“You’re a crazy motherfucker, Maldonado. That’ll either shut him up or start a war. Of course, you’d really shut him up if you came out with me Friday. And you never know…you might just meet the girl of your dreams.” Javi snorted, sidestepping my punch.
Not possible. I removed the batting helmet and headed for the dugout as Javi droned on about a plan involving a casual drink after the show. He didn’t seem to care that I hadn’t committed to anything, and I didn’t feel like making a thing of it anyway. I caught Micah’s irritated scowl and flashed a mischievous grin. Nothing malicious. Just a friendly warning to back off and mind his own fucking business.
2
So that was how I found myself at a college production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that Friday night. I didn’t get it. The play, I mean. But hey, live theater wasn’t really my thing. I had a hard time sitting still for two hours. Even movies were a challenge unless they were high-speed action-adventure flicks that ricocheted from scene to scene so fast that two hours felt more like twenty minutes. Dramas with slow buildups were the worst. Scratch that…romantic comedies were up there too. But if the action on the big screen in a movie theater failed to impress, I could always walk out. I couldn’t do that here. Especially in these seats.
I wiggled uncomfortably and cast a weak smile at my “date.” Sunny was a pretty, petite girl with blonde hair and big blue eyes. She wore form-fitted jeans and a black sweater with high-heeled boots that brought her to my shoulder. I didn’t know much about her, and I was fine keeping it that way. I’d tuned out Javi’s over-the-top gushing about her since the day I agreed to this. I didn’t need to know that Sunny had been a high school cheerleader and a track star. I’d probably never see her again, and I didn’t want to encourage Javi when his casual invite began to feel like a serious setup. I barely curbed my eye roll when he told me we were meeting at a nearby bar before the show so Sunny and I would have “a chance to get acquainted.”
Nope. Not happening. I made up an excuse not to meet them for drinks and then purposely showed up with minutes to spare before we had to hustle to our front and center orchestra seats. No doubt Sunny was a sweetheart but I didn’t want to give her the wrong idea. Although being willfully tardy probably just made me look like an asshole. I wished there was a nice way to say “I’m really here to see this guy I made out with a few months ago in LA.” But a coming-out moment wasn’t on the agenda tonight.
“This play is one of my favorites,” Sunny whispered as the lights went down. “Do you like Shakespeare?”
“Sure,” I lied.
“Me too. This is my third time seeing this production this week.”
“Third time? Really?”
“Well, my brother’s in it,” she explained with a laugh.
“Which one is he?”
“Puck.”
Fuck.
I swallowed hard as the music swelled and the curtains parted. Sunny was Phoenix’s twin sister? I shot a sideways glance at her and tried to gauge detailed similarities. They shared the same coloring and a slight build, although he was definitely taller. Her face was heart-shaped, and her eyelashes were long like his. Yep, she was a female version of Phoenix. But not quite as pretty. I smiled wanly when she caught my stare before fixing an unseeing gaze at the stage.
Suddenly I couldn’t wait for him to make an appearance. It took a while, though. He wasn’t in the first act at all. My frustration was heightened by my inability to follow the storyline. I sort of understood, but not really. First of all, the characters had weird names like Theseus and Hippolyta. And they spoke their lines with a funny cadence that took me a minute to unravel. After a while, I zoned out and waited for Phoenix instead.
When I couldn’t take the suspense any longer, I leaned toward Sunny and whispered, “Is your brother coming on soon?”
“Here he is.”
Phoenix flew onstage a moment later. And yeah, I was mesmerized.
Hey, I was no expert, but I thought he was a good actor. He seemed confident performing in front of a crowd. I didn’t detect any nerves, and there had to be a couple hundred people in the audience. He knew his lines and delivered them with a mischievous glint in his eye while gracefully prancing around the stage and climbing the large tree props like…well, a fairy.
Two hours later, I still didn’t know what the hell the play was about, but I liked it. Correction. I liked every scene Phoenix was in. He was engaging and charismatic and damn, I had to see him again. Not the play…him. I clapped along with a bunch of enthusiastic college theater buffs and glanced down when Sunny bumped my elbow.