by Jerry Cole
"You're crazy, you know that right?" Nicholas said in mild concern.
"It's worth a shot, isn't it?" Clay pouted, and Nick knew he wouldn't be able to resist. He sighed.
"Okay," he said. "We'll give it a shot. When are you going to see her next?"
"I think she's coming to the next rehearsal." Clay looked thrilled, like a golden retriever promised a trip to the park. Nick could practically see his tail wagging.
"Okay," he sighed. "So. What should we talk about?"
They spent the next several hours, late into the evening, just talking. They talked about recent movies and politics. Work and family. Music they liked and books they read. Anything they could think of. And it was easy. Too easy, in fact. Nicholas kept forgetting he was helping the guy he had a crush on to get a girl. It felt too much like just talking to someone he liked.
"The manliest action hero is not Bruce Willis!" Nick covered his face as he laughed. "The whole point of Die Hard is he's just this older, working joe!"
By this point, the coffee was gone and the sun was rising. They were sitting close on the love seat, Nick's legs stretched across Clay's lap, Clay leaning close as he fought for his point.
"But that's what makes him so manly!" Clay argued. "He doesn't need to be special forces or have all kinds of training or whatever. He just comes in off the street and starts kickin' ass with raw machismo! You really think Vin Diesel could beat him in a fight?"
"Have you seen Vin Diesel?" Nick snorted, sprawled against the arm of the couch behind him. "He's two hundred pounds of bronzed, bald muscle in his prime. Bruce Willis would drop dead of a heart attack after thirty seconds in the ring with that. Plus, his last name is Diesel! You don't get more manly than that!"
"Manliness isn't just determined by who can throw a better punch," Clay tried to recover. "Willis is a hard drinkin’, no nonsense modern cowboy. Diesel plays D&D, and he's got that whole thing with the guy from the car movies."
"You don't approve of the bromance between Brian and Dominic?" Nicholas teased.
"I just think it's a little distracting is all," Clay huffed, "when I'm there to watch fast cars explode."
"If what roles they take count toward how manly they are," Nick laughed, "then they're both out. Look Who's Talking and The Pacifier."
"Shit," Clay dropped his head against Nick's knee as he realized he'd been beaten.
"Besides, I've got the winner," Nick continued. "Dwayne the Rock Johnson."
Clay pulled back, wrinkling his nose for a minute, then nodded.
"Yeah, he could cream any of us, plus he's nice to his grandma," Clay gave in. "He wins."
"Why are all of them bald?" Nick suddenly realized. "All the serious action movie guys? Does an excess of protein in your diet make your hair fall out or something?"
Clay laughed, shaking his head.
"Maybe you should shave your head," he suggested, reaching out to muss Nick's hair. "See if you get a movie deal."
Nick snorted, catching Clay's hand to get it out of his hair.
"You're the one who should go bald," he said through his laughter. "You've already got the muscles for it. Look at you. You're like a living sexy firemen calendar!"
Clay tried to pull his hand back, and Nick held on, laughing. They struggled playfully with each other in clumsy, exhausted roughhousing, until Clay, struggling to keep Nick from messing up his hair, slipped as he was trying to pin Nick's wrists to the arm of the couch. He fell over the other man, suddenly perilously close, Nick pinned in place and abruptly helpless beneath him. Inches apart, they stared into each other's eyes, surprised into stillness.
Nick's thoughts were suddenly consumed with how easy is would be for him to kiss the other man right now. Was Clay thinking the same thing? It almost seemed like he was moving closer, looking at Nick pinned down beneath him with a curious look in his eyes. And then, just as quickly as it had appeared it was gone. Clay's face turned red. Slowly, as though afraid to break the spider's thread of tension hanging between them, Clay moved away.
"Sorry about that," he said, turning to sit on the far end of the couch, eyes averted as he fixed his clothes, trying for lightness and not quite managing. "Wrestling like that is a bad habit. You can blame my brothers. They might come into town to see the play, so you can blame them in person."
