Beneath The Skin (A College Obsession Romance) (59 page)

The impending waves of ecstasy chase up my body as I race over the cliff of orgasm. I lean forward into the wet wall of the shower, face flattened against the tile as I plummet off the edge, my fingers working me into a state of delirium as I moan my release through the steam and the water and the heat.

It’s not often that you can say you feel dirtier
after
a shower.

I breathe deeply, recovering as I press against the shower wall. I suck in one lungful of air after another, my hands stuck right where they are, half hugging the sensitive parts of my body.

As the thrill of orgasm departs, reality makes a quick replacement of the joy I was chasing, and I realize that I’m all alone. That kiss we shared while we swayed in the air two days ago, it’s already so far gone that I’m having doubts it ever really happened.

Clayton Watts, you teasing asshole. You’re driving me insane.
I’m so obsessed with you.

Then, my moment is further stolen from me by a loud knock at the door that leads to my suitemates in the adjoining room, followed by the words, “I need to pee! For the love of God, can you hurry up??”

I kinda thought I was alone. I was so lost in my fantasy, I wonder self-consciously if she heard any of my moaning or whispering dirty things through the noise of the shower.

Shutting off the water, I dry off—which is literally impossible in this tiny chamber that fills up with steam in a matter of five minutes—then dismiss myself to my room wearing just a towel as the desperate, squirming suitemate barges her way into the bathroom. No eye contact is made and my door’s shut and locked before any due awkwardness can ensue. Still, that doesn’t save me from the deadpan stare I get from Sam sitting cross-legged on her bed, who I didn’t realize was here either.
Did everyone in the world return to their rooms during the one shower I take in which I chose to get myself off?

No matter, I hide in the closet and dress myself for tonight’s read-through. Even though rehearsals don’t start until Monday, they’ve scheduled a reading of the script with all the cast and some crew heads tonight before we all break for the weekend to learn our lines.

The whole way to the School of Theatre, I find my heart thrumming heavily between my footsteps. I don’t know if it’s because auditions happened last Friday—exactly a week ago today—or if I’m somehow channeling the bold recklessness that a few drinks gave me before I sang my heart out at the
Throng
.

I enter the rehearsal room and dozens of eyes are on me at once, the noise of chatter cut in half by my arrival. I’m stunned by the reaction, worrying for a second that I’d gotten the time wrong and I’m late. There’s a set of long tables arranged in a U, around which actors and designers are seated with scripts set before them, ready.

“D-lady!” calls out Eric, who magically appears, waving. “Got a seat for you!”

I smile mutely at the others in the room, then put myself in the empty chair at his side. When I look up at the person seated across from me, I’m stabbed in the chest.

Clayton stares down at his script, his mess of hair casting a shadow down his face. He knows I’m here. He saw me and now he’s avoiding all eye contact.

Yeah, this is all about you, Dessie.
I roll my eyes.

But I can’t help myself from staring at his thick, round shoulders in that red-and-black plaid button-down he’s wearing, how it tapers up the trapezoidal shape of his neck muscles where that coil of black ink runs up his neck like a deadly, poisonous vine. Two buttons of his shirt are undone, giving me a cruel and tormenting peek at the top of his pecs. Clayton’s face is still drawn tightly to his script. I doubt even an earthquake could pull his attention up to
pretend
to acknowledge me.

What is he even doing here??

“Sorry,” Eric whispers to me.

I jerk, turning my face. “For what?”

“It was the only seat,” he murmurs quietly, barely heard in the noise of the room even sitting right next to me. “I got here seconds before you did. Besides, the view isn’t that bad, eh?” He gives me a wink.

I smirk, narrowing my eyes. “No idea what you’re talking about,
Other Eric.
”

“
Gay
Eric would be more accurate,” he amends, “and that makes me twenty times more interesting than the Erik-with-a-K. Really, that’s what we should call him. Ugh.”

Oh. I hadn’t realized, since no one said it outright. “Well, then,” I mutter back. “You can have all the fun you want staring at Clay-boy. He’s all yours.”

“I wish,” he breathes with a rueful glance.

Right then, Nina Parisi enters the room, and all the chatter wilts away in the same manner as paper shriveling up to nothing in the presence of fire. She seats herself at the head of the table, then flips open her script and coldly welcomes us to the first reading of
Our Town
. She proceeds to give us a speech about what she hopes to accomplish with this brave, unique production and her “big picture”.

And it’s taking everything in me not to look up and drink in the delicious sight of Clayton across the table from me.
Why does he have to make things so hard?
He’s the one who kissed me and ran away. He’s the one who’s acting all weird, not me. Also, I’m pretty sure if I dare to look at him, he’ll know instantly that not an hour earlier, I had my fingers up my hoo-hoo getting off to fantasies of him in my dorm shower.

Just the thought makes me sweat.

Soon, Nina has us run down the line and briefly introduce ourselves. “I’m Kat, the stage manager. The
actual
stage manager, not to be confused with the role of ‘Stage Manager’ in the play, to be clear,” says a curvy, olive-skinned woman to her left with a mop of red and black hair gathered in cute nests by her ears. “Astrid here, assistant director,” announces the girl next to Kat, a pale thing with twenty braids piled up and pinned to her head. “Alice, or Ali, costumes,” says the next, listless and sleepy-eyed.

As the intros move down the line, I betray all that resolve I built up, daring myself to look at Clayton.

He’s staring right at me.

