Beatless (20 page)

I’d received his message loud and clear within the first two weeks of rehearsals. This time he would hear mine.

Word had traveled that the musical was impressive, and I stood in the hallway near my post-it that still announced that I had no flowers. I stared with wide eyes at the even larger crowd that gathered in the foyer before the doors were opened.

That many people should have made me nervous. And once upon a time, it would have, but that night it was nothing short of perfect.

***

On that stage, I gave it my all. There were moments where I looked at Tucker, and though fleeting, I could see true emotion in his eyes. I could feel a difference in his touch; the way he held my hand or gripped my waist as we danced.

My entire chemical makeup felt wrapped up in him, like if he didn’t exist, then I would cease to as well. With as much as I wanted to fight it, he was all I could think about, the driving force behind every action I made. I didn’t want him to be my entire world, but tunnel vision is an awful thing. It sneaks up and your sight slowly narrows until you have no choice but to focus on that person because everything else is eclipsed.

His lips felt more powerful that night, and I kissed him harder and longer, setting the music off by almost an entire measure. When he pulled away, his eyes searched mine and I wanted to pull his face down and confess everything to him but instead I spoke my lines - delivered the first ones exactly as we had practiced.

“Can you forgive me? I don’t deserve another chance, but I swear to you, if you let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life proving to you that you made the right decision.”

His head tilted to the side, just as before, but his lips parted and he exhaled slowly, like he was contemplating saying no.

The Man was supposed to say yes.

That was how it went.

But Tucker slid his hand from my fingers, up my arm, across my neck and pressed his thumb beneath my chin, moving it slightly upward to stare directly into his blue eyes. I felt the world fall away from us then. There was no stage. There were no lights or audience. No choir of voices preparing to sing out as we held one another.

It was just the two of us.

“You don’t have to prove anything,” he finally said, his eyes downcast as if he could barely stand to look at me.

My next line before the final number was supposed to be, “Please.”

I’d always hated the line. It felt like begging and The Woman didn’t seem the kind to beg. But I’d said it for months, letting the word roll from my tongue in a way that didn’t sound supplicant, but more like a promise.

But that night, under the black beams of the stage, as he held my face and looked away, I went off script.

“I do.”

His eyes snapped to mine and he looked over my shoulder, into the wings. I could feel his entire body stiffen. He cleared his throat. He sent another panicked glance off stage. Making eye contact once again, his fingers on my arm squeezed a short pulse.

“I have a lot to prove to you. That I made a mistake. That you won’t be making one if you take me back. I was so stupid to let what other people thought convince me that I didn’t love you. Because I did.”

His cheeks flushed that deep rosy color around his jaw, ruddy and bright. When he spoke, I was sure it wasn’t loud enough for anyone but me to hear.

“Did?”

“Do. Still do. I think I always will. Even if you say no right now, I will always love you. You’re my first love. Nothing could take that piece of my heart away.”

There was a silent exchange between the two of us before the piano started to play an awkward intro. The singers around us began their song as we stared into one another’s eyes. I’d gone rogue and there was a thick ball of apprehension caught in my throat, a heavy blanket of doubt that was suffocating me as he continued to just stare back at me, trying desperately to not convey shock.

I took one step into him, closing the last inches of space between our bodies, slid my hand up his chest, up the back of his neck, and pulled his face to mine for one last kiss on that stage. Again, I’d gotten brave, not caring that Mr. Hanks was probably having a coronary in the wings. It was the last performance. It was the only time I had left.

Tucker bent to me, no longer holding himself as The Man, but as himself. His arms wrapped around my waist and he lifted me a couple inches off the floor, his eyes trained on my lips. I closed my eyes and inched closer.

And he bent his head to kiss . . . the side of my mouth.

The stage kiss caught me off guard and I angled to meet his lips, but he dipped his face again, burying his nose in my neck as the last strains of the song faded out.

The curtain lowered and he placed me quickly on my feet before he stalked off the stage.

