Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (49 page)

When I’m about to turn away, I hear a noise from the opened door of the auditorium. I stop and listen.

Nothing else comes.

I move to the door and poke my head in. I don’t see anyone in the seats. Coming further inside, I look up at the stage. No one. Nothing.

“Hello?” I call out, like the half-naked bimbo does in the horror movie before she’s caught and gutted by the killer. “Hello?”

No one answers. I move down the aisle, curious, drawn by the silence. I ascend the steps and stand center stage, looking out at the seating, which is only half-lit by the spray of stage light above.

A smile finds my face. No one uses the auditorium at all, not until after auditions when the set building and rehearsing begins. This big room is abandoned for the time being, according to my new friends.

This auditorium is mine.

I imagine the seats filled to the walls with people who’ve purchased tickets. I imagine the hum of an animated crowd as they enjoy the house music and await the first act to begin. I imagine myself standing backstage, wringing my hands and excitedly longing for the drapes to be drawn. This is my moment. This is my show.

On this big stage, I feel a stronger sense of privacy than I do in my dorm. The desire to express myself grows strong, stronger … until I can no longer contain it. The first thing that comes to mind is a song no one’s heard of called “A Palace of Stone”. I part my lips and sing:

I have made a palace of stone,

a place of which to call my own.

Here is my bed

to lay down my head

and dream that I’m not alone.

For such a feat, what do I win?

The doors are deceivingly thin.

But I built the walls too high

nearly kissing the sky

so no one can find their way in.

There’s no staff to help with the messes.

There’s no guests to admire my dresses.

Dinners cook themselves

as I dust off my shelves

and watch as my lifetime progresses.

I’m an actress who shows no fear.

The bravest in my whole biosphere.

And by my painted skin

you see the people I’ve been

and the people I’ll never go near.

It’s work to perch atop this throne

made of credit cards and silicone.

Don’t dare give your heart

or you’ll fall right apart

right here in my palace of stone.

When I’ve finished, I imagine the room erupting into applause. I face the crowd and take it all in, rejoicing. I wonder if flowers are being thrown to the stage. I can smell them if I close my eyes.

There’s a noise from behind. I spin, alarmed by it.

He’s standing by the light rack, watching me. His eyes are fierce and focused, his lips parted slightly.

Oh shit. He heard everything.

“I-I’m sorry,” I murmur, my face flushing horribly. “I … I didn’t realize …”

His tight shirt hugs the two hills of his shoulders that lead up to his thick, muscular neck. His big pecs stare at me just as he does, and for a moment it’s like he’s some statue of a god. I bet his muscles feel like one too, firm and unbudgeable. I imagine the meaty sound his body would make as I tackle him, and the metallic racket of the lighting instruments as they bang together, disrupted by our crashing into them.

Wait. What the hell am I thinking?

“I’m s-sorry,” I repeat, ashamed, humiliated. All he does is stare at me. He doesn’t say a damn thing. “It … It wasn’t
that
bad, was it?”

His eyes bore into me,
smoldering
me, those deep, powerful eyes. He looks so dangerous … so tortured …

So sexy.
My heart races. I can’t catch my breath.

“Oh,” I blurt, my voice shaking. “It
was
that bad. I’m not supposed to be here, am I? I’ll just … I’ll go.”

And that’s precisely what I do, tripping over my legs as I race down the steps. The noise of my feet slapping the tile of the lobby assaults my ears as I flee the theater.

DESSIE

“And this guy … caught you singing?”

I sigh and lean into the table, mortified, then nod sheepishly.

“There
are
some hot guys in our school,” admits Victoria, “but I don’t know which one caught you. If you’d tell me more, I might know his name. There’s Jerry, short for Jeremy. There’s Aaron. Ooh, or Ian …”

Truth is, I don’t want you to know who.
“It’s okay. I just hope it doesn’t get me into trouble. I want to make a good first impression.”

“Yeah, save that for auditions Friday.” She winks and gives me a nudge. “Lighten up. It’ll be fine. Hey, I didn’t know you could sing.”

“I doubt I sang well. He just stared at me like I was an idiot and …” I can’t even finish, not wanting to relive it yet again. “I need to work on my audition pieces. I didn’t realize—”

“That auditions would be the very first week? Yep. We don’t mess around down here in Texas. I’m sure you’re used to that in New York City too, of course. Hey, we can help each other with our monologues! I could totally pick a brain like yours.” She nearly giggles with excitement. “I have a whole bookcase of marked-up scripts in my room. Hey, I bet you could even sing for one of your pieces. I think they’re allowing that, on account of the spring musical.”

