. The less contact I had with other people, the less likely I was to infect them with my bad attitude. Watching the way my comment had dimmed the happy gleam in Reagan’s eyes was enough to want to lock myself in my apartment for the next week or so.
But before I could do that, I was roped into helping Shane load the wedding gifts into a cab after the reception ended. While he waited outside, I went into the theatre to get my sister, who was standing in the lobby in her wedding dress, her hands on her hips.
“Have you seen Reagan?” Allie asked me.
From my current vantage point, it appeared that we were the only people still in the theatre. Everyone had cleared out quickly, the end to what I hoped was a successful wedding reception.
“I’m not her keeper,” I told my sister. “You have to stop losing her.”
Allie stuck her tongue out at me. “I just didn’t see her leave. I was sure she’d say goodbye if she went home.”
“Maybe you were too busy,” I suggested, even though I would have expected the same thing. Allie gave me a look and I sighed. “Fine, I’ll go look for her.”
“She’s in my office,” said Joanna, sailing past us, making me jump. How she could walk that quietly on heels that high and pointed was beyond me. “Having a private party with my bottle of whiskey. She can sleep on the couch and I’ll fetch her in the morning. Good night,” she said with a wave of her fingers.
I knew what I had to do even before my sister glanced over at me with her pleading eyes.
“I’ll take care of it,” I said, running a hand over my mouth.
No doubt, my charming personality had sent her straight for the bottle. Fan-fucking-tastic. It took a real special guy to drive the bridesmaid to drink on the night of her friend’s wedding. Especially when that bridesmaid was usually made of sugar and spice and everything nice. Now she was full of whiskey.
“It’s not the first time that one of us has stayed overnight at the theatre, but I’d just feel better if she got home tonight,” said Allie.
“Not a problem,” I told her. I was exhausted, but how hard could it be to pour one drunken bridesmaid into a cab?
“Thank you,” she said, kissing me on the cheek. “See you after the honeymoon. We’ll get some furniture for your apartment. Show you the city.”
“Sounds good,” I told her, giving her a hug.
I wished desperately that was telling the truth, but if I was being honest, the only thing that sounded good at that moment was being by myself. It didn’t matter the city or how much furniture my apartment had. Any happiness that my sister’s wedding had managed to squeeze out of me was quickly fading. At least before, there had been something to work towards, something good to look forward to. Now the only thing laid out in front of me was a whole lot of nothing.
“Love you,” Allie squeezed my arm, pulling me out of another one of the goddamn pity parties I was so sick of throwing for myself.
“Love you too.”
I waved at Shane as he held the door open for Allie. They were a good match, and it was nice to see my sister this happy. I walked through the theatre, checking the dressing room and backstage and everywhere else where I thought there might be lingering guests, but found no one. No one except for the lush passed out in Joanna’s office.
She was awake when I found her, but definitely drunk. Her feet were up on the desk, her ankles crossed, revealing those gorgeous legs now ending in a pair of wickedly sexy black heels. God, those were nice legs. With her feet up like that, her dress had slid up past her knees—not showing as much skin as I had seen in the theatre, but still enough to turn me on. Even her ankles gave me a jolt of lust—how slender and delicate they were.
She was staring off into the distance, her eyebrows drawn together in thought. One hand was wrapped around a bottle of whiskey, the other was tapping a pencil on the desk.
A pad of paper was shoved to the other side. I glanced over at it and then did a double take. My name was at the center of it. Surrounded by little hearts. It should have weirded me out. But instead, I found myself smiling.
Because if someone had treated me the way I had treated her—acting like a selfish jerk, abandoning her on the dance floor—I would have written them off pretty quickly. But Reagan was nothing like me—that much was abundantly clear.
Just then, Reagan seemed to realize I was there.
“Josh!” she said, her feet hitting the ground, her chair swiveling around. She grinned up at me, apparently too sauced to even attempt hiding what she was working on. “Looking for another dance?”
It baffled me that she was being so forgiving. Allie would have been giving me the cold shoulder if I was lucky, throwing the whiskey bottle if I wasn’t. Then again, my sister had a temper. Reagan had something else. Patience? Tolerance? Or maybe it was just blind faith. I had forgotten when it felt like to have that.
“Yep,” I said, walking around the desk to pull her out of the chair. “Let’s dance you into a cab.”
But she resisted, removing her hands from mine.
“I can’t go home,” she said. “I have to clean up.”
The theatre was a mess and I had no idea what Reagan thought she’d be able to accomplish in her current state. But she was already moving past me with a purpose, and an uneven gait. She swayed precariously on her high heels and bumped into the door jam on her way out. With a sigh, I grabbed her purse off the couch and before I could stop myself or ask why I was doing it, I ripped the piece of paper she had been writing on off the pad and shoved it into my pocket.
