Falling for Romeo (16 page)

Loitering had never been her style, but today she waited.

The first bell rang. Those surrounding him scattered and he was left alone. He still didn’t see her and she was k 0

Falling for Romeo k J E N N I F E R ll A U R E N S

perturbed enough to accidentally drop a book. The sound brought his attention to her. He jogged over.

She pretended she hadn’t masterminded the meeting, and dropped to her knees, retrieved the book just as he dipped down at the same time. Squatting there in the hall, their eyes met. Each had a hand on her book.

He smiled as they stood. He gave her full ownership of the hardback. “You’re late, Vien.”

“You know me,” she said.

“Yeah.” They began a slow walk to Miss Tingey’s room.

“Mom says you might be moving,” she said.

He let out a sigh. “Yeah.”

Do you feel as sad about it as me?
“That’s kind of exciting, I guess.”

Lifting a shoulder he kept his eyes on the floor and didn’t say anything.

“Are you excited? New friends, new house, new school?”

He finally looked over. “Would you want to move near the end of your senior year?”

“Guess not.”

“I’d finish the year out here anyway. I’d just drive over.”

“You mean when you’re not grounded from the car?” she added lightly. He didn’t laugh, in fact, his face tightened.

“You like it when I suffer, don’t you?” he asked.

She couldn’t tell if he was being funny or not, not when his eyes sharpened. “Are you—you’re just joking right?”

He stopped, staring hard at her.

k

Falling for Romeo k J E N N I F E R ll A U R E N S

“I don’t like seeing you…” she couldn’t say the words, they sounded so ridiculous. But if that’s what he thought, she was mortified. “That’s stupid.” She kept walking to Miss Tingey’s.

“You’d be glad if we moved.” He was right next to her, his shoulder brushing hers.

“That is so not true. You’re way off base.”

“How off base?”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s a leading answer, Jenn. I have to know the reason for it. How wrong am I? How off base?”

“I’m not going to answer that.”

“Won’t or can’t?”

The challenge in his eyes stopped her. This was supposed to be about him moving.
How did it get twisted
around to me?
I’m losing my edge.

“Guess you can’t,” he said. A little triumph mixed with disappointment in his voice. “Figured.” He strode of ahead of her to class, leaving her behind.

She watched the way his confident stride taunted.

Even that she liked about him. Even that she’d miss.

k

Falling for Romeo k J E N N I F E R ll A U R E N S

Fourteen

Everybody was off. The music didn’t cue up when it was supposed to, leaving the citizens of Verona with blank faces. Somebody dropped a rapier. John forgot four lines, Andrew one. Trish, who played the nurse, tripped during three of her entrances, sending the audience into a laugh with each one, changing the tone of the play to slapstick.

Chip blew a fuse during intermission, sweating, growling, pacing like a terrier in a junkyard. They gathered in the drama room. “We’ve done this too many times for these kinds of tricks to be happening, guys,” he said.

No one dared speak. Standing like the VonTrapp children, they took the chastisement from their father.

“Ty, the music—it sucked big time.”

“Sorry.” Head bowed, Ty nodded. “Won’t happen again, Chief.”

“Our audience isn’t sure if this is a comedy or what,” Chip snapped, stopping directly in front of Trish. “Watch your step.” Timidly she nodded.

Chip moved to John. At first, he just stared at him.

John kept his head up, eyes steady. Jennifer watched, her heart swollen for him. She hoped Chip wouldn’t say anything to hurt him.

“You should have improvised.”

k

Falling for Romeo k J E N N I F E R ll A U R E N S

“I know.”

“You know this stuff, I know you do.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ve seen you improvise before, with brilliance in fact.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Improvise.”

John gave a sharp nod.

Chip turned to everyone. Rather than say anything more, he left the room with the thickness of rebuke in the air. It took a while to breathe. Quietly, cautiously, the cast moved, some settling into seats, others pacing, repeating lines.