I can’t stop picturing his face, the way he stared at me so intently after I’d finished. “We’d better get to class,” I say, noting the time on my phone.

“First day of crew! Did you see which one you got? They’re posted on the door of the rehearsal room.”

Twenty minutes later, we’ve moved from the food court to the School of Theatre, where I stumble as I scurry down the winding halls to the rehearsal room door. I search the list for my name.

My heart skips a beat.

I’d nearly forgotten which one I signed up for.

“Lighting crew?” Victoria questions, staring at me. “You picked …
lighting
crew?
Mmm, honey, I hope you aren’t scared of heights.”

I bite the inside of my cheek and suck my tongue, staring at my name and reading it over and over and over again. My body trembles. My nerves tighten and my knees turn weak. I know exactly why I picked it.

“I … wanted to t-try something new,” I struggle to say through a dry mouth. I have trouble swallowing suddenly. Maybe my organs are all shutting down. I might die before I reach my class.

Victoria gasps in protest when she sees her own name. “Costume crew?! Are you kidding me?! No! That wasn’t
either
of my preferences! Damn it! That can’t be right …”

I can’t even participate in a moment of sympathy for her, too wrapped up in my own predicament, if I dare call it that.
Will I see him today? How many people has he told about what happened yesterday in the theater?
Maybe he’s not in the lighting crew at all. Maybe he was just … fiddling with them a lot. Maybe he’s part of the set crew. Just like any other student, he gets assigned to different crews each semester too, right?

I’m overthinking this.
Calm down, Dessie.

“Oh well. Come by my room later,” she says to me, and I’m pretty sure I just zoned out on her whole tirade about costume crew. “We’ll pore over scripts! I want to show you what I’ve got prepared. You can critique me with all your
New York City knowhow
.”

I give her a halfhearted nod and grimace, then we part ways. I proceed in silence to where the lighting crew is supposed to meet: the main stage.

My heart hammers in my chest as I approach the door to the auditorium. It’s so cold that I swear they set the AC to a considerate thirty-below.

The door creaks.

I don’t know why I’m so afraid of anyone hearing me or noticing my existence at all.

When I step inside, however, I’m surprised to find only twenty or so sitting scattered among the first five rows. After a quick, nerve-wracking scan, I realize that mister mystery-hot-shit is not among them. Everyone in the crowd seems to know one another, chatting and laughing amongst themselves. Two guys in the back have their feet propped up. Three other guys are hanging over their chairs, chatting with the folk behind them.
Am I the only female here?
Literally zero of the people I’ve met thus far are in this room.

I sit silently in the fifth row behind the strangers, clutching my bag to my chest and waiting patiently for something to happen.

Ten minutes later, something does. A man comes out of a door backstage, emerging into the light. He’s dressed in black with a smear of unexplained green paint on his thigh and he carries a clipboard, toward which he inclines his head and adjusts the thick set of glasses that perch at the tip of his nose. His bald head shines with grease under the blaring stage light.

“Welcome,” he says to his clipboard, though I think he’s addressing us. “First day of lighting crew. Hi. Most of you know me. Six of you don’t. Hi. I’m Professor Dan Trellis. You can call me Dick.”

Two guys wearing baseball caps in the seats ahead of me turn to each other. “How do you get Dick from Dan?” one of them mutters quietly.

“You ask nicely,” answers the other, and they both break into a fit of muffled snickering.

I roll my eyes.

“This is
not
the slack-off crew,” Dick says in a tired drone, though it seems less like a fact and more like he’s trying to convince himself. “Most of your life here will be cables and gels and C-clamps. Shit gets stressful the week leading up to dress, just before each show goes up. You
will
be going up Bertha the cherry-picker at some point, so if heights aren’t your thing,
make
them your thing. Introduce yourself to Bertha. Learn how to operate Bertha. Love Bertha. You’ll be given an assistant when you first use her, blah, blah, life’s about confronting fears and shit, right?”

I’m about to make a mental comment on all of the professor’s swearing when something else steals every bit of my wayward attention.

Every bit of my delicious, sexy attention.

Another figure has come out of the shadows from backstage. His brawny build is unmistakable, as well as the swagger in his stride. When the light finally touches his face, it’s like a gift from the School of Sex. Dark, brooding, fierce … he always looks pissed off about something. Why do I find that so hot?