“That was so unbelievably sexy,” he said.
“Really?”
“If I kept a diary, which I don’t I assure you, this would go down as one of the hottest moments ever.”
“I can still feel it. Like in my whole body. I can feel it all over. How good it was with you.” I was vulnerable and I didn’t care. I was in the afterglow and the flush made me say things to him that I would have kept secret if I hadn’t just come in his office. I trailed my hand across his chest and looked in his eyes. “Let me touch you.”
Before he could answer, Delaney’s voice boomed through the buzzer. “Hi, Bryan. Just a reminder you have your board call in ten minutes to go over the final Wilco papers. The notes are in your email.”
Bryan cursed under his breath. “Thanks, Delaney,” he said in a perfectly professional voice. He could easily switch gears. When she hung up, he looked at me, and the longing had been stripped from his eyes. He was a man ready to conduct business. “I have to do this.”
I heard the echo of I have to go and I felt myself hardening. I put my shell back on as I adjusted my skirt and smoothed away the just-been-screwed look in my hair, thinking the saying was appropos for many reasons. I was nothing more than a quickie in the office to him. That was it. That was all. I took some small solace in the fact that we hadn’t gone that far. Fine, he’d seen me as turned on as I’d ever been my whole life over, but at least we’d done nothing more than kids in high school do. That’s all we’d ever be. Teenagers bumbling through adulthood, not knowing what to do or say. But what he didn’t say spoke volumes. He didn’t say he liked me. He didn’t say he was sorry for breaking my heart. He didn’t ask me to have dinner. He simply said, “I need to focus on this call.”
“Of course.” I downshifted to my crisp and business-like tone. I could toe to toe with him in this department. He pulled on his tee-shirt, then his dress shirt.
“But let’s take the train back to New York. The four o’clock, okay?”
“Sure.” I gathered my bag and my books. “I’ll just be —” I said and waved in the general direction outside his office.
He settled into his desk chair, but his eyes were already on the computer screen and the email with the Wilco notes. He sighed heavily and dropped his forehead into his hand. “Fuck,” he said in a low voice, and I suspected he wasn’t going to have a very good phone call with the board.
Served him right with the way he was blowing me off. At least I’d had an orgasm, and he hadn’t. Small victory, but I’d take it.
I grabbed my iced tea, left his office, and said goodbye to Delaney. Then I called a cab as soon as I left the factory. There was a two-thirty train back to New York that had my name written all over it.
Chapter Ten
The music drowned out my day and my night. Jill and her castmates had grabbed guitars and jumped on stage at the bar post-show to jam out an impromptu version of Les Mis’ popular song One Day More. The show itself was amazing; the producers wanted to mix things up so they fast-forwarded the story to modern-day France and added guitars and drums to the orchestra of the off-Broadway production.
Now, we were at a nearby club in Soho, celebrating opening night of the month-long run. Imagine One Day More performed as a power ballad. Because, yes, Jill could handle a guitar too. She jammed hard on her Stratocaster and the amps howled out chords. The guy who played Marius, a young actor named Reeve, whipped the audience into a frenzy as he led the song. When he reached the chorus, he thrust the mic towards the crowd and they responded with the words they’d either known for years or learned when the Hugh Jackman movie became a hit.
My brother Nate was with me, but he was at the bar refilling our drinks. I raised an arm and sang along, the music smashing through my body, and echoing across the whole lot of us jammed together in front of the tiny stage. Reeve was a certified babe. He was tall and lanky, wore hipster jeans, and a tee-shirt with a vest. He had the requisite long hair that fell in his eyes while he sang. I’d met him once during rehearsals, and had asked Jill if she’d be into him because he seemed her type. He was straight, quite rare for a musical theater man. But Jill had reminded me of the old adage about not getting involved with people you work with. Good advice, indeed.
Maybe I should go for Reeve. Maybe Reeve was exactly what I’d need to get Bryan Leighton and his too-business-like approach out of my system. Maybe it was time to return to actors and other artists. Bryan had called me a few times after I took off from his factory that afternoon, but I didn’t pick up. He emailed too. He wanted to know where I was. If I was okay. If something was wrong.
My reply was simple: I forgot I had an appointment in the city. The factory is amazing, and I am learning so much.
I didn’t say anything more, and certainly not anything personal, and definitely not a thanks for the O! He didn’t reply, and his radio silence the rest of the evening affirmed that I’d made the right choice to bail.
Reeve belted out the final verse to the song, then mimed strumming a guitar solo alongside Jill as the song faded to its end. “Thank you so much for coming to the show, and to hang out with us all afterwards. You are a kickass audience, and you rock my red and black world,” Reeve said, and several women shrieked and held their arms out towards him.
As the singing actors put away their instruments, I found my brother at the bar. He handed me a vodka tonic. I’d probably only have a sip. I’d never been much of a drinker. “You sure you’re old enough to drink?” he asked.