My Guys

by Tanya Chris

  I fell asleep with my phone in my hands and Nate on my mind.

  Chapter 8

  Closing night—the last time I’d be washing dishes from a make-believe Thanksgiving dinner in a bathroom sink. As soon as we were done cleaning up, we’d be heading to Mary’s for a cast party and tomorrow we’d tear down the set and they’d start all over again, only I wouldn’t be here.

  Before I’d finished with the dishwashing, Nate came in, shirtless and wearing his own jeans. He pushed the door almost shut behind him.

  “Do you need the bathroom? I can give you a minute.” I wondered if Nate was uninhibited enough to whip out his dick and urinate in front of me. Probably he was.

  “I don’t need privacy, just need to get into the medicine cabinet.” He opened the door of the cabinet into the space the bathroom door had been occupying. I heard the clatter of male hands fumbling through an organized cabinet, creating chaos.

  “Do you have a headache?”

  “No, I need an alcohol wipe or something.”

  I stopped scrubbing and turned to look at him. “Did you get hurt? What happened?”

  “Pete clipped me.”

  “I thought it sounded more real tonight.” I took his head between my hands, running my eyes over his jaw. “You look OK.”

  “He barely brushed me, but it threw me off. I must have fallen wrong.” He turned his head so I could see the other side. Along his temple was a raw-looking scrape.

  “What did you hit?”

  “The table, I guess. I didn’t feel it—too much adrenalin. I saw the scrape when I went to put the makeup on for the bruise. I figured it added to the effect, so I left it.” His fingers probed at the edges of the wound.

  “Don’t touch it. You’ll get it dirtier. It’s full of makeup already.” I found some peroxide and a tube of anti-bacterial ointment in the cabinet. “Sit down. You’re too tall to reach up there.”

  Nate sat on the toilet and I ministered to him, cleaning the scrape and then applying the ointment.

  “I don’t know if I’ll get a bandage to stick there,” I said when I was finished.

  “I don’t need a bandage.” He reached his hand towards the clean wound and I smacked it away.

  “You do if you’re going to keep poking at it.”

  “I’ll be good.” He lowered his hand. “I wish this had happened earlier in the run. I could’ve used it.”

  “Yes, it’s a shame you didn’t get hurt earlier. Maybe we should have had Pete break your jaw. Think how good that would’ve looked.”

  “Lissie, you do care,” he said in an aw-shucks way, mocking me.

  “You know I care. Now let me finish these dishes.”

  “Yes, Mom.” He stood up and took the single step that brought him to the door. He was going to walk out of my life. Tonight, tomorrow, then the show was over and so were Nate and I. He and Donna would do the next show together, and she wouldn’t say no when he asked.

  With a single lunge I was on him, pushing him against the door, my momentum clicking it shut behind him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him towards me, my lips reaching for his.

  Nate didn’t hesitate, didn’t make me wait to know that he wanted me there in his arms. He pulled me closer to him, leaning against the door so that I leaned against him, his hands running down my back to my hips to bring our pelvises in closer contact.

  I’d kissed him with ferocity and he matched it. I felt the same hunger he’d shown me opening night right before he got out of the car—something beyond his normal control. His cock sprang to hardness in an instant. He pulled me into it, making me gasp against his mouth.

  My hands were running across his shoulders, his chest, relishing his hot naked skin. His nipples beaded. Mine tightened in response. I reached for the button on his jeans. Nate caught my hands in his.

  “Lissie.” He shook his head no.

  “Yes,” I said. I’d made up my mind. I wanted him. For however long I got to keep him, I wanted him.

  I threw myself back into him, reaching my arms and mouth up to hold him to me. I rolled my groin back and forth across his. This time he was the one who moaned. I went for the button.

  “Not like this.” He held me off from him, looking me over with heavy eyes. “Not on a bathroom floor with twenty people outside the door listening to us. At least, not for our first time.” He gave me a wicked grin as my breathing slowed. “We can work up to that.”

