Triple Threat (15 page)

The cougher squirmed in his seat, and a beaming Kevin continued, “How do you, like, identify with a character who’s such a scumbag?”

“So, basically, how much does it suck being the bad guy after years of playing the hero?” The class laughed again, this time with Nick instead of at Kevin. “In all seriousness, that’s a good question, one it took me a long time to figure out. Every actor’s process is different. For me, it’s about digging deep, finding something redeeming about the character beneath the ugly surface. No one’s black-and-white, all good or all bad. Although I’ll admit the good’s buried deeper in some than others.”

Like Holly’s ex. And his father.

“How about you, Ms. Ryan?” a girl piped up from behind Kevin. “Why’d you write about domestic violence?”

Shit.
Nick figured the last thing Holly wanted to talk about was how close to home this play hit for her. “Sorry, but I think we’re out of time, guys. Thanks for—”

“It’s okay,” Holly said, surprising him. He was even more shocked to see her on the edge of her chair, light dancing in her green eyes and looking almost giddy with anticipation. “
The Lesser Vessel
isn’t just about spousal abuse. It’s about making what you think is the right choice—the safe choice—and having it turn out horribly wrong. It’s about having the judgment to recognize you’ve made a mistake and the courage to make it right. And I think that’s something we all experience at some point in our lives.”

“Kind of like pulling a U-ie?” a smart-ass in a red hoodie yelled.

Holly found the boy slinking in his seat and nailed him with her gaze. He slumped even farther and pulled his hood down over his face.

Attagirl.

“More like making amends, if they’re due, then starting over. And getting it right this time.” She opened her mouth as if to say more, then shut it, nodding a little to herself.

She was right. She’d said it all.

“On that note,” Mr. Traver interrupted, joining them onstage, “time to wrap up.” His eyes darted from Nick to Holly and back again. “Any parting words of advice for these budding thespians?”

“I think Nick’s better equipped to answer that question than I am,” Holly said, biting her lip, probably as amused by Mr. Traver’s formality as Nick was. Another thing about good old Stockton that hadn’t changed in fifteen years.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Nick gave Holly a knowing smile and turned his attention to the class. “The best advice I ever got came from the woman sitting next to me. When no one else believed in me, when I was afraid to believe in myself, she told me this—be bold, be brave.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Holly stiffen. “And she was right. In this business, you need to leave your fear at the stage door and make daring choices, in and out of the audition room.”

Almost as if it had been choreographed, the bell rang, drowning out his last word. The students rushed to crowd around Nick, snapping photos on cell phones. Many had playbills, posters and pictures for him to sign. A few even asked for Holly’s autograph, but mostly she watched as Nick handled the hubbub with his typical, easygoing charm, posing with the kids and whipping out a black Sharpie from his pocket, scrawling his barely legible movie-star signature on whatever they threw at him.

“Your
Our Town
reflections are due on Monday,” Mr. Traver reminded them. “And auditions for
Noises Off
will be Tuesday and Wednesday after school, with callbacks on Thursday. Sign-up sheet is on the Thespian Society board in the activities center.”

“We’d better get out of here,” Nick said when the door had closed behind the last student. “Those pics will be all over the internet soon. And I think I saw one kid recording the whole thing.”

“Thank them for keeping it on the down low until we were done,” Holly told the teacher. “I know the PR department has some stuff planned for us, but this was for the kids. I didn’t want it to become a media circus.”

“And we meant what we said earlier,” Nick added. “We’d love to have you and your students as our guests at a performance. The box office will call you and set it up.”

A few more thank-yous and hugs later, and Nick’s and Holly’s footsteps echoed down the school corridor. “I’d almost forgotten,” Nick muttered as they rounded the corner at the end of the hall.

“Forgotten what?”

“How it feels to create something from nothing. To tell stories and express yourself.” He slowed so she could catch up to him. Another hazard of his height. “All the reasons I wanted to act in the first place. Those kids, their questions...”

Holly came up beside him, nodding. “Yeah. When that girl asked why I wrote about domestic violence...”

