Eudora ignored him, focusing on AJ. “I’d like you to read something for me.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Come on, AJ,” he said. “We’re going.”
“Read what?” asked AJ, unable to turn away from the challenge in Eudora’s stare.
Her eyes gleamed. “Oh, something you’re familiar with.”
She swept into the stately drawing room, leaving AJ and Noah to have a quick nonverbal conversation. He shook his head warningly, and AJ shrugged, following Eudora. He joined them as Eudora extracted two tattered volumes from her floor-to-ceiling shelves.
“Here,” she said, placing a copy ofRomeo and Julietin AJ’s hands, flipped open to act 2, scene 2. The infamous balcony scene snapped AJ back to eighth grade—cracked voices and sweaty hands.
The other copy went to Noah.Holy shit.Eudora meant for them to read this.Together.
Noah took one look at the scene and shook his head. “Absolutely not.”
“It’s just one scene,” said Eudora innocently. “In view of what you’re asking, this ishardlyan imposition.”
Noah had had enough. “We’re not doing this.” He closed the play and moved toward the door.
“Wait,” said AJ, still looking at Eudora. “If we read this, you’ll do the panel?”
“I’ll consider it,” said Eudora with a Cheshire grin.
AJ held her gaze. Clearly, Eudora Drew was mocking her. And yet AJcouldn’t help thinking of her alter ego Glimmette’s most famous line:Never back out. Never back down.
She squared her shoulders. “Noah, let’s just do it. It’ll take five minutes.”
Noah’s eyes looked troubled as they met hers. “This wasnothow I wanted this to go.”
“Seize the moment, Noah dear,” said Eudora brightly. “Life never goes according to plan.”
Noah glowered at his great-aunt. Then, to AJ’s surprise, he stepped back into the room.
They stood facing each other on the faded carpet, afternoon light streaming in through the windows. Gingerly, Eudora folded herself into a white armchair.
“Noah, begin whenever you’re ready.”
Noah cleared his throat. His brow furrowed as he skimmed the page. AJ felt her lip twitch in anticipation of him reading Romeo in his bored, dry voice.
But when Noah lifted his eyes, his sardonic expression was gone, replaced with an open yearning she found disconcerting because it didn’t feel overdone at all; it felt real. Was Noah acting? Or was he really looking at her that way?
“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?”
Fuck, fuck,fuck.
Somehow, up until this point, AJ had managed to ignore that Noah had a century of acting pedigree bred into him. Evidently, he’d also picked up a lesson or two over the years, because he was either in love with her, or he was really fucking good.
His eyes flicked to AJ.
“It is my lady. O, it is my love,” he said. “O, that she knew she were.”
The line leveled AJ. She had never seen Noah this open, this…vulnerable. She could laugh at him, scoff at him, turn this into a joke. Come to think of it, he could have done that himself—but he hadn’t. He had chosen to reveal himself, what he could do. He had put himself in her hands.
He trusted her.
AJ felt her then—Juliet, right there. They were not so far apart in terms of youth and inexperience, though Juliet did not have a chorus of siblings always ready to tease her.
AJ’s sternum thrummed, and she realized: she trusted him too. That sense of him, that heightened awareness, was pulling now, as ifthiswere always what it had been for.
