Category Archive

When I woke Monday morning, I thought maybe I’d dreamed her. That she was the strangest, most elusive siren ever. Or maybe that the universe was punishing me for breaking Jenna’s heart.

Mostly, I spent my morning guzzling coffee and resisting the urge to walk back over to her apartment and knock on the door.

I would give it a few days, and then go back. See if I could make sense of whatever the hell happened the night before. It was obviously an excuse, but I just couldn’t understand why. I’d given her several opportunities to get out, but she’d been the one to keep pulling us along. So, either I’d done something wrong or… I had nothing. I had to have done something, said something that made her change her mind, to make her literally run away from me.

I left bright and early to get to the university. As I settled onto my bike, I couldn’t help but think of the burn on her leg, and wondered how it was.

That could be my excuse to check in on her. Maybe tonight. That would be long enough, right?

Damn it.

I made myself focus on the road.

It was strange to pull onto campus and not have to join the hoards of students circling the parking lot like vultures for a spot near the Fine Arts building. Instead I zipped around the lot and pulled into one of the reserved faculty spaces.

I pulled off my helmet and shook the hair out of my face.

Faculty. Jesus.

I was less than an hour away from being a professor. People in their twenties, only a handful of years younger than me, were going to call me sir or mister. I could almost hear the ominous slasher movie music playing behind my thoughts.

I had a real job. I was a real adult.

And I’d done it by accident.

I’m not sure if everyone feels this way or just actors, but I felt like I was in a movie as I entered the building, and made my way to my office. Well, Professor Jackson’s office anyway. I kept expecting to see a camera out of the corner of my eye or a catchy and yet appropriate song underscoring my movement. It was that surreal.

Sometimes in life you make these tiny little choices that at the time seem miniscule in the grand scheme of things. But you veer a little left, then a little more, and more, and then suddenly you’re facing an entirely different direction and have no idea where you’re heading.

My first class of the morning was a group of graduating seniors in their last semester. What could I possibly offer them? I’d been out of college just long enough to rack up even more debt in the form of a post-graduate degree, work less than a year in the regional theatre scene before mangling my personal and professional life into an unrecognizable carcass of failure.

My first lesson plan should be called: Life. No one knows what the hell they’re doing.

I sunk into Professor Jackson’s chair, surrounded by his books and his files and his things, and rubbed at my eyes.

I had to believe there was a reason.

I had to believe that even though nothing about my life made sense at the moment, I was getting to where I was supposed to be.

I had to believe that even though I couldn’t see the map, and I was making wrong turns and taking not-so-short cuts—the destination was there.

Maybe I was supposed to be here. Maybe I was supposed to lock myself out of my apartment, and meet Bliss. And as bizarre as it seemed, maybe it was a good thing that she’d run out on me.  I liked her. She was sweet and silly, and when everything else seemed complicated, being with her felt simple.

There was more than a one off there.

A knock on the office door pulled me out of my thoughts, and I sat up straighter at my desk. The department head, Eric Barnes stood filling up the doorway, his hands in his pockets. He was a lanky man, twice my age, and had taught me theatre history and directing in my days here, among other things.

“You get all settled into your place?”

I smiled, trying not to think too much about last night, and said, “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

I stood, and he leaned over the desk to shake my hand.

I felt again, like this was some movie, rather than my life. Five years ago, I’d been getting sloshed and doing impressions of him and the other professors in a room full of college friends. Now, he was my boss.

“I thought I’d go down to your first class with you to get you all introduced. Most of the students will have heard the rumors of your coming by now, but I’ll be there just to get you settled.”

“Of course. That would be great. Thank you.”

I felt like a bobblehead, nodding along and just spouting ‘thank you’ every few seconds.

He said, “I think you’ll like this group. They came in the year after your class left, and they really stepped up. They’re a strong group.”

“Good. That’s good.”

God, I hoped I was better at figuring out what to say during class.

“ I think you’ll have a blast teaching them. But make sure to hold your ground, too. They’ll push the line as far as you let them. But be firm, and keep them on track, and you’ll do fine.”

“Right.” Be firm. God, I was going to make a bleeding mess of this whole thing.

“You’re looking a little yellow, Garrick.”

I forced a smile and said, “Just a bit of nerves, that’s all.”

“You’ll be fine. You may not feel experienced enough to do this, but you’re still light years beyond these kids. Most of them leave college, determined and passionate, and half of them give up within the first year. You’re past that phase. You’re in the trenches, but you’re still hanging on. Your perspective will actually be more valuable to them than a seasoned professor who has forgotten what it’s like to go on a dozen auditions a week. This is a clean slate. These kids don’t know you, and you don’t know them. Just tell them what you wish someone had told you when you’d been sitting there. It’s a simple as that.”

