A Midsummer Night's Fling (Much Ado about Love #1) (33 page)

“Oh my goodness! Willa, that’s amazing!” Even as she said it, Nicola almost felt as if her excitement were sitting on the surface, as if she were going through the motions. Acting.
Why aren’t I more excited about this?

A short pause followed, then Willa said, “Problem is, they want you to fly out to start rehearsing by this weekend.”

Nicola turned away from Max, lowering her voice, “Willa, I can’t do that. I’m committed to
Midsummer
until July.”

“Hey, you don’t worry about that. I can call Isabelle Elton first thing tomorrow and get you out of your contract. You’ll be making more money on this tour, and it’ll be good exposure for you. Your first big step on the road to Broadway. I can bring Isabelle around, don’t you worry.”

“But this weekend? Willa…”

Max was watching Nicola, his face impassive, but his eyes burned. He mouthed,
What’s going on?

“Willa, I—can I call you back?”

“Tonight, Nic. Call me back tonight.”

“Yes, Willa.” She hit the End button and looked at Max. “Sorry.”

“Was that about the
Anything Goes
job?”

“Yes. There were some new developments.”

Max sank onto the foot of his bed. “Nicci, I lied to you the other day.”

Sourness coated her throat. “About what?”

“About why I still have your engagement ring.”

Her eyes prickled, and she glanced over to see the red velvet box was still on top of his dresser. She had forgotten to put it away. “Max, don’t.”

“I kept it because that’s your ring, Nicci. It’s always been your ring. You may have taken back your yes, but I never took back my proposal. I still want you every day, all the time, for the rest of my life. If you’ll have me.”

Nicola blinked, tears blurring in her eyes, words tumbling through her head.

“Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers…”

“
Max asked you to marry him. You said yes…”

“Love you, Nicci
.
”

Quotes. Memories. Hopes… She shook her head, trying to silence the crushing noise of it all. Wetness trailed down her cheeks. “We tried it, Max. We failed. Let’s not complicate everything.”

“We were kids before. But I’m different now. I know you’re different.” He was beside her, and he cupped the side of her neck, his thumb beneath her chin, tilting her face so she had to meet his gaze. “I love you, Nicci. There’s never been anyone else for me. There never will be.”

“I thought it was a fling this time. Nothing serious?”

“It’s not a fling.” He stroked his thumb over her cheek, and his eyes were shadowed, sad. “Not for me anyway.”

“That was my agent on the phone.” Her voice shook. “The
Anything Goes
people want me now. They want me yesterday. And they want me for Hope. The lead.”

Max frowned, tensing up. “But you’re committed to
Midsummer
. We’re about to start previews.”

“Willa thinks she can get me out of the contract. It’s the lead in a
national
tour
, Max.”

“You’d do that? Screw the whole cast over? Screw me over.”

She shook her head. “Even if I can stall until the original July date…I’m doing the tour. I’m leaving. I’ll be gone for months. How can we make that work for a relationship?”

“Don’t go on tour. Don’t take the job.”

“I can’t do that.” She put her arms between them, holding him off. “That’s why we broke up last time, wasn’t it? Because you thought I was living my life for you? Because I was willing to give up big, important chances to be with you. How is it different if I give up this job for you now?”

“You’re sick of musicals. You said so. You don’t really want to do this.”

She twisted away from him, her blood throbbing in her veins, her temper like a whip lashing inside her. “You don’t get to decide what jobs I take. And you for damn sure don’t get to decide when I should give up opportunities and when I shouldn’t.”

Max threw his hands up and paced to the other side of the room before he whirled around and glared at her. “So, what, you
have
to take this job to prove you don’t need me? I think you’re scared to give us another real try. To go all in.”

“
Of course I’m scared
,” she shot back, touched on the raw. “You broke my heart!
Twice!
”

“
You broke mine too!
”

She caught her breath, then wiped her nose and eyes. “Look, I don’t think it’s a great start to our third act as a couple if I give up a job to
what
? Come be an out of work actress and live in The Bunkhouse mooching off you?”

“No, yeah, you’re right. It’s a much better start to have you
fleeing the state
because you’re chicken shit scared.” He ran a hand over his face, then gripped the back of his neck and looked at her again. “This isn’t about your work or opportunities or any of that. This is about you still not trusting me. Trusting us.”

“So, if I asked you to leave the RSF to come on the road with me, you’d be willing to do it? Right now? Right this second?”

“What the hell?” Max reared back like she’d punched him. “It’s totally different. If you stay in LA with me, you can find another acting job easy. Just swing a dead cat.”

She scoffed, her anger blazing. “Right. So that’s a no? You wouldn’t give up your job to come with me, but I’m supposed to give up mine to stay with you?”