“I thought that might make you...uncomfortable.” He still wasn’t sure how much of Holly’s play was autobiographical. Oh, he’d gathered from her veiled remarks that her ex was a real prick. But had he actually done all the shit Nick’s character did in the play? His jaw clenched.

“It did,” she admitted, her arm brushing his as they walked side by side. His anger was gone as fast as it had come, replaced by desire. “A little. But it also made me remember why I started writing. And why I wrote
The Lesser Vessel.
I was kind of dreading the Aaronsons’ revisions, but now I feel...”

“Rejuvenated?”

“And you said you didn’t know any big words.” She nudged him playfully with her elbow and he nudged her back, smiling. She made him feel comfortable, at ease, free to be Nick Damone, regular guy, and not Nick Damone, movie star. It was a feeling he liked. A feeling he could get used to.

Never in a million years when he’d walked these halls as a dumb kid would he have imagined the pleasures life had in store for him. But Holly made him believe there was more to come. And come. And...

“But you’re right,” she was saying. “That’s exactly how I feel. I want to rush home and lock myself in my room with my laptop.”

Not quite what he had in mind. Sure, talking with the kids had re-energized him, too. But he was also horny. His brain whirred, trying to figure out another plan—one that ended with them naked, sticky and sated. “First we have to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“Our mutual rejuvenation.”

“What did you have in mind?” she asked, her tone wary. “Wait, let me guess. Does it involve you, me and skinny-dipping in Leffert’s Pond?”

“No.” Although that wasn’t a half-bad idea. He’d have to catalogue it for later. “It involves you, me and ice cream.”

She blushed, and he knew she was remembering their creative use of Ben & Jerry’s.

“It’s not what you think,” he continued, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Not that I’d object to a repeat of our Cherry Garcia experiment. This time with sprinkles.”

If possible, she blushed even deeper, and he had to jam his hands in his pockets to stop himself from reaching out and running a finger down one beautifully flushed cheek. “But I was thinking more along the lines of the Scoop Shop.”

The Scoop, as it was known by the locals, had been a Stockton hot spot for as long as anyone could remember. Nick had taken many a girl there after seeing a movie at the Regal. Or before making out at Hotchkiss Point.

None of those girls had been Holly, though, a situation he intended to remedy.

“I don’t know. I really need to get started on those script changes.”

“We can stop for a quick cone. Or maybe share a Scoop split.” He felt the telltale pressure of his hardening cock against his zipper as he imagined feeding her the ice-cream stand’s signature dessert, her full, pouting lips closing around the spoon, her tongue darting out to catch a stray dab of whipped cream. “I’ll even let you have the cherry.”

“No, thanks.” She shook her head. “I’m watching my girlish figure.”

Me, too,
he thought.

“Aw, c’mon. Have pity on me.” He shot her his best you-know-you-can’t-resist-me smile and threw in a dose of puppy-dog eyes for good measure. “I’ve been a good boy, haven’t I? Working with your dad. Setting the table for your mom.”

“What do you want? A medal?”

What he wanted was for her to race him to the car, leap over the center console and ride him like a pogo stick to orgasm town. But since that was out of the question, he’d settle for ice cream. For now.

“I deserve some kind of reward.”

“Fine. But we’re getting it to go.”

“Works for me.” He pulled a baseball cap from his back pocket and jammed it on his head, making sure the brim was low enough to obscure his face. The Stockton locals had been great about giving him space, but he couldn’t be too careful. With a hand at the small of her back, he steered Holly toward the exit. His brain was spinning off again, running through the list of remote locations where he could take her to enjoy their dessert, in private.

“Nick, wait.” They had reached the car, but she stopped him from opening her door, a soft, imploring hand on his arm. “What you said in there. You know, about the advice thing. I had no idea...”

“That I remembered?” She nodded and averted her eyes, looking everywhere but at him. “Of course I do,” he assured her. “I remember everything about that night.”

He slid a finger under her chin and tipped it up so that she had no choice but to meet his gaze. Her eyes, wide and shining, stared into his, making his chest constrict and his next word come out on a rush of air. “Everything.”

Risking his luck, he dipped his head to steal a quick kiss. His lips were only a hairsbreadth from hers when he caught a glimpse of a Volvo station wagon pulling into the parking lot. Dark blue, with a magnetic sign on the door advertising All-American Realty: Click or Call, We Do It All and a phone number underneath.