Just behind the curtain, I had stashed the Christmas present I’d bought for him back in December. My plan had been to tell him in front of everyone that I loved him. To right my wrong. But I’d clearly stepped over a line by doing it mid-production. The confusion that coursed through my mind was threatening to pull me under, doubt invading every hope I’d let build inside me for that night.

When Tucker appeared upstage to hold out his hand, he didn’t look at me, he just faced the audience. And I went, holding his hand in mine, no matter how stiff his grip, and stopped right next to him. He bowed. I curtsied.

And then I turned and handed him the gift I’d been holding for five months.

He smiled - fake. Restrained. Then he turned and regarding the audience once more, waving his other hand above his head. Bastian walked out and stood between us, grasping both of our palms in his. He lifted them and we took one last bow in a straight line as the crowd continued to clap - a standing ovation that should have made my heart soar.

Instead it felt heavy, made of lead. As if the beat had finally gone out of it.

When the curtain fell for the last time, Bastian pulled me off to the left wing, his face pained. Gripping my right wrist, he squeezed. “What the hell were you thinking? You decide tonight, of all nights, to ad lib and go off script? You can’t do that, Mallory.”

“I had to.” I craned my neck to see where Tucker was, but the stage was clear and he was nowhere to be found.

“Mr. Hanks is going to lose his shit on Monday. I don’t want anything to do with this. You tell him that it was your decision. That we never discussed this.”

“I will.” I twisted my hand roughly in his fist and he released me from his hold. “I’ll tell him whatever you want, Bastian. But right now I have to find Tucker.” Pushing by him, I ran down the stairs and out into the foyer. It felt like a million eyes were watching me, questioning everything I’d just done. I didn’t have time to care. I ran down the hall, the dress swishing loudly against my legs while my shoes hit the newly shined floors with staccato clacks.

Tucker was nowhere to be found and I side-stepped my way through the throngs of people, ignoring their voices calling out to me. It felt like I was running out of time.

Throwing open the back doors to the parking lot, I stood wide eyed, looking into the darkness for any sign of him. Just beyond the wooden fence surrounding the bushes, I saw him next to his car.

“Tucker!” My voice sounded weak, no longer the confident projection that I’d forced from my throat for so many months.

His chin tipped upward for a fraction of a second, and I knew he heard me. But he continued to stand by his car door, his shoulders moving back and forth quickly. I ran to him, stopping just short of the back of his car, noting that he was trying to get his key into the lock, but his hands were shaking so badly that he couldn’t insert it.

“Tucker, please. I need to talk to you.”

“Why? What do you want from me, Mallory?” He bent his chin and pressed his forehead against the side of the car, his keys dangling from his hand as he exhaled in frustration. Above him, the gift I’d given him was sitting on the car’s roof.

“You know what I want. Just talk to me. Let me make this right.”

It was then that I noticed the parking lot behind me filling up, a new audience of cast members and the public forming a large crowd behind my back.

“Just let it go, okay? It’s almost over. You can go to Tennessee and just chalk this up to some mistake you made because you were sad. Or needy. That you felt like slumming it, or whatever you were doing last fall. Just let it die, already.”

“I can’t because you won’t let it, either.”

The crowd continued to grow and I could hear murmuring all around me.

“
Is this a continuation of the play
?”

“
Now this is how it should have ended
.”

“Shut up. Just shut up.” I rolled my eyes, turned to address them, and held my hands out in front of me. “Okay? I need to talk to him.”

“Mallory?” Regina’s voice called from my left and I pivoted, pinning her with an icy glare. She shrank back a little but pointed at my dress. “You can’t leave in that. It’s property of the costume department.”

“Oh my God, Regina. I don’t care.” I gripped the skirt in my hands. “I mean, do you want me to take it off in the parking lot?”

She shook her head like she wasn’t quite sure, shrugging instead of offering an answer.

I swiveled back to Tucker, watching his face as he scanned the crowd behind me. “Are you going to ask him to strip, too?”

“I mean . . . those are his clothes, so . . .”