“I can’t even sing. What am
I
going to do bouncing around on the road with a musical? Be your kept man?”

“And I wouldn’t be your kept woman if I stayed
here
?”

Max held his hands up and took a long, slow breath. She forced herself to do the same. “All right,” he said and focused on her, his blue eyes burning. “Let’s make it easy: I love you, Nicci. Do you love me?”

She swallowed, a hollow pain in her chest, her eyes thick and wet with unshed tears. “It’s not that easy.”

“It’s not that difficult either. Do you love me?”

“Of course I do.”

A smile blossomed on his face. He started toward her.

And her heart broke. She flung up her hand, stopping him. “I’m going on the tour.”

“
What?
”

“I
have
to go, Max. I have to have my own life apart from you.” Her voice broke and she swallowed, hugging her arms to stop her body shaking.

“That’s not why you’re going, and we both know it.” Max stared at her for one long, aching minute, then turned on his heel and slammed into the bathroom.

He’s wrong
. But that wasn’t much comfort since things were over between them.

Crying softly, she went around the bedroom, gathering her things and stuffing them in her bag. The ring box sat on Max’s dresser, staring at her, mocking her. Calling to her. She snatched the box off the bureau and pulled the ends open. Her ring winked out at her like a flirtatious star. She lifted it out and studied it on the flat of her palm.

He’d had the ring custom made for her with a slim, white gold band with petite Tudor roses and curlicues etched into the metal. He knew she didn’t like diamonds. With some help from the salesgirl at the jewelry store, he’d picked out a large opal with sparkling blue fire in it with tiny, perfect pearls set in a circle around the main stone. Opals were Nicola’s birthstone. Pearls were his.

All those years ago
… A week after they’d ended things, after he’d destroyed her by saying she was living her life for him, he’d shown up at her mother’s house with this ring. If Nicola closed her eyes, she could still see him kneeling in front of her on her mother’s porch, holding out this beautiful, perfect ring.
“I was wrong, Nicci. It’s you. It’s always been you
.
”

And he was Max, so even though her gut had told her it was wrong, that it wouldn’t work between them, she’d taken the ring and slipped it on her finger and said,
Yes
.

“We’re going to build a life together, Nicci. You and me
.
”

But nothing had changed. The engagement ring wasn’t a magic fix. He went out partying the next night, drinking and fighting. He was late for a date with her because he’d been drinking all night and all day, and when he finally did show, he was too drunk to stand. She let him pass out in her bed, but in the morning when he woke up, it was to find the ring in its box on a pillow beside him.

He’d gaped at her, wounded, scared, and so hungover he could barely sit up.
What does this mean, Nicci?

And she’d felt sick and sad and so scared herself, but she’d said,
I can’t, Max. I love you, but this doesn’t work.
We
don’t work. You were right when you dumped me before: I need to be my own person, and you…you can’t keep partying like this. Drinking so much. You need to clean yourself up and learn some responsibility. I’m sorry. Good-bye, Max.

She’d walked him out of her house, engagement ring in his pocket, and that was the last time she’d ever seen Max. Until he showed up on her doorstep all those weeks ago, asking her to be his queen.

She glanced at the closed bathroom door, the finality of it. Her vision blurred with tears and she hunched over, surrendering to the pain. It was over. She’d lost Max. As she squeezed the ring in her hand, the metal and stones poked into the meat of her palm
. “That’s your ring, Nicci. It’s always been your ring
.
”

She caught her breath and smoothed the tears off her cheeks. Sick at heart, she put the ring in its box, closed the lid, then shoved the ring box into the bottom of her bag.

S
o Nicola was gone
, but somehow, horribly, interminably, life went on. Nicola had left him without saying good-bye. She was going on the tour, gone for good in just a few days. He had to assume she’d already called Isabelle to quit. Now they’d have to bump one of the fairy handmaidens into the Titania role. Exactly what he and Rita had been trying to avoid when they’d cast Nicola.

Their first preview in front of an audience was that night. Their first real performance where they couldn’t stop.

Max sighed. The Bunkhouse felt echoing without Nicola, which was silly because Peter and Lachlan were around all the damn time. Besides, Max had lived on his own for years. No reason on earth that the sheets should feel so cold now, the bed so empty without her.

But they did. He felt like he was missing part of himself and, unfortunately, it was a feeling he remembered all too well from five years ago.

I want a drink
. The thought flashed through him, like a physical pain.
I want a drink and a smoke. I want to numb all this fucking pain until I don’t feel anything. Until I never have to feel anything
. He flopped onto his bed.

“Knock knock,” Peter said, rapping his knuckles against Max’s bedroom door.