The car was new, but he remembered that sign. Hated that fucking sign. Do It All, his ass. More like Screw It All Up.

The Volvo parked across from his Audi. Nick pulled back from a confused Holly and braced himself, stance wide, hands jammed into his pockets, for the confrontation he’d been dreading since Garrett had dropped the bombshell that the show was transferring to New Haven.

His lips tightened into a thin line as an older couple got out. The man, almost as tall as Nick and with the same strong, sharp features, helped the smaller, more delicate woman out of the car, one hand at her elbow and the other clutching a bulky file.

At first glance, they looked like the poster couple for marital bliss. But Nick’s practiced eye saw the unyielding, possessive grip on her arm, the nervous tapping of her foot, the way her red-rimmed eyes darted from left to right, never settling on anything or anyone.

Until her sharp intake of breath told Nick those eyes had landed on him.

“Nicky!” She took a step toward him, her reed-thin legs trembling, then looked to her husband, still holding fast to her elbow, as if for permission to continue.

Nick took off the cap, stuffed it in his pocket and sighed, hands clenched into fists behind his back. Another thing in Stockton that hadn’t changed. Not that he’d expected it to.

“Hey, Mom.” He gave her a warm smile, then turned to address the man he hadn’t spoken to in well over a decade, his voice sharp enough to cut steel. “Dad.”

14

A
FEW MINUTES
ago Nick had been almost happy-go-lucky, tossing out sexual double entendres like beads at a Mardi Gras parade. Reeling her in with an almost kiss that had promised to melt her body, claim her heart and steal her soul.

Now he was as tight as a coiled spring, his whole body rigid, his normally warm brown eyes stony and his lips, usually so kissably full, compressed into a thin, harsh line. A muscle ticked on his jaw, making her want to reach out and smooth his tension away.

From what Nick had told her in choppy mini-sentences, she’d guessed his relationship with his parents—especially his father—was strained. But this went way beyond strained. Nick was a bomb waiting to explode.

“Mom. It’s nice to see you.” Voice low and dangerous, his hand skimmed from Holly’s neck to the small of her back, gripping the thin fabric of her dress as if it was his fingerhold on a cliff. “You may know Holly. Her family owns Grower’s Paradise. She wrote the play I’m working on now.”

“Oh.” Nick’s mother flushed with what looked like pleasure. As if she received affection so rarely she wanted to wrap it up with a ribbon and paste it in a scrapbook.

If Holly had to guess, she hadn’t seen her son in a really, really long time.

Mrs. Damone held out her hand. “So lovely to—”

Nick’s father tugged his wife’s hand down before Holly could untangle her own from her sundress pocket. “We have to get these contracts inside, Vera.”

“We can stay and chat a few minutes, can’t we, Sal?” The older woman placed a trembling palm on her husband’s arm, but he shook it off. “It’s been so long....”

“A few minutes can mean the difference between a sale and walking away empty-handed in this business.”

“Please, Sal. Just five minutes. He’s your son....”

“I meant what I said when he walked out on his scholarship and on us.” Sal might have been talking to his wife, but his eyes were riveted on Nick. “I don’t have a son. Not anymore. And neither do you.”

“I didn’t walk out.” The ticking muscle in Nick’s jaw seemed to pick up speed. “You threw me out. Right after you threw me against the wall.”

Holly focused on breathing. Long, slow, quiet breaths. She didn’t want to let Nick know how much his father reminded her of Clark, making her skin prickle and her insides twist. From the fingernails digging into her spine, she could tell Nick was barely holding on as it was. The last thing he needed was a panic-stricken female at his side.

Eyes forward,
she willed herself.
Keep smiling. No sudden movements.
She wanted to throw her arms around him and shout, “It’s not your fault.” She knew that. Did he? Some people were just assholes, even if they were related to you.

She knew that, too.

“Please.” The word was probably a permanent staple in Nick’s mother’s vocabulary. It had been in Holly’s for the last few years of her marriage. “Not like this. Not here.” She scanned the parking lot, empty of witnesses.