Nick glanced at Kitty. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ She lay on the sheet that was standing in for a table. ‘They probably have a point. Just don’t go overboard, will you?’
‘No chance of that.’ Nick shoved his hands in his pockets. He couldn’t have felt more awkward if he tried. He’d been doing his best to think of Kitty only as a friend – to avoid touching her, avoid thinking of that kiss they’d shared. And now he had two old geezers telling him to smother her with kisses. He was beginning to wish he’d never volunteered for the role of Romeo.
‘Right,’ said Solly. ‘Juliet, you are lying down in your deep sleep. Romeo, let’s take it from the moment you burst in and find the love of your life lying dead on the slab. And remember, Nick, passion.’
‘Yes,’ said Nick, going to wait in the wings.
‘Ready?’ asked Solly. ‘Action.’
He spoke as if he were directing a Hollywood movie, not a condensed version of Shakespeare in the local community centre. Nick responded to his cue, bursting onto the stage and rushing to Juliet’s prone form on the sheet. He hovered over Kitty for a moment, closed his eyes, breathed deeply in throughhis nose, and channelled the love of acting he’d thought had long since died.
He tapped into how he’d feel if this were real, if it were Kitty, rather than Juliet, lying on the slab. He crouched down, bending closer, running his hand across her cheek, cupping her face in his hands. A flicker of a thought about how recently he’d brushed his teeth crossed his mind. He pushed it away, leaning forward until he could feel the tickle of Kitty’s breath on his own lips.
With a convincing sob, he leaned down and began kissing her gently on her closed eyelids, then more passionately as he moved down her face and finally landed a kiss on her lips.
Nick was shocked into reality when Kitty kissed him back. That wasn’t supposed to happen. If she were in a coma, she’d hardly be snogging him, would she? Something more was going on. He let his lips linger on hers, enjoying the electricity that fizzed through his body.
‘I think you’re taking the passion element a little too far,’ came a stern voice from the far end of the hall.
Nick pulled away, threw himself onto Kitty’s body and launched into a series of overdramatic sobs. He heard clapping and stood up to see Solly and Jack grinning at him.
‘Much better! You’ve got it,’ said Jack.
‘I agree,’ said Solly. ‘A far more believable performance.’
‘Thanks.’ Nick looked at Kitty, sitting on her sheet, blinking rapidly. She caught his eye, blushed, and averted her gaze as Solly brought the rehearsal to a close.
Nick scrambled to decipher what was real in the moment they’d shared and what was performance. Kitty had kissed him back. It wasn’t his imagination. It had happened. With a silent sigh, Nick realised that performing alongside Kitty was going to be a lot harder than he thought.
Chapter 46
Ascream broke through Kitty’s thoughts. She sprinted across the playground, recognising the voice crying out in agony.
‘Emily!’ She skidded to a stop beside the girl. Emily was writhing on the ground, clutching her arm. ‘What happened?’
The pale-faced lunchtime supervisor wrung her hands. ‘She was playing on the monkey bars and fell.’
Kitty knelt behind the crying child. ‘Emily, can you tell me where it hurts?’ she asked, despite it being obvious by the way Emily was gripping her left arm.
‘I bumped my arm,’ she said, stuttering through sobs. She tried to move to show Kitty where it hurt, and screamed again.
‘Ring an ambulance,’ Kitty told the supervisor. ‘Emily might have broken a bone. Hopefully, it’s merely a nasty bump, but we need to get it checked out.’
‘Of course,’ said the woman. ‘Shall I ring her… her dad while I’m there?’
‘No,’ said Kitty. ‘I’ll do it.’
Sam ran towards them, and Kitty stood. ‘Can you stay here with Emily until the ambulance gets here? I’m going to call Nick and tell him what’s happened.’
‘Sure,’ said Sam, sitting on the ground beside Emily and carefully placing a comforting arm around her.
Kitty ran to the classroom, grabbed her phone from her bag, and dialled Nick’s number.
‘Kitty?’ Nick’s voice was full of surprise. ‘Is everything OK? Why are you calling me at work? If it’s about what happened at rehearsal last night…’
‘It’s nothing to do with that,’ said Kitty. ‘Now, I don’t want you to panic, but Emily’s hurt.’
