Brody circled around her, offered a smile.
Those clear gray eyes were icy, distant. “Brody.” Her tone was flat—not accusatory, but not welcoming, either. In a woman he’d once believed embodied warmth and generosity, it felt like a slap. He wasn’t sure what he should’ve expected, but it wasn’t this.
“You look good,” he said.
She made a noncommittal noise and edged forward, hand outstretched to take her script packet from Barbara Monahan, the pianist. Barbara offered him a raised eyebrow and mouthed Good luck as he took his packet. He flashed her an appreciative look and followed Tyler.
“It’s good to see you,” he said, and it was, despite the awkwardness and the questions that hung between them. He’d missed her. He hadn’t truly realized how much until seeing her again.
But she didn’t say the same, and that was a puzzle. It’d been her decision to stay, after all.
There was a wound between them. Brody could feel it pulsing like a bruise. He wondered if they had it out now, as they hadn’t eight years ago, would the wound bleed free and clean, purging them both of whatever pain they’d been carrying around? It hadn’t been a messy breakup. Not because they hadn’t loved. It had simply been that they wanted different things. Her silence had made that clear enough. And maybe that was worse than a messy breakup.
Tucker and Piper, heads together, shot him a sympathetic look. Brody wasn’t sure if that meant they were on his side or were pitying his stupidity. Not that he was even sure what his side was. He wanted closure, he supposed. The resolution he hadn’t gotten all those years before. And that meant Tyler was going to have to talk to him. Sooner or later.
8 Weeks 'Til Show
“I really appreciate you helping us out with materials,” said Nate, sliding the top sheet of plywood from the stack.
Tyler hefted the other end and helped him carry it into the workshop behind the theater. “Being the boss has a few benefits. Among them, the ability to apply my employee discount perhaps a bit more liberally than is appropriate.” Business at the hardware store had been good this year with all the face lifts and upgrades folks were giving to their storefronts and homes. She could afford to take the hit of giving the show building materials almost at cost. It was for a good cause, after all.
Her eyes automatically flicked toward Brody as his laugh rolled out, rich and rollicking. He and Tucker danced around, mock boxing, egging each other on with insults delivered in every accent from Cockney to Russian as they headed back out for the next sheet. Irritation prickled. He’d slipped back in so damned easily with everyone—horsing around, joking, diving in as if it had been eight days instead of eight years since he’d seen them last. As if he hadn’t abandoned them too.
He’d continued to make friendly overtures to her, which good manners dictated she didn’t continually rebuff.
Yeah, right.
It was good manners, taking the high road, and not that some part of her was so pitifully happy to see him again, she didn’t care what the circumstances were. If she kept telling herself that, it would be true. So far her fake it ’til you make it strategy had been an epic failure. Because Brody hadn’t changed, not in any of the ways she’d expected. He was, for all intents and purposes, exactly as he’d been when she’d fallen in love with him years ago. And that made him damned hard to resist.
Not that he was making romantic overtures. And not that it mattered if he had because he’d be leaving again as soon as the show and his job were finished. She’d heard that much through the grapevine.
It would only be two and a half months. She could be the bigger person and tolerate the confusion and longing of this semi-uncomfortable distance for that long. As the understudy, she wouldn’t be kissing him. Thank God.
“Tucker!” Piper’s scream echoed from the loading dock.
Tyler raced outside, Nate hot on her heels.
On the ground beside her truck, Tucker was curled in a ball, arms wrapped protectively around his leg, swearing a blue streak.
Piper was crouched beside him. “Let me see.” Her voice was no-nonsense, the trained nurse replacing her usual playful attitude.
“It hurts. Christ, it hurts.”
“What happened?” demanded Nate.
“We were just fooling around,” groaned Tucker. “Doing spin kicks off the back of the truck.”
“You are aware you aren’t twenty-one anymore?” asked Tyler, running a hand down his rigid back.
“Brody can still do it,” he muttered.
Tyler fixed him with an accusatory stare. This is all your fault, she thought.
He held his hands up in a What could I do? gesture.
“It’s broken,” Piper announced. “I can feel the bump in the bone.”
“It can’t be broken,” said Tucker. “I have to dance.” He tried to stand, using Brody and Piper to lever himself up. But as soon as he tried putting weight on it, the leg buckled and he howled.