Damn, he was being so cold today. Calling her Cecily. And the way he was staring at her, eyes narrowed, the muscles in his jaw tight, made the spot between her ribs ache. She wanted to argue that there were plenty of scenes she—or Cecily—wasn’t in, but she knew that didn’t matter. She was in the proposal scene, and it did need the most help.
She hurried up the stairs and got into position in the middle of the stage. “Where are we starting from?” she whispered to Leo.
“So, my dear chap, where shall we start our journey from today?” Leo asked Sawyer, which was exactly what Brynn had been trying to avoid—the asking where to start, though she also liked to avoid Leo’s in character questions as much as possible.
“How about when Cecily’s telling him they’re engaged? Actually, just after that, when she tells him about the broken engagement. That’s where it went downhill yesterday. Yes, it’s got to be funny, but you’re actors. Act like you like each other.”
“I do like Leo—er, Algernon,” Brynn said before Leo could correct her. “I mean, not like that, but—”
“I know you can pull off pretending to like someone,” Sawyer said. “But act like you love him. Make the audience feel it.”
I know you can pull off pretending to like someone? What the hell? Was he taking about the scene? Was he implying that she’d only pretended to like him?
Determined to make everyone in the whole damn place feel it, she lifted her chin and stared into Leo’s eyes. “Yes, you’ve wonderfully good taste, Earnest. It’s the excuse I’ve always given for your leading such a bad life.”
Judging from the transformation she’d seen of Sawyer’s house this past week, he had wonderfully good taste, too. The porch had been transformed from old and broken to a white Victorian-style beauty, the kind she’d always loved. The scalloped edges at the top were perfection, and the new royal blue door with etched glass was lovely.
But she didn’t think it was excuse enough to lead a bad life. Not that he was totally bad.
Brynn realized her attention had drifted to him and she quickly moved to her next line, lifting the box of letters to show Algernon. “And this is the box in which I keep all your dear letters.”
“My letters!” Leo said, eyes going wide. “But, my own sweet Cecily, I have never written you any letters.”
“You need hardly remind me of that, Earnest.” Brynn gave a dramatic sigh. “I remember only too well that I was forced to write your letters for you…” She continued on, focusing on the words, her hand movements, all while trying to stare at Leo as if he hung the moon. They went through talking about their broken engagement, and then Leo was kneeling in front of her.
“What a perfect angel you are, Cecily.”
“You dear romantic boy.” She leaned down enough for Leo to kiss her, and she ran her fingers through his hair, like the stage directions said. She didn’t even flinch at how much hair gel was in it, because that’s how good of an actress she was right now. “I hope your hair curls naturally, does—”
“Cut, cut, cut!” Sawyer stood. “Was that supposed to be more passionate? Because it sucked.”
Frustration ran through Brynn, making her grit her teeth. Right now, she was sort of wishing Sawyer would go back to ignoring the play and typing away at his computer. Did he even know what the play was about? “This is supposed to be the 1800s. It can’t be too passionate or it would seem inappropriate for the time.”
The next instant Sawyer was charging up the steps to the stage. “I’m not saying it’s got to be a kiss with tongue and groping—”
Brynn’s face heated, and worse, she imagined kissing Leo with tongue and groping. Ew.
“—I’m saying you’ve got to look at each other like you’re in love so the audience will want it to work out. Our modern audience.” Sawyer shook his head. “You two don’t have any chemistry. You’ve got to work on that. Now, take it again, from before the proposal.”
It was impossible to concentrate with Sawyer standing right there, so close she could hear every shift of his body and feel his gaze on her like a weight. All her lines were swimming together. Finally, she cleared her throat and forced the words out. “It would hardly have been a really serious engagement if it hadn’t been broken off at least once. But I forgave you before the week was out.”
Leo knelt, told her she was an angel. She said her line, trying to peer into his soul like she wanted to be with him, and then Leo kissed her. And it was sloppier than usual. She did her best to not jerk back, though it was her first instinct.