It did seem simpler when he put it that way.

I didn’t have to have all the answers. I just had to get them past the first hurdle.

I nodded. “Thanks Eric. That helps a lot.”

He gave that cheesy teacher shrug that said, ‘I do know what I’m talking about.’ He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go down and get you settled. You’re in the blackbox.”

My nerves spiked, and I turned to my desk, desperate for anything to stall. I grabbed a pen. What I was going to do with it, I had no idea, but I felt better holding something.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We descended the stairs in silence, and as soon as we entered the theatre wing, I could hear the students in the green room down at the far end of the hallway. They were laughing and screaming, and someone was playing music, and I envied them. I missed being where they were… not just in the green room, though I did miss that. I missed being on the cusp of things. That feeling before you jump when you know you’re going to fly, so falling doesn’t even cross your mind. I missed feeling like I had all the time in the world.

We entered the small theatre, and I smiled. I inhaled the familiar scent of dusty curtains and old furniture and props. Black, moveable curtains encircled the entire room, and the flexible seating was set up in a thrust style with risers on three sides of the audience. A prop table had been pulled to the middle of the room, along with a chair. I took a seat, but that didn’t feel right, so I stood. Then I tried leaning on the table, but it tipped under my weight, so I settled for standing with my hands in my pockets.

Eric laughed at me, and said, “It’s actually kind of refreshing to see you like this. You’ve always been very confident and comfortable, even as a student.”

I cleared my throat.

Yes, well. I was a bit off my game lately.

I uttered, “I’m fine,” just as the door swung open and students started filing in.

“Eric!” A few of them called as they piled onto the chairs in the center section. A pretty redhead turned toward Eric and said, “Did you miss us over the holidays?”

Eric laughed. “I’m saving my missing until you’re all gone for good.”

She held a hand over her plentiful chest and frowned, “I’m hurt. You’re going to cry for days when we graduate. Admit it.”

I cleared my throat, and pulled my eyes away from her. The last thing I needed was to get caught ogling a student. I squeezed the pen in my hand and tried to clear my head. Last night had really done a number on me. The sooner I saw Bliss again and got things settled, the better.
For the most part, the students ignored me.

Well, they stared, for sure. But they went back to their conversations, talking about who had said what and who was seeing whom. It was like looking into the past and seeing my class right before we graduated.

I started labeling them as my friends from college. The red head was Emma definitely. Spunky and pretty, but a little bit off-putting. There was another guy they called Dom that was hands down Jack from my class. He tried too hard to be cool, and every time he spoke I saw half a dozen eyes roll.

This was simple. I could do this.

By the time nine A.M. came, and Eric introduced me to the class, my nerves had all but disappeared. This would be no different than the conversations my friends and I used to have before graduating. We debated the pros and cons of graduate school and regional theatre and moving to New York. Only now, I had the added benefit of having already made those decisions, as had my friends. At least now, I knew what the hell I was talking about.

He was mid-sentence when the loud theatre doors creaked open. Those things had ruined many of my own attempts to sneak in and out of class in college.

Eric called out, “Late,” and two girls called back, “Sorry, Eric!”

They pushed through the curtain, snickering, their coffees held in front of their bowed faces.

The first was blonde, again pretty.

I hadn’t anticipated this particular issue with teaching.

Eric took and breath and started talking again, but I didn’t follow what he said. The second girl had lowered her coffee, and even though her head was bowed searching through her purse, there was something about her that pulled my eye.

Something about her hair and the curve of her back was familiar, and I wondered if maybe she was the little sister of someone I’d gone to school with. That happened a lot, family legacies.

Then she lowered her bag and leaned back in her chair, casting light onto her face. I knew when I saw her lips, those lips that I’d spent so long staring at the night before, but I told myself it wasn’t possible.

But as I took in her pale skin, her small nose, and her faintly pink skin, my world flashed hot and then cold. I squeezed the pen in my hand, and felt the plastic crack under my palm.

A roaring filled my ears, and it took me several long seconds to realize it was the students clapping, and not my world coming apart at the hinges.
Then her eyes flicked up to mine, blue and wide and so familiar that my whole body tingled with recognition.

Her jaw fell open, and it was like there was a wall in my brain that I couldn’t get a thought past. I knew I should look away. I knew I should acknowledge whatever Eric had just said and the other students in the class.

But more than all of that, I knew her. Bliss.

