Step Wilde: A Stepbrother Romance (6 page)

A few minutes later he appeared from backstage. Wilder rubbed his eyes with his hands, his blonde hair sticking out in all directions. He looked tired and serious. He hopped off of the stage and leaned over the front row of seats to listen to the director, nodding his head. Then he stood up and rubbed his hands together and hopped onto the stage just like he had that night we’d been together.

The director turned in her seat toward the rest of us. "Okay, girls. Here's the deal. The first half of the field are all a no. They won't be getting a callback. I'm taking my chances hoping one of
you
will be the real deal. You'll be auditioning with Wilder onstage. You have three scenes to choose from, so I hope you all studied the entire script. Decide when you get up there and Wilder will go along with whatever scene you choose."

The two sorority sisters I had the misfortune to be sandwiched between began whispering and giggling nervously to one another. I tried not to roll my eyes. Jealousy burned within me. I had butterflies in my stomach. I tried to say I didn't care, but a ridiculous part of me wanted to tell both of them that I had fucked Wilder. That he’d told me he loved me. That he had seemed genuinely hurt when I’d left him before he had the chance to leave me.

I looked onstage and saw that Wilder wasn't looking over here. He was joking around with one of the guys assembling the balcony set piece. I was fairly confident that he hadn't seen me yet.

"Okay, ladies. Levinson, Louise! Take the stage."

I stood there chewing my lip as I watched Louise go through wooden dialogue with Wilder. He could barely hide his contempt and disappointment. The director cut Louise off mid-couplet. She left the stage in tears. The next candidate got onstage and completely forgot her lines.

Then it was time for Sorority Girl Number One to hit the stage. Her name was "Lorde, Amanda!"; she was pretty wonderful if I was being honest with myself. Wilder even reached out in an impromptu move and took her hand. I tried to not feel jealous about that.

And then, suddenly, "Martin, Olivia!" was called onstage.

"Oh God, that's me," I whispered. The girl behind me snickered. I rolled my script up and stuck it in my back pocket, walking onstage. Time seemed to stretch out before me. The look on Wilder's face told me that he hadn't known my last name, nor had he bothered to see the women lined up to be onstage with him. He was shocked.

He cleared his throat as I approached him, not taking his eyes off of me. They were on fire. "Diane," he announced calmly. "I want to do Act 1, Scene 5. Is that alright?"

My stomach nearly fell through my feet.

I glanced at Diane, who pulled her glasses off of her face and exhaled. "Fine, fine. Whatever you want." She checked her watch. "I would like to be home before
tomorrow happens
, so get on it!"

Wilder turned to me with a single nod. I nodded back. Then he spoke. "If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."

I swallowed hard, feeling myself swept up by the moment. I knew these lines better than any others. "Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much which mannerly devotion shows in this; for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."

Wilder took a step closer to me and put his open palm on mine. We walked around each other in a circle like we were dancing, staring into each other’s eyes. I felt like I had stopped breathing. There was nothing in the world but this, right here, in front of me.

"Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?" Wilder replied, smirking and stepping closer to me as we continued to spin as if dancing.

"Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer,” I returned, biting my lip and blushing slightly.

"O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray - grant thou, lest faith turn to despair," Wilder replied.

My heart was beating faster and faster. "Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake."

Wilder stopped walking, gripping my hand firmly and pulling me close to him as he had done the night before. My cheeks were on fire, and everyone knew it. Especially him.

"Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take," he said. Then he leaned in and we kissed for seconds. Minutes. An hour. Maybe two. It was forever. My heart was pounding so loudly I felt like my bones were vibrating. This kiss made me certain I hadn’t dreamed the night we’d had together. That had been real. This was familiar.

He was the first to pull away. The entire auditorium was silent. I realized that the construction that had been taking place behind us had stopped. I was breathing heavily, still holding onto Wilder's hand.

Diane was the first to speak. "Everyone else can go home," she said. "We have our Juliet."

