No Damn Good (Enemies-to-Lovers Contemporary Romance series)

by Gwen Gavin

  I shook my shoulders, gave myself a quick internal pep talk. One of those ones that sounded like You can do this, self. You’ve done hard things. I had a big bathtub and a face mask waiting for me at home after all of this was done.

  I pulled open the bathroom door and Mat was waiting outside of it for me.

  “Are you kidding? We really are in middle school,” I rolled my eyes as I saw him leaning against the lockers. The hallway had cleared out in the amount of time I was in the bathroom.

  “What? Don’t the best friends in the movies always wait outside the bathroom for their BFFs to finish giving themselves a pep talk?” Mat smirked.

  “I was not giving myself a pep talk.” I blew the hair out of my face and walked right by Mateo without looking back.

  “You need to talk more quietly to yourself if you are going to try and lie about it.” Mateo clucked his tongue at me.

  “Don’t you have somewhere science-y to be? You know I can’t be late for audition day. Ana might kill me.”

  Mateo laughed out loud, tilting his head back. “Oh, you got your hands full with that one. She wouldn’t stop talking about in fourth period today. She was humming show tunes to herself the whole class.”

  He leaned against the doorway of my classroom while I grabbed my clipboard.

  “Well, I can’t let her wait any longer. She’s going to burn down the auditorium.”

  “Okay, okay. I just wanted to tell you to break a leg or whatever they say in show business.” Mateo shrugged as he backed away.

  “Are you sure that you don’t want to help me out? I thought your people loved musicals.” I rested the clipboard against my hip.

  “Hey, I take offense to that. I’m a science gay. I can’t help it.” Mat giggled to me and walked away. “Plus, Sally, you’re not even getting paid for this nonsense. I can’t believe that you even do it.”

  “You don’t understand my love for the theater, darling.” I accented my words dramatically which made Mat giggle at how silly I was. I guess we weren’t that far from middle school. And Mat wouldn’t understand that I didn’t do it for the money. Helping the kids out with their theater production was the only thing that kept me sane most days.

  I rolled my eyes. Of course, the most romantic and healthy relationship that I had been in was with an unavailable gay guy.

  * * *

  I waited in the seating area in the dark while the students shuffled on stage to perform their songs for me for a chance to be in our low rent production of Little Shop of Horrors. But, every kid treated that stage like it was a magical place. I wondered for a second if they felt the same way that I did when I stepped on the stage all those years ago. The real world falls away for just a minute in time. There is a veil between stage-you and real-you and you get to get lost in the pretend. It was freeing and exhilarating and nothing had ever been able to recreate that feeling again in me.

  Predictably, Ana sang a pitch-perfect version of “Somewhere that’s Green” but she seemed stiff and nervous on stage. I took down notes on every one of the kids’ performances. We were woefully short on male actors, totally predictable for middle school but frustrating nonetheless.

  After all the kids were done, I stood and clapped for them. I could practically smell the hormonal anxiousness on the air. I climbed up on stage and address the kids that were now sitting in the audience.

  The spotlight was on me and it did feel like the world dropped away for a minute. I paced back and forth in mock thought. My finger rested on my chin and arms were wrapped around my middle.

  “You all gave me a lot to think about. First thing, I want to thank you for coming out and auditioning. It is not easy!” I clapped my hands for them and the kids applauded and whooped for each other. “I know that this year’s play is a doozy and I had to convince Principal Pena that you were mature and ready for it, but I can’t wait to see what you guys bring to this stage in Little Shop! Now, I will be posting the roles on the bulletin board at the end of school tomorrow. Good luck!”

  I clapped my hands together and watched as the kids started to disperse in the darkness of the audience seating. I squinted against the spotlight. There was a form of a man standing in the aisle towards the back of the auditorium. He was wearing a hat and his arms were crossed over his chest.

  “Hey, Chris, can you pop the house lights on and kill the spot?” I called out to one of the kids who liked to do the tech for the shows. The spotlight turned off with a click and I blinked hard, letting my eyes adjust. The house lights turned up slowly and the man was illuminated.

  He looked like any old guy off the street, but we didn’t have a lot of people coming to watch the middle school kids audition. Hell, I didn’t even have parents in.

  At first, I thought it might be Ana’s dad but I couldn’t see him under the low baseball hat. But Ana and the rest of the kids walked right by this stranger, not looking at him twice.

  For a second, I turned my attention back to the stage, cleaning up a few pages the kids had left behind but kept watching the strange man out of the corner of my eye.

