Page 61 of You Spin Me

I’m suddenly too tired and too cold to argue anymore. Tonight, anyway. This man is a saint compared to the guys I usually go out with, but it’s going to take some time to convince him of that. I might’ve met my match on the stubborn front, but now that I know the reason why he’s kept me at bay—which doesn’t seem to include him being a player or married—I’m not giving up until he gives us a chance.

Before I know it, we’re back at my car. I unlock the door and turn around to make one last plea, but Cal reaches around to open it for me. “Time for princesses to go home.”

“Only if you promise me that this isn’t the only time I’ll see you, that this isn’t some kind of magical”—I swoop my hands in the air between us—“time warp that you’ll pretend never happened.”

He nods slowly. “I promise.”

I can’t stop the yawns. “Okay, but only because I have a five-show weekend to face.” Placing a hand on his chest I add, “And only if you’ll let me do this.”

The urge has been nipping at my heels for the past hour, so I take him by the hoodie and pull him close to finish what I started back at the studio. A tightness around his mouth gives me pause, so I whisper a quote fromOthello. “I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.”

When his mouth quirks in a half smile, I bring my “nether lip” to his. Once, twice… and before I get to the third, his hands are in my hair and our lips are locked in a conversation all their own.

CAL

The melody that began playing in my head when this woman brushed her lips over mine hours ago swells into a full-on orchestral arrangement when our mouths meet again. Horns and strings and resounding percussion.

Her lips are even softer than her skin. God help me, I want to feel them pressed to every inch of mine. When a mew of a moan widens that gorgeous smile of hers, my tongue accepts the invitation. Thank goodness her curls have taken my fingers prisoner because otherwise they’d be ripping our clothes off, no matter that it’s below freezing out here.

When a dumpster slams shut and Blondie barks, we jump apart. Clouds of breath fog the space between us. I’m shaking with desire, but she’s shivering in her thin coat. Taking her by the shoulders, I guide her to the driver’s seat of her car.

Once she’s got both hands on the wheel, staring ahead like she’s as shocked as I am by that kiss, I lean in to whisper in her ear, “Good night, princess. Call me tomorrow?”

When I get a shaky nod, I close her car door and step away. As she disappears around the corner, a big old chunk of my heart goes with her.

Chapter16

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When Cal put me in my car last night, I didn’t think I even had enough energy to make it home, but the nap at the station and the late-night dinner must’ve messed with my circadian rhythms because it took forever to fall asleep.

Replaying the kiss over and over may have had a part in that too, I suppose.

Even though I make it to my audition this morning within a half hour of my appointment time, I still have to wait forty-five minutes to get called in. But the real shocker? I find out they’ve brought me in for the role of a mom. Of a nine-year-old. I mean, of course I could have multiple kids under ten without even having had them as a teen, but still. Am I really in that category now?

Worse, there’s not a kid in the waiting room who looks anything like me. There are little blondes, redheads and even one adorable black girl, but not a single part-Russian Ashkenazi, part-Moroccan Sephardic Jew.

Despite the odds being totally stacked against me, I give it my best shot. Hey, maybe the eye wrinkles that seem to be breeding like rabbits will make me more mom-like.

When I get home, five free hours stretch before me before I have to leave for the weekend up in Chichester. I’m kicking myself for forgetting to get Cal’s home phone number. Again. We could’ve hung out today. During daylight hours. Instead, I buckle down and spend the time getting organized, working out, and packing up food. The theater feeds us between shows, but I can’t afford to eat breakfast out every day like I did last weekend. Then I leave with plenty of time to spare. It’s a Friday and the mountains got snow this week, so the roads will be clogged with skiers heading to New Hampshire and Vermont. It’s one thing to be late for an audition or a date, but for a performance? Unforgivable. Plus, getting to Chichester early will let me get settled in at the house.

Somehow, I make it through the Friday night show without thinking of Cal. There is a niggling worry at the back of my mind that he won’t take my call, so when his “When can I see you again?” lands in my ear on the kitchen phone back at the house, I sigh out loud in relief.

I filled the guys in on what’s going on, but I can’t monopolize the kitchen for too long, so I do my best to get to the point. “Well, I’m up here through Monday morning. My friend Bella’s coming up to see the show Sunday night, and she’s going to sleep over. She’s got a kid but her mom’s babysitting, so we’re having a girls’ night.”

“How about lunch Monday?”

“Monday, hmm.” Pulling my dayplanner from my bag, I flip it to next week. “Damn. I’m actually teaching a new class at a studio in Cambridge, the place where I teach Monday and Tuesday nights.”

“So when are you free?” He doesn’t sound impatient but I wouldn’t blame him if he were.

“Well, I’m free tomorrow afternoon. You could come up and see a show. We have one at four and one at eight.”

“I don’t think I can. I have to spin at Nine Landsdowne tomorrow.”

“So, Monday night, I guess?”

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