I found her about to head into the theatre, so I snagged her wrist and swung her around so she was facing the front of the lobby. She wobbled, and might have fallen if I hadn’t looped my arm around her waist and pulled her up against my side. I ignored how nice she felt leaning against me, her body lean and soft. Or at least I tried to.
“You can clean up tomorrow,” I told her.
“Nu-uh.” she pulled out of my grasp and started walking towards the theatre again. She tripped and almost fell as she did.
I rolled my eyes. It was too late to argue. I was tired but needed to get her home before I could go back to my place and crash. Grabbing her arm again, I bent down and hoisted her up over my shoulder—the one that hadn’t ruined my pitching career—my arm hooked around her knees, keeping her in place. She was draped over me all lanky and warm and smelling surprisingly of cinnamon.
“Gotta clean up,” she muttered into my lower back, but didn’t struggle.
I avoided thinking too much about how the vibration of her voice felt against my skin, and shifted her in my arms. She weighed nothing at all, despite her height. Good to know I was still in shape despite being off the field and off my usual training for several months. Even my injured shoulder seemed to be holding up pretty well, though it was never going to get the strength and speed it had before my injury. I still occasionally got a heav
y, dull pain on rainy days, but for the most part it felt like my other shoulder. My normal, non-curveball throwing shoulder. But at least it could help get a drunken bridesmaid into a cab.
“Come on, Ginger Rogers,” I told her. “Let’s get you home.”
Somehow I managed to get her address out of her, but she had completely passed out by the time I maneuvered her into the cab. Obviously she was in no state to get up to her apartment, so I took a trip down to Greenwich Village with her, pulled her out of the cab, swung her over my shoulder again and took her up the three flights of stairs to her apartment, guided by the occasional mumbled instructions which told me which door was hers and where I could find the keys in her purse.
Her apartment was exactly as I had imagined. Colorful and cozy and crammed full of stuff. It was a railway-style one bedroom, where the long entryway opened into a kitchen crowded by the dining room table in the middle of it. There was a small window over the sink, and the room opened up into the living room, where there was one enormous couch and a coffee table, both facing towards the kitchen. Behind that looked like the bedroom and presumably the bathroom.
There were posters covering every inch of the wall, some of them even pasted onto the ceiling. There were books everywhere, mostly piled on the floor or shoved into the few built-in shelves along the wall. I couldn’t see a TV anywhere, but there was a record player in the corner with an enormous stack of Broadway cast albums stacked next to it.
With Reagan still hanging over my shoulder, I kept going and found the bedroom. It was less crowded than the rest of the apartment—just a closet, a bedside table and a bed. Her bed was huge with an elaborate brass headboard, piled high with a fluffy white comforter and a mountain of pillows. It looked incredibly soft and welcoming, and seemed to swallow her up when I dumped her into it. She let out a sigh and threw out her arms. Her glasses were askew and her hair was mussed. She looked adorable. I wanted nothing more than to follow her down into the soft comfort of the bed, feeling those arms wrap around my neck as I found a way to mess up her hair even more.
“Josh?” she mumbled, her voice all husky and soft, eyes closed.
“Yeah?”
For a moment, I thought she might sit up, might grab my tie, might pull me down on top of her. And for a moment, I really, really wanted her to. I tried to purge those inappropriate thoughts from my head, but the sexy tone of her voice made it difficult.
“Thanks for the dance,” she said and promptly fell asleep.
She was still fully dressed, but as much as my hands itched to unzip that black dress, I settled for taking off her shoes. No one wanted to sleep in their shoes and removing them was completely innocent and non-sexy. They were feet, for godsakes, and I wasn’t a foot guy.
Except, I realized a little too late, that as I knelt to remove the heels from her feet, that it wasn’t a simple matter of slipping them off. They had a little strap and buckle. Which meant, in order to remove them, I had to put my hands on her ankle.
Which was attached to her leg. An endless, gorgeous leg. A leg that was on display at the moment as her dress had settled just above her knee as she sank into her bed. I shook my head, telling myself not to be a weirdo. Just take off the damn shoe.
But when my fingers made contact with her skin, just the slightest contact, bare skin to bare skin, a jolt went through me. I fumbled with the buckle, it felt tiny and delicate in my hands, but I finally managed to get one off and then the other. It wasn’t until I had slid the other one off that I realized my fingers were wrapped around her ankle. Her skin felt as smooth as it looked.
I dropped the shoe to the floor and stood up, stepping back. I ran a hand over my mouth, wondering what excuse I could use for continuing to fantasize about my sister’s friend even though I knew it was a terrible idea. Was I just drunk or tired or incredibly stupid? Reagan was someone who was very, very off-limits. No matter how great her legs were.
I sent Allie a quick text letting her know that I had gotten Reagan home, hoping she’d tell Joanna that she didn’t need to go pick her up the next day. A wave of exhaustion came over me and knowing I had to grab another cab and head to the Upper East Side did little to wake me up.
