Chapter 45 - Nadia

Braden and I were sitting in the front parlor, sipping our morning coffee together while I told him everything that had happened last night.
Well, not everything. Just the saboteur-related stuff.
“I can’t believe he was going to leave a note.” Braden’s chestnut hair was messy from sleep, which somehow made him even more handsome. He shook his head and gave me a rue smile. “Dude’s really pushing his luck. And you chased him?”
“Chase is a stretch,” I said. “I ran in the general direction the saboteur was going for about five seconds before realizing it was useless.”
“Still. He could have had a knife or something.”
“Don’t remind me.” To change the subject I asked, “What do you think Tatiana will say when she finds out about the note?”
“I bet she passes out on the spot.”
I giggled. “A shame Atkins slashed our budget for fainting couches.”
“We’ll need to make sure we’re standing close enough to catch her, just in case,” Braden said with a laugh.
“If she hits the ground and gets a concussion, I get moved into the lead role. So don’t try too hard.”
I felt a little guilty for joking about Tatiana hurting herself, especially when there was someone out there really trying to hurt her, but I couldn’t help it. She was still frustrating to work with and a total diva during rehearsals. I couldn’t imagine how bad she would get when she had fans to perform for.
“So,” Braden said. “You ready for tonight?”
“Born ready. I feel like I know you as well as a girlfriend would.”
I cringed at the comment, but Braden didn’t seem to notice. “We’re going to an Italian restaurant right after rehearsal. I’ll text you the address. It’s on the nicer side, so make sure you bring a change of clothes.”
I made a hungry grunt. “I love Italian.”
“So does my mom,” Braden said. “She could eat it for three meals a day for the rest of her life.”
“Is Candy coming?”
He shook his head. “Mom wanted it to just be the four of us. Which means she’s excited to meet you. Not to put extra pressure on you or anything…”
“Yeah, now you say that,” I mumbled.
He reached across the couch and put his hand on mine. Electricity tingled from his fingers to mine. “It’s going to be fine. You’ll do great, I know it.”
From this close I could smell his deodorant, Old Spice Original. His eyes sparkled as he held my gaze, trying to instill me with confidence for tonight’s meeting.
But our weird little relationship was still bothering me. Between sleeping together that night weeks ago, and then becoming friends and roommates since then, along with practicing pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend for his parents… it left me confused and frustrated. And as Candy had said, it would be tough to pretend to be his girlfriend if I blushed every time he touched me during dinner.
I knew if I didn’t get it out in the open before tonight, I would struggle during dinner.
“Hey,” I said slowly. “What’s the deal with us?”
Braden tensed. “What do you mean?”
I pushed forward before I could chicken out. “You and I had a moment during rehearsal a few weeks ago, the first night I stepped in for Tatiana when she was late. Then we went on an awesome date before you knew I was your Tinder date, and then on the train ride home…”
I waited for his reaction. He stared blankly.
“What’s it all about?” I asked. “Why did you… why did we sleep together that night in the train station? Is there something between us? Or were you just… faking it?”
He sipped his coffee and then stared at the mug in his big hands. His sharp cheekbones seemed to bulge as he pursed his beautiful lips in thought.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. He still wouldn’t look directly at me. “I’ve been wondering that myself. My emotions are complicated. I wish they weren’t.” Finally he met my gaze. God, those eyes could melt me where I sat. “Let’s see how tonight goes. That will help me figure out what I’m feeling.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “What, you’re stringing me along until I convince your parents?”
He hastily shook his head. “It’s not that at all. My parents… Their opinion matters to me. I don’t know if I could date someone who they didn’t approve of.”
“Technically, they’ve never approved of any girl because they thought you’re gay,” I pointed out. “Right?”
“Which is why it matters so much to me.” He took my hand and squeezed. “But what happened that night at the bar, and then later at the train station, wasn’t fake. I was more real with you than I’ve ever been with another person.”
I felt a lump grow in my throat. Even if I knew what to say, I wouldn’t have been able to get the words out.
“Tonight,” Braden said. “Let’s get through tonight and then talk about it after that. Deal?”
Just what I need. More pressure to perform tonight. I guess it’s no worse than the pressure of a theater full of patrons watching me perform.
“Deal,” I agreed.
The front door opened and Andy and Ryan came strolling inside. “Catch any more bad guys without me?” I asked.
Andy went straight to the coffee machine. “No, but Ryan tackled Atkins like a defensive back.”
“Bro, you almost did the same thing from the other side. Don’t even play.”
“But I didn’t,” Andy pointed out, “and that makes all the difference in the world.”
Braden looked at his watch. “What was Director Atkins doing there at 8:00 a.m.?”
“Actually, he got there three hours ago,” Ryan said as he slumped into the chair next to us. “He got the producer to pony up the money for security cameras.”
“We spent the morning setting them up,” Andy explained, joining us with his coffee. “High-def IP cameras with IR sensors for motion tracking at night. I set them up with an AWS cloud server so we can store footage for up to 48 hours before it gets overwritten.”
