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Carter raised his hand with his thumb bent over his palm as if he were taking an oath. “I hereby solemnly swear that I support your vendetta regardless of the fact that you like to swap spit with Diaz on the side. Happy?” He ripped the bag out of Piper’s hand with a cocky smile as her face went bright red.
Choosing to say nothing at all for fear of giving away just how much her body had liked the kiss—how much she still craved the spark that had ignited between her and Leo when his lips raked over hers—she slumped into the seat next to Carter and dipped her hand into the bag of chips. With a grumpy hand motion, she shoved a large chip into her mouth and bit down hard. The chip was somehow supposed to keep her mouth occupied from thinking about Leo’s tongue entwined with hers, but it accomplished nothing.
The new action movie that Carter talked Piper into watching for their movie night didn’t distract her, either. There were enough shootouts and dead bodies to break anyone out of a trance, and yet she continued to fixate on Leo’s mouth, the idea of driving across the state with him, and how horrible it would be tomorrow when she had to practice kissing Sam—not because it would be uncomfortable to kiss him, but because pretending like she could ever recreate a kiss of the same magnitude as Leo’s was a joke. No one would believe that Sarah Brown was in love with Sky Masterson, because the best kiss of Piper’s life was with someone she hated, not someone she loved. And just how fucked up did she have to be in order to want to do it again?
Eighteen
LEO
In the aftermath of Leo recklessly smashing his face into Piper’s like an unhinged child against the glass in an aquarium, he had successfully avoided her at all costs. It actually wasn’t that hard since she had no idea where he lived. He had hidden in the apartment for the entirety of their two-day break from rehearsal, emerging only to attend the classes Piper wasn’t enrolled in. He had even avoided the library, which was a problem because he now had two days of studying to catch up on. The discomfort from the shitty chair at his desk and the thin walls separating his apartment from the noise of the other apartments had his head so scattered, he’d barely gotten anything done. Thanksgiving break was coming up, though, so he figured he could catch up then since there would be nothing else to do. It would be a good distraction from thinking about how this would be the first time he couldn’t make his budget work enough to spend the holiday with his family. Between skyrocketing gas prices and the part his car needed to even make it two feet, he couldn’t pull it off. His mom had tried to hide the sadness in her voice when he told her—she would never guilt-trip him about not being able to afford something—but Leo could still tell how disappointed she was. His dad was always far more practical.
“La honra y el dinero se ganan despacio y se pierden ligero, mijo.” Honor and money are earned slowly and lost quickly. It was his father’s favorite catchphrase. Leo wondered where his honor was in the grand scheme of things. Kissing Piper might have tipped the scale into the “lost quickly” category.
The disappearing act Leo was pulling with Piper was about to come to a close, so he would find out soon enough if his honor was gone forever. He pulled open the back door of the theatre and shuffled along the glazed concrete to the office space that had been Moreno’s alone before he permitted Leo to use it. Nothing was ever organized in the office. There were papers everywhere. Scripts were stacked and shoved into every available space, with colorful tabs and sticky notes hanging off of pages covered with chaotic scribblings. Anyone else coming into the room would have assumed that its occupant was a madman, but Leo knew better. Alejandro Moreno was a genius. The mere fact that Leo got to come anywhere near a space where Moreno’s thoughts were sprawled across every surface felt like a dream, let alone that he got to sit in Moreno’s chair and come up with his own ideas.
Over on the desk, Leo’s clipboard had a coffee stain on it, and his handwriting crammed into the margins was so illegible that he should have been a doctor. His methods were just as scattered as Moreno’s, and his brain was even more scrambled with the knowledge of what scenes they were practicing later. “Adelaide’s Lament” about continually sneezing due to psychosomatic symptoms would be easy enough; Emma could sing practically anything thrown at her. The bar fight scene in Havana, Cuba, had been rehearsed more than any other scene because of the choreography that went into it, so it would be more of a refresher. No problem. The scene that had him so wound up and nervous was Sky and Sarah singing “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” punctuated by a passionate kiss. Act I, Scene 10 was going to be hell. When he had made the schedule last week, there was no way he could have known that just a few days prior to rehearsal he would make the terrible mistake of locking lips with one of the leads. It was so wildly unprofessional and uncomfortable for him to be directing Piper on how to kiss now. He had thought about postponing the scene entirely, but if he did that, she would know why, and he would look like a coward. He had spent enough time cowering in his room, hiding from her. Time to bite the bullet.
Every muscle in Leo’s body seemed to lock up as he made his way to the stage. He could hear Sam’s voice warming up his vocal cords and a smattering of other voices from the cast, but his ears ignored all of it to home in on one voice alone.
“Ready to make out, hotshot?”
