“I’m DONE!” I shouted at him. “I’m not going to Rhode Island. I’m not going to Broadway. Wake Rachel and tell her she wins. She fucking wins.”
“You’re nuts,” Cal said. “And drunk or high or something.”
“That’s beside the point,” I said.
He groaned. “Good night, Kathleen.”
“Fuck you, Cal,” I said, but he had already hung up.
CHAPTER 15
I woke up to a pounding headache. And someone pounding on the door.
I didn’t need to look through the peephole to know who it was.
“You better be sick, Kathleen,” Cal said from the other side. “You’d better have food poisoning or a stomach flu and be throwing up and delirious because that’s the only acceptable reason for calling me in the middle of the night and telling me that you quit.”
Do it, I told myself. Tell him you ate a bad sandwich. Tell him you don’t even remember last night. Tell him what he wants to hear.
And I would have. Except, through the door, I heard him say, “I knew it. I fucking knew this was a mistake.”
I yanked the door open.
Cal gave me a long, searching look.
“Not delirious,” he said. “Not sick.”
“Not talking to you,” I said.
But before I could slam the door, he’d slapped his palm against it and pushed it all the way open, letting himself in.
“I’m not doing the show,” I said, taking out a metaphorical shovel and digging myself even deeper into the self-destructive hole I’d already begun.
“The fuck you aren’t,” he said. “You signed a contract.”
“Get out,” I said.
“You can’t do this, Kathleen,” he said. Slowly. Evenly. Like he was speaking to a child.
“I quit,” I said, slamming the door because I had to slam something, even though he was still on the wrong side of it. “You can’t make me do anything.”
He sighed. Long and slow.
“Actually, I can,” he said. “Did you read the contract before you signed it?”
My face—and anger—flared hot.
“Of course I read the contract,” I said. “I’m not a fucking idiot.”
“Then you’ll know that you can’t just quit,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” I taunted. “Toss me over your shoulder and drag me back to the rehearsal space?”
“Don’t. Tempt. Me,” he said.
It shouldn’t have been hot. We were fighting. I was furious at him. For making me do this. For Rachel James. For making me think I was good enough.
And yet.
His fucking cologne. It was good. Very good.
I put my hands on his chest and pushed him back. He let me.
“What happened?” he asked, softening his voice. “What’s going on?”
I hated the pity I heard. That careful, cautious “poor lost little girl” tone. I’d heard it so much as Katee Rose, especially in those last few months when no one could understand why I wouldn’t just do what I was told. Why I couldn’t.
But they were the same people who’d thought if I apologized—if I begged Ryan to take me back—if I laid myself at the mercy of the press, that things would be fine. Instead, I was sacrificed at the altar of public opinion and left for dead by the same people who said they’d protect me. Who said that everything would be okay.
Who said that they loved me.
“I ran into an old friend of yours,” I said.
Cal’s expression went from sympathetic to cautious. Then realization.
“I swear to God…” he said.
I could see Cal grit his teeth, the muscle in his jaw tensing.
“Oh no,” I said. “You don’t get to be the aggrieved one here.”
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “You can’t think—”
“You lied to me, Cal,” I said.
He looked up. “I did not.”
“You said I was the only one you considered for the role,” I said.
“And that is the truth.”
“But she said—”
“I don’t care what she said!” Cal said. “I don’t care. She’s jealous and defensive and an actor. You, on the other hand—”
“Not an actor, I suppose.”
He let out a groan. “You’re a fucking diva, that’s for sure.”
I growled at him.
“Don’t even start,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “You are being unprofessional, and you know it. You can’t just quit a workshop like this. Do you have no concern for your fellow castmates, or me for that matter?”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Director,” I said.
“And what about Harriet?” he asked. “Did you think about her at all?”
I hadn’t. But even my shame wasn’t enough to calm me down.
“This is beneath you,” he said.
“I heard that’s where you like your leading ladies,” I said. “Beneath you.”
I couldn’t help myself.
“Are you kidding me?” His voice was low. Dangerous.
I drew myself up to my highest height.
“Am I wrong?”
He stared at me, and I could tell that he was counting to ten in his mind. He was trying to calm down, but I didn’t want that. I wanted a fight. A no-holds-barred, bare-knuckle, knock-down, drag-out fight.
Because we had one coming.
“She was certainly talking about you like she knew,” I said.
“No,” Cal said.
“No, you didn’t sleep with her?”
“No, we’re not doing this,” he said.
Not a denial, but I hadn’t really expected one.
He tried to leave, but I would not be rebuffed.
“Love this move of yours,” I said. “Classic Cal. Walk away when things get hard. When they get complicated.”
He stopped, shoulders tensed up to his ears.
“You really want to get into it, Kathleen?” he asked.