And I wished to God that I didn’t.

I was back in that surreal world, like a movie. And everything that had seemed simple and right turned out to be a complicated bloody mess.

The One Where They Meet

When the bartender asked me what I wanted, I almost told him one of everything. Getting mind-numbingly pissed wouldn’t bode well for my first day of work, but it would make me feel better.

So, I settled for a bourbon and took a seat in the back of the bar.

I laid the book containing the complete works of Shakespeare on the table, and fixed it with a glare.

I couldn’t believe I was teaching Shakespeare. When Eric had told me, he looked at me like he expected me to throw a damn parade. I suppose all Brits are supposed to love the guy, or Americans think that anyway.

So I’d bought the stupid book, threw it in the saddlebag on my motorcycle, and then put off making lesson plans for that class until the last possible minute.

Lesson plans.

What the hell had I gotten myself into?

My life in Philly had gone up in flames, and I’d thought this job was my way out, my open window. I was only thinking about getting away when I jumped, not about the pavement I was hurdling towards.

When I couldn’t put off reality and lesson plans any longer, I’d gone out to my bike to get the book, and I’d forgotten that the door to my new flat automatically locked behind me, and left my key inside.

So while I waited on a locksmith, I decided a drink was in order. Or several. Anything to help me swallow down a bit of Shakespeare before I had to teach it tomorrow.

Life, meet pavement.

I opened to Romeo and Juliet first, and then immediately flipped another chunk of pages. No, thank you.

Macbeth.

At least that one was bloody.

If I remembered correctly, it was the shortest Shakespeare play, and I’d still never managed to get all the way through it. The history of the play’s cursed performances was infinitely more interesting than the play itself.

I dragged myself through the first act. The writing in this damn book was tiny, and every time I turned to a new page filled with miniscule print, I had to battle thoughts of suicide… and book burning.

I’d just gotten to the scene where Macbeth hallucinates a floating dagger as a sign that he should kill Duncan.

I swallowed a yawn.

I could go for a floating dagger right about now.

“If that’s supposed to be a way to pick up girls, I would suggest moving to an area with a little more traffic.”

A voice broke through my boredom, and I looked up to something much more preferable to a floating dagger.

I said, “Excuse me?”

My distraction was brunette with pale, almost porcelain skin that nearly glowed against the tiny black top she wore.

She said, “Shakespeare. No one reads Shakespeare in a bar unless it’s a ploy to pick up girls.” People actually did that? Jesus. “All I’m saying is you might have better luck up front.”

She put a hand on her hip, and gave me the cheekiest smile.  I took it as a sign from the universe that I could be done with Shakespeare for the evening.

I smiled and said, “It’s not a ploy, but if it were, it seems to me that I’m having great luck right here.”

A faint blush chased across her cheeks, and that tempting smile froze on her face. I used a napkin to mark my place in Macbeth. Her eyes went a little wide, and the hand on her hip dropped. Her back straightened and she said, “You’re not trying to pick up a girl?”

Confusion crept across her eyes as the blush crept from her cheeks down her neck. It was a lovely neck.

I said, “I wasn’t.”

But this seemed like a much better use of my time.

Her eyebrows lifted, and I couldn’t help my grin. She’d come over blazing, and now she looked like I’d pulled the rug from beneath her feet, and maybe the floor too.

I turned my head to the side, trying to figure her out. Her outfit matched her bold approach, but as my eyes were drawn back to her face, I noticed how little makeup she wore. Maybe that was why her blush was so vivid.

“What’s your name, love?”

She pressed her lips together for a moment, like she was trying to keep herself from speaking, but then she said, “Bliss.”

I eyed her, trying to decide if she was playing with me.

“Is that a line?”

Her blush migrated to her collarbone, drawing my eyes to the curved neck of her shirt. My mouth went dry. I cleared my throat, and dragged my gaze away from her chest.

She said, “No, it’s my name.”

For months, I’d been pushing any interested girl away. Because even though Jenna and I had been split up, I knew it would make our already messy issues messier if I started seeing someone else. And despite the fact that she’d turned all our friends except for Spencer against me, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her more. For the thousandth time, I wished I’d never crossed that line from friends to lovers. If I hadn’t, I’d still be in Philly. I’d still be acting, instead of running away here to teach. I’d still be happily ignoring all things Shakespeare.

But I wasn’t in Philly anymore.

Jenna wasn’t going to walk past or hear it from a friend.

There was one benefit to letting my former best friend run me off, and she was standing right in front of me.

Bliss. I smiled. What a name. Maybe the universe thought I was dense, and decided to be especially overt with its signs.

