Almost Always: A Love Unexpected Novel (2 page)

"Sleep well." I flicked off the TV and took my wine into my bedroom. I dropped my clothes on the floor and crawled into bed with a steamy book I'd started over the weekend. The hero was just about to return from a long absence and I was expecting a very hot reunion. I wasn't disappointed, though my thoughts kept finding their way back to Kason.

I put the book back on the night table and drained the last drops of wine from my glass. As I drifted off to sleep I reminded myself to make note of the color of his eyes. If I was going to imagine them gazing into mine, I'd better be able to fill in the details.

Two

I made sure to have a better dinner the next night. I didn't want my stomach grumbling at me halfway through the rehearsal. I was the first one at the theater. I unlocked the front doors, turned on the house lights and the stage lights. Tom had obviously been on the stage some time that day as it was now marked with the outline of the set that would soon be built. I went up on stage and walked the perimeter of the room that was nearly identical to the diagram in the back of the playbook.

I went back to the green room to put a pot of coffee on and fill the water pitcher with ice and fresh water. When I came back to the stage, Kason was walking the set lines. The business suit was gone and he had a pair of white shorts and a melon colored shirt on.  I could see the warm tan of summer on his long limbs and the sun streaks in his hair as he paced out the floor marks under the stage lights.

He had magnificent legs. They were masculine and defined but natural. Whatever he did to keep himself in such good shape, it didn't involve a lot of squats, thank God. He leaned down to pick his script off of the floor and I felt a little rush of heat watching his rear flex under the shorts. He turned around just as I was mentally peeling away his clothes—again.

The shadows of the stage concealed me as I watched him for several minutes. He opened up his script and began to read the major soliloquy the coach makes near the end of the play. Tom had surprised us all by deciding to rehearse the play in reverse. We'd start with Act 3 and work backwards. It was an unusual strategy that I would realize later was positively brilliant.

Kason paced the floor as he called forth the character and voice of the coach. He wasn't projecting his voice as he would in a performance; he was simply reciting the speech naturally. If I closed my eyes I could see an old and bitter man. If I opened them I saw a wonderfully
gifted
man in a beautifully crafted package.

I could feel a flush work its way from the tops of my ears down my neck. I may have actually salivated watching him concentrate and move around the stage. Difficult as it was to accept, I was deep in the throes of an adolescent crush. I hardly knew the man. Kason Royce was the sexiest man I had ever been near and he was turning me on just by
being
.

I began to feel the same kind of burn on my cheeks that I had gotten when my sister mercilessly teased me about being infatuated with a movie star when I was thirteen. I was irrational then and I felt the same way hiding in the shadows from a man who barely knew my name.

With heavy footsteps and a little 'ahem' as I rounded the edge of the stage left curtain, I announced my presence.

"Annalise, I didn't know you were here." The smile he flashed immediately threw me off.

"Oh, hi. Ummm. I was just getting…I mean I was starting the coffee. And the water. Well, not
starting the water
, just putting ice in…" I didn't think it was possible to sound more stupid then I did at that moment.

He had the good grace not to notice. "Would you mind running lines with me before everybody gets here?"

"Sure, I'd love to," I said a bit overenthusiastically. He went over to the edge of the stage and sat down, dangling his legs over the edge of the apron. I sat beside him and did the same.

"From the beginning of Act 3."

"Okay." I was amazed at the amount of dialog he had already committed to memory. He was nearly able to make it through the entire act without a prompt from me. I watched his mouth as he spoke the lines and got quite lost in the discovery that his eyes were an intricate hazel—shades of umber and olive mixed with a whole spectrum of woodsy browns.

"Annalise?"

"Oh, sorry." I looked blankly at the page. He had been reciting a fairly lengthy set of lines and there were several speeches in a row.

"Daniel," he said as he leaned closer to me and pointed to the place in my script. "You're Daniel."

"Of course…" I read the line but I could feel the color rise in my cheeks. He saw it too. In spite the serious lines he was delivering, there was a crinkle of a smile around his eyes. He knew he had me flustered and it amused him.

I was relieved when Brian and Tom came through the theater doors. I never quite regained my composure for the rest of the evening. Thankfully most of what I had to do was make notes of the blocking. Tom directed the carefully movements of the men around the taped off space. Act 3 began to take shape.