“Okay, that was just…” Sawyer moved in front of her. He looked at the playbook, then lowered it by his side and stared into her eyes. The air thickened around them and she could feel every thump of her heart. “What a perfect angel you are, Cecily.” He said it so tenderly, his smile close-lipped but full of joy.
“You dear romantic boy,” she said, all out of instinct because thoughts were getting fuzzy.
He leaned in and kissed her, a soft kiss with his lips barely parted. Brynn’s heart beat faster and her head swam. The pressure of his lips increased for a delicious moment, and then they were gone. A quick, simple kiss, but when his mouth left hers, she felt its absence so strongly that she couldn’t think about anything else for a couple of seconds. Her breath was stuck somewhere in her lungs and her lips still tingled, living the sensation over and over again. Sawyer’s eyes bored into her, and she swore there was desire playing in the green… Heat wound through her body, her hands itched to reach out and touch him. And then she remembered she was supposed to. She ran her fingers through his hair and felt the whisper of his breath on her wrist as he exhaled.
“Wow, that was good,” Wendy said from the front, breaking Brynn from her trance.
Brynn stepped back and swallowed, but her throat wasn’t working right. Sawyer’s eyes never left hers, and one corner of his mouth curved up in a smug, self-satisfied way.
“It was all right, I suppose,” Brynn said, working to keep her voice steady. She crossed her arms and shrugged. “For a first-timer, anyway.”
That only made Sawyer’s smile grow wider.
“But you didn’t kneel,” Leo said. “The stage directions clearly say kneel.”
Sawyer turned to Leo, and he looked surprised to see him standing there. “I, uh, think you should stand to kiss her. It’ll be less awkward and hopefully fix what’s been missing. Let’s at least try it.”
Brynn couldn’t help but watch Sawyer as he jumped off the stage, not bothering with the stairs. Funny how she’d dreamed of kissing him all the time in high school, but her fantasy wasn’t even close to the real thing, and that was when the real thing was a quick fake kiss onstage. Her heart felt like it’d just been wrung out and shoved back in her chest.
Stupid emotions. Why were they doing this to her? Why did she want someone so badly whom she shouldn’t want at all?
“Cecily?” Leo snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Don’t you want to tell me about our broken engagement and how you forgave me?” Whenever they were onstage—or even off, actually—Leo insisted on calling her Cecily, just like he wanted to be called Algernon at all times. And that was fine. But for once, she didn’t want to be a character who fell in love. She wanted to be Brynn, the girl who found the right guy and fell in love. But she pulled herself together and powered through.
And their scene was better. She was sure it had nothing to do with the fact that she closed her eyes and pretended it was Sawyer kissing her again.
Nope. Nothing at all.
…
Sawyer watched the scene play out, and while he kept telling himself Brynn and Leo were only actors, the muscles between his shoulder blades had gotten tighter with every take. He knew he could have no claim on Brynn, but he also knew he wanted one. While he’d been trying to prove a point with the scene, it’d taken all his control not to kiss her in a completely non-1800s-approved way.
And he sure as hell didn’t want to watch Leo kiss her one more t
ime. “Okay, let’s move to the next scene.”
They moved on to where Cecily and Gwendolyn met for the first time. The play was really starting to grow on him—the material, working on a scene and seeing it get better. Sawyer settled back in his seat, now used to the fact that there was hardly any padding in it.
As the director, he probably should be paying attention to the entire scene, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Brynn. Their eyes met and she quickly glanced away. Every time they were together, he thought things were going well. They’d talk, she’d smile—she had the perfect smile. Nice full lips that he now knew were as soft as they looked. He liked the sexy cat-eye thing she did with her makeup, too. Then there were her curves…
Sawyer’s pulse cranked up and he took a drink from his water bottle in an attempt to cool down. Once he was in better control, he forced himself to watch the interchange between the Jack and Algernon characters.