Leo froze behind the curtain on the side stage just out of sight when he heard Piper speak.
“It’s going to be the best kiss you’ve ever had, sunshine,” Sam crooned back teasingly.
“Ah, yes. The best kiss I’ve ever had being with a gay guy does make sense for how my love life typically goes.” Piper sighed.
Despite never wanting to speak of the library incident again, Leo’s pride still hoped that he was Piper’s best kiss because, unfortunately, she was definitely his. He really wished he could stop thinking about it, but the way Piper's mouth had moved against his was nothing short of mind-fuckery. Her lips had somehow been both soft and aggressive. Before, he had really thought that the taste of a woman’s mouth should only be described in Sam’s romance novels as “sweet,” but he was wrong. What the hell was he supposed to do with the knowledge that Piper tasted like lemon cake? He could have gone his whole life without knowing that.
“You want me to make it really wet or something instead?” Sam’s voice offered.
Leo held back a chuckle and shook his head, still hiding in the wings. Piper and Sam were getting way too close for his liking. They couldn’t be friends because that would mean Leo would see way more of Piper, and that was a problem because he couldn’t quite keep his hands to himself. Sam had asked several times over the last few days why Leo was in such a mood, but he had managed to dodge all the questions using his Thanksgiving situation. It was probably best he got out onstage before Piper let loose their secret and he’d have to deal with Sam’s continuous pestering. But that also meant facing Piper, and that thought was equally unappealing. A double-edged sword.
“Ew, no! You keep your spit to yourself, Gosling,” Piper laughed.
Leo couldn’t quite hold back his laugh this time as he stepped out on the stage. His best friend and his arch nemesis-slash-one-time makeout buddy both looked in his direction, and he fought the urge to swallow nervously. Technically, the first thing on the schedule was the kissing scene, but Leo couldn’t even make eye contact with Piper, so he spontaneously decided that it would have to be last so he could get his bearings.
“You two practice your lines,” Leo called out, speaking only to Sam and then turning to Emma, sitting in the corner. “We’re starting with Adelaide’s song first.”
“The schedule says we’re supposed to do ‘I’ve Never Been in Love Before’ first,” Piper cut in before he could give further directions to Emma. He turned slowly toward Piper, meeting her eyes for the first time since their kiss.
“Figured you’d need more practice since you were so worried about the scene.” His combative tendencies with her were coming right back to the surface after the short hiatus.
“I don’t think I need more practice at all.” Piper glared. “I think I’ve had too much practice, actually. Way too much. Some would say I’m even overprepared.”
Leo glanced away and ground his teeth together. He knew exactly what this underlying conversation was. He paused for only a second to fume before he took his turn in the ring. “I don’t think you’re overprepared. I actually think that you could use a lesson or two. I get that you have a lot of hands-on experience, but that doesn’t really translate to acting.”
Piper’s mouth fell open, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Leo was starting to really think that it was a tell for when she was self-conscious, and watching her do it after something he had said made his stomach drop. If he kept up this petty game, there was no telling whether Piper would continue to keep their kiss on the down-low. He should’ve been thanking her for not blurting it out in the first place instead of taking a stab at her. One look over at Moreno confirmed Leo’s suspicion that he was being an utter ass. The man was giving him a stern look that a parent would give a child who was misbehaving. Leo cringed and reeled it back, finding his professionalism before responding.
“But I’m sure that’s not what you meant by being prepared, and I’m sure you are capable of doing the scene,” he backtracked. “I’m only suggesting that you haven’t yet worked on the logistics with Sam, and Emma’s scene is a solo, so it will be easier to start with her while you two go over everything.”
“Right. Well, I guess we don’t really want to be surprised and thrown off guard by a kissing scene, now, do we?” Piper finally responded. “Better to know exactly what we’re getting into. I know I really hate it when things are just sprung on me.”
Leo scoffed and decided to stop playing nice. Piper could pretend all she wanted that she hadn’t been expecting the kiss, but she had blatantly told him to do it and then kissed him back. With enthusiasm. “I think you’re a little more flexible than you’re giving yourself credit for.” He dropped his eyes to scan over her legs, specifically the one she had propped against his hip when she was grinding into him. She noticed and rolled her eyes. “I don’t know,” he continued. “I just have this really weird feeling that if someone were to spring something on you, you’d end up just really throwing yourself into the role.”
“I guess you would know, as someone who’s adept at springing things on people. On the stage.” Piper’s folded arms pressed up and in, accentuating her cleavage as she cocked her head.
Leo let out a breath through his nose as his fingers twitched in remembrance of the way he’d cupped her and felt her swollen breasts in the library. He opened his mouth to think of a quick comeback, but Sam cut him off.