  He rotated us so that my back was against the door.

  “That’s better. It’s not safe to turn you loose but I don’t want to let you go.” Without allowing his body to touch mine, he leaned in and kissed me—the slow, seductive kisses he’d trained me to crave, the ones that paralyzed me.

  I let him take me into that state of dreaminess they induced.

  “I want more room than this,” he said, following his words with a kiss. “And something soft to lie you down on.” He nibbled on my ear. “And much, much more time.” He came back to my lips.

  I clung to them, falling into them, falling into him.

  “And I want to know this is what you want.” He stopped kissing me, leaning his forehead against mine, letting me catch my breath.

  “I want you.”

  “Very sure?”

  I nodded.

  He stepped into me, flowing our bodies together so no air could come between us, his mouth on mine sealing out everything except him. We strained to get closer. His hands ran down my back to my ass, tilting my pelvis into him, offering up my clit to his cock. I grabbed for the button.

  “OK, that one was my fault.” He backed away from me and raised his hands. “I was anticipating.”

  “So was I. Why do you keep stopping me?”

  “More room, more time, something less gross to lie on than a bathroom floor. Remember?”

  I huffed out my breath. “Fine. Let’s go to my place.”

  “Not so fast.”

  “Fast? This has been playing out for weeks. Let’s just do it already.”

  “Lissie ...”

  “What?”

  “We’re in no rush. Anticipation is half the fun. Well, no, not half, because the rest of it is pretty fucking fun, but it’s some of the fun. How about tomorrow, after the set strike?”

  “What’s wrong with tonight? You need to put on special underwear or something?” I wanted to do it now, while I was brave enough.

  “It’s closing night. It’s your very first closing night. We’re going to go to Mary’s and get a little drunk and enjoy it. Tomorrow, in broad daylight, sober, without getting all worked up first, you’re going to tell me you want this.” He came closer to me so that he was not quite touching me the whole way down our lengths. “And then,” he said, “I’m going to give it to you.” He brushed a light kiss against my lips and reached behind me to open the door.

  I went to the sink and picked up the sponge, tempted to throw it at him, but he was already gone.

  The party was in full swing by the time I got there. I lingered near the front door, a plate of brownies in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, looking for Mary or anyone who appeared to be in charge.

  “Are those brownies?” Repeat asked, taking the plate from me.

  “No, they’re square turds,” Pete said, helping Repeat remove the plastic wrap. “Only thing better than a turd is a square turd.” He popped one into his mouth whole. Repeat flicked me a thumbs up as he and Pete walked off with the plate.

  Well, that took care of the brownies. Next was the wine. To my left was the dining room, the table covered in food. Beyond that I could see a kitchen—the most likely place to find a corkscrew.

  The kitchen was packed. Who were all these people? I wedged myself in amongst them.

  “Looking for this?” Deb asked from behind me. Ah, the corkscrew. “I’ve got a bottle open. Have some of mine and you can put that in the fridge.”

  Luckily she was leaning against the refrigerator or I’d have had to find that too. She
grabbed a plastic cup from a stack and poured us both a healthy helping of wine.

  “High class,” she said with a tap of her red plastic cup against mine.

  “Whatever works.” I took a drink and looked around the room.

  “I think he’s in the living room. Someone put on the video from the show, so all the narcissists will be frozen to the screen for the evening.”

  I didn’t bother to pretend I hadn’t been looking for Nate. “Are you working on the next show?”

  “Yeah, looks like.”

  “The lights again?” I shifted out of the way of someone trying to get into the refrigerator. There was no place to stand without being in the way.

  “Looks like,” Deb said again. “Not enough lighting designers. Not any lighting designers. Just me.”

  “You can’t do every show.”

  “Tell me about it.” She tipped the bottle into her glass and put it back on the counter behind her. “There used to be three of us, which was about right. Then one guy moved out of state and the other guy got burnt-out from doing every other show, so now there’s just me—doing every show.”

