Better off like I used to be.
Then, like I’ve been slapped stupid, I pick myself up. Because I wasn’t better off. I was acting all the time. I was living a life of pretend. But then he came around, and with him there was never any faking, there was never any make believe.
I rewind to the night in my bedroom when he listened to me, and he helped me, and he saw me through.
I flash back to the direction he gave me at our first private rehearsal: “But then she transforms. Love changes her. Love without bounds. Love without reason. She becomes his, and that changes her.”
How I loved the sentiment, how I felt it ring true in every cell in my body, how I longed for it to take shape in my life. I can picture the next scene, I can hear the music swelling, the orchestra growing louder, because this is the moment in the show when the heroine has to face all her fears.
For better or for worse, I need to know.
I grab my coat, my purse, and leave Zane’s. I won’t sit here and mope, and I definitely won’t walk away from this man without trying to protect what’s mine with every ounce of my heart and soul.
Davis
The meeting is taking forever, and I am antsy and eager to leave. But Clay has made it clear that the producers—Tamara and Carter Shey—like a casual, family atmosphere. They want a director to be involved, to chitchat, to engage in long, deep discussions about Shakespeare. So I hold my own, sharing some of my vision for Twelfth Night, and how I want to bring a new take to one of the Bard’s most popular plays.
Joyelle is enrapt in my ideas, and at one point, she even bats her eyes and casts me a huge beaming grin that seems a bit too adoring at this point. Or really, at any point.
I look at my watch, and they realize it’s nearing midnight.
“I’m so sorry we’ve kept you so long, but we’re thrilled to have you on board,” Tamara says, and shakes my hand.
“There’s one thing I’m going to need though to make this final,” I say, then nod to Clay. “He’ll let you know what it is because I need to go.”
I clap Clay on the back, and leave it up to him to work out the most important detail of my contract. I say goodbye to the others, grab my jacket, and head down the alley. If I know Jill, she’s already starting to worry. I’ll have to work on that with her, to reassure her that things don’t always unravel. That things can keep getting better.
But I don’t have to go to Zane’s, because she’s walking toward me, marching right up to me. She has the most determined take-no-prisoners look on her face, and her blue eyes are fixed on me. She stops inches from me, reaches for the neck of my shirt, grabbing the fabric. It’s not an angry gesture, but a pleading one, matched by her voice when she speaks. “Please tell me you’re not going to fall for Joyelle,” she says.
I laugh once, shake my head, and clasp my hand over hers, pulling her closer.
“Tell me,” she says again, insisting.
“I’m not. That’s not even remotely possible.”
“Tell me why,” she demands.
“Because of you,” I say simply. The answer is patently clear to me.
“I need to know you’re not going to fall for her. I need to know that if you work late with her, help her become a better Viola, you’re only going to think of me,” she says, and I can’t help but grin.
She points at me, accusingly. “Why are you smiling?”
“Because I love your jealous, possessive side. It’s completely endearing.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “You haven’t answered the question. Are you going to fall for your Viola?”
I shake my head, and curve a hand around her neck. “It’s impossible.”
She leans into me, and her voice softens. “Tell me, Davis. Tell me why it’s impossible.”
I cup her cheek in my hand and look her in the eyes. “Because she might play Viola, but you are my Viola. You are my Ava. You are my Eponine. You are every part ever written, but most of all, you’re my Jill and you’re the only woman I want,” I tell her, and she closes her eyes briefly and sways towards me. But I’m not done. I have more to say. “I will work with other women and you will be on stage or screen and kiss other men, and we will come back to each other because nobody else can come between us.”
Then she melts into me, pressing her body against mine on the streets of Manhattan, outside the St. James Theater, where I first told her on that cold evening that she was in my show. “Do you want to know why I took so long in there? What was so important to me that it kept me away from you on a night like this?”
“What?”
“I told them I would only do Twelfth Night if it was worked into my contract that I could come back once a week during rehearsals.”
Her eyes widen and sparkle, as if she’s filling with happiness. I love that she responds this way. “Really?”
I nod. “Yes. Really,” I emphasize. “I want to see you. I want to have a future with you. I’m not going to jet off without a way to see you as much as I can.”
She shakes her head, as if she’s berating herself. “I’m an idiot for doubting you.”
“No, you’re human. But you’ve got to realize that even though I might be in London for two months, I’m not going anywhere.”
“I love you,” she says fiercely, grabbing my shirt again, and fisting the fabric. “I f**king love you so much it hurts. But it’s a good hurt, because it makes me feel like I’m alive, and it’s not pretend and it’s not fake, and I want to keep loving you and trying not to hurt you, but sometimes doing it anyway, and then forgiving, and I want that with you. Only you.”
“Good. Now why don’t we skip Zane’s, because I think there are other things we should be doing right now.”
“What could you possibly have in mind?” She says playfully as she takes my hand and I hail a taxi.
“Come back to my place and find out,” I say, then open the door and let her in first.
* * *
We barely make it into my loft. She launches herself at me in the elevator, running her hands through my hair. “Do you remember our first private rehearsal?” she asks in an intensely serious tone.
“Of course. How could I forget?”
“When we were leaving, I kept hoping the elevator would stop. Or jolt me into you. So I could do this,” she tells me, then captures my lips in a kiss that is both soft and hungry, a promise of what’s to come soon, of how we will have each other tonight. She slows the kiss down, running her tongue along my bottom lip, then nipping at the top. She breaks the kiss to shoot me a sly grin. “That’s how you kiss me sometimes. You torment me with your teeth.”