Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 25974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 130(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 130(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 87(@300wpm)
And the torturous tease of touching Jem Sinclair’s lips against mine. Feeling his taut muscles under his shirtsleeves and pinstriped vest as I embraced him, shoved him into a set piece, slid next to him under a table.
Every time Alfred’s wife came onstage, the six-foot soldiers in Alfred’s mob army had to act casual or hide. It was demanding physical comedy, but I loved it. The timing had to be just right, and the stage blocking was critical. It hadn’t been easy getting the hang of it, but after eleven months of almost all of the original cast remaining, we had it running like a well-oiled machine.
The acting and choreography weren’t hard.
Resisting Jem was.
I spent so much time touching him during those five shows, by Sunday night I was a horny wreck. The one friend I’d confided in had started teasing me about Masturbation Monday.
He wasn’t wrong.
I had the Playbill photo of Jem in my phone. In his headshot, he was fresh-faced and sparkling. In addition to adorably messy blond curls, he also had bright eyes and a teasing smirk. It was the perfect choice for the comedic style of this show, but it also showed off dimples I only ever got to see onstage or when he was laughing with someone else.
I lived for a glimpse of those dimples.
But tonight, I was in a funky mood. I’d seen Jem’s girlfriend in the front of the house asking to see him, and it reminded me of how ridiculous my crush was. She came by regularly to bring him dinner or ask for tickets to the show for her friends. She was cute and friendly with everyone, and I would have probably even liked her if I wasn’t so damned jealous of the poor woman.
“Fucking Christ,” Letty muttered. “If you don’t release those jaw muscles, I’m gonna have to do this contouring completely different than usual. Unclench.”
I sighed and tried relaxing. “You know anything about that woman who’s dating Jem?”
She laughed. “That man is gay.”
I shook my head, making Letty swear and hold my jaw still by force. “His girlfriend is here all the time. Haven’t you seen her?”
“No… but I’ve seen his sister plenty,” she said, raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow and pursing her lips. “Her name is Lina, and I think she works at a dinner theater around here somewhere.”
My mind scrolled back through my memories of seeing her around. I searched frantically for proof for or against this assertion, but I found nothing useful either way.
“You sure?”
“Uh, well… she brought her boyfriend one time, and I saw them kiss goodbye outside the stage door. It wasn’t a make-out sesh or anything, but it didn’t look platonic neither.”
“Hm.”
Letty shrugged and continued caking my face with makeup. “Maybe if you got out more, you’d know what was what with your coworkers.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, even though I already knew.
“You never come out for a drink with us. You’re always working on some new number or script. Men can’t live on theater alone. You need a social life.”
I made another humming sound and kept my mouth shut. The extra work I’d been doing was to prepare for auditions. After almost a year of wanting someone I couldn’t have, of touching him and kissing him every night knowing he would never want me for real, I was exhausted. It was time to move on.
It had been drilled into me for years that I should want to get to the top of my game and make a name for myself with an important lead role. I kept my eyes and ears open for opportunities and auditioned for all sorts of things, from other roles here in New York to a touring production in Europe and even a new summer stock program run by a former child actor in the middle of Colorado, which was generating all kinds of industry buzz.
It meant making the most of my free time since I also had to eat and sleep well to be able to keep up with my fast-paced role on this show each week.
I wasn’t about to slack off now, especially when I’d gotten another callback for one of the lead roles in Daniel Diggs’s new adaptation of Pillow Talk for Broadway. Theater gossip was rife with rumors about who was already cast as the other lead, but the fact it was a man and the adaptation was a modernized and queer version of the original Doris Day movie meant it was poised to take the theater world by storm.
Letty’s voice continued buzzing around me like a hair dryer. “If you’d come out with us last week, you would have known little Jemmy wasn’t dating his sister. He had guys all over him at the Retro. I damned near pissed myself watching him realize he was a recognizable face these days. Ever since they put you boys on that billboard, it’s been a hoot.”