Jennifer’s gaze followed John as he found a spot alone. Lacey, Fletcher and Andrew headed toward him but he held out a hand to keep them from coming near and shook his head. He set his hands on the wall, as if pressing against it. The full shirt he wore didn’t disguise the tenseness riding his back and shoulders. There was more setting on those shoulders than anybody in the room knew and Jennifer suddenly found herself going to him.

Maybe he’d stop her too, but his hands never left the wall, as if he alone held it up.

He looked at her. She inched close so they wouldn’t be overheard. “You okay?” she whispered.

Flecks of color in his eyes changed. He stood back, his hands dropping to his sides.

He didn’t think anything could ease the storm raging inside, but when he heard movement behind him, his heart dared hope it was Jennifer. She looked up through eyes bright, earnest, and understanding.

As kids they’d tried to read each others’ minds and k

Falling for Romeo k J E N N I F E R ll A U R E N S

had been frustrated when they couldn’t. He had to open his mouth and talk to her—tell her what he was feeling inside. Mr.Darcy and his stubborn pride came to his mind.

He wanted to laugh, knew it would feel good to. She’d laugh too, if he told her.

She stood close. The side of his arm was dangerously close to her breast. He swallowed and looked at a scarred poster of “West Side Story” that had hung on the wall for too many years. The yellow in the words faded to an eerie sallow shade.

He forgot four lines tonight. Four. Four he knew backwards and upside down. He shook his head, worked to search his mind for what he’d done well in the performance. But his father’s face, fraught with worry, that card with Coldwell Banker Realty on it he’d found next to the phone, blocked everything.

“Want to run lines?” she asked.

The pressure inside gave just enough that he could breathe. Just stay here with me, he wanted to say. And so much more, but that was too much.

When she brushed against his arm, his veins coursed with bubbles.

“Sure you’re okay?” she asked, resting her hand on his arm. He nodded, glad she saw something and asked, pleased to feel her touch.

Her hair was in pale-lemon ringlets cascading everywhere. Her cheeks flushed. A light glistening shone on her skin but her lips were completely naked—totally kissable. He forced his eyes from them, back to the faded words “West Side Story.”

They had their death scene yet. He’d kiss her then, taste her then. Feel her body against his. His

k

Falling for Romeo k J E N N I F E R ll A U R E N S

blood rammed through every part of him, settling in his abdomen.

Get your head on straight, Michaels.

It was almost time for the second act, and for the fight with Andrew.
Good.
He needed something and a cold shower was not an option.

“Good luck.” Her whisper was warm in his ear, the light touch on his arm nearly paralyzing.

“It’s time.” Ty’s voice cut the quiet like the tick of a clock in a tomb.

John stole another look at Jennifer’s face. He had to pull himself up and out of this depressive rut fast or he’d drag the show down. It would only take one thing to make his spirit, certainly his body, forget. His gaze skipped over her face with eyes hungry for more than just a look.

This was not the place, not the time for what he wanted.

He’d get through the night because he wanted what tomorrow might bring.

John rode through the second half of the play ready to explode with energy. Every line was right on, every cue met, and he ran with his instincts when he and Jennifer kissed. They’d brought whistles and screams from the audience, but he’d been too deep into Romeo to allow himself the perk of truly enjoying the kisses.

He couldn’t stand still offstage. He didn’t want to fall from whatever inertial track he was on by chatting mindlessly while he waited for his cues, so he kept to himself, sword in hand, his heart chugging in anticipation.

He wanted to please Chip, himself—everybody in k

Falling for Romeo k J E N N I F E R ll A U R E N S

fact—with the rest of the night’s performance. It was his job as Romeo, leader and star.

Jennifer did her part.

He saw her whispering pep talks; patting everybody as they exited the stage after scenes. She even smiled at him from across the stage earlier. He smiled back, but didn’t let his look linger, worried looking at her when he wasn’t in character would break the perfect bubble they seemed to be playing in.

She was on stage now, hidden in the tomb. The edges of her dress peeked out from the shadow. Juliet waiting in the tomb for her love. His throat tightened.

Something about the idea caused sensation to swell inside of him.

Jennifer, waiting—for me.

