Page 58 of The Big Easy & Other Lies
“Kisses.”
Startled, I turned to face him, not realizing how close his face already was. He didn’t move back. “No. Why would I be mad about that?”
He inched forward until our lips were barely a handspan apart. “They weren’t the kisses I wanted to give you.”
Oh. As Bran would say,Day-um.
I leaned away. It was the only way to regain my speech. “Um, I thought those two were pretty good.”
“Yeah?” He looked pleased. “I thought maybe I didn’t have enough practice or something.”
I was dying to ask how many girls he’d already practiced on, but then I’d have to volunteer my only two priors—a seriously embarrassing number for someone turning eighteen soon. His number had to be a lot higher than that. He wasn’t every girl’s super-prep-jock cup of tea, but I’d seen a lot of girls checking him out since he enrolled.
Peggy dropped off our food and Rhett shifted to get to his sandwich. I scooped up my burger, grateful for the room to breathe but simultaneously wanting his arm back behind me. We ate in silence for a minute or two and then Rhett asked what I thought about Mr. Gervis’s announcement of our fall play,Oliver!
I jumped on the neutral subject, and the rest of lunch flew by. The awkwardness evaporated. It was as easy as goofing off with Bran and Livvie, except that every time Rhett’s thigh brushed mine on the bench, I fought not to fidget at the way electricity prickled along my skin. By the time he walked me to Dr. Bickham’s room for fifth period, I floated to my seat on a cloud of Rhett-charged electrons.
Somehow I refrained from sprinting to theater arts when the bell rang. Chloe pointed to the empty seat beside her and I dropped into it, my nerve endings on high alert for Rhett. He slipped in next to me right as the bell rang. Before either of us could say anything, Mr. Gervis clapped his hands for attention.
“Crew, you need a first-look concept for set and costume design. Marcus will head up the set team, and Amber will lead costume design.” I bit back a groan. Her work onAMidsummer Night’s Dreamshone last year, but we’d always made sure we worked on different costumes to avoid any awkwardness. With her as wardrobe supervisor, there would be no way around interacting with Angelique’s head groupie. The glow on my afternoon faded. Rhett nudged my shoulder.Roll with it, he mouthed. A moment later Mr. Gervis dismissed us.
“Catch you later,” Rhett said, as we climbed to our feet. “I have to go read lines.”
I nodded, and Chloe and I headed for the design room. No doubt Amber would assign me to the most menial tasks she could find. Yay. Three months of sewing in zippers and hemming to look forward to.
Eight of us would be working on costuming. Amber handed out a photocopy with some sketches on it. “I know this is hard to envision in a line drawing, but Mr. Gervis only told me I was head of design yesterday, and I didn’t have a lot of time to work up anything fancy. This is one way I thought we could go. What do y’all think?”
I studied at the pencil sketch, impressed.
“Are these for Fagin and the Artful Dodger?” Taylor Booker asked.
Amber nodded. “Yes. I researched cast photos from other productions, and I think it could be interesting to step away from the traditional costuming, maybe reimagine it.” Heads nodded. Nobody said much, still absorbing the new direction. I hadn’t expected a Calvin Klein fangirl to come up with something so creative. Her concept intrigued me.
“These are good,” Liam Parks said. He was the only guy on the costuming side, and one of only two openly gay guys on the whole campus. He came out last year because he got drunk at a spring break party and some guys had harassed him for not making out with a plastered Lily Couvillion. That tea didn’t even need her help to spill through the whole school. I wasn’t there, but it was all I heard about for a week. Liam showed up this year with his bangs dyed purple and several piercings. He took a fair amount of crap from the meatheads, but in theater arts, no one cared. He waved the photocopy at Amber. “Will there be sparkles?”
“You are chief bedazzler. I want this to be collaborative,” she said to the rest of us. “But I do have some ideas for each of you.” She went around the table. “Taylor, I’d like you to work on Nancy with me.” Taylor ran with the Angelique crowd, and she squealed at her assignment. Nancy’s costume would be high profile. Amber handed out more assignments, and my stomach sank lower the closer she got to me. Whatever she assigned would be the first of many public humiliations to come. “Cam, you’re on Widow Corney’s costume.” I nodded. Widow Corney had two minor scenes and needed little more than an apron and housecoat. It would require no design at all. Chloe looked annoyed for me, but since I had expected it, I gave her a slight head shake.
After a few more minutes of discussion, Amber turned us loose to work on our individual costume sketches.
Chloe took the worktable next to mine. “She’s wasting you.”
I smiled. “It frees me up to work on my capstone designs.”
Chloe shrugged. “Whatever. She’s still a—”
A loud clatter sounded on the other side of the room and the whole set design team jumped back from the remains of whatever they’d been trying to mock up using assorted textbooks. I turned back to my sketchpad until the sound of throat-clearing distracted me from the details on the apron trim. I looked up to see Rhett in the doorway, his hands in his pockets as he studied me.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked softly.
I glanced at Amber, but she hadn’t even looked up from her deep in discussion with Liam, so I slipped off my stool and followed Rhett to the wings. Instead of saying anything, he grabbed my hand and drew me as far backstage as we could go.
“What—” I whispered, but quieted when he shook his head, a movement almost imperceptible in the curtained darkness. He stopped in the empty back corner, and I could barely hear the actors on the stage over the heartbeats sounding in my ears. So fast that I couldn’t panic, he had my back against the wall and a hand on either side of my head. “Can I kiss you?”
I swallowed. “Yeah.”
His lips found mine. It wasn’t the gentle brush from Friday night. It was a hungry, sure kiss that buckled my knees. I grabbed his shirt, and he made a quiet sound in his throat. I shivered. He kissed me harder, and I pulled on his shirt to draw him closer. He made the sound again, and I thought, “We are totally Tara Braud and Brady Lansing right now” because they made out all over campus, but Ididn’t care.The curtains could have opened, and a spotlight hit us, and I still would not have cared. The feeling of Rhett’s chest against my fist and his mouth on mine was wondrous. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t mind. And I kissed Rhett back. Hard.
He broke away to draw a ragged breath, and his forehead touched mine. My own breath slipped out in a shaky sigh and I whispered, “You don’t need practice.”
