by Alice Ward
Right?
He must not have trusted me. He must have thought I was going to run off and write an article exposing him for everything he’d tried so hard to hide the second he came clean. It burned to think so, but I couldn’t figure out another reason why he’d continued with his façade, failing to admit he’d lied and shutting me down every time I tried to engage him in personal conversation. That was the only explanation.
Right?
If it was right, why did it feel so wrong?
I crawled out of bed, pulling the top sheet with me to keep myself covered in case there were any Peeping Toms creeping around outside the hotel, and padded to the shorts Tate had thrown off me last night in our frenzy. My phone was planted securely in the back pocket, and I fished it out with a bit of struggle. Glancing up toward the bathroom to make sure Tate was still busy inside, I turned the cell on and called my unlikely source of sanity.
“Girl, where the hell are you?” Leave it to Jenna to greet a person with a curse.
“I’m in California. Napa, at the moment.” I spoke softly with my hand cupped around my mouth, trying to stay as quiet as possible. “Tate flew us out here yesterday, remember?”
“You said you were coming back last night. I’ve been friggin’ frantic over here thinking I was going to read about you in the paper on Monday because you and A-list friggin’ celebrity Tate McGrath died in a plane crash!” Boy, she was steamed. “Call a person when you change your plans, would you?”
The shower turned off, and I hastily gathered the sheet up around me as I stood and hurried into the living area of the suite. “Sorry. It was a really long day, and it ended… unexpectedly.”
There was a beat of silence, and then she grunted. “You slept with him, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, and I need your help.”
“What, the condom got stuck?” She sucked in a thin stream of air. “You’re going to need a hand mirror—”
“Jenna, god, no!” I smacked my own forehead with my palm because she wasn’t present for me to do it to instead. “I need supportive help. Advice.”
She barked something unintelligible at someone, then returned to the conversation. “Sorry. They don’t know how to make a latte in SoHo, apparently. So, what’s the problem? Sounds like everything’s fine. You’re not the type to hop into bed when something’s wrong.”
“Not usually,” I agreed dryly. “Apparently, I’m prone to change.”
There was silence in the bathroom now, and I hoped Tate was occupied with some mundane activity like shaving.
“The thing is he’s telling me everything. He’s being completely honest. I saw some places from his past, and I met his brother. It’s heavy stuff, Jen.” I shook my head. A decent night’s sleep hadn’t done much to wipe the shock away. “It’s heavy enough that I can understand why he wouldn’t want everyone in America knowing about it. What I can’t seem to get past is that he didn’t want me knowing. I feel like he didn’t trust me. Maybe he still doesn’t, but he feels like he doesn’t have a choice. I don’t know. Why wouldn’t he tell me?”
“If it’s as heavy as you say, he might have been happier just pretending it never happened.”
There was no doubt in my mind that what she said was part of it, but I wasn’t satisfied by that explanation. “Yeah, but it definitely played a role in making him who he is today. I think that’s something you share with someone you’re building a relationship with, you know? Who you are and how you got that way?”
“Sure. It was only a month though. I don’t even trust a doorman I’ve known for only a month.”
“You don’t sleep with your doorman.” I caught myself. “Well, you do, but—”
“One time! Are you never going to let that go?!”
My mouth broke into a grin without me realizing it, but I sobered again right away. “We got serious in that month, Jen. It sounds short, and maybe it is short, but we had something worth the truth. I just hate that he wasn’t willing to be honest with me until I backed him into a corner.”
She sighed so heavily she sounded like she’d just finished an intense sprint. “You didn’t back him into a corner. He was free to do whatever he wanted, see whoever he wanted, whatever, and he still chose to give you what you needed. You backed yourself into a corner. You always do that.”
That stopped me. I always do that?
“What are you talking about?”
Another long sigh came out of my friend. “You have this bar, Sadie, these expectations for the men you date, and you set the thing so damn high that it’s virtually unreachable. Then, when they don’t meet that bar, you’re disappointed. Or, in the case of Tate, you’re completely heartbroken.” She clucked her tongue in a tsk-tsk fashion. “It’s the same thing I told you when you went out with that mortgage broker. You’ve got an entire romance played out in your mind before drinks. I personally think it’s because you’ve seen too many plays, and they’ve started mutating your idea of what a good relationship is supposed to be.”
I rolled my eyes. “How could I have had a romance played out already with Tate if I didn’t even know I was going to be meeting him until the day before?”
“Honey, you had a romance with Tate McGrath playing in your head from the first time you ever saw him perform, and don’t you deny it.”
She had a point, as much as I didn’t want to admit it. He’d been my favorite Broadway star bordering on an absolute idol for years. I’d dreamed and fantasized about him more times than I was comfortable saying.
“So, you’re saying I should forget about the whole secrecy and breaking up thing? Just pretend it never happened?”
