She had missed him so fucking much.
Noah inhaled sharply, his eyes full of unspoken words. AJ’s nostrils flared, throat constricting.
The audience unconsciously hushed, sensing their connection.
No.
AJ widened her stance, the heels of her sneakers digging into the tarry surface of the stage.
He didn’t get to come here, toherplace, and look at her like that. Not after what he’d done.
Anger broke over AJ with an explosiveness she couldn’t contain. It was instinct to run at him. AJ took off, charging full force across the stage.
Her hands collided with the thick muscles of his deltoids, and it was a mark of how she had surprised him that she managed to drive him back a couple paces before he caught her.
AJ felt those enormous hands grasp her shoulders, his thumbs hooking her collarbones through the thin fabric of her shirt. They were lunging at each other now, foreheads inches apart, and his warmth, hisfuckingscent, had AJ baring her teeth, pushing him harder.
But he was too strong. He forced her back until they were center once more. With a small shove, he threw her off, separating them. AJ immediately felt a chill where his hands had been.
Somewhere in the distance, the audience roared with laughter.
AJ and Noah watched each other, breathing hard. She could feel herself trembling, but she refused to be the one to look away. Noah’s expression was unreadable. For a moment, he just took her in.
Then calmly, decisively, he shoved one of the prop chairs toward her. The last of the laughter died as it skittered to a halt at AJ’s feet.
She stared at it wide-eyed. An initiation. A challenge.
You can’t hide from me,he was saying.
As she lifted her gaze to his, she saw the muscle in his jaw tense and she felt it—that energetic thrum in her sternum, an unmistakable tug, as if by a wire.
The ambient sounds in the black box lowered half a decibel.
Your scene partner is your life.
AJ had believed that, once.
And very, very deep down, part of her still did.
In the space of a blink, she felt her conscious self give way.
Now this was AJ, but not AJ. Her energy had risen to meet Noah Drew’s. They stood facing each other, haloed opposites, him dark and her light. The crowd was spellbound. This wasn’t comedy.
It was theater.
As AJ stepped up onto the chair, Noah’s eyes never left hers.
Then the basement was gone, replaced by a moonlit garden. This was no chair; it was a balcony.
And once more, AJ and Noah vanished into those timeless lovers.
Forty minutes later, AJsat crammed in the corner booth at McManus with Dave, Xiaobo, Toni, and Noah Drew, who was somehow here. At this table. On this planet.
She wasn’t quite sure how this had happened. She remembered stepping onto the chair, and she had flashes of the scene that followed as though from outside herself—Noah’s eyes raking up her body as he compared her to the sun, her hand on his cheek as she dismissed talk of the moon. She remembered bowing and Dave saying “The fuck!?” and Ian motioning for her to follow.
Now Ian was at the bar getting a round, and Toni was interrogating AJ about her performance. “I haveneverseen you act like that.”
Toni hated surprises. Her first reaction to anything new or unexpected was usually alarm, even if she eventually grew to love it. AJ wished the squashy green booth would swallow her whole.