Nick could hear the nervous waver in the other man's voice past the rustle of his cotton clothing.
"It's fine," he said, sitting up as well and sweeping a hand through his hair to bring it under control again. "It was just practice, remember? I'm sure you'd like your talk with Renee to end like that too."
"What? No!" Clay sputtered, turning scarlet and looking at Nick aghast. "I could never do that to her! She's a lady!"
Nicholas laughed in sputtering surprise.
"I'm glad to hear I'm not then," he teased, leaning back against the couch, his arms behind his head. "I'm just the whore on the side, right?"
"Oh my God," Clay put his burning face in his hands as Nick giggled.
"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone I'm your secret mistress," he said in mock seriousness.
"I'm going home," Clay said flatly, standing and heading for the door. "See you at practice."
"See you there, lover!" Nick teased, laughing as Clay left. But as soon as the door closed behind him, Nicholas felt the energy drain out of him. What was he doing?
He scrubbed his hands over his face in exhaustion and checked the time. He still had an hour or so before he had to get up for work. He could try and get some rest. But he knew Clay's face would linger in his thoughts. This was more than a crush, he was beginning to realize. He needed to get over this, fast.
Chapter Ten
The next day, in a dark blue coat and a red scarf, Nicholas made his way through the park, a dark figure in the white snow.
"Can you handle the renovations without me today?" he asked, the cellphone cold against his ear. "I have a date."
"Oh? Breaking your vow of celibacy at last?" Walter asked on the other end.
"Yeah, I was starting to get too lonely," Nick confessed.
"And who's the lucky paramour?" Walter pried making Nicholas laugh.
"Just some woman from the Internet," he said. "We're retiling the bathrooms tomorrow, right? I'll definitely be there if you can manage without me tonight."
"Oh," Walter seemed somehow disappointed. "Of course. We'll be fine here. Enjoy your date. Just be ready for rehearsals tomorrow."
"I will," Nick assured him. "Talk to you later Walter."
He hung up, spotting the girl he was waiting for standing near the frozen pond. She'd seen him too and smiled, holding up her ice skates. He held up his as well, grinning.
"It was a very romantic idea," she said later as, once they'd worn themselves out falling down on the ice, they retired to a cafe for hot cocoa. "Ice skating on a first date! Most guys aren't so thoughtful."
"It was my pleasure," Nick smiled at the woman warmly. "I love ice skating. And there's no better way to get over first date awkwardness than both of us falling down a few times."
"Good point," she laughed, and her eyes were soft and full of affection beyond her long, dark lashes. Nick should have been overjoyed. The date was going fantastically, and she was clearly into him. But he couldn't seem to make himself feel anything. She was nice, and he liked her. She was someone he would have loved to meet up with once a month or so in a cafe like this to talk about books, in which they had very similar taste and the kind of interestingly conflicting opinions that made for good conversation. But he couldn't see himself taking her home, or even going on a second serious date. He liked her, and that was all.
And that was how it was the next time, and the time after that, and the time after that. Some of the women he didn't like at all. The worst were the ones actively offended by him not wanting to take them home. Maybe he just needed to keep trying? Maybe the next girl would be the one that made him forget the way Clay smiled at him. And the way he smiled at Renee.
Meanwhile, opening night drew ever closer. It was set for a two week run before and after Christmas when people would have time off and would want to be out doing things with their families. There were plenty of people who couldn't afford Broadway or the Manhattan theater district but still wanted to take their families to a play. The biggest concern for the Green Carnation was getting enough exposure that those people knew the Guignol existed and was an option.
"And back! Two steps, Richard! Parry! The flourish, Nicholas, the flourish!"
"I'm telling you I can't do that and deliver the line at the same time!" Nick complained, bending over in breathless exhaustion, still clutching his fencing foil. "It's one or the other, Walter!"
"You don't fool me, I've seen your fencing trophies!" Walter waved a script at Nick threateningly.
"Then you know 'first in fencing while monologuing' was not among them!" Nick shouted back.