“Peter, I want a drink. Actually, I want ten drinks.”

He heard his brother freeze, heard him gasp, then take a second, longer breath. The bed sank and bounced as Peter sat at the foot. “Do you need me to lock you in the bathroom?”

Max snorted. “Maybe?”

“You’ll be all right.” Peter touched his shoulder. “You want to tell me what happened with Nicola this time? Did you drink, is that why she left?”

“No. I’m still sober. Three years and going strong.” Max rolled to his feet, pacing the room. “It was about the musical job.”

“Because you didn’t want her to leave
Midsummer
early?”

“No, genius, because I didn’t want her to leave
me
.” Max reached the edge of the room and paced back, starting another circle.

Peter eased onto one elbow, watching Max. “So, wait, why does her taking the musical job mean she’s leaving you? Did she not want to do long distance?”

“She’s using the musical job as an excuse,” Max said, grinding his teeth. “She doesn’t want to try. She’s scared.”

“Did she
say
that?”

Max glowered at his brother.

Peter lifted his hands in surrender. “I’m trying to get a handle on the situation, baby brother.”

Max rubbed his jaw and leaned against the wall, exhausted, like a candle wick that’s burned itself out. “She said she couldn’t live her life for me. That it wasn’t fair of me to ask her not to take the
Anything Goes
job.”

Peter frowned. “Did you do that?”

“Maybe?”

“You told her to pass on the job to be with you?”

“It wasn’t, like, an ultimatum. I’m trying to do what’s best for us, what will keep us together.” Max started pacing again. “She’s the one who’s willing to throw everything away.”

“Did you offer to go with her?”

“Peter, that makes no sense. Why would I do that?”

“To show Nicola that her career, her
life
, are just as important as yours.” Peter had been fairly neutral the entire conversation but now irritation edged his voice. “Did you even try to discuss a compromise?”

Max opened his mouth, paused, then snapped it closed.

Peter rolled his eyes. “So, you basically said, ‘Hey, honey, forget your life. Stay here so I can keep you barefoot and pregnant with me. Your dreams don’t matter.’”

“She left.”

“You didn’t try to go after her.”

Max stormed over to his dresser, kneeling in front of his sock drawer. “I went after her last time, and
this
is all I have to show for it.” He pawed through his socks, searching for the ring. But when he reached the wood paneling at the bottom he sat back on his heels. The ring wasn’t there.

“What?” Peter said.

Max glanced around the room, trying to remember the last place he’d seen the engagement ring. It had been on the dresser all last week during tech. He’d been so exhausted after rehearsals and sort of, maybe, hoping if he left the ring in sight, it might subliminally work some magic on Nicola. So much for that.
Where is the stupid thing?

Then he remembered.
“That’s
your
ring, Nicci
.
”

“I’ll be damned,” he murmured and hopped to his feet, hurrying to his closet.

“What?” Peter said.

Max threw a pair of jeans on over his boxers and kicked his feet into a pair of flip-flops. He paused on his way out the door. “Nicola took the ring. She took the fucking ring.”

Max was grinning as he pounded downstairs.

* * *

“
H
ave
I mentioned what a wonderful friend you are for helping me move twice in four weeks?” Nicola said.

Cassie sighed, tying off another trash bag full of old clothes for Goodwill. “You are going to owe me so much pizza and beer after this.”

“I know it.” Nicola dumped an armload of books into a box. Fortunately, that was about all she’d managed to unpack in the few weeks she’d been in her apartment. She and Cassie were mostly trying to minimize the pile so Nicola didn’t spend another five years paying storage fees for stuff she didn’t want. She pulled a ragged box from the top of one stack. The bottom split, and a sea of papers, books, and scripts scattered across the floor.

Nicola huffed her breath out and threw the box aside. She squatted with Cassie to re-pile the mess. Cassie scrapped away the top layer of clutter and dumped it in a new box. Nicola grabbed an armful up for herself, then froze and stared at the script she was holding. It was a coil-bound copy of photocopied pages. Nothing there to make her heart pound. And yet she felt like she was about to have a heart attack.

Romeo & Juliet
, it said on the front. And a date. In one corner, the careful handwriting of her old drama teacher:
Nicola Czerwinski—Juliet.

Throat thick with emotion, Nicola cradled the script in her hand, then carefully opened it and flipped through the pages. The bound sheets immediately folded open to one page. The balcony scene. Their first kiss. Nicola flipped the page over, then laughed at the scribbles on the back.

Cassie peered over her shoulder. “What is that?”

“It’s a game of MASH I did on the back of my script.”

“MASH?”

“A fortune-telling game. You never played?”