  He was built like a linebacker. His biceps were practically bursting out of the arm holes in his tight plain t-shirt. His eyes were shielded by the hat, but a sharp jaw angled downward from his mouth. He was smirking to himself.

  I tried to continue to ignore him, but pretty soon I wouldn’t be able to do so. I was going to have to turn out the lights and lock up, all with this stranger looking at me.

  Anxiousness pricked at the back of my neck. There were probably still kids outside waiting for their rides. If I hurried, I could be with them and there was safety in numbers. But, if this guy was really going to try and hurt me, I couldn’t let the kids see that.

  I tucked my hair behind my ear and cleared my throat. The kids had almost cleared out of the auditorium and I was going to be alone with the strange man.

  The only play was to address him directly. Maybe I could make him uncomfortable.

  “Excuse me. Can I help you? This is a private event.” I allowed my voice to boom out of my mouth and into the auditorium. A few of the students stopped and turned to look at me and the strange man.

  He took a step forward and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Miss. I think I was supposed to be here.” He took his baseball hat off and brushed his dark hair off his forehead. He straightened his back and squared his shoulders. It was like he was immediately a new person. His deep honey eyes looked right through me and my stomach sank when I realized who it was.

  “Are you Mac Miles?” A teenage girl’s screeching voice said from the back.

  The kids started clamoring for the man’s attention but he kept glancing up at me with the signature blockbuster smile.

  Mother fucker.

  Mac

  I watched from the back for a while. The auditions were a bit cringey but nothing I didn’t expect when my publicist team sent me back home to help work on the middle school theater production. It was just supposed to be a few weeks of slice of life volunteerism. I could even go back to LA for meetings and parties in between. It wasn’t like Oaks Pass, a tiny town in Central California, was too far to head back for the weekend.

  All I had to do was put on a smile, play nice and take a few pictures in a couple of weeks. I would get that major role and then I was on the road to Awards Town. I needed to prove that I was down to earth, I could connect with the real people. That sort of thing.

  But, I watched the kids sing on that stage. Each of them trying their hardest, quivering with fear under the bright lights.

  My stomach roiled with their nervous energy. I swallowed hard and tried to press the feeling down.

  Instead, I watched their teacher as she watched them. She gave each of them her full attention. She never wavered. Even when she had to watch them croak through yet another song from Hamilton, she only leaned forward in her chair, rested her hand on her chin and smiled at them. She was genuine as she encouraged them, fostering the excitement in them
and letting it bloom. It made sense why each kid sang directly to her throughout their audition, how they beamed after she clapped her hands for each kid’s performance and how they sat forward to listen to every word.

  For a second, I thought it was all a part of the auditioning act, but it wasn’t. They really loved her. She loved them. She was gentle and I could see them running up to her to give her hug without worrying about what their fellow classmates might think about it.

  She was a young teacher, closer to being student herself than being one of their parents. Maybe that’s why they flocked to her and wanted her approval, but she didn’t seem to hold anything back from them.

  At the end of the auditions, she stood up on the stage and it was like it was an extension of her body. It wasn’t just her home. She made it part of her and her a part of it. It only took a few words but I realized who I was looking at and my stomach dropped. What I admired about this stranger a few moments before became angry and hot hatred deep in my stomach.

  Sally Williams. We weren’t exactly friends in high school. In fact, we purposely stayed away from each other.

  I tugged my phone out of my pocket. My fingers went straight to composing an email to Dave. There was no way that I was going to survive a few weeks working closely with Sally. I had to get the hell out of town and as far away from this god awful middle school as I could. Before I could hit send on the message, another text came through from my manager.

  I know you can do this. Production is very excited!

  I sighed to myself. There was no way that I could back to LA without finishing this damn thing. I couldn’t really turn to my manager and say, “This girl from high school is too mean and I want to go home.” I couldn’t do that to my career and I couldn’t do that to anyone else’s either.

  The auditions were over and the students were dismissed. I stood up and she kept watching me from the corner of her eye. She didn’t know who I was yet, or she wasn’t acting like it until she yelled at me from the stage and I took off my hat and turned on the Mac Miles persona.

  At first, her face was surprised and almost cute. Another woman off the street and I would’ve found the way that her pink lips fell open and her blue-green eyes widened to be endearing, but then anger flashed through her eyes and she was just the same old Sally again.

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  Gwen Gavin writes Contemporary Romance novels with an edge. From Friends-to-Lovers, Enemies-to-Lovers and those bad boys with hearts of gold, you will find your favorite romance tropes here. Sit down, put up your feet and disappear into the Happily-Ever-After world of Gwen Gavin books. She writes from Southern California where she lives with her family.

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