His opponent stumbled off the stage to get a drink, knowing he had at least five minutes while Nick and Walter bickered. They always fought like this as opening night approached, using each other to vent their stress at the entire production. It never affected their friendship, and everyone else appreciated the break. And Nick needed a way to blow off steam. Between rehearsals, renovations on the theater, his day job, his dates, and evenings spent teaching Clay how to talk to women, he was run ragged. There was simply too much stress coming from too many directions. He was beginning to feel like it was all too much. Something was going to have to give out eventually, and he was afraid to find out what.
"Hush up, both of you!"
Clay interrupted their fight with frantic arm waving.
"Ms. Sutherland is here!"
Nicholas rolled his eyes, but he was the only one who disdained Renee's presence at the rehearsals. Everyone else scrambled to get things in better shape. Walter straightened up at once, tugging his vest down where it had ridden up and correcting his bow tie.
"All right, all right, everyone, back in place!" Walter clapped his hands for order. "Let's go through the whole opening scene again and straight into the duel. I want to see how the transition feels."
Nick felt a moment of worry he saw mirrored in Clay's face. The opening scene was one of the ones Clay had to do with Nick offstage. He still hadn't quite mastered those. As Clay hurried to get in place, Nick caught him by the shoulders.
"I'll be right offstage," he said. "Look back there at me if you need to. You can do this. I know you've got the lines down. Watch out for your accent."
Clay nodded nervously, but Nick gave him a reassuring smile, squeezed his shoulders, and hurried offstage. He watched from the wings as Renee, dressed in man-eater scarlet as always, took her place in the front row next to Walter.
The play opened with the opening of a play, where all the major characters save Cyrano were gathered to watch. Cyrano waited to disrupt the play within a play, whose lead actor he banned from the stage. It was a little metaphor, but that was what made it appealing. Christian, new to town, brought his friend to the play to help him identify a woman he'd seen there and fallen instantly in love with. How stupid, Nicholas thought. He never approved of that sort of love at first sight thing. It was just lazy writing, or admitting your characters were incredibly shallow and didn't care about anything but looks. Love didn't work like that. And people who mistook the spark of physical attraction for love were doomed to the same kind of tragedy Christian was destined for.
Clay was stiff and kept glancing offstage at Nick, but there was a marked improvement. He remembered all his lines and didn't freeze. It was progress they could build on, and Nicholas patted him on the back as he passed off the stage.
"Great job," he whispered. "You're going to knock their socks off."
Cyrano entered only a moment later, so he couldn't say much more, but just seeing the way Clay grinned at his praise was enough to make his heart soar. He charged onto the stage with all Cyrano's brash bravado, challenging every man in the theater to a duel and scaring the actor he refused onstage with no more than a clap of his hands. Then into the duel. Walter shouted directions on the choreography of the fight, and Cyrano composed and recited a ballad as he harried his opponent across the stage.
"Here comes the flourish, Nicholas!" Walter called. "Be ready!"
Nick gritted his teeth, but as he turned he saw Clay standing in the wings, looking not past him at Renee in the front row, but at Nick, awed by the fight. He felt a rush of sudden confidence and determination to impress the other man even more. On Walter's mark he spun, an aerial, almost balletic movement that was absolutely not a proper fencing move, but which Walter had insisted on for style, landing and moving straight into a glissade that ended with his point against his opponent's chest as he delivered his line.
Walter dropped his script to applaud and both he and his opponent let their swords drop to rest for a moment.
"Excellent Nick, excellent!" Walter praised. "I told you that you could do it! Oh, that's going to look fantastic when he's in costume! Can't you just see the fabric catching the air!"
Nicholas looked offstage, hoping to see Clay applauding him too. Instead, he saw the man looking past him now, a frown on his face. Nick followed his gaze and saw Renee, clapping slowly and looking at him with hungry eyes.
***
When rehearsal ended, Nick, shaky from all the sword fighting they'd done, sank into a seat with a bottle of water.
