“Looks like snow.” I let the door close behind us.
“You better watch out then. I throw a mean snowball. My brothers taught me how to throw.”
“I’ll consider myself duly warned for the vicious snowball attack.” We head down the backstage hallway toward the wings of the stage. As I watch her walk, her coat hitting just below her waist, I imagine her na**d again. I love that I know what she looks like without anything on.
I take a drink. The coffee is perfect. Just black. Nothing added to it. Exactly how I like it.
“How did you know?”
“How did I know what?”
“How I take my coffee.”
“I took a wild guess. My roommate has this theory about guys and their coffee drinks,” she says as we reach the stage. She stops at the edge of the curtains.
“A theory about men and coffee?” I raise an eyebrow. “Enlighten me.”
She briefly looks at her shoes, then back at me. “Well, it’s just, she has this theory that the man who orders just coffee is, you know…” her voice trails off, and crimson starts to flood her cheeks.
“Is just what?”
“Just…” She can’t seem to finish the thought.
“You want me to guess?”
She shakes her head, her hair falling in a curtain around her face in the most thoroughly distracting manner. But she seems embarrassed, and the last thing I want to do is push her past her point of comfort.
“Well, whatever the theory is, I will choose to take it as a compliment.”
She raises her face, and meets my eyes. “Thank you.”
“Do you want a tour of all the secret backstage passageways and doors before we start? Or did you check everything out already today?” I offer, hoping she says yes. I want to be able to do something for her that’s special, that no one else can do. To show her more of the things she loves—theater.
Her eyes sparkle. “Secret backstage stuff. Like ghosts?”
“This theater has many, many ghosts. They say the ghost of Hammerstein sometimes watches from over there.”
I point past the stage, to the balcony on the right-hand side.
“Do you think he’s there right now?” she whispers.
“Oh no. He’s far too busy. He only shows up on opening night.”
She laughs, and places her coffee on the floor and unbuttons her coat. She walks to the edge of the stage, leans slightly, then tosses the coat perfectly so it lands on a chair in the second row. Right next to my coat. Then she retrieves her cup.
I tip my forehead past the wings and crook my finger for her to follow me. I take another sip of the coffee then show her the trapdoor in the stage, the steps down to the orchestra pit that also do double duty for quick costume changes in some shows, and the catwalk above with the spotlights.
“But here’s the best part. Did you know there’s a dressing room above the stage?”
She grins widely, as if I’ve just revealed the location to buried treasure. “How did I not notice it today?”
“It’s kind of hidden behind some of the crates with the set pieces we haven’t unpacked yet. The star usually claims it; it’s actually in Alexis’ contract. But it’s still worth a look.” I show her back to the wings, and open a black door that’s painted to match the walls. “Right there. Stairs lead up to it. Like a fire escape.”
“Can we go up?”
“We can’t go inside. But you can go up.”
She walks up the steps to the top where a small metal balcony looks out over the quiet stage, with the door to the dressing room behind.
“It’s quite a view,” she says drinking in the majesty of the St. James from this hideout spot that few people ever see. She surveys the expansive place as if she’s privy to a gorgeous sunset, and I love watching her reaction because I feel the same. She turns to me, and we’re so close in this tiniest of balconies that I could easily grab her and kiss her and do so many other things to her, with her, for her up above the floorboards, only the stage below knowing our secrets. “Davis,” she says in a low and sexy voice that nearly obliterates my self-control. “Would you go down to the stage? I want to see what it looks like from up here with a person on the stage.”
“Okay,” I say warily. “But I’m not going to perform.”
“I won’t ask you to tap dance or twirl in circles.”
“Good,” I say, then oblige by heading down the metal stairs to the middle of the stage. I’m still holding my coffee, so I look up at her, and hell if she doesn’t look like the most romantic woman ever written leaning on the railing in the balcony, her long hair framing her face, a wistful sigh fluttering from her lips.
It’s a moment that shouldn’t be ruined by words. Besides, she wanted to see how the stage looks, not how it sounds, so I say nothing. I take a drink of my coffee. I wait for her to go next.
Even from this distance, I can see her swallow and exhale as if she’s about to say something that’s hard for her. “Your coffee?”
“Yeah?”
“All the hot guys take their coffee black. So that’s how I knew.”
For the first time in my life, I am speechless. I am reduced to nothing but this buzzing in my bones, as if every cell inside me has been dialed all the way up. My skin is hot all over and my body feels like it’s shaking as she turns down the stairs, crosses the stage, and stands in front of me.