“Oh, hell no. No.” I pictured her glaring at me over a pair of black-framed glasses and rapping a ruler smartly on a desk. “You can’t just start seeing him blindly. This secret of his has put a wedge between you two, and there’s a reason. You need to really think about that because there’s a good chance you’re going to end up getting hurt a second time when the skeletons stick their heads out of the closet again. And they always stick their heads out again unless the problem is dealt with, which we know it isn’t or he wouldn’t have hidden it from you in the first place.”
“Yeah.” The bathroom door swung open, and I whirled around to hide my phone from view. “I gotta go,” I whispered rapidly. I hung up before Jenna had a chance to say anything else.
Tate appeared in the doorframe from the bedroom. A fluffy white towel was wrapped around his waist, and beads of water still lingered on his chiseled chest. “Hey. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
“No.” I tucked the phone between the folds of the sheet and clutched it to me a little more tightly. “No, I woke up on my own.”
He squinted at me as he leaned against the frame. I swear, the man was a magazine centerfold when he wasn’t even trying. “Are you okay?”
It was one of those loaded questions with a loaded answer. I could lie and say I was, but that wouldn’t get me anywhere closer to making it true. I also had the choice to admit I was bothered by how things had gone down between us before and where they were going to go from here, but that was likely to get us involved in an extremely deep discussion that I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready to handle. Besides, he’d told me there was more to unveil yet, and if today was going to be anything like yesterday, I didn’t think I could take much more on my plate.
“Not really. I’m… confused.”
“Well, tell me why.” He walked into the living room toward me and sat down on the couch, which was every bit as exquisite as the bed we’d slept in. “Maybe I can clear it up for you.”
I still wasn’t accustomed to this no-holds-barred Tate, and his bare willingness to meet my needs was a huge part of the confusion I was experiencing. “I think I just need to know what else there is you have to tell me about yourself.” Harping on about the events leading up to our split wasn’t in either of our best interests at the moment. “I need all the cards out on the table, you know?”
> He nodded, but a muscle in his jaw twitched. “You should get dressed then. We’ve got another hour and a half drive in front of us. We’re going back to Lodi today.”
“Okay.” I started toward the bedroom. He caught my wrist as I passed him and rose to his feet. I turned toward him, and he gathered me against his nearly naked form. His mouth found mine, and he pressed a sweet kiss to my lips. When he released me, I stayed where I was for a moment, breath caught in my throat and mind racing. Sighing deeply, I went to retrieve my clothes and retreated to my own suite to get ready.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Tate
The building in front of me was nothing short of an eyesore to anyone unlucky enough to see it. Broken stone accented cracked aluminum siding, filthy gutters dangled limply from falling fascia, and boarded windows banished peeping eyes.
Graffiti of both artistic skill and youthful impulse decorated the entire western side, and a laminated sign reading “DO NOT ENTER” was posted on the weather-beaten door for the curious to heed. A banner still hung from the entrance eave, but the letters had evidently peeled off so long ago that the sun hadn’t had time to fade their outlines onto the white backdrop.
I would’ve preferred to tour the apartment where my dad had killed my mom than to be in front of this building again.
“This looks like one of those warehouses people turn into a small church.” Sadie’s eyes drifted along the silhouette and came to rest on one of the boarded windows with pieces of broken glass still sticking up from the frame. “Except it’s a haunted small church.”
“You’re half right. It was a warehouse, but it was turned into a theater.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “This was actually where my interest in stage acting started.”
Her mouth puckered, and she blinked. “It doesn’t look big enough for dressing rooms, a stage, and an audience.”
“It isn’t, really. A packed house usually meant about a hundred chairs squeezed so closely together that people had to use each other as armrests.”
“What was it called?”
I flicked my gaze to the banner, which waved politely at me as it caught a small breeze. Though its face was blank, I could still see the words in my mind’s eye. “The Golden Coast Community Playhouse.”
She let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a scoff. “So, the Gold Rush wasn’t too far off, as far as names are concerned.” Her lips were upturned, but the amusement in her expression ended there. I could tell she was still bitter over the lie I’d told her and the way she’d found out the truth.
I chose not to address the remark. My stomach was churning being on the lot alone, but I was going to go deeper into this darkest of places. Gesturing toward the door, I swallowed hard. “Shall we?”
“You want to go in there?” She pointed to the door too with dubious eyes. “It’s condemned. We’ll probably fall through the floor or get attacked by a family of coyotes or something.”
Ordinarily, I would’ve chuckled at her paranoia. Under the circumstances, however, finding humor wasn’t in my emotional capacity, so I simply shrugged and jerked my head in a half-assed nod of agreement. “Maybe, but I want to show you.”
Her lips parted ever so slightly, and the haze of caution lifted from her orbs to reveal the clarity of comprehension. “You need to do this, don’t you?” She wasn’t whispering, but the question was breathy and featherlight. “You need to go in there and see it again because you’re still carrying it around with you today, aren’t you?”
I hated the way that sounded like I was lugging around a heap of baggage that I couldn’t get rid of unless I buried myself in it first, but I had a feeling that was the case no matter how much I didn’t want to face it.
“Maybe.” I followed the paths of uneven siding with my eyes and recalled how often I’d done that before going inside for one of the many free performances. “Probably. I think I left a part of me here by accident, and I guess I want to know which part it was.”