There were moans of despair and disgruntlement from the remaining Juliet hopefuls. Still, Wilder and I did not move. I heard backpacks being picked up. I let go of his hand and turned to walk away from him. Only then did Wilder speak. "Actually, Diane. I don't think this will work."

I stopped moving and glanced at Diane. She was livid. "Are you fucking
kidding me
, Wilder? That was the first time all production that you actually remembered your lines. And you're telling me this won't work? Why?"

Wilder stared at her. There was a bitterness in his eyes. "It just won't. I can't work with her. There's no chemistry here."

Someone laughed behind us. I turned around. It was Josh. He was holding a fake sword. But he didn't elaborate on the snickering.

"You're fucking serious, aren't you?" Diane asked.

"If she's in it, I'm out and you can find a new Romeo," Wilder said. The women gathering their backpacks stopped abruptly to look at him. Everyone was staring at either him or Diane as if waiting to see who would budge first.

"Fine, Wilder. I'm too fucking old for this shit anyway. Jesus Christ. Who,
pray tell, dear boy
, do you suggest?"

"The last girl before Olivia. The pretty one. She was perfect."

His words stung me. The implication there was that I was
not
the pretty one in comparison. I laughed and nodded. "Thanks for the opportunity," I said to Diane, pushing past Wilder, being sure to jab my shoulder into his chest as I did so, because
fuck him
.

You did
, said a voice in my head. I pushed it aside and nearly ran for the back of the auditorium.

I burst outside into the sunshine, breathing in the fresh air rapidly.
This must be what a panic attack feels like
. I tried to slow down, leaning my butt against the limestone brick wall of the building. I ran my fingers along the chalky white stone. Flecks of hard substance glinted in the sunlight underneath my fingers.

I tried to think of my Italian helping verbs, running through the list in my head. That normally calmed me down. I heard the metal of the double doors bang open and footsteps wander over to me. I looked up, shocked to see Diane and Lydia standing there. Lydia was holding a clip board, her purple hair in an askew ponytail.

"You alright?" Diane asked me gruffly, reaching into the pocket of her oversized, loosely-knit cotton sweater and pulling out a white paper pack of cigarettes. She tapped the pack on her hand until one of the tan-tipped sticks poked itself far enough out to be pulled the rest of the way. Lydia handed her a lighter, which Diane took without looking, flipping the lid of the lighter and twirling the knob until a flame came out. She handed it back to Lydia who pocketed it once more.

"I'm fine," I replied shortly.

"Wilder's an asshole, but the Dean won't let me kick him off of the play. She thinks Wilder will hit it big some day and his success will look good for the school." She took a long drag of the cigarette and blew white smoke out of her pursed lips. "Trouble is, he's right. I've never had anyone quite like Nicholas in all my decades of teaching. People either have it or they don't. And that kid has it."

"Why are you telling me this?" I snapped at her, wishing for both of them to go away promptly and leave me here for my panic attack to ride itself out.

"I'm telling you this because I think that
you
have something too. Not quite like Wilder, but pretty damn close. Are you a senior?" she asked me, eyeing me up and down like I was on display.

I crossed my arms over my chest. "Yeah."

Diane raised her eyebrows. "Pity. Where have you been?"

"Been?" I asked her, confused.

"You've never tried out before. I would have remembered you. What's your major?"

"Film production," I replied.

She laughed. "Oh, honey. With a face like that? The director will either be grabbing your knee or shoving you into the frame as an extra. Trust me. You'll do fine. You going to L.A.?"

"After I graduate, yeah."

Diane nodded. "Let me know if you need some connections. I know a few people out there. I'd love to help." She nodded at Lydia, who handed me a rectangle of thick paper adorned with embossed ink. It had Diane's first name and her telephone number.

Diane finished her cigarette and stomped it out on the ground. "Well, if this sorority girl doesn't work out, I'm kicking Wilder out on his ass and calling you, hon." Then she held out her hand to shake mine. "See you around, Ms. Martin."

She left Lydia and I alone outside. "What. The. Hell. Just happened in there?" Lydia asked me, sliding down the wall and sitting cross-legged, her heavy combat boots unlaced.