I just needed to rest for a moment. The couch in Reagan’s living room was old and worn, but pretty big. Lying down, my feet still hung off the ends, but I toed off my shoes and closed my eyes. Just for a few minutes and then I’d go home.
Chapter 6
REAGAN
I hated whiskey. Whatever artists had used it to jumpstart their creativity either had a stronger constitution than I did or never stopped drinking so they never got a hangover. Either way, that was the last time I was going to take part in that tradition. Especially since it hadn’t worked one bit. I still didn’t have any idea for my next show. Ugh. I punched my pillow and that’s when I realized that I wasn’t in Joanna’s office anymore. I was in my bedroom.
Sitting up, I discovered I was also still wearing my bridesmaid dress. Since I could barely maneuver the three flights of stairs to my apartment sober and wearing flats, I had no idea how I had managed to get home drunk, in heels and not covered in newly formed bruises. In fact, I couldn’t remember how I had gotten home at all.
The last thing I remembered was being in the office, trying to drink my way to a solution. Blech. I needed to brush my teeth and wash my face. Wiggling out of my dress, I went to the ensuite bathroom and got rid of what remained of last night’s make-up before changing into my usual Sunday attire—my favorite overalls and black shirt. I felt better, but I knew there was only one thing that would get rid of my hangover. Pancakes.
They had been Great Aunt Gertie’s go-to cure for just about anything and I found they worked miracles whenever I was feeling less than one hundred percent. But when I came out of my room, I spotted something that stopped me in my tracks.
There was a pair of men’s shoes on the floor. Large men’s shoes.
My eyes traveled upward and I next found two feet sticking out from the side of my coach. Men’s feet. Large men’s feet wearing a pair of black dress socks.
Oh. No.
Suddenly the part of the evening that I hadn’t been able to remember began returning to me. Josh. Coming to get me in the office. Taking me home. Putting me to bed.
Tip-toeing closer, I peered over the back of the couch, hoping that there was some small chance that I was remembering the evening wrong. Nope. There he was. Sexy, sleeping and stretched out on my sofa.
Josh was completely asleep, and just like I had been, he was still fully dressed. He even had the large paper still pinned to his jacket, though it was terribly smushed. I walked around to his feet, knowing that I should wake him, but unable to stop staring.
Because dammit, he was really, really handsome.
His arms were crossed over his broad chest as if he was still trying to maintain a tough, grumpy attitude even in sleep. But at some point he had unbuttoned his jacket and loosened his tie, revealing the hollow of his throat, which somehow made him seem adorably vulnerable. His face was turned towards the back of the couch, his dark hair falling over his forehead, making him look both boyish and sexy. But it was the calm expression he wore that really got to me. He seemed relaxed and peaceful, despite his crossed arms. There was no frown, no tense jaw.
I probably could have stared at him all day, but that would have been weird and creepy. At least more weird and creepy than what I was already doing. But I didn’t know the best way to wake him. I cleared my throat loudly, but that got no reaction. Then I stomped my feet a little, but still nothing.
I was going to have to touch him. Truly a hardship. Even though I was tempted to wake him up with a kiss, a reverse Sleeping Beauty, I realized that doing that would be the actual definition of weird and creepy. So I poked his foot instead. He came awake slowly, running a hand over his face before he opened his eyes. I saw the initial confusion turn into wariness as he looked up at me.
“Morning!” I said cheerfully. “
Want some pancakes?”
“Uh—” he blinked and sat up.
“They’re really good,” I told him, even though I could hear the overeager quality to my voice. Tone it down, I told myself.
Josh ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in the most adorably sexy way.
“They’re chocolate chip!” I said.
“Ok,” he finally managed, rubbing his eyes.
I managed to keep my victory dance internal. This was my chance to make up for last night’s awkwardness. To find a way to actually help him out. And this was a great start. After all, no one could be unhappy when they were eating pancakes. I was pretty sure that was a scientific fact.
“I think there’s a spare toothbrush under the sink,” I pointed towards the bathroom. “And help yourself to anything else you might need.”
He got up from the couch and stretched. I tried not to stare. I failed. His tall, lean body seemed to fill up all the space in my living room.
“Thanks,” he said and then disappeared into my bedroom.
Immediately, I went to the refrigerator and stuck my head inside. It had gotten really warm all of a sudden.
I’d just put the first batch of pancakes on the griddle when he came into the kitchen. He had taken his jacket and tie off, and his white dress shirt was untucked with his sleeves rolled to his elbows. He had also unbuttoned the top two buttons, giving me a better look at his throat. Who knew that part of a man could be so sexy? Or maybe it was just Josh that was sexy—all parts of him.
“Want anything to drink?” I asked as he sat down. “Coffee? Tea?”
Me? The last bit I kept to myself, feeling a little bit like an ingénue in a 1940s movie. Well, except for my day-old hair and well-worn overalls and well, everything else that was nothing close to an ingénue.