My cryptic explanation steadied Sadie’s resolve, and she drew in a shaky breath. “Okay. Let’s go in.”
The parking lot was paved, but years of no maintenance had ruined the concrete, and our shoes crunched over unnatural gravel. I tested the knob, expecting to find the door locked. To my surprise, it turned easily and swung right open. I looked at Sadie with an unspoken question of confirmation, and she jutted her chin forward.
The sun filtering in through the doorframe and the cracks in the covered windows caught thick clouds of dust swirling in the air. I waved my hand in front of my face as I stepped inside, but the dank stench of must and mold filled my nostrils anyway. Chairs were still set up as though an audience of excited playgoers would be occupying them tonight, but some were overturned, and most were covered in a thick layer of dusty dirt.
The traditional red velvet curtain remained draped across the stage, though part had come loose from the rigging and drooped in dense swaths, and an old organ sat alone in the center of the performance area. The place was in such bad disrepair that it looked like it had been abandoned fifty years ago, not five. And yet, it was exactly like I remembered it.
“Tiny,” Sadie commented behind me.
“Very.” I walked slowly, taking care to test each square foot of flooring before resting all my weight onto it. “I think that worked in my favor because I wasn’t as afraid to get up there and see what I was made of as I would’ve been if there’d been five hundred eyes on me.”
“What made you want to get up there at all?”
I trailed my fingers across a long, cafeteria-style folding table where coffee and cookies had always been set up for the audience to enjoy after each show. There were sticky remnants from spills still clinging to the surface, and I wiped my hand on my jeans.
“They used to put on free productions for the community, usually once a month. Thanksgiving and Christmas, they did three. After Artie and I left the system, we would come here for those shows — it was warm, there was food, and it was some real entertainment — and I started developing a passion for what I was seeing.” Turning my focus back toward the stage, I recalled the sight of the actors in their dramatic period costumes, their verbose motions and voices filling the entire space. “I wanted to learn everything I could. Techniques, dance routines, accents. I wanted to do all of it.”
“How did you get your chance?” Sadie was still near the door. I got the impression she was concerned about a rafter falling on her head or something else happening that would require her to facilitate a quick escape.
A certain woman in a flowing eighteenth-century gown moved to the forefront of my memory, and I unintentionally bit down on my tongue. This was it, the last thing I had to tell Sadie. Once it was out, I had no more secrets from her, nothing left to hide or dodge or fabricate. I only needed to form the words. The gut-wrenching, nauseating, hateful words.
“Her name was Joanne.” I suddenly sounded like I’d stepped into my Concrete role as Xander. My voice had become raspy and raw, and I’d dropped a full octave. “She was an actress here. No job, married to a trucker who was gone for weeks at a time. I’d been showing up for the free shows for about two and a half years when she came up to me after a performance.”
“And she asked if you wanted to get involved?”
My laugh was like gravel spilling from my throat. “No. She asked if I wanted to go home with her.”
Sadie’s sharp intake of breath was audible across the room, but I didn’t turn around to look at her. My stare was pinned to the stage, reliving those moments, and I felt rooted to the spot.
“Did you?” Her question was distant, like it had come through a phone.
“Yes.”
The same breath she’d taken in came out with a soft whistle. “Was she… I don’t know what you’d call it… the female version of a john?”
“In a manner of speaking, but her payment was hot meals and a roof over my head whenever her husband was away.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “She was
my first.”
“You mean your first customer?”
I nodded and lifted a shoulder simultaneously. “And my first partner.”
“Oh my god.” The horror she expressed was tangible. “Your first time was with a married adult woman?”
“Yes. She’s the one who got me the role of Romeo.” Pain started shooting up my wrists, and I realized I’d been clenching my fists. “She’s also the one that got me into prostitution.”
Sadie yowled like an ailing cat. “You can’t be serious.”
I finally looked at her, twisting my neck to cast her a pointed look over my shoulder. She buried her fingers in her hair and closed her eyes. It was startling how much this wicked part of my life impacted her, though I admired the power of her empathy.
“Of course, you’re serious,” she muttered. “Who would make something like that up?”
“It started with a friend of hers. Then there was another one. They weren’t paying me at the start, but Joanne’s husband went through a slow period at work, so he was home more often, and she couldn’t house me and Artie like she’d been doing. That’s when she suggested I perform my services for payment.”
“Wait, Artie?” Her voice was thick and sounded as if it was coming from somewhere low in her belly. “He was there too? Was she…?”
I snarled under my breath at the insinuated thought. “No. She wasn’t interested in him.”
“Thank god.” She sighed the words out before gasping and covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh, god, I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant. And I agree with you.” I resumed my slow walk around the perimeter of the makeshift auditorium, dragging the soles of my shoes against the ground to create streaks in the dust. “Joanne was the only kind of goodness I knew back then. She took care of me, and she loved me. I didn’t realize at the time that the love was unhealthy, not to mention very illegal. All I knew was someone besides Artie cared if I was okay.”