Play On (Play On 1)

I wondered if she’d ever asked about me. If she missed me or worried where I’d gone. But above all, I was relieved to hear she was happy. “He’s taking good care of her, then?”

“Do ye think Aidan would allow anything else?”

“Right.”

“Ye need to talk to him,” Jan said. “Explain and get this misunderstanding sorted out.”

“I hate when he looks at me like he loathes me,” I confessed on a whisper, “but I think I’m more afraid of him looking at me like he used to.”

Confused, Jan shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m finally doing okay, Jan.” I touched my book bag. “I’m at school and I’m in a play, and my life is not complicated. For the first time in a long time, I’m where I want to be. Aidan and I … we were what each other needed back then. Not now. Now we’re two completely different people on completely different paths.”

She stared at me so long I began to shift uncomfortably in my chair. Finally, she said, “If that’s true … why are ye here?”

“I was missing Sylvie.” It was a half-truth.

And we both knew it.

For not the first time in the past week, I was faced with Amanda flirting with Aidan and him grinning down at her like he enjoyed it. When she touched his chest and giggled at something he said, using the motion to bring them closer together, I turned away.

Why was I doing this to myself? Jealousy burned in my gut.

Quentin had asked to take a five-minute break while he answered an “important phone call” and I’d used the time to pull out notes for the Classics course I was taking.

However, Amanda’s laughter kept grabbing my attention and I could feel myself growing more and more agitated by the second.

The main doors to the auditorium squeaked open and I turned in my seat to see a tall brunette strolling down the aisle like she was on a runway.

My God, her legs went on forever.

I glanced across the aisle and saw Jack’s tongue practically fall out of his mouth as she passed him. About to ask the model-like creature if I could help her, I noticed her exotic-shaped eyes were trained on Aidan.

I felt like someone had kicked me in the gut.

Amanda stepped back from Aidan, scowling as the woman strolled right up to him, leaned into him, and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Aidan’s hand rested familiarly on her hip, and I felt myself die inside.

Looking down at my notes, I couldn’t breathe.

I was near tears.

Of course he was dating someone else. And of course she was five foot ten and looked like an older version of Gigi Hadid.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, pretending my notes were the most interesting thing in the world when really, I was wondering how on earth Aidan could have been interested in me when he could get women like that?

No!

I mentally slapped myself for the thought. That was not happening. I was not going back there to that insecure girl who constantly wondered why Aidan wanted to be with her.

No, I did not look like Gigi Hadid. I wasn’t beautiful but I was pretty. I could finally look in the mirror and see that now. I was the pretty girl-next-door type, and I was okay with that.

Damn Aidan Lennox for re-entering my life and kicking up my self-esteem issues.

“Seriously?”

I jumped in my seat and looked up at Jack who was standing by me, his gaze hostile on Aidan who still had the model buried into his side. “Who does this arsehole think he is?”

“Have you Googled him?” I said.

He shook his head.

“Google him. He’s kind of a big deal.”

Jack looked down at me. “He treats ye like shit, Nora. He’s kind of scum.”

Grateful, I smiled up at him and something mischievous came over me. “Then why don’t you show his girl how much more charming you can be? You know you want to.”

A slow smile spread across his face. “She is pretty gorgeous.”

“She is.”

To my surprise, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “You’re just as gorgeous, gorgeous.”

I laughed and swatted him away playfully. “Liar.”

He winked and turned away, and my eyes flew over to Aidan. I stiffened in my seat to find him glaring at me.

But I didn’t look away this time.

Instead, I locked mental horns with him, willing him to back down first.

I wondered if either of us would have if it hadn’t been for Quentin reappearing and clamping a hand on Aidan’s shoulder, breaking our staring contest.

“‘What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe. O time, thou must untangle this, not I.’” For some reason, my attention fell on Aidan as I said that line. He sat in a seat in the front row and as our eyes connected, his expression darkened. The woman who’d crashed our rehearsal was still there, sitting beside him. I ignored her and finished my monologue. “‘It is too hard a knot for me to untie.’”

“Terrible,” Aidan announced immediately and loudly. “The accent, the lack of emotion. You’re all alone up there. You need to command the attention of the audience. Even as Cesario, the men in the audience who know better, should wish they were Orsino. They should desire you. You’re as appealing as a fart in a spacesuit up there.”

“Now, wait a minute—” Jack started but I lifted a hand, halting him. He stood on the aisle near the edge of the stage and clamped his mouth shut in frustration. But I must’ve looked pretty pissed off because he remained silent.

And I turned my fury on the man who’d caused it. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Aidan looked surprised. “I’m—”

“That was a rhetorical question,” I snapped, my voice ringing out loud and clear in the auditorium. Tense silence followed but I didn’t let it settle. “You have done nothing but insult me—not critique me, which I might add is not your place to do so—since the moment you entered this theater. You want to play the part of the egotistical asshat, go ahead, but I am playing Viola, and I am a member of this company, so you either show me some goddamn respect or you get the hell out.”

It wasn’t my place to say so.

But I said it nonetheless.

Aidan’s eyes blazed up at me but this time, I couldn’t read his expression.

“Nora.”

My stomach sank as Quentin’s voice rang out from behind Aidan. When my eyes connected with my director’s, I was surprised he was smirking at me. I’d thought he’d be livid. “Thank God you finally reprimanded him for his ghastly behavior.”

Relief moved through me as Quentin got to his feet and walked around to face Aidan. “We’re friends, mate, and I am truly grateful you want to write music for this, but I have to support my actor.”

Aidan stood up and patted his friend’s shoulder, looking apologetic. “You’re right. You’re right. The girl is fresh and needs encouragement, not harsh words. It’s not my place, either. It’s the bossy arsehole in me, I’m afraid.” He turned to me, a false smile on his lips. “Apologies, Miss O’Brien. It won’t happen again.”

We eyed each other, like two opponents in a boxing ring, until Quentin called time on rehearsals. I hurried offstage and Jack caught up with me as I gathered my stuff to leave. “Well done,” he said under his breath. “Ye needed to do that.”

“I know,” I agreed. “Hopefully he’ll back off now.”

Jack looked over his shoulder. Aidan and his model were approaching.

“Nicolette, it was a pleasure,” Jack said pointedly to the woman.

She gave him a flirtatious half smile back.

“Goodnight, Jack,” Aidan nodded his head in acknowledgment.

He didn’t look at me.

I didn’t exist.

And off he walked, out of the theater with his arm around the beautiful Nicolette.

I attempted not to feel hurt but it was impossible.

“Ignorant arsehole,” Jack huffed. “Why is he such a dick to ye?”

Because I think he thinks I broke his heart.

“I don’t know.”

“You know he and Nicolette aren’t exclusive. Apparently, the jammy bugger has a woman on every fucking continent. And she’s okay with it,” he said incredulously.