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Moreno came to Leo’s side and patted his back with a grin. “Full house tonight, huh?”
“Sold out.” Leo cracked his knuckles to expel some of his pent-up energy, and his eyes automatically scanned the room for their Sarah Brown.
“She’s in the bathroom puking,” Emma called out from beside Wes.
Leo anxiously tapped his fingers against his legs and glanced at Moreno.
“You want to go get her?” Moreno smirked.
“I’ll be right back,” Leo promised with a sheepish smile before he scurried off toward the dressing room for a short pit stop before the bathroom. Besides the obvious need for Piper to be backstage with the show starting in the next fifteen minutes, the real reason he wanted to see her had nothing to do with the show and everything to do with needing to touch her. To feel her presence steady him. He would see her, and everything would be okay.
Leo knocked on the door to the women’s bathroom with two quick raps of his knuckles before walking in. “Piper?”
She was standing at the sink in her maroon mission uniform—a blazer with shoulder pads and gold buttons fastened up to the collar at her neck, a pencil skirt, pantyhose, and her brunette wig hanging around her heavily made-up face—as she white-knuckled the sink. “Hi,” she whispered. He immediately went to her side and set a hand on her back, rubbing up and down her spine.
“Did you throw up?”
“Yep.” Piper stood up straighter to face him. “I’m trying not to do it again.”
“Did you bring a toothbrush?” The glare she shot him made him chuckle. “Sam has to kiss you several times, so I’m just looking out for him.”
“Yes, asshole, I used the mouthwash I keep in my purse.”
“So prepared,” Leo teased and held out her inspiration box. Piper took it wordlessly and dug inside for the apatite stone. He reached up to cup her face and looked into her eyes, which were the same color blue. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know if I can do this.” She blew out a shaky breath, the clean mint scent hitting his nose.
“Yes, you can. I know you can.” He reached his other hand up so her head was cradled in his palms, careful not to mess up her stage makeup. “I chose you for the part, and I’m never wrong.” Piper’s eyebrows lifted, and Leo grinned, tilting his head to the side. “Okay, I’m wrong some of the time, but I’m not wrong about this. I’m not wrong about you, princesa.” He wasn’t talking about the show anymore, but she never did seem to notice when he took things a little further. Or, if she did notice, she never said anything.
“But what if you are?” Piper countered.
“I’m not.”
“I’m terrified,” she whispered.
“I am, too,” Leo said. His eyes searched her face, and he could see that familiar anxiety of hers there. He wondered if she was still terrified of love, too. Still scared to be his. “We did everything we could have possibly done to make this show everything it needs to be. You have your lines and your songs down. Your set is beautiful.” Everything you touch is beautiful, he wanted to say, but right before the biggest moment of his career thus far when everything hinged on having their heads straight probably wasn’t the best time to confess how in love with her he was. “I’m the ASL interpreter, so I’ll be out there the whole time. If something happens, you can glare at the back of my head.”
Piper sucked in a breath through her nose and let it out slowly while bobbing her head, her thumb brushing over the stone in her hand. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Leo mimicked. And then, because he couldn’t resist, he leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers, just one small press before he pulled away and let his hands drop from her face. Instead of questioning him, Piper threw her arms around his torso, the inspiration box contents rattling behind his back, and leaned her head into his chest. His arms embraced her, and his thumbs traced circles into the maroon wool. “You look so strange as a brunette,” he mumbled.
Piper laughed as she pulled away and reached her hand up to wipe at his mouth. “And you look so strange with lipstick.”
“Good to know.” Leo thought, for a moment, that he might just say fuck it and tell Piper how he felt right there in the women’s bathroom, but she interrupted that train of thought.
“We should probably get back.”
Leo nodded and puffed out his chest. “It’s showtime.”
“Have you been waiting the whole time just to say that?” The light cackle Piper let out made his smile even wider.
“Of course I have.”
The stage lights were always too bright to see a damn thing in the audience, and Leo wasn’t sure if that made things worse or better. It was hard to imagine anyone in their underwear when you couldn’t even see them, but as Moreno took the stage and Leo waited in the wings, he figured he would find out soon enough whether he was meant for the spotlight.
“Good evening,” Moreno spoke into the microphone in his hand and beamed out at the audience. “Thank you all for coming. If you’ll all join me in giving a warm welcome to our director, my protégé, and the hardest working young man I’ve ever met, Leonardo Diaz.”
The applause from the house was more thunderous than Leo expected. He only took a brief moment to look back over his shoulder at Piper, who was giving him one of her rare, nose-scrunching smiles. These days, her smiles came less and less rarely, but they were no less special. He winked back at her before his feet carried him to center stage, taking the mic from Moreno on his way in.
