“Got it.” She followed Trip to their next destination. Carly generally considered herself a casual dater, never getting too serious, never demanding too much of the other woman. She was young, and out to enjoy herself. Why did this feel like the stakes were so much higher? A Tinsley in the mix should never have bothered her.
“Any questions?” Trip asked. He looked at her. She looked back.
“No, I think you covered everything. Very thorough.” She pointed at herself. “Impressed.” She realized, lamely, that she’d probably only registered about half of Trip’s instructions, which couldn’t have been good.
It wasn’t.
Two hours later, during a run of lighting cues, she slammed smack into an end table on her exit, which kicked her into one of those incredibly graceful foot shuffles, where you thought you might just remain upright, but no. “Ow,” Carly mumbled as the pain arrived.
“Hold, please,” she heard Trip say over the God mic. The lights came on and seven different people moved to Carly, who held up her hand from the floor that she was fine.
“I’m good. Just a very stupid exit is all.” She chuckled and tried not to point out that the front portion of her right thigh throbbed from the collision with the hefty end table, and the ankle on her same foot hurt from where she twisted it trying to prevent herself from falling.
In the sea of faces crowded around her, it was Lauren’s that pulled her focus. “Did you try to take that set piece out?” she asked with a grin.
“I don’t really feel like it matches Ashley’s taste,” she said back with some sass.
Lauren’s fingers went around her arm to steady her as she stood. “Seriously, are you okay?” The stagehands, seeing she was upright, stepped back.
Carly nodded. “I’m an idiot, but I’ll live.” She leaned in closer to Lauren. “But I’m not going to refuse any TLC. I’m no fool.”
“I’ll kiss it later,” she said back in Carly’s ear. Suddenly, this little injury didn’t seem like such an awful thing. Her ankle throbbed like crazy through the remainder of rehearsal, especially when she put too much weight on it, but she chose instead to focus on Lauren and their scenes together. Today, more than ever before, their onstage chemistry seemed to come clawing out of the dialogue. Ethan, when she encountered him, seemed on cloud nine about the show’s progress. It seemed like he couldn’t stop grinning, which made her feel satisfied with the work she’d done. They hadn’t even been in front of an audience yet, and Carly was already so fulfilled by this process.
“How’s your foot?” Lauren asked, as they stood in the wings, waiting for the designers to be ready to move forward to the next cue.
“I’ll be okay.”
Lauren didn’t seem convinced. “You don’t have to be a badass. For someone so expressive, this is the time you choose to be stoic?” She tucked a strand of hair behind Carly’s ear. “Tell me where it hurts.”
Carly melted then and there. She also dropped some of her pretense, because Lauren was becoming her safe place to fall. “I don’t think I’m officially injured, but I do think it’s going to hurt for a day or two. My ankle especially. I turned it weird. I’m thinking it’s probably a mild sprain.”
“Carly,” Lauren said in the most sympathetic voice, “you need to take it easy, okay? I’m going to let Trip know you’ll be at half.”
She put her hand on Lauren’s forearm to stop her progress. “No, I don’t want to be any trouble. I’m kind of known for it, remember? Let’s just get through today and relax with some pizza and beer after.”
“We will definitely do those things, but in the meantime, you need to take care of that foot. I have your back, okay? This is a legitimate concern.” She took Carly by the chin and didn’t seem to care who saw. “You’re going to be okay.”
Lauren left Carly in the wings, overwhelmed at how wonderful it felt to be looked out for, taken care of, by someone whose only intention was just that. Lauren was legitimately worried about her.
The behavior continued for the rest of the day. Lauren arranged to have Carly sit whenever the designers got into a discussion that didn’t require the actors to stand. In fact, she ordered Carly to do so several times during their ten of twelve. She checked in on her with little questioning looks and offered her an arm for assistance whenever they exited the stage together.
“Let me look at it,” Lauren said, during one of their official breaks. Sitting together in the greenroom offstage, Carly took off the shoes that were a part of her costume and allowed her foot to be placed in Lauren’s lap.
“Oh, sweetie, it’s swollen.” Lauren ran her fingertips lightly over the puffy area.
Carly relished the term of endearment. Lauren had never called her anything but Carly before. She liked the sound of it a lot. “Not looking too cute there,” she said of her ankle, playing it totally cool. “I look like a woman in her third trimester—if I was only pregnant on one side.”
Lauren’s mouth fell open and she turned to Carly in amusement as if the most interesting fact had just occurred to her. “You would be so sexy pregnant. I hope that’s not out of line to say.”
Carly liked that comment a lot, too. “Nothing you say to me is ever out of line if it’s what you’re thinking. I do want kids someday. Not today, mind you. But down the road. Once I’m a little more settled.”
“Your kids are going to love you. They’d have the most fun mom on the block. I have a feeling you’d be out riding bikes with them until dark.” Lauren smiled. Her hair, which she generally wore straight, had a slight curl to it. The stylists were tweaking their looks for the show.
Carly reached up and touched one of the dark lazy curls. Lauren had such soft hair. “Can you imagine?”
“I can. Adorable.” Lauren ran her fingertips back and forth across Carly’s ankle and calf. The tickling sensation, and the fact that it was Lauren touching her, had her warm.
“Thank you for being so nice to me.”
Lauren offered her a soft smile. “It’s hard not to be nice to you. Believe me. I’ve tried.”
Carly chuckled. “I remember someone yelling at me in my apartment. Holding their arm out in indignation.”
“I wouldn’t say yelling,” Lauren said, closing one eye. She smelled so amazing.
“Mm-hmm. I would. You’re very effective at yelling without raising your voice. You could teach a class: How to Shame People into Doing What You Want Without Doing Much at All.”
“Oh my God,” Lauren squeezed her knee. “I could be a millionaire and buy the fancy house next to yours.”
Carly laughed. “Then I’d have to buy binoculars. Do you sleep in the nude?”
“Yes.”
She froze. “You do not. You’re just saying that to get me all bothered.” But Carly still hadn’t moved. The sexy image was too much to let go of, so she awaited confirmation that it had, in fact, just been a joke, before real life could resume.
“I’m not kidding,” Lauren said. She tickled the top of Carly’s foot.
“Good God.” Carly fell back against the couch. “How am I supposed to deal with that?”