Play On

“But one I care about. Because he’s not a bad soul. In fact, he’s a very good man, and I know you saw that in the way he was with Sylvie. So please try to forgive him, Nora. He didn’t mean to be this cruel to you.” She gestured to the empty space in the sitting room. “He just needs Sylvie more than he needs anyone else. I’m sure you can understand that.”

Feeling like I might be sick while still clinging to the hope that there had to be some kind of terrible mistake, I pushed past her, heading for the door. “When does his flight leave?”

“In about twenty minutes. You’ll never make it to the airport, if that’s what you’re thinking!” she called after me as I fled the apartment.

No, I couldn’t make it to the airport in time. I fumbled for my phone in my purse. However, I could try to stop him from getting on that flight and find out what the hell was going on in his head.

Cursing when I discovered I couldn’t get a signal on the elevator, I burst out of it as soon as it hit the ground floor and pressed the call button.

“This is Aidan Lennox. Leave a message.”

“No!” I yelled in frustration when I got his voicemail. My hands shook as I quickly shot him a text message.

Where are you? What’s happening? Is what Laine said true?

Not even a minute later, my phone buzzed.

My pulse raced when I saw it was a reply from Aidan.

I’m more sorry than I can say. But I have to be where Sylvie is. You deserve better. Goodbye, Pixie.

Somehow, and I don’t remember how, I blindly found my way home to Sighthill. And although I left little pieces of shattered me on the sidewalk and bus and roads I crossed over, it wasn’t until I got inside my flat that the howling grief blew me into tiny fragments I was afraid I’d never glue back together again.

“‘Conceal me what I am—’”

“Stop!”

I looked up from my English assignment at Quentin’s sharp direction. He glared at the small stage where Eddie and Gwyn were rehearsing the end of act one, scene two of Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. Eddie was playing the Sea Captain, and Gwyn was Viola. As Viola’s understudy, I should’ve been paying more attention but I was trying to finish a paper due at the end of the week. And honestly, I knew this play like the back of my hand.

Quentin glowered at Eddie. “Stop looking at her tits while she’s speaking. You’re the captain, her guide, her support! You do not perv on a young lady, you licentious hound!”

I covered my mouth to stop my snort. When I joined the Tollcross Amateur Theatre Company last September, I’d been somewhat intimidated by its quintessentially melodramatic, Welsh-born director Quentin Alexander. However, over time I’d gotten more comfortable with him, especially because he made me laugh without even trying to.

“They’re right there,” Eddie complained, gesturing to Gwyn’s rather impressive breasts. She wore a tight sweater with a low neckline showcasing her badass cleavage. “Tell her to dress more appropriately.”

Gwyn sneered at him. “You do realize everything that just came out of yer mouth is the reason feminism was born, right?”

“Man up,” Quentin snarled in his upper-crust accent that sounded more English than Welsh. “You querulous wretch. Say the line without looking at her tits or I swear to the gods of Shakespeare, I will get myself another captain.”

Licentious hound, querulous wretch. My lips trembled as I tapped my pen against them. Quentin was on fire today.

“I don’t have to take this kind of abuse,” Eddie huffed.

“Then get off my stage.”

He didn’t get off his stage. They started the scene over and I looked back down at the assignment.

“I assume you know the lines … since you’re not paying attention?” Quentin murmured. I startled to find him standing above me.

I gave him an appeasing smile. “Every single one.”

“What are you doing?” He nodded to the refurbished MacBook in my lap and the notebooks scattered on the chair beside me.

“English lit paper.”

“Well, at least it’s productive, which is more than I can say for whatever it is Amanda is doing.” He nodded behind me and I looked over my shoulder to see my fellow understudy Amanda giggling at whatever Hamish (our Sebastian) was whispering in her ear.

“I can only hope nothing happens to Jane, or this play may be the cause of a divorce,” Quentin muttered before whirling back around to pay attention to his actors on stage.

Jane was our Olivia, and Amanda her understudy. While Jane was mature, professional, and madly in love with her wife, Amanda was a senior at Edinburgh University, smart but immature, single, a self-proclaimed flirt, and she loved being the center of attention. Olivia and Sebastian were love interests in Twelfth Night. Not a problem for Jane and Hamish.

If Amanda were to take over the role, however, I wasn’t sure how that would work out for Hamish. He was fifteen years older than her, married with two kids, and apparently bored by that because the man clearly did not have the willpower to resist Amanda’s charms.

I frowned at them, shaking my head in disgust. Amanda and I didn’t exactly rub together very well. I’d watched her go through a shit ton of men since meeting her last September. A lot of them were already with someone else. It would seem that she got off on being able to capture men’s attention from their girlfriends and wives, and as soon as she’d won, she dumped them, bored.

Poor Hamish.

What an idiot.

I looked down at my laptop, thinking it shouldn’t have surprised me that joining a theater company would throw me into so much drama on stage and off.

However, it wasn’t my offstage drama, and that’s all I really cared about. My life was officially drama-free and it had been for a while now. It was exactly how I liked it.

I was content. Finally.

It hadn’t been an easy road to get here, and by God, I would hold on to what I had with everything I had.

“Okay, where’s my Valentine and Duke?” Quentin called out.

Duke Orsino was being played by Jack. He was a good-looking guy a few years older than me, medium height, athletically built with lovely dark eyes that constantly glittered with mischief. He was a flirt like Amanda, except he stayed away from attached women and he was actually more a serial monogamist than an outright player. He’d had two girlfriends since we’d met, dating each for a few months before breaking it off. While he was with a girl, he was with her, as far as I was aware, but that didn’t stop him from flirting with every breathing female in Edinburgh.

Except Amanda.

He made it obvious she irritated the hell out of him.

Jack was a car salesman but he really wanted to be an actor. He’d been an extra in movies, had small, one-off parts in TV shows—he’d even done a couple of commercials. But nothing that would pay the bills on a regular basis.

Still, he persevered and got his acting fix as a player in this company.

He’d been sitting a few chairs down from me, his legs up over the seat in front of him, ankles crossed lazily. He and Jane, our Olivia, had been sitting watching the rehearsal in between playing with their phones. Other cast members with smaller parts were scattered around the small theater, waiting for Quentin to call them up.

I shifted to the side, holding my MacBook out of the way as Jack shuffled along the aisle to get out. He smirked down at me as our bodies brushed and tapped the top of my laptop. “This is why ye’er single. Too much work and not enough play makes Nora a dull girl.”

I gestured for him to move along. “I’m single because I want to be single, Jack.”

“Oh, that’s obvious, gorgeous.” He winked as he stepped into the aisle.

“Make haste, Orsino,” Quentin snapped. “We haven’t all bloody evening.”

Will, who was playing Valentine, was already up on stage with Gwyn.

“Okay,” Quentin said, once Jack was standing offstage ready to enter. “Act one, scene four.” He pointed to Will.

Will strode out to the middle of the stage with Gwyn. “‘If the Duke continues these favors towards you, Cesario, you are like to be much advanced; he hath known you but three days, and already you are no stranger.’”