I shrugged. "No idea. Guess he doesn't like me."

Lydia looked at me shrewdly. "Right. Okay. I've seen Wilder pull some stupid shit onstage, but that was unreal. Did you kill his mother? I mean, he straight up set out to humiliate you."

I rubbed my fingers together, trying to get rid of the white dust that covered them. Then I sat down next to Lydia, sticking my tanned legs out in a ray of late afternoon sunshine. "I slept with him last week."

Lydia dropped her clipboard with a clatter, taking her glasses off and perching them on top of her head. Then she rubbed her ears with the palms of her hands. "I'm sorry, it sounded like you just told me that you slept with Nick Wilder. Last week. When exactly? Where? At the coffee shop?"

"Uh, no. Actually..." I jerked my head behind me to indicate the auditorium.

Lydia's jaw dropped open. "In the auditorium? Where?" she was shrieking now.

"On stage. In the middle bit. On a blanket. Oh, and kind of off to the side, too. Against the wall." I blushed again thinking of Wilder’s face in between my legs.

"Why would you do that? Well…I know
why.
Who
wouldn't
do that? Who
hasn't
done that, when faced with the opportunity." Lydia said this all in one sentence, like her brain was producing words at a faster rate than they could check for coherency. Then she clapped her hands to her purple-lipsticked mouth. "Not that I'm calling you a slut. I would never do that. I mean, it takes two people to have sex, and why is it that a man gets a high-five for hooking up when a woman gets slut-shamed? I mean, when you
think
of the double standard and the sexist implications of that, it's really pretty disturbing."

I laughed. "That's basically what Wilder said when he had me announce on the quad that we were going to do it."

Lydia looked confused. "Wait - what?"

I told her what had happened. She was a great audience: shrieking, sighing, and laughing at all the right bits. I glossed over the sex part, but managed to hit the general highlights without feeling like I was reading aloud from an issue of
Penthouse
magazine.

"Nick Wilder, decrier of slut shaming. Who would have thought
that
would happen?" Lydia said, leaning back on the wall. The shadows around us were long and stretched. The sun was nearly setting.

"He
was
incredibly
generous
, I'll say that," I said, giggling without meaning to.

"Until he shamed you onstage," Lydia offered helpfully.

"Well, yeah," I said.

"You know, we burned through two Juliets before the auditions today. But each time
they
blew up at him. I've never seen him lose it. He usually leaves that up to his conquests, so to speak."

"Mm," I replied simply.

"Did you say something to him?"

"Like what?" I asked her.

Lydia shrugged. "I don't know. Curse his family and the house he came from?"

I laughed. "I guess I won't ever know," I replied. I checked my watch. "I gotta go study for Italian."

Lydia exhaled. "Yeah, I need to get back to it as well." I stood up first, offering my hands and pulling her up. Lydia brushed off the back of her short, black skirt. "Just for the record - I didn't know you could act like that. There was so much heat coming off the two of you I thought the stage was going to catch fire."

I smiled. "Me either." Lydia walked back inside the auditorium and the door slammed shut behind her. I put my hand in my back pocket and found the rolled up script still there. When I pulled it out, a piece of paper fluttered to the ground.

As if in a movie, a breeze came out of nowhere and carried the paper away. I was struck with an urge to chase after it, and I followed that feeling. I had no idea what the paper was. I ran bang into a guy carrying a pony keg over his shoulder, nearly knocking him and the alcohol to the ground.

"Sorry!" I called back, still running after the white slip. I lucked out. The paper lodged itself in the thick, leafy foliage of a low-lying bush. I bent down and picked it up, opening it, looking at the handwritten words scrawled across it.

This is the official written record that on April 28
^th
, 2008, Olivia the Sexy Barista insisted that she had no idea why she should fall in love with me. She wants a list of reasons. I don't have any. I only have the fact that I am hopelessly in love with her. She's in love with me, too, but she just doesn't realize it yet. One day, she fucking will. Signed, Nicholas Roman Wilder