Page 20 of Directing You
Chapter 9
Reid
“What date didFiddler on the Roofopen?” I asked her, splitting the last of the wine between our two glasses.
“September 22, 1964,” she answered with a smug grin. She barely got the date out between those petal-pink lips before she was drinking again. “It held the record for the longest-running Broadway musical untilGreasesurpassed its ten-year run.”
“Okay, that was too easy,” I said, racking my brain for a harder one. “Blood Brothers,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her.
She rolled hers in response. “That’ssupposed to be harder? Come on. It opened April 25, 1993, and closed after 840 performances on April 30, 1995. But its debut performance was in Liverpool in 1981. I told you, I’m like a human Wikipedia when it comes to Broadway dates and facts.”
As she effortlessly rattled off these dates and facts, something kept nagging at my brain. I’d been looking at her transcripts and was shocked to find that she had failed last semester’s History of Theater course, taught by none other than Brandon, mybest paland husband to my ex-fiancé. “Can I ask you something? Something I maybe shouldn’t?”
She jerked her gaze to mine, dark blue eyes bright and curious. “Okay…against my better judgment, sure.”
“How can you know so much and remember all this information, yet fail your History of Theater class last semester?”
Instantly, her body language shifted. She shrugged, tugging her sleeves over her hands, slumping into her seat. “I fell asleep in class and missed my oral exam. Having a near eidetic memory doesn’t help when you’re exhausted from your night job.”
I shook my head. Yeah, that would do it. But I also knew Brandon pretty damn well… and he wasn’t exactly a stickler for rules. “I find it hard to believe that Professor Lewis wouldn’t allow you a makeup exam. Maybe for a letter grade off or something.”
With tight lips, she blew a breath out, leaning forward onto her elbows and circling the tip of her finger against the edge of her wineglass. “Oh, he would have allowed me to make up the grade,” she snorted. “So long as I spread my legs for him.”
“What?” I asked with a half-chuckle as her words took their time to sink in. My spine went rigid. I couldn’t have heard that right. Brandon had been my best friend for years—surely, if he was the type to harass his students, wouldn’t I have known that?
She turned to me, eyes wide and panicked. “Oh, fuck. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Is it true?” I gulped, my mind swirling through hundreds of memories of me and Brandon when we would hang out. One particular memory from not long before I proposed to Faith struck me hard. The two of us had been out at a restaurant and he’d been flirting with our waitress. At first, it had been harmless. He gave her his number and invited her to come out with us after her shift. He leered at her ass as she turned around to deliver our food, and as he reached out a hand to touch her ass, I launched myself at him, grabbing his wrist before he made contact with her. I’d always just chalked it up to the fact that he’d had too much to drink that night. But, now I wasn’t so sure? What about all the times I hadn’t been there to stop him? Hell, what about the fact that he had fucked his best friend’s fiancé and then gone on to marry her? He clearly had no moral compass… a fact I’d been ignoring for years.
But now in this moment, I knew. I knew without confirmation that Brandon had absolutely done what Hazel said. And if he attempted it with Hazel, God only knew how many other women in that department he had pulled that stunt with.
She shifted in her seat, averting her gaze from mine, not answering me.
I caught her chin gently, dragging those deep blue eyes back to look at me once more. “It’s true.” This time, a statement, not a question.
“Yeah,” she whispered.
I inhaled so sharply that my lungs physically hurt. “Did you tell anyone?” She shook her head. “Hazel,” I whispered, “you have to tell Laura Dercy—”
“No. I can’t. And you can’t either. Please,” she begged, tears filling her eyes.
Fuck. I hated seeing her like this. I hated Brandon. I hated him more now than I ever had for marrying Faith. This was deplorable. Inexcusable. An ego-driven asshole using what little power he had to exert it over women in his department. “Okay,” I said, knowing not to push her. She breathed a sigh of relief, nuzzling into my hand that still cupped her jaw. “Can I ask why you don’t want to tell anyone?”
“It’s pointless,” she said. “He’s no longer teaching at the school, so what does it even matter? And it wouldn’t change the fact that I slept through my exam. I still failed.” She paused, swirling her wine within the large glass. “But sometimes I wonder how many other students he’s propositioned like that.”
Her thought mirrored my own from moments ago. She shivered and I pulled my hand back, feeling suddenly terrible for sitting here with her, drinking. For touching her. It didn’tfeelwrong…but it was wrong. Maybe I was no better than Brandon. “Will you at least consider telling Professor Dercy at some point? Just so they can prevent it from happening in the future?”
Hazel nodded. “Maybe. Maybe after I graduate, I’ll talk to Dercy.” Hazel glanced at me, attempting a sad smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You know, it was his wife who told me to maybe try my hand at directing.”
My rage went white hot. “Faithtold you that?” I knew Faith really well. I knew her better than I knew Brandon… maybe even better than she knew herself. And if I had to guess, she saw something in Hazel. The same incredible raw talent and potential that I saw. And she was threatened by it, so she tried to push her behind the scenes.
Hazel nodded. “We had a mid-semester meeting, and she talked about how grueling it is to be an actress and how much easier it is to be behind the scenes…”
I growled. I didn’t mean to growl like some sort of feral animal, but it just slipped out.
Hazel’s eyes snapped to mine even though she didn’t move her head. “What?”
“You are a spectacular performer. You belong on a stage. Arealstage. Not just in front of boozed-up patrons. And anyone who says differently is jealous of you.”