As soon as rehearsal wrapped up, I slipped back stage to turn off the coffee and rinse out the mugs. I was putting the mugs back in their place when I heard Kason's "G'night, all" faintly reach the back of the house.

Tom and Cole were the only two left in the theater when I came out from backstage. They invited me to Newly's Tavern for a drink but I decided to head home. I was working on the resume I'd be sending out when the summer job was over and it was time to get real about working. I had perpetuated my stint in academia long enough. I wasn't looking forward to pounding the pavement in New York.  I was looking forward even less to living with my parents until I found a job that would allow me to move out.

There was no way around it. I was going home to Brooklyn and back to the familiar Park Slope neighborhood where Jenn and I grew up. Sometimes the thought of being without my best buddy was enough to make me tear up. It had to happen someday, but that wasn't much comfort to me as the hours and days counted down to the end of the era—Jenn and Annalise, best friends and roommates.

We took the opposite shift jobs with the separation in mind. Both of us knew we'd have to wean ourselves off of our constant companionship. We had literally been passing in the halls for weeks with me at Tanglewood and her night work with the theater.

I was kind of quiet as we watched an hour of some Adam Sandler movie we'd both seen a half dozen times. Jenn asked me what was on my mind.

"Oh, a couple of things."

"Like?"

"Like how much I'm not looking forward to moving back with mom and dad."

"I hear you. I love your parents, but it does seem like a step backwards."

"And how much I'm going to miss you."

"Aw, Annalise, I'm gonna miss you, too. You're the only sister I've got." She patted me affectionately on my leg. Jenn was from a family of three boys and her. Mine was all girls, me being the youngest of three.

"And about…"

"What?"

"Kason Royce. I think I've got a crush on him."

Jenn laughed so hard I thought she was going to choke. "Honey, Kason Royce cannot even
spell
middle class. I'm quite sure he considers Brooklyn only a small step up from Armpit, Idaho."

"You think he's so shallow that he wouldn't…"

"Annalise, I don't think, I know. Wait 'til you start seeing all the other players in the drama of our incestuous Little Theater. None of the 'queens' are going to let you near Kason. He's one of
theirs
."

Three

The following night I found out exactly what Jenn was talking about. Wednesday, two leggy, suntanned blondes came waltzing in in the middle of the rehearsal, stopping it cold. They swept in as if they owned the place and I guess, in a way, they did. Their families heavily endowed the theater and they both frequently played leading roles. They were featured prominently on the 'who's who' board in the front lobby.

"Tom, you horrible old man. I don't think I can forgive you for this all-male play," one of the blondes pouted as she planted a kiss on each of Tom's cheeks. "I had to volunteer for
costuming
just to be near the boys." The 'boys' on stage smiled with varying degrees of warmth. I happily noticed that Kason seemed the least impressed.

"And I," piped the other one, "am going to decorate the set. From the description in here, it won't be much of a challenge." She playfully slapped the script in her hand on Tom's head.

The two of them carried on several minutes of banter with the men up on the stage. There was a great deal of hair flipping, shoulder touching and laughter at things I failed to find the least bit funny. Everyone seemed to know everyone very well. I felt about as invisible as a piece of gum stuck under the seat.

Finally, as they were leaving, Tom introduced me to 'Suze and Nicky'. Suzanne Redmond and Nicole Spencer, two rich bottle blondes who made it very clear that I was hired help and nothing more. It amazed me that they could communicate that with almost no words at all. These girls were pretty much masters of non-verbal cues. The way they looked down their noses at me reminded me of the hookah smoking caterpillar in
Alice in Wonderland
saying "
Who are You
?"

I was suddenly more aware than I have ever been of my no name clothes and my ordinary brown chain-salon-cut hair. I was wearing my plain gold rope chain. It was the most expensive thing I owned other than my beater of a car and was a graduation present from my parents. I was ashamed of myself for thinking it looked small and cheap.

Suze and Nicky walked up the aisle toward the exit and all eyes, including mine, watched their slim silhouettes sway under the cute little summer dresses they wore. When they reached the top of the slope, Suze turned and announced, "By the way, I'm claiming the opening night cast party and Nicky gets closing. It's only fair. We deserve
some
fun out of this stag party!"

It took a few moments to regain the momentum of the rehearsal. Tom told me later to make up a sign that said "Closed Rehearsal" and post it on the door.