  “Can’t you get some more lighting designers?”

  “You know we don’t pay anybody, right?”

  “I guess so.” I knew they didn’t pay me.

  “Yeah, so the actors, they get their need for adoration filled, but it’s harder to find people who want to hang lights for the sheer love of it. Or wash dishes, for that matter.”

  “It was fun being part of the show,” I said, “but the dishes? Yeah.”

  I thought about Rebekah stage managing show after show, taking care of everyone and everything with no more thanks than a chorus of “thank you, ten” when she called the time. I didn’t want to graduate from stage hand to stage manager.

  “Lighting seems more fun than dishes, though.”

  “It is. It’s actually really creative and kind of scientific at the same time. Sometimes I’m awed by the effects I create, not that anyone else notices them, which is another reason I miss having other lighting designers around. No one even knows when I’ve done something cool.”

  “Ah, so you do have an ego.” I couldn’t help taking a poke at her, since she was always poking at Nate.

  “I guess I do.”

  “Well, I don’t know much about lighting, or theater for that matter, but I did think it was cool at the end of the show when the moonlight was coming in the window and Wayne and Mary were sitting on the couch with just that one lamp lit. The cool moonlight was like the outside world and the warm lamplight was like their love.”

  She beamed at me. “You have a good eye. That was definitely the best part of the show lighting-wise. Thanks for noticing.” She added some wine to both our cups. The bottle was nearly empty.

  “Hey,” she said. “You could be a lighting designer.”

  “No, I couldn’t.” I’d enjoyed helping her out that one day, but I’d been mystified by how many different types of equipment there were and how they all fit together.

  “You’re smart, you’ve got a good eye. I can teach you.”

  I frowned, considering. I knew I wanted to stay involved with Central Playhouse, even aside from wanting to stay involved with Nate. I was obviously not an actor, and I didn’t want to make a career out of washing dishes.

  “Be my assistant for Space Detective,” she said. “You don’t have to know anything—just follow me around and see if you like it.”

  Green eggs, I told myself. They hadn’t failed me yet.

  “OK.” I held out my hand to her. “You’ve got an assistant.”

  She shook my hand, grinning. “I’m so psyched. You’re a great addition to the theater, Lissie.”

  “You just called me Lissie.”

  She rolled her eyes. “If you can’t beat him, join him.”

  “Speaking of him, I’m going to go find him.” I’d had enough wine to grow tired of being discreet and I wasn’t fooling anyone anyway.

  In the living room, a good portion of the cast was grouped around a wide-screen television watching themselves. There weren’t many non-actors in the room, which explained why the kitchen was so crowded. Nate sprawled on an extra-wide easy chair with an absorbed expression on his face. I crossed over to him, standing by the side of his chair until he noticed me there. He smiled and reached an arm up and I let myself be pulled into his lap.

  The lights in the room were low to facilitate viewing. The half dozen or so others stared unblinkingly ahead. Even Pete and Repeat were quiet. Now I knew how to get a group of actors to shut up­—let them look at themselves.

  I hadn’t seen the show since Tech Week. I was surprised at how it had changed, had grown and evened out since then. Hearing it over the speakers and catching glimpses through the set walls while waiting for scene changes was a pale substitute for seeing the whole picture from the audience’s point of view.

  I wasn’t sorry to see the last of those skinny jeans on Nate, although on stage he ceased to be Nate. His character in the new show—a rough-talking, emotionless cop—couldn’t be more different from the whiny teen I was watching now. Sometimes I worried that the Nate who wooed me was another role he played, like someone else wrote the lines he delivered.

  “You’re really good, aren’t you?” I said during one of the scene-change breaks as my eyes strained to pick myself out of the darkness the camera had recorded.

  He beamed at me, pulling my head down for a kiss.

  “How do you do it?”

  “A little talent and a lot of practice.”

  “I’d never be that good, no matter how much I practiced.”

  Nate tilted his head at me.

  “It’s OK, you can say it. I was awful.”