I said, “Lovely name for a lovely girl.”

I pushed the Shakespeare book over until it sat forgotten at the corner of my table. I’d spent long enough wallowing over the disaster that was my life in Philly, and I’d carried that over to my new life here.

Sure, being back in Texas at the same Uni I’d attended wasn’t something I’d ever thought I would do, but I had some ideas about how to make the most of it.

I told her about the mishap with my apartment key, and then talk turned to Shakespeare. She looked intrigued, so I tried not to grimace too much.
I said, “Don’t tell me you’re a Romeo and Juliet fan?”

For a brief second, my stomach dropped. It wasn’t that I was against the idea of love, but I just didn’t get their relationship, or the way women fawned over it. Romeo goes to that party obsessed with another girl, and then somehow in a matter of hours, he and Juliet fall so deeply in love that they’re willing to risk everything just to be together?

Doubtful.

Bliss answered, “Othello actually. That’s my favorite.”

Now that was a relationship that I bought. Obsession can be an even more powerful motivator than love.

“Ah. Fair Desdemona. Loyal and pure.”

Looking at Bliss, I understood that obsession even better. The way her skin flushed set my blood pumping. I wanted to trail my fingers across her collarbone, just to see if her skin was as soft as I imagined it would be. But I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to stop there.

She started to stay something, but stuttered over her words. Flustered, she was even more attractive. She was real, unlike half the bints I’d dated over the years.

Finally, she managed, “I like the juxtaposition of reason and passion.”

As a soon-to-be teacher, I probably should have been impressed by her thoughts. As a man, I was only really paying attention to that last word.
“I’m a fan of passion myself.”

I’d always been direct, probably because I’d grown up with a mother who never filtered her thoughts, not because she couldn’t, but because she didn’t like to. She liked to watch people squirm.

I’d quelled that directness with Jenna, and ignored the gut feeling that told me we were better as friends. I thought that just because I wasn’t initially interested in her didn’t mean I couldn’t be. Look where that had gotten me.

From now on, I was following my gut. And it was pulling me toward this girl in a way I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

I said, “You haven’t asked me my name.”

She cleared her throat, and I knew she was nervous. Nervous was a good sign.

She asked, “What’s your name?”

“Join me, and I’ll tell you.”

She took the seat across from me, and my lips spread in a victorious smile.

I told her my name and that I was going to buy her a drink.

“Then we can chat some more about reason… and passion.”

And then maybe we’d have time for some hands-on study, too.

I waived down an employee and asked for another bourbon. When the waiter turned to Bliss, he put a hand on her shoulder and said, “I remember—Jack and Coke right?”

A few strands of her caught beneath his hand and laced between his fingers. I stiffened.  I’d been thinking of touching her hair since she sat down, wanting to run my fingers through it, and now a waiter had beat me to it.

I’d never been particularly jealous, but when he winked at her, I felt the liquor sour in my mouth. Her eyes stayed locked on him the entire time he stood by our table, and I was fighting cave man impulses to pull her chair around to my side of the table and away from him.

He started to leave, but then said, “Should I tell your friend up front that you’ll be back?”

Still not looking at me, she said, “Oh, um, sure. I guess.”

When he finally left, I took a long, slow breath.

And then because I’d given my gut free reign, I said, “You know, sometimes I wonder if Desdemona was as innocent as she let on. Maybe she knew the effect she had on guys and enjoyed making them jealous.

Her eyes met mine, and she leveled me with her stare. I saw that brassy girl who first spoke to me step back into the ring.

“Or maybe she was just intimidated by Othello’s intensity and didn’t know how to talk to him. Communication is key, after all.”

That was definitely something I could give her.

“Communication, eh?”

“It could have solved a lot of their problems.”

It could have solved a lot of mine, too. But this was a new town, new leaf. Instead of cave-maning her chair over to mine, I picked mine up and placed it directly next to hers.

“In that case, I’ll endeavor to be as clear as possible.” She smelled sweet, floral. I resisted the urge to lean in to her ear and communicate exactly what I wanted to do to her. Instead, I said, “I’d rather you didn’t go back to your friend. Stay here with me.”

I tried to make it sound like a question, but my gut had other ideas. I was not going back to Shakespeare. And I was not giving her up to some friend. Or that damn waiter.

“Well, my friend is waiting. What will we do if I stay?”