"I know it's literally just 'play acting' for these people, but I take it seriously," he explained. "There's a lot of work that goes into these productions. There'll be plenty of time later for all the party games." I got the feeling that Tom felt almost as out of place as I did.

Tom taught speech and drama at the local high school but told me he aspired to greater things. At his age, he had to realize he'd never achieve anywhere near the success of the five young bucks he was directing. In fact, it was more than likely he'd never do anything more creative than directing Little Theater.

He explained early on that I would be filling in on stage when any of the guys had to miss a rehearsal. "Occasionally, one of them will have to go into the city," he had explained. Most of the time, if they worked at all during the summer, they did it virtually. "From the poolside, with a beer in one hand and a babe in the other," he had said, somewhat bitterly.

The second week, Brian wasn't at Tuesday's rehearsal. We had blocked the entire third act and the actors were all supposed to be 'off book' by then, at least for act three. So I would be up on stage with two responsibilities: to cue them if they dropped a line or part of the blocking and to read Brian's lines and move as his character was supposed to move.

Tom had meticulously plotted each and every little move the actors were to make. There's nothing more boring than a play that's poorly blocked. It makes the audience feel awkward and restless. Even though people in real life tend to stay in one spot for long periods of time, on stage that won't work. So the director has to put the play into action for it to succeed.

We were about half way into the act and it was going quite well. I had to prompt Cole on a couple of lines, but nothing major.

Until Kason moved stage right when he was supposed to go stage left.

"Kason," I said, "you're supposed to move toward the bar on that line."

"No, I'm not. I'm supposed to move toward the window."

I looked in the margin of my already well-worn script where I had written "Coach to s.l." Kason was looking at me with a challenge in his eyes. I wanted to shrink away, but I knew I was right. If he went in the opposite direction he was going to unbalance the whole tableau.

"Really, you need to be just downstage of the bar at the end of that line." He just stood there, glaring at me.

"I think I know where
I'm
supposed to be."

"Well, not really…" I looked out into the theater where Tom was sitting in the dark.

Tom's voice came out of the darkness. "Stage left, Coach."

Kason glared at me as if I had betrayed him by being correct and moved downstage of the bar.

Later on, it happened again. "Kason…that's where you're supposed to sit on the couch."

This time he just muttered under his breath and plopped on the set of chairs that was substituting for the sofa to come. The chair squealed on the stage as his weight pushed it a few inches back. He was practically growling as he maneuvered it back into line with the others.

Later, there was a point where Kason had to grab Brian's face. The coach was incensed that Brian's character had insulted the old team's integrity and the line was: "I wouldn't walk across the street to piss on you if you were on fire."

When he approached me, he did an impressive job of delivering that line as he took my face into his hands. His eyes seared into mine and the heat from his hands traveled all the way from my cheeks to places far below. He seemed to hold my head for a fraction longer than necessary and hissed out the words with believable venom.

I stuttered out Brian's next line. "It would be best to let me burn" and gratefully followed my blocking by turning away from Kason and walking to the 'bar'. As I mimed pouring myself a drink, I very much wished I had the real thing. It was meant to be a powerful moment in the play. It certainly had that effect on me.

Of all the nights to pick to hang around after rehearsal, Kason picked this one. He came back to the green room as I was straightening up. My back was to the door, but I felt his presence even before he spoke.

"Annalise?" My name; his voice. I took a deep breath before I turned around.

"Yes?" I hoped that the effort to infuse that little word with nonchalance worked.

"Let's go have a drink." Not
will you have a drink with me?
or
how about joining me for a drink?
He had an odd way of putting things. It was almost a command. Like a rebellious kid, I wanted to say no on principle. But the stronger part of me, the woman in me, wanted very much to have the man to myself for a few moments.

"Sure," I said. "I just need to finish up here." Kason leaned against the doorframe and wordlessly watched me put the mugs back in their place and rinse the coffee pot. My hands trembled a little as I held the jug under the running water knowing that he was standing there, his eyes fixed to my back. I was acutely aware of the intense physical attraction I had felt for him from the first moment he stepped up on the stage. His powerful portrayal of the coach and his personal magnetism had only heightened my curiosity and, I admit, my desire to get closer to him.

When I had locked theater, Kason offered me his arm. "My chariot awaits," he smiled. Other than my beat up old Jeep in the parking lot, the only other car was an exotic looking black convertible, the top already down. It was a subdued version of the Batmobile.