"Marvelous job today, Nicholas," Walter praised him, tapping him on the knee with his script. "I think you really impressed Ms. Sutherland, and the better she thinks of us the more attention her article will get for us!"
"More important than that," Nick changed the subject, uncomfortable thinking about that woman. "How goes the search for funding?"
"We're on the edge of receiving a very important grant," Walter told him, clearly delighted. "It could more than cover our advertising needs if we can secure it."
"So what's the catch?" Nick asked, leaning forward in interest.
"Nothing major!" Walter said. "Just dinner. Me, you, Christian, Roxanne, and the representatives of their foundation. Just to show them we're the kind of people who will be responsible with their money, of course."
"Of course," Nick nodded. "When is it?"
"Tomorrow night," Walter replied, and Nick recoiled.
"That's a bit last minute!" he complained. "I had a date, not to mention work in the morning."
"I'm sure you can agree this is more important than your Internet trollops," Walter said with a flippant wave.
"Walter! Disrespectful!" Nick, offended, stood up to leave.
"I just don't understand why you're wasting your time with them," Walter huffed. "We both know it won't go anywhere. I was there the last time you went on one of these kicks and ended up worn out and crying and then that woman stole your wallet—"
"It's not like that this time!" Nicholas defended himself, blushing. "I'm not...I'm not sleeping with them this time, Walter."
Walter raised his fuzzy eyebrows.
"Oh? And why not?"
Nick scrubbed a hand over his face to hide his embarrassment.
"I don't know," he confessed. "I meant to when I started. I thought if I could just get it over with I—"
He didn't finish, not quite ready to admit his feelings for Clay, not even to Walter.
"But by the end of the date when the discussions of my place or yours should start happening...I don't feel anything. I don't want it."
"Ahh," Walter looked at Nick thoughtfully, curling the end of his mustache as he considered the situation. "Could it be, perhaps, you're already in love with someone?"
"Absolutely not," Nick summoned all his acting ability to banish his blush and fix the blankest look possible on his face. "Goodbye Walter."
Walter laughed and tried to call after him but Nick was already hurrying away, not toward the theater doors but toward a back room where he could hopefully have a moment's peace to recover before he left.
He found a seat in the prop room which was blessedly quiet and leaned back against part of what would eventually be Roxanne's balcony, closing his eyes.
"Oh good, you're alone."
Nick groaned, opening his eyes to see Clay slipping inside.
"Do you mind if I talk to you for a minute?" he asked.
"Sure," Nick sighed. "We won't be able to hang out tomorrow unfortunately. I assume Walter told you about the dinner?"
"Yeah," Clay nodded, clearly distracted. "That should be interesting. Listen, can you do me a favor?"
"Of course," Nick said without thinking, more focused on the killer headache he was developing. "What do you need?"
Clay looked down, fidgeting with his hands.
"Could you, maybe, be a little less good, the next time Ms. Sutherland is watching?" he asked. "Not like, tank or anything but just, try not to be quite as great?"
Nicholas stared at Clay in beleaguered confusion.
"It's just that," Clay twisted his fingers, clearly worked up, "after rehearsal today I went to talk to her, and she wouldn't talk about anything but you and how amazing you were and I... I just don't want her to lose interest in me. I mean, if you're aiming for her too, I'd understand! But, I just..."
He trailed off and Nick felt his heart being stomped into another few dozen pieces.
"I'm not interested in Renee Sutherland," he said. "She looks like she'd bite my head off. But I'm not going to risk making our play look bad just so you can date her. You should try to get better at your acting instead. Don't you think it'd be better if we're both amazing rather than both kinda sucking?"
Clay pressed his lips together, clenching his hands, but nodded.
"You promise you're not interested in her?" he asked.
"Of course not," Nick scoffed. I'm into you, you idiot, he thought miserably, then shook his head.
"Do you want to get dinner on the way home?" he asked, standing up. "If you're so set on wooing the praying mantis, you need more practice."
"You mean for the play," Clay stepped aside as Nick breezed past him out of the room. "Or the other practice?"