Soon, Romeo would take up his sword again in defense of his love. John’s mind rolled the dialogue, readying to step onto the stage. Taking the rapier in both hands, his fingers slid along the narrow, round length to the tiny bulb at the end.

Then it was time.

“This is that banished Montague that murdered
my love’s cousin, with which grief it is supposed the fair
creature died.”
Paris drew his sword, aimed it directly at Romeo.
“Can vengeance be pursued further than
death? Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee. Obey
and go with me, for thou must die.”
Steel challenged steel, slicing through the air like ministers of death, demanding the audience be silent.

The giant room went still with only the sounds of breath heaving and feet scraping. Sweat flew through the lights like strings of broken beads.

k

Falling for Romeo k J E N N I F E R ll A U R E N S

Romeo forced Paris up the stairs, the two of them perilously dancing near the edge, the rapiers streaming through the air meeting with a clattering. Gasps fluttered up from the audience like wafts of smoke. A hearty round of applause broke through the breathy noises coming from the stage, as if some of the tension building in the room would ease. It didn’t.

John carefully took the stairs backward, one-by-one as Andrew forced him down. Sweat dripped, stinging his eyes. His heart thundered in his chest. Before he knew it, his body took an extra swing—one they hadn’t choreographed.

Andrew’s eyes opened wide only momentarily, as the blade skimmed the sleeve of his shirt, ripping. They both paused, shocked. A strange surge of power and need for revenge filled John, for Romeo.

Romeo lunged, thrusting his weapon one last time into Paris, sending his adversary to his death.

“Oh, I am slain!”
Paris choked.
“If thou be merciful,
open the tomb. Lay me with Juliet.”
Romeo stood triumphantly over Paris, his breath heaving in and out, sweat tracking down the angles of his face and onto his neck.
“In faith, I will.”
John wiped his brow and gulped in air, continuing the next lengthy monologue without a break.

As he knelt over Jennifer, words flowed without effort or thought. He reached under her body, stole a seconds pleasure from holding her limp in his arms and squeezed her next to him.

“Ah, dear Juliet! Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I
believe that unsubstantial death is amorous and that the
lean abhorred monster keeps thee here in the dark to be
k

Falling for Romeo k J E N N I F E R ll A U R E N S

his paramour?”

He wept again, readily. Salty tears streamed down his cheeks. He bent his head, readying for the kiss.

“Will I set up my everlasting rest, and shake the yoke
of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh. Eyes,
look your last. Arms, take your last embrace. And lips,
O you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss, a
dateless bargain to engrossing death.”
The audience was silent, like mourners in a graveyard. His own cries echoed off the walls of the auditorium and filled his head. Tears choked his throat.

He kissed her.

When he pulled back, his tears stained her mouth.

“O true apothecary, they drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss
I die.”

After the last curtain call, the cast scurried out front to meet and greet. John searched for Andrew and found him laughing with Lacey.

“You okay?” he asked.

Andrew held up his arm where a clean rip in the sleeve proved John’s handiwork with the rapier. John’s gut twisted. “I’m sorry.”

“No problem, dude. Nothing happened. But Chip may have your butt for wrecking the costume.” John didn’t want to think about what could have happened had he taken a chunk out of Andrew’s arm with the rapier.

“You were awesome, by the way,” Andrew said.

“So perfect,” Lacey piped, threading her arm in John’s. “Were you actually crying? That was beyond cool.”

John wet his lips and started toward the auditorium

k

Falling for Romeo k J E N N I F E R ll A U R E N S

lobby like Chip had directed. He glanced over his shoulder hoping to see where Jennifer was.

Andrew patted John on the back. “And the Oscar goes to…”then he was dragged away by Fletcher, who led him in the direction of a group of waiting friends.

Lacey still had his arm, and John glanced down at it wondering how he could get out of the lock gracefully.

He spotted Jennifer with her parents and his parents and gently pulled his arm free of Lacey’s.

“There’s my parents.” He started toward them, and Lacey followed.

“Oh, cool. I’d like to meet them.” John joined the group mid-conversation and stood next to Jennifer. She radiated in her burgundy dress. Soft curls framed her glowing cheeks and brought the blue out in her eyes.