"How about I follow you? We can go to Newly's. It's right near my house."

"I think not." When I didn't immediately loop my hand through the crook of his arm, he put his hand at the small of my back and steered me toward the lot. The firm touch of his hand on the small of my lower back pretty much pushed all other thoughts somewhere far away. He opened the passenger side and I got in automatically—it was expected. "Newly's is for going out with the guys. I have a much better place in mind to take a
lady
."

His emphasis on 'lady' gave it a special ring. I looked down at my jeans and wished I had chosen something else to wear. He saw me looking down at my pants and read my mind.

"Not to worry. There's no dress code where we're going." The engine roared to life with a sound that was the mechanical equivalent to Kason's own deep, throaty bass. The leather bucket seat enveloped my five foot four frame in pure luxury. There wasn't a piece of furniture in my family's house that was that comfortable.

I had to ask. I didn't care if I sounded like some rube. I didn't place the crown shaped emblem prominent on the grill of the car I was about to be whisked away in. Given that it would probably be the first and last time I'd ever ride in such a beast, I needed a name for it.

"Maserati," he answered me. "It's a GT—Gran Turismo."

"It's a beautiful car," I told him. "Very classy without being splashy."
Just like you
. The car was perfect for him.

"Thank you, I'm glad you like it. It just wasn't practical for the city. A car like this is like a thoroughbred horse. You can't just keep it in a barn all the time." He reached over and stroked my thigh with the back of his hand. "Sit back and enjoy the ride. It's a beautiful night." What was beautiful was the way his touch made me feel. The stars seemed to shine brighter; the moon glow was a caress.

We had ridden for about fifteen minutes when Kason pulled off the main road and drove up a tree lined approach that ended at a huge stone mansion that looked very much like a French chateau I had seen on my one summer abroad. I assumed it was one of the many up-scale inns that dot the Berkshires. But it didn't look too busy.

He pulled up right in front and led me up some stone steps to huge double doors that swung open as we approached.

"Good evening, Mr. Kason." A slightly built man with Asian features greeted us.

"Hi, Taishi. My friend and I are going to have drinks on the back porch. Ask Charlotte to rustle up some snacks for us."

"Will do, sir." The man went on his way, flicking lights on as he went. Kason had smoothly maneuvered me back to his house just as I was sure he'd done with many before me. As much as I found myself attracted to him, I didn't appreciate being manipulated. He was just too smooth. Too practiced. Too damn sure of himself and his effect on a woman. Although I wanted him, a part of me was screaming for a little bit of pride.

The hall that he illuminated in front of us was as ornate as I expected it to be. It was full of tapestries and the trim work was incredible—busts and angels and all sorts of things worked into intricate carving.

"Don't take this place too seriously. It is most definitely
not me
." He looked almost embarrassed by the opulence of the place. "I bought it because of the property—the land. It's on over a hundred acres and has a spectacular river along the back boundary." He led me to the 'porch' which was an extensive patio overlooking a rectangular pool and a lawn that seemed to go on forever.

Tucked into the far end of the patio was an outdoor kitchen and living room. It had obviously been an upgrade.

"This and a couple of the bedrooms are where I live when I'm here. What I really want to do is endow this historic pile to some worthy cause and build my own place back by the river."

"What will you build?" I watched him in the soft golden glow of the lights as he went to the bar. His movements made me wonder what it would be like to dance with him.

"Something painfully modern. I want as much glass as I can get so it feels like you're living outdoors. I'll tuck it way back in the woods so that no one can see me running around naked."

"Do you do that often? Run around naked?" I couldn't help it. He leapt into my imagination—all golden skin and hair against a background of forest that matched his eyes.

"As much as I can," he grinned devilishly at me and caught me blushing, again. "What can I fix you to drink?"

"Whatever you're having's fine."

He cocked an eyebrow at me and began mixing away while I vainly tried to push the image of his nakedness to the back of my mind. He brought me a glass and sat beside me on the sofa. He sat close enough so that his knee was touching my thigh as he turned to clink glasses with me.

"To the play!"

"Break a leg," I answered. I took a nice healthy swig of the pale green drink Kason had made for us. I nearly choked. It was very tart and very, very strong. "What the hell
is
this?" I finally managed to gasp out.

He threw his head back and laughed. "It's a Kamikaze. Vodka, triple sec and a little Rose's lime juice. You don't have to drink it."