I pressed balled up fists to my eyes and took a deep breath before addressing Tucker again. “This is what you wanted, right? A huge profession of my love for you in front of an audience? I already did that, Tucker. So let me go one step further. I wasn’t embarrassed by you. Don’t you get it? I was embarrassed by me. The only thing that made sense was how I felt when I was with you. The person I became when we were together. I could barely speak up for myself when we first met. And now? I’m freaking telling a crowd of two hundred people that I am in love with you. And I’m sorry, okay? I’m so tired of saying I’m sorry . . .”

“Then say something else.” His hands were shoved into his pockets and he stood his ground, no longer looking around but staring directly at me.

“You want me to say something else? How about, I want this. You. I love you. I am in love with you and I don’t know what I have to say to make things different. To make you stop hating me. I don’t want our story to have an ending five years from now. I don’t want to be with someone else, and then realize it was you all along. And I know you probably don’t even care about me anymore but I couldn’t let you leave tonight without telling you that.”

He laughed. It was hard and loud, and he tilted his head to look up at the sky. “You really think I don’t care about you, Mal?” He dropped his chin and took one step forward. “I helped write an entire play about you and then cast you as the lead - as yourself - so that I could watch you suffer through months of classes and rehearsals. Does that sound like someone who doesn’t care about you?”

A voice behind me hissed excitedly. “
I knew it! That was too good of a performance to be just art
. . .”

His fingers reached up and he slid the gift off the car’s roof. “What is this?”

I stepped forward, too. “I bought that for Christmas. It was the only present under my tree. And I know how damn pathetic that sounds, but I don’t care. I kept thinking, and hoping, you’d come around. It’s sheet music with your name on it, because I know you’re going to be a huge success some day and I thought, maybe, just maybe, you’d see that gift and realize it, too.”

There was movement to my side and I glanced left to see Sara standing there, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyebrows raised in question.

“It’s not working.” I sighed and took a step back. “I tried, okay? I tried. That’s all I can say.”

She made a move like she was going to take my hand when four words stopped her.

“Get in the car.”

I turned and made a face of disbelief. “What?”

“Get in the car, Mallory. Please. I don’t want to do this in front of all of these people.” He pressed his lips together and finally got his key into the lock, opening the door and nodding his head at the interior.

“She really has to leave the dress,” Regina called with a squeak.

“For the love of God, Regina. Must you ruin everything?” From somewhere behind me came a loud sigh of frustration. Mercy stepped forward and shoved a pair of jeans in my direction. She was holding her duffel bag from the dressing room, her hair in a high bun. She’d changed into some blue Sofie shorts and a tank top instead of her other clothes - which she was offering me.

I grabbed her pants and huffed, shoving my legs into them beneath the dress, and then fumbled with the zipper, letting the green fabric bunch up around my ankles before I stepped out of it. I’d worn a camisole beneath the dress, and one strap hung off my shoulder as I thrust the costume in Regina’s direction. She crept forward quickly and snatched it, before she slipped back into the crowd.

Tucker’s mouth lifted into a smile, his eyes finally softening as I stood in front of him in that parking lot. He held the door open wider in invitation.

“Get in the car, Mal. Please.”

“I’ll get your stuff.” Sara waved her arms, smiling broadly. “Go.”

They were the only words I needed to hear.

~*~19~*~

No words were exchanged as we rode in his car. He just drove; his hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. When we pulled up to his house, I finally reached out and touched his arm, but he didn’t even let me ask the question.

“My dad took Eliza to a camp. It lasts two days. He won’t be home until tomorrow night.” He put the emergency brake on and threw his door open.

All of the lights were off and as soon as I cleared the front door, he had me pinned against the wall, breathing heavily against my face.

“Say it again.”

I laughed and gripped his sides. “I love you. Is that what you want to hear?”

He nodded, his nose brushing mine. “It is.”

His room was in the back of the house, and he led me straight there, clicking on the small bedside lamp before he turned around. “You meant everything you said back there?”