He lasted a minute or two before he was staring at Brynn again. Looks aside, there was something about her. An infectious enthusiasm he wanted to catch. Even when she was mad at him, it was as if she wanted to be mean but simply didn’t have it in her. Which was only more confusing—why was she working so hard to keep him away? He was trying to show her they could at least be friends, like with fixing her door all those nights ago.
I bet she had one of those disastrous relationships and now she’s scared of getting close to anyone. He’d had a friend in college who was like that. The guy who liked her kept showing her she could trust him day after day, and now they’d been together for more than a year.
For a brief moment, he had the thought that he’d show Brynn she could trust him. But that was crazy, considering she was off limits and by the time she wasn’t, he’d be headed back to New York anyway. He didn’t want to make it worse for her when he left. Still, that kiss wouldn’t leave his mind. There was a spark there, a desire he hadn’t felt in a long time. He needed to at least talk to her, and this time, he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
When they got to the end of the second act, he stood. “I think that went pretty well. We’ll start on the third act tomorrow.”
Everyone started off the front of the stage, and Brynn headed in the other direction—trying to duck out the back again, no doubt. Sawyer charged up the stairs, against the flow of traffic, and slid behind the stage wagon with the garden scenery painted on it.
Good, from here, no one else should be able to see us, even if they haven’t left the theater yet.
There she was, about to pass through the curtains.
“Brynn, wait! Come on, you can’t avoid me forever.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, and her eyes widened. “I’m not. I’ve, uh, just gotta—”
He grabbed her hand to keep her from bolting, which was what it looked like she was about to do. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I need to…” She gestured in the direction of the exit, but he could hear the breathlessness in her voice. His gaze lowered to her lips as she said, “Got somewhere…to be.”
His brain told him to stop staring, to forget how nice it had been to kiss her. That this was a bad idea and he should turn right back around and go home before he made things worse. But she looked so tiny and vulnerable, and he wanted to feel that spark again.
He slid his arm around her waist and lowered his mouth to hers. Her hands came up between them on his chest, and he thought she was going to push him away. But then they slipped up around his neck as she parted her mouth under his.
Desire flared through him, and he couldn’t suppress a moan at the way her body fit perfectly against his. He took his time exploring her lips, tasting her mouth, holding her tightly to him.
When she swirled her tongue around his, every thought he’d ever had disappeared.
Then she suddenly stepped back, the shock of going from a kiss like that to nothing a total jolt to his system.
“I can’t do this. I need to go.” She pulled at the curtain, but there was only more fabric. She ran her hand along it, obviously looking for where it split, which gave him just enough time to realize he needed to do something to stop her from leaving.
He put his hands on her waist and her posture stiffened. Not exactly what he’d been hoping for. “Hold up. I shouldn’t have done that, I know. But I feel like I’m missing something every time I talk to you. Tell me what’s going on.”
“What’s going on is that this was a mistake. Now please let me go.”
He dropped his arms, trying not to let it show that he felt like he’d been punched in the gut.
She ran her hands over the velvet curtain again, still looking for the spilt. Managing to be adorable somehow, even as frustrated as he was with her. He was pretty sure that meant he’d already lost his mind over this girl.
She wasn’t even close, so he reached over her and swept the fabric aside. She glanced back at him and his heart clenched.
Then she charged through the opening in the curtain and pushed out the back door, the noise clanging through the sudden quiet.
…
“What the hell? I mean, seriously. What. The. Hell?” Brynn brought her shaky hand up to her still-burning lips. The romantic dreamer in her was having a hard time ignoring the fact that she’d never been kissed like that.
And she’d definitely never responded like that. All she’d been able to think in that moment was that she needed to be closer to Sawyer, even though every inch of her had already been pressed against him. Dani’s words about how her heart told her she loved Wes before her brain did popped into Brynn’s head, which so wasn’t helpful right now. This wasn’t her heart. Her heart said he’d hurt her before and she didn’t want to risk it again.
But her lips, her body…they said they wanted more.