I had to bite my tongue to keep from uttering something that would scare her off. Instead, I did what I’d been longing to do and reached forward to touch her hair. It was soft and the low light in the bar picked up strands of gold among the brown. I brushed it back over her shoulder, revealing that delicate neck that was still painted in tones of red. And I couldn’t stop myself from touching her there, too. I trailed my fingers over her skin, pausing at the place where I could feel her blood pulsing through her veins. Her heartbeat was almost as fast as mine.

This was what was missing with Jenna. I’d loved her. A part of me still did, despite how shitty everything had turned out. But there had never been this primal need to touch her, to keep touching her whatever the cost.

“We can talk Shakespeare.” It was a small price to pay, really. “We can talk about anything you want. Though I can’t promise not to get distracted by your lovely neck.” I trailed my fingers up smooth skin to her jaw. I followed the curve of bone to her chin, and narrowly resisted continuing up to her lips. I used a finger to crook her chin forward, drawing her closer to me. I felt her inhale, and it was like she’d sucked the breath right out of me. She was a distraction, every part of her. I said, “Or your lips.” She bit down on her bottom lip, staining it red. God, she looked good in red. “Or those eyes.” A deep blue green. “I could woo you with stories about my life, like Othello does Desdemona.”

“I’d rather not parallel our evening with a couple who ended with a murder-suicide.”

And she was funny. Even better. Maybe Texas wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Touché.  I don’t care what we do as long as you stay.”

After a torturous pause, she said, “Okay.” Her voice was low and breathy, and I fisted my hands to keep from pulling her to me.

“Maybe I should lock myself out of my apartment more often.”

A small smile unfurled across her lips, and I was a goner. I couldn’t take my eyes off her lips, not even when her friend called. She took the call, but I didn’t hear what she was saying. Her mouth mesmerized me.

I liked her, enough that I wanted to see her again. Logically, I knew I should cool it and take things slow, if that was the case. But the part of me that wanted to see all of her and see it now spoke so much louder.

My resistance was shaved down to a miniscule thread when the waiter came back with our drinks. His eyes fixed on Bliss and barely left her as he set down our drinks. I slipped my arm around the back of her chair, and it took all of my restraint not to lower it to her shoulders.

When we were alone again, she asked, “Are you the jealous type, Garrick?”

Right now? Absolutely.

“Not really.” I shrugged.

She raised a disbelieving eyebrow, and I smiled. She didn’t seem angry, so I wasn’t about to feel guilty.

“Maybe this discussion of Othello has set me a bit on edge.”

I was halfway to obsession already.

When she hinted that we go back to my place to wait on the locksmith a few minutes later, halfway went out the window.

I kept up conversation as best as I could, but my mind was already wandering onto other things, like how the short ride to my apartment wasn’t short enough. Like the way her hair would look spread across my pillow, how her hips would feel in my hands, and what her lips would taste like.
It was akin to ignoring an itch. Every second that passed, my world seemed to narrow until I couldn’t focus on anything else, but how badly I wanted to close the distance between us.

And like a tiny pebble causing an avalanche, she looked up at me from beneath her lashes and gave me an opening, a window.

And I took it.

And the walls of self-control I’d been straining to hold up crashed completely. I took hold of her elbow, and pulled her to her feet. And I followed the pull in my chest straight to her lips.

She froze against me, and I wanted to bloody pummel myself. I waited for her to shove me away or slap me, but that didn’t come either. I’d already hung myself out to dry, what was the harm in tightening the noose a bit?

I pulled her bottom lip between my teeth, and felt her shiver. She swayed toward me, and her neck tilted back. I threaded a hand through her hair at the same moment that her mouth opened.

Another window.

The first taste of her would have been worth any pummeling she or I would have given. By the second, I was addicted. Her hands pulled at my back, and I was starving for her. I tugged her closer, until the curve of her chest pressed against me, but it still wasn’t close enough.

I needed more.

So, I slipped my hand underneath the hem of her top, sliding my fingers across her lower back.  Her skin felt like silk, and I traced the slight dip just to the side of her spine. I spread my hand, wishing I could touch more of her, sink my fingers deeper. A moan flowed from her mouth into mine, and I pulled back, wanting to touch more of her. My hand on her neck was heading for the hem of her shirt when my peripheral vision reminded me exactly where we were.

Damn it all.

I looked back to her lips, pink and slightly swollen, and God I wished we weren’t in public. She leaned closer, tempting me almost past what I could bear. I couldn’t look at those lips anymore. I dipped my head down toward her shoulder, inhaling her sweet scent.

My resolve broke for a moment, and I tasted the skin of her neck just for a few seconds.

With my eyes close, I tried to pull myself back together.

I said, “Sorry. Got carried away.”