“Wow,” I said. “How did he convince Vandercant to finally spend the money? Was it the sandbag traps, or the note to Tatiana?”
“Neither,” Ryan said bitterly. “A writer for the Times is coming to watch the rehearsal tonight. He’ll be doing a piece on the new theater and show. Vandercant wants to make sure everything goes smoothly, so he caved to Atkins’ request for extra security.”
Braden gawked. “Holy shit, really? Is he going to be doing interviews?”
“That’s the idea,” Andy said. “None of us are big enough to get interviewed, but you’d better brush up on your soundbites.”
Braden got a faraway look in his eye.
Ryan leaned over and shoved him playfully. “Snap out of it, bro. Act like you’ve been interviewed before.”
“I haven’t been interviewed before.”
“Hence why I said act like it.” Ryan looked around. “Can you believe this guy? One interview and he turns into the cowardly lion.”
“You’ll do fine,” I said, patting Braden’s arm. “Just click your heels together if you get scared and you’ll magically return to Kansas.”
“A good pair of magic slippers would take you away from Kansas,” Ryan joked. “I want the magic slippers that transport me to Lily’s Diner, on 58th.”
“Why there?” Andy asked.
“Because I like their omelettes.”
“Magic slippers that can take you anywhere, and you choose a place that’s five minutes away by train?”
“Fuck you—they’re my magic slippers,” Ryan said.
Dorian came jogging down the stairs. His hair was down, and flowed behind him like a curtain. “What’s all the commotion?”
“A writer from the Times is going to be at rehearsal tonight,” Andy explained while stirring his coffee.
Dorian pulled his hair up into a bun. “Ahh, wonderful. I was just thinking to myself in the shower that we didn’t have enough pressure on our shoulders already.”
“Right?” I said.
He shared a smile with me. We hadn’t talked since yesterday, but the smile was a good sign. Maybe it wasn’t uncomfortable between us.
“There’s more we have not told you,” Andy said quietly.
Ryan began to ask what, then rolled his head across his shoulders. “Oh, right. Director Atkins doesn’t want to tell Tatiana about the sandbag trap or the note.”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“The cast, too,” Andy added. “He wants a tight lid on the information. He threatened to fire any of us if we spilled the beans.”
I sipped on my coffee. It had gone cold by now. I wasn’t sure how to feel about this. Tatiana had a right to know about the trap, and especially about the note since it was addressed to her specifically. It wasn’t fair to keep it from her. Or the rest of the cast, since the saboteur was endangering everyone.
But I also couldn’t blame Atkins for wanting it kept a secret. Like Braden and I had joked about, Tatiana would probably faint when she read the note or learned about the sandbag trap. It would do more harm than good, especially with the writer coming to rehearsal tonight.
“How does everyone feel about that?” I asked.
There was a chorus of shrugs and mumbled whatevers. “The less Tatiana knows, the better,” Dorian said definitively.
“You don’t think it’s manipulative to keep the information from her?” I asked. “If it were me, I would want to know.”
“You’re not Tatiana,” Braden pointed out.
“Atkins has taken steps to address the issue,” Andy said carefully. “Not only with cameras. He went around town buying extra locks for the exterior doors, including to the roof door the saboteur was trying to enter. He paid out of pocket for it.”
“Yeah, alright,” I admitted. I rose from the couch. “I guess it’s time I got off the couch and started my day too.”
I put my mug in the sink and went upstairs. Dorian caught up to me on the top floor.
“Hey, we doing temp work today?” he asked.
“I was planning on it, but now that I know there’s a journalist coming to rehearsal I think I’d better spend the day practicing. Hope that’s alright.”
He waved it off. “Of course. Just wanted to check before I headed out. Don’t forget we have the roof if you want someplace private to work. It makes for a great practice stage.”
He began to leave, but then I remembered what Andy had told me yesterday.
“Wait,” I said. He turned around. “You didn’t have to give up your pay yesterday.”
Dorian laughed nervously. “What do you mean? I went to Brooklyn and picked up both of our…” He trailed off when he realized I knew the truth.
I ducked into my room and came out with the crisp $100 bill. “It was a nice gesture, but I’m not a charity case.”
“I just felt bad. You ran off in such a hurry because of what I’d done…”
“You didn’t do anything,” I interrupted. “At least, not alone. I kissed you too.”
“Still. It seemed unfair that I got paid and you didn’t. We both did the same amount of work: very little.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
When I stuck the money out, Dorian still refused to take it. “Let’s split it. $50 each,” he said.
“Do you have change?”
He flashed a sheepish smile. “Buy me lunch or something and we’ll call it even.”
“Yeah, alright.”
He lingered in the hall a moment, then awkwardly said goodbye. I listened to his footsteps move down the stairs, then I fell into my bed and groaned into my pillows. Now things were even more uncomfortable between us.
I should have let his harmless gesture slide.
Feeling even more idiotic than before, I got ready to spend the day practicing.