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“Obviously I didn’t intend to—”
“Shut up.”
“No, Jem. Hear me out. I didn’t mean I was sorry we did that. I’ve been wanting to… do that… for a while. It makes sense that kissing each other every night built up a certain amount of… tension… that needed an outlet.”
I stared at him trying to figure out if he was trolling me. He wasn’t. He was a jackass, plain and simple. I felt used and stupid, and all the worries I’d managed to shove aside the second his hands had touched me—concern for my sister, annoyance about the piece that reporter was going to run—came rushing back with a vengeance.
I stood up and yanked my clothes into place. He wasn’t the only one who could act like this had been a onetime mistake. “Glad I could be an outlet for you. See on you onstage.”
“Jem, wait. That’s not what I meant. I’m fucking this all up. Please wait.”
I ignored him and left the small dressing room with as much dignity as I could muster, but when I got to the back of the wardrobe closet, I sat down in the corner behind several long bolts of fabric and pressed the heels of my palms against my forehead, willing the tears to stay the fuck away.
Just when I’d finally caught my breath and talked myself into moving past a regrettable experience, my phone buzzed with a call from Garret.
Perfect. I was in just the right mood to give my quasi brother-in-law an earful about his treatment of my sister and their pregnancy. I jabbed the Accept button…
But when Garret began speaking, his panicked voice drove all thoughts of a lecture from my mind, and before I knew it, I was racing away from the theater, just two hours before showtime, with my heart in my throat.
6
DAWSON
After Jem ran out on me, I stared at the back of the dressing room door in disbelief. How had I screwed things up so fucking quickly?
I hadn’t meant to say it was a mistake. Kissing him could never be a damned mistake.
But fucking on the floor at work? That had been a huge mistake. What if someone had walked in? What if we’d been fired? This job was a dream come true for both of us. I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself if I’d been the cause of Jem losing his place here.
After giving Jem time to catch his breath and calm down, I went looking for him with no luck. He was avoiding me, which made sense, but by the time the five-minute warning came before the show, I still hadn’t seen him anywhere.
Had I upset him that much? Had my revelation of his mother’s identity in the interview followed by the mind-blowing sixty-nine in the dressing room pushed him back into hating me? Would it have been enough to make him miss the show?
When Jem’s understudy nudged me with his elbow and whispered that he was going on in Jem’s place tonight, I felt sick.
“Where’s Jem?” I hissed back.
Isaac’s eyes widened. “Dunno, man. Just heard he had to go.”
My heart hammered as I searched the faces backstage for anyone who might have more information. When I spotted the stage manager, I quickly approached her to ask what was up with Jem.
“Family emergency,” she said. “Didn’t say what, but the man lit outta here like his ass was on fire.”
My stomach tightened with nerves. I didn’t even have Jem’s cell number in my phone. Within seconds, the curtain was up, and we were off to the races. The show—or maybe it was me—seemed off by half a beat the whole night. When it came time for me to kiss Isaac, he missed the mark, knocking my shoulder almost hard enough to push me down. I went with it and fell, rolling into a backwards somersault and popping back up on my feet before dusting my hands off proudly as if I’d meant to do that.
The audience loved it. But not as much as they loved the kiss.
I knew how they felt.
The show lasted a million hours. When the curtain finally came down, I raced to the dressing room to change and clean up as fast as I could before finding one of the guys in wardrobe who knew Jem.
“Chris, do you have Jem’s number?” I asked as several crew members hustled past on their way home for the night.
“Yeah, man. What’s up? Where’d he go?” Chris pulled out his phone to bring up the number. “All I heard was he was at the hospital and not to expect him home till super late, if at all.”
It was none of my business. I knew that. But I couldn’t help but want to find him and make sure he was okay.
“Family emergency. I don’t know more than that. Wait,” I said as Chris’s words sank in. “You two live together?” Chris lived in the apartment next door to me. I would have known if Jem lived next door too. Wouldn’t I?