I look away at once.
Damn it.
The person to my left shifts in their seat. There’s a fraction of a second of silence before I realize it’s my turn. I rise suddenly for my intro, despite the fact that no one else did. “I’m Dessie, playing my … playing the role for … of Emily.”

My face red, I clumsily drop back into my chair as Eric rises from his, endearingly following my lead. “Eric Chaplin O’Connor here. I’ll be playing Simon Stimson.” He sits back down, then gives me a wink of encouragement, which only makes my face redder.

I look up to find Clayton still staring at me, except now there’s a hint of amusement in his wicked eyes.

I scowl at him, despite my incessant flushing, then mouth the words,
“Stop staring at me,”
across the table.

To that, his smirk only widens, now touching his dark eyes, and then he slowly shakes his head no.

He is so infuriating.

The introductions have come around the table, and the round man to Clayton’s right rises, who I belatedly recognize as the orange-bearded guy from the mixer, except with glasses. “Hey! I’m Freddie, your lucky sound designer, and this here’s Clayton Watts, assistant lighting designer. And … please audition for my show. Auditions are Tuesday in the black box at six, with callbacks Wednesday. Uh, thanks. Appreciate it.” He awkwardly sits back down, and then the person to Clayton’s left continues the round of intros.

Clayton keeps watching me with that wolf-like, hungry glint in his eyes.

I don’t know whether to be turned on or scared.

“Great,” says Nina, the intros finished. “Let’s get right to it. Act one, scene one.”

Is this some sort of game to him? Kissing girls he likes, then running away and expecting them to chase after him? I’ve had my fair share of game-playing guys in my past. Sure, I dated very few of them, but I never had one that I could properly call a boyfriend. Everyone in New York City was shopping for the next best thing. Everyone knew a hundred other people. Games, that’s all the men there could play. Whether on the stage or off, everyone was an actor, even if they never stepped foot on a stage.

I hate to think of Clayton like that. In fact, I can’t. There’s something so different about him.
Maybe this isn’t a game
, I consider, chewing on my lip in thought.
Maybe this is his way of … showing interest.

Like when you’re a kid on the playground and you shove your crush into the sand and make them cry.

The read-through begins. I patiently wait for my lines to come, reading along with the script. The Stage Manager role has a crap load of lines before anyone else even speaks, introducing each family to the audience and painting a picture of two houses on an empty, deliberately set-deprived stage, setting the scene for the audience’s imagination.
What a weird play,
I tell myself.

Really, I do know this play, I swear I read it long ago. But the roles are all confused in my mind, and I don’t even really remember how it ends. Of course, this doesn’t help the nugget of guilt that sits in my chest, wondering what other highly deserving actors could be sitting in my place right now, as I wait for Emily’s first line. Victoria hasn’t spoken a word to me since the day the cast list was posted.
That was at the beginning of the week, five days ago.
Eric swears she’s just been busy, but I know better.

Finally, after an eternity, it’s my first line. I draw breath and recite it plainly, as if I were reading from a textbook.
Ugh.
I feel so stiff. I read my next line, and again, I might as well be reading advanced algebra equations. I can’t help but feel self-conscious, worried that everyone in the room is thinking the same thing: This
is the person Nina cast as Emily, the lead?
This
is the one who beat out all the others?

I’m certain there’s even people in this room who wanted the role of Emily, but got cast in other parts. It’s not just Victoria, I realize;
all
the women wanted my role. Some of my competitors are in this room right now listening to me, comparing themselves to me, scoffing inside their heads.

As I read the next line, I glance up to survey the table. I see the costumes girl yawn. I see the face of someone else near her appearing utterly bored. I catch the assistant director who tiredly meets my eyes, smirking.

I suck.

I suck so much.

When my scene is over and the character of Emily has exited the stage, I let go a little sigh, which doesn’t seem to go unnoticed by Eric, who gives me a little pat of encouragement on my thigh.

Then, I feel someone softly kick my foot under the table, so I retract my foot a bit, figuring it to be in the way. Then, my foot’s tapped again, more deliberately.

I look up.

Clayton’s gone back to staring at me again.
It’s his foot.
He smirks, his eyes narrowing as his shoe taps mine again.

A rush of excitement surges up through me.

What a game-playing, mind-toying asshole.

I pull my feet under my chair, far away from his. Then, I pretend to pore over my script and ignore him utterly, despite my stomach-tumbling desire to do the exact opposite.

I am exercising some serious discipline here.

I push through the next scene, also making it a point to ignore the others in the room. I can’t be judged by all of them; I judge myself badly enough.

The role of George—who is Emily’s love interest, wedded to each other in act two—is played by a guy I haven’t met before. He’s a decent-looking man, most likely an upperclassman. His well-groomed hair and plain, coppery face make for a fitting George and male lead, if you discount the Stage Manager role and his twenty-or-so billion lines I don’t envy.

When it comes to the scenes in which Emily and George flirt, I look up and try to say the lines across the table to the actor who’s playing him—whose real name I’ve already forgotten from the intros earlier, or perhaps never paid attention to in the first place. A few times, I lose my place in the script due to looking up and stumble over the words.

“Just read for today,” Nina cuts in, startling me.

I look up, my heart slamming against my chest in the not-so-pleasurable way. “Sorry?”

“It’s a read-through,” she explains patiently, as if I needed to be told—in front of everyone—what we’re doing here today. “You don’t need to connect with the other actors. At least, not with your eyes. We’ll have plenty of time for that in rehearsals. For today, just read.” She offers me a cool smile and a nod.

Some others around the table meet my startled eyes. I feel the flood of judgments and silent sneers coming from my castmates.