Bad idea was an extreme understatement. Especially since he’d asked her what was going on, his question making it clear he knew she wasn’t being totally honest with him.
What am I going to do? How am I going to face him every day?
She rested her forehead on the steering wheel, the plastic hard against her skin. He was going to figure out she was the nerdy girl who’d asked him to prom, she just knew it. She shouldn’t care—fine, let him know. She should shove that fact in his face so he could see what he missed out on all those years ago.
Only she didn’t want him to know. She wanted him to wonder why she didn’t like him, the same way she’d had to wonder about him back in high school. She wanted him to see what it was like to be rejected. Her chest burned, a toxic mix of resentment and hurt going through her. She pictured herself in the red, supposed-to-be-prom dress she’d made, the sleeves perfectly puffed to Regency-era perfection, the ruffled bodice with a satiny ribbon underneath. Spinning around her room as the skirt billowed around her, foolishly filled with hope.
She’d fantasized how the night would go—how people would gasp at the beauty of her dress like she did whenever she watched Pride and Prejudice, finally seeing her as a person they wanted to know. Especially since she’d be on Sawyer’s arm.
Without a second thought, he’d ruined that possibility and shattered her already fragile confidence.
He doesn’t deserve to kiss me, and I’m never letting him do it again.
Brynn looked up in time to see Sawyer’s familiar black car moving through the parking lot. She quickly fired up her engine and drove around the back of the theater, going the extra-long way to get to the road.
She wished that Sawyer had stayed in New York and away from her theater. Avoiding him wasn’t working. She needed a replacement. One who was handsome and could kiss her hard enough to make her forget all about the guy who’d broken her heart when she was eighteen.
Chapter Six
Brynn had been psyching herself up for this conversation all morning, but it wasn’t making it any easier to spit out the words. She’d almost started three times, but people had been coming into the shop and… Okay, she’d chickened out.
&n
bsp; She finished replacing the receipt paper on the register and then turned to Paul. “I need dating advice. I know it’s weird, and honestly, if I had anyone else to ask, I’d ask them. But I need help. For one, where do I even go to meet a guy? And then, how do I keep him?”
“Guys are like fish. You wave something shiny at them”—Paul waved one of the silver spinner lures—“and then once you get your hook in, you yank real hard and reel him in.”
Brynn tilted her head and stared at him. “I’m serious.”
“So am I. Here’s the thing…” He looked at her and then shook his head. “Never mind.”
“No, go ahead and say what you’re going to say. I love putting on plays and it keeps me busy, but I wanna have someone to come home to someday.” She swung her arms around. “I want to start living life.”
Paul put his hands on her arms and slowly pushed them down. “You’re just… You’re like a hurricane. You come in talking a hundred miles an hour, swinging your arms around and saying things like ‘living life.’ You’ve gotta hold back when you first meet people. Ease them into the crazy.”
Brynn’s heart clinched. “Ouch.”
“See, this is why I wasn’t going to say anything.”
She took a deep breath and pushed on. “No, I asked. But say I hold back the” —she swallowed past the ache in her throat—“crazy. There’s still the problem of finding a guy. It’s not like I’m going to meet anyone here. I’d never go for a fisherman, and obviously they don’t like me anyway.”
“Howard comes in all the time to see you,” Paul said.
She scowled at her brother. “He’s, like, seventy.”
“More like sixty, and he’s single.” Paul waggled his eyebrows.
“Yay for me.” She propped her elbow on the counter and dropped her chin into her hand.
Paul patted her shoulder and shot her a consoling smile. “You’re a fun person, and you know I love you.”
“But?”
“But sometimes when you start with the love stories, or you throw out a line from a play, no one knows what you’re talking about. I’ve seen you totally crash and burn conversations with guys who were checking you out a few minutes before. And all that stuff’s okay spread out over time. But you’ve got to leave a little mystery. Make them work to get to know you. And really, hold back on the play quotes as long as possible.”
Act Like You Love Me (An Accidentally in Love Novel) (Entangled: Bliss) Page 6