“I lived in China until I was twelve, remember?”

“Right. Well, MASH stands for mansion, apartment, shack, house, which is where you might live in the future. Then you make a list of things for each category. Husband. How many kids. Your job.” She pointed to each of these categories on the sheet. “The person having their fortune told gets to pick three things for each list, and the other person, the fortune-teller, gets to pick the last one. You pick a random number, the fortune-teller counts, and when you’re done with each rotation, you cross off the word that you land on. By the end of the game, you have four words left, each from a different category. That’s your future.”

Cassie held out the script page filled with the crossed lines. “Bored, were you?”

“Yeah. Me and one of my girlfriends used to play at rehearsal. That’s her fortune. This one’s mine.” This had been early in rehearsals. Nicola had been standing in the wings, watching Max onstage doing one of the scenes with Friar Lawrence. She and Max hadn’t started dating yet, but she’d wanted him. Her gut had burned with that wanting.

“So if I’m reading this right,” Cassie said, studying the sheet, “your friend ended up living in a shack, married to Vin Diesel, with twenty-seven kids, and she was going to be a lawyer.”

“We’re Facebook friends. She is a lawyer. Alas, she and Vin Diesel were not to be. But she married a nice dentist, has a house in the suburbs, and a new baby.”

“And you…oh.” Cassie’s face fell as she read down the page.

Nicola hissed a breath out through her teeth. She didn’t even need to glance at the script. She remembered how her MASH game had gone. “Married to Max,” Nicola murmured. “Living in a mansion. Three kids.”

“That’s a pretty good fortune. Did you cheat?”

“Of course. I needed it to land on Max.”

Cassie closed the script, her voice mock hearty. “Shame about the job, but I’m told being a pooper scooper at the zoo can be very fulfilling.”

“I think I’ll stick with acting.” Nicola lifted the script out of Cassie’s hands and set it in one of her “to keep” boxes. She didn’t want to bury the past anymore, but she couldn’t quite live with it in her future. Her engagement ring was in the bottom of the same box. “I’m happy with where I’m at.”

“Are you?”

Nicola gave Cassie a wobbly smile. “Most of the time.”

“I thought you and Max were pretty good together. You were happier with him than I’ve ever seen you. What happened?”

“It’s difficult to explain,” Nicola said.

“I fucked up,” Max said and slammed the door behind him.

Nicola gaped at him.

“We didn’t lock that?” Cassie said.

Max pulled the door open again. “Want to throw me out, Nic?”

“What are you doing here?” Nicola’s brain was functioning at half-speed. A wild tumult of string instruments and harps and Shakespeare quotes was spinning inside her head, taking up all the space for thinking. A riotous chorus of inchoate joy she was powerless to silence.
Max
. Here.

“I fucked up. I was hurt and stubborn and stupid.” Max eased the door shut and walked toward her. “I’ll go on tour with you, Nic.”

“
What?
You can’t leave the RSF
.
”

“Who says? If the only way we can be together is for me to follow you, then…lead on.” He knelt beside her and caught her hand, clasping it over his heart. She knew she should pull her hand away. They were done. Kaput.

Instead, she turned her fingers around to clasp his hand. “Max, I can’t ask you to leave the RSF.”

“Then we compromise. We make long-distance work. Or you stay here. We trade off. Whatever you want. Because I’m all in, Nicci.” He gripped her hand, his gaze searing as it met hers. “Are you?”

“Max—”

“Are you?” He pulled her to her feet with him. “Because it doesn’t have to be all or nothing here. I’m willing to bend to make this work.” He threaded his fingers into her hair, staring into her eyes. “You said you loved me. Don’t you want to be with me?”

Cassie made a squeaking noise. Nicola glanced over at her, and Cassie slapped a hand over her mouth and waved her hand as if to say,
Ignore me
. But happy tears were brimming in her friend’s eyes.

Nicola swallowed, her own throat thick with emotion. She was shaking. He was offering her everything. A future together. A partner. A life.

He kissed her hand, then let it go, his fingers trailing against hers until the last possible second. “You don’t have to say anything now. Go on the tour if you need to. Take some time. Think. Figure stuff out.”

He was at the door, and he held it open as he gazed at her. “But, Nic, if you say no this time, if you walk away, it’s not because of me. Or us. It’ll be because of
you
. Because you’re too scared to try.” He waved at Cassie. “Nice to see you again, Cass.”

“Uh, bye.”

He closed the door.

Cassie grabbed Nicola’s shoulders, whipping her around and giving her a tiny shake. “Nicola, what are you going to do?”

Nicola could only blink, her head was whirling, her heart was thudding, she was dizzy. “I think I might throw up.”