  “You weren’t a natural,” he said cautiously.

  “Shh,” Pete said. The fight scene had started. On screen, Pete came down the fake stairs, approaching Nate menacingly.

  Nate’s head turned towards the television when he heard his own voice.

  “I’m going to be a lighting designer,” I said in his ear.

  He turned back to me.

  “Deb said she’d teach me.”

  “I don’t know if I should be glad you’re going to be around or worried that you’ll be working with Deb.”

  “Shh, already,” Repeat said.

  Nate frowned at the back of Repeat’s head but his eyes shifted towards the screen. I took a swallow from my cup o’ wine, then put it down on the floor so my hands would be free. I snuggled in closer, wrapping my arm across his torso. Testing myself and him, I breathed into his ear. His lips found mine. I slid more fully into his lap.

  “Get a room,” Pete said, without turning around.

  “That’s what I said,” I whispered into Nate’s ear.

  “Shh,” Repeat hissed.

  “Enough,” Nate said. He lifted me onto my feet. “I can think of better things to do than ego-stroking in the dark with a couple of dudes. It’s a party.”

  Pete waved a hand at him. “Buh-bye.”

  Shaking his head, Nate led me from the room.

  “Am I that bad?” He leaned against one of the walls in the entryway and pulled me into his body.

  “You seemed pretty interested in yourself.”

  “I’m more interested in you.” He bent down to kiss me, but I leaned back to prevent him.

  “Who writes your lines?” I asked, echoing the thought I’d had earlier. He was much too good to be true.

  He smirked at me. “I know what women want. I’ve read Twilight.”

  Caught by surprise, I laughed. “I haven’t. Is it really what women want?”

  “It’s that or Fifty Shades of Grey. Would you rather be spanked?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll take the vampire.”

  He went for my neck, catching my throat between his teeth. I squealed. Then abruptly he released me, his gaze shifting over my shoulder.

  “Hey, Deb.” His hands slipped from my hips.

 
; I stepped aside, moving so I faced her. “Are you leaving?”

  She nodded. Her face was blank, not smiling, not even at me. I had the sense that although she’d teased me about Nate, she’d hadn’t expected to find me in his arms.

  “Good night,” I offered. A pang of guilt struck me when she slipped out the door without responding. I looked up at Nate questioningly. For a moment, his face was as frozen as hers had been, but it didn’t take long for the actor in him to recover.

  He smiled easily and pulled me back into his arms. “Now where were we?”

  Chapter 9

  Nate was right. In the bright light of a nice Sunday in May, no alcohol in my system, no Nate-induced throbbing between my thighs, wearing dusty work clothes and feeling parched from the wine the night before, it wasn’t easy to invite him to have sex with me.

  He kept one eye on me while we worked, as though I might try to slip away, but he needn’t have worried. I was determined to be brave. Whatever might happen, it had to be better than having a constant debate raging in my head. To do or not to do? After today it would to be to-done.

  I watched Nate too, not because I was afraid he’d get away from me but because I loved watching him. I loved to see his head tilt back in a whole-body laugh or his quick grin flash, brightening his face which could appear both wicked and sweet at the same time.

  He was good with tools, as I already knew. The claw on his hammer flashed as he separated trim from walls with efficient jerks. The pile of trim—nails bristling from it like claws—grew behind him.

  It would be somebody else’s job to clean the nails from the trim for this show. I was helping Deb strip the lighting equipment from the ceiling. She’d greeted me with a smile, like nothing had happened the night before. Handing me a wrench from her own tool bag, she’d dragged out a ladder and put me straight to work.

  I found I didn’t mind the heights. Twelve feet didn’t seem like much anymore, and a ladder wasn’t steep compared to a climbing wall. There were no burning forearms to contend with, although the lights were heavy and awkward.

  When Deb and I were done, I lingered near the stage door waiting for Nate to approach me. Tucking his hammer into a loop on his tool belt, he sauntered over to me and leaned a forearm on the wall behind me.