Chapter 24
Lauren
Six Months Later
Hakim kissed Lauren quickly as she gathered her things from the floor of the passenger seat in the car.
“Break a leg, my love,” he said, handing her the script that had fallen out of her bag.
“Thank you! I’ll see you backstage after the show.” She ran for the theater’s front door, knowing that she was running five minutes late for her call. Hakim had offered to drive her to the theater, since he was of course planning on being there for her opening night.
Over the past six months, Lauren and Hakim had been inseparable. He’d helped her run lines for the play, had cooked dinner for her, and in general had been the perfect boyfriend. Lauren had fallen head over heels in love with him, not only for those reasons, but because he had put aside his feud with her mother and worked to build a good relationship with Patricia. It was his willingness to open himself up that Lauren found attractive.
Lauren has also been working to develop a better relationship with her mother. Patricia had even taken Lauren’s revelation about her theater work with pleasure and very little surprise. Lauren had been thrilled when Patricia had promised to be in the audience that night.
He also made sure that she took time for herself, and gave her excellent business advice that had made BingeWatch even more successful than before.
And it was good that she had that extra time, because she needed it to be the lead in her theater group’s latest production, Romeo and Juliet. There had been something terribly romantic about practicing her lines with Hakim in his library, acting out the scenes and inevitably falling about laughing when one of them messed up a line.
She ran into the dressing room, only to find her director in a panic.
“Oh, good, Lauren. Listen—we’ve got a bit of an issue tonight, but it’s going to be fine.”
“Inspiring words, Alec,” Lauren said as she dumped her stuff next to a makeup chair.
“Our Romeo has had a bit of a problem. He can’t make it tonight.”
“What?” Lauren whirled to face him. “That’s not a bit of an issue. That’s a big problem!”
“No, I promise. It’s fine. We have an understudy; he knows all the lines and blocking. It’ll be okay.” Alec patted her arm and waved someone over to help her with her hair and makeup.
Lauren watched him walk off and muttered to herself. “Oh, sure. It’s fine. I’ve just never acted with the understudy. But, of course, it will be fine.”
She rolled her eyes as the makeup artist smiled knowingly at her. She tried to sit still as her hair was done, but it was hard. She’d met the understudy, and she knew he had participated in some rehearsals with her own understudy, but Lauren had never really spent any time with him.
At least he knew the lines, so maybe it wouldn’t be a total disaster.
Lauren looked around for the other actor—she couldn’t even remember his name at the moment, which she felt bad about—so that they could at least chat a bit. Maybe go over a few scenes quickly.
But he was nowhere to be found. She’d just have to trust Alec that it really would all be okay. All she could do was her best once she got on stage.
Her first scene went brilliantly. Lauren was comforted by the fact that the rest of the cast seemed fine, and what she heard over the speakers sending sound from the stage back to the dressing room was a perfect play. The understudy seemed to be doing a fine job; the audience liked him.
The act where she would be onstage with Romeo for the first time was up next, so Lauren checked her hair and makeup and went to make her entrance. When she walked out onstage, she was unquestionably glad that Juliet was only supposed to stand there so that Romeo could see her. Because she was stunned—instead of the understudy whose name she couldn’t remember, the actor who was standing there, eyeing her mischievously, was Hakim.
Lauren forgot how to breathe for a long moment, and she stared at her boyfriend across the stage. He gave her a small smile, the kind that a besotted young man might give a beautiful girl from across the room.
When he approached for the scene where Romeo and Juliet first kiss, the whole theater held its breath. It was like they were the only two people in the room, and when they kissed, Lauren felt completely caught up in the moment. When she learned that Romeo was her family’s mortal enemy, her tears were real enough to make more than one person in the audience cry along with her. And when she ran off stage after that scene, Lauren needed a minute to pull herself together.
It took until intermission before she finally caught up with him backstage, breathlessly asking how he was there. Hakim only said mysteriously that he might have asked Alec for a favor.