I grin. “Sure. Anything you want to learn in particular?”
“Steak. Maybe mushroom risotto, too? She always gets that when we’re out.” He glances up at me and catches my smile. “What? You think it’s lame, don’t you?”
“No way. I think it’s exactly what a guy should do for his partner after a long stretch of her shouldering all the home responsibilities. I’d love to help out.”
Before Rob can respond, something crashes in the kitchen.
“Shit!” someone yells. “Rennnnn.”
I groan. “They’re like children.”
“They’re worse,” Rob says. “At least worse than mine.”
I stand on a sigh and shove a shrimp sandwich in my mouth. “I’m coming!”
“Hey.” I snatch Kris’s phone out of his hands and shove it in my pocket. “This is a phone-free zone. We agreed everyone does their best acting when they’re not worried about showing up on Twitter in a toga saying, ‘O dainty duck! O dear!’”
“It’s blackmail gold. No, platinum,” Kris whines, lunging unsuccessfully for my pocket which now holds his phone. “I need it, Ren.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “What are the rules of theater in this house?”
Kris pouts. “Respect the story’s intent. Make your fellow actors look good. Foster a safe space for performance.”
“Thank you.” I gesture to François. “Continue, please.”
“Merci.” François begins to bow but freezes halfway through and switches to a curtsy. True commitment to character, right there. This is the moment where Pyramus and Thisbe, two lovers meeting in the garden and separated by circumstance—a Romeo and Juliet homage, no doubt—meet for a clandestine kiss.
“Right.” Tyler clears his throat and adjusts his helmet. He’s reading Pyramus this year. “‘O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black! O night, which ever art when day is not! O night, O night! alack, alack, alack, I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot! And thou, O wall’—” Tyler looks around. “Where’s the fucking wall?”
Andy bounds in. “He had to take a piss.”
François sighs.
Andy sweeps the blanket off of my couch, wraps it around his shoulders so it drapes nicely, and extends his arms. “There. Sorry.”
Tyler lifts his script and finds his place. “‘O sweet, O lovely wall, That stand'st between her father's ground and mine! Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall, Show me thy chink’—”
Andy lifts his hand, joining his thumb and forefinger, then Tyler continues.
“‘—To blink through with mine eye! Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this! But what see I? No Thisby do I see.’”
Tyler rolls up his script and whacks Andy over the head. Andy yelps.
“‘O wicked wall,’” Tyler yells, “‘through whom I see no bliss! Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!’” he says, whacking Andy a few more times.
A roll of laughter travels the room. Some of the guys whistle and hoot as François saunters to the other side of Andy’s blanketed arm.
“Maddox.” Kris lobs a pillow at his head. “It’s your line, asshole.”
Matt slowly glances up from a magazine he’s been flipping through. “I’m sorry, where are we?”
Everyone groans.
“Why’d you give him Theseus?” Rob whispers from my right.
I shrug. “Trying to extend an olive branch. Obviously, a wasted effort.”
“I hope he gets traded,” Rob mutters. I keep my mouth shut, but Rob knows I feel the same way, and I’m not the only one. Nobody likes Maddox. He’s made enemies of all of us.
Kris stomps over to Matt. “I’ll read it if you won’t—”
“I’ll. Do it.” Matt glares up at him, then delivers in an underwhelming monotone, “‘The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.’”
A collective sigh of disappointment. I have to stifle a laugh. The guys get so into it now that we’re a few years in, they’re beside themselves when someone messes up. Tyler says Pyramus’s line, and then it’s François’s moment.
He delivers his lines in a French-accented, perfectly over-the-top falsetto, before Tyler puckers his lips near Andy’s hand, where his thumb and pointer create the chink. “‘O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!’”
François leans to purposefully misplace his kiss—his next line is supposed to be, “I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all”—but before he can, Andy lowers his hand so that Tyler and François actually smash mouths.
An eruption of entertained oooohhhs echoes in the room. Tyler glares murder at Andy. François grabs Andy by the blanket around his neck, and before I can even step in to avoid disaster, François tackles him to the ground. Tyler jumps in, and soon, it’s a mosh pit of brawling, hyped-up hockey players.
“Guys!” I yell. Kris hurtles past me, flinging himself on top of the growing pile of bodies. I drop my head and sigh. “This is why we can’t have nice things.”
The plane ride is uncharacteristically sullen. Rob and I had a hell of a time pulling people apart. Most of them were just cranky after it, but a few of the guys came out the worse for wear. François hasn’t stopped scowling, and Tyler, still horrified by the kiss, keeps rinsing his mouth with water, then spitting into an empty container. Andy has a somewhat-deserved black eye. Kris has a split lip—serves him right for jumping headlong into violence. Thankfully, hockey players don’t draw much notice for looking beat up.
Rob’s passed out in the seat next to me, snoring. I have As You Like It in hand because that’s up next for Shakespeare Club, and it’s a good distraction. I’m trying not to be entirely aware of Frankie, who sits across the aisle, flipping through her phone, with her laptop up and running as well.
Her hair’s down, dark and smooth as melted bitter chocolate. She’s in relatively casual clothes—black, slim pants, a fuzzy gray sweater that looks like a feather duster—Freya has one in ice blue, so I’m guessing they’re in right now—and her sneakers, black and silver as always. Her cane rests between her legs, and she weaves her fingers through her necklace as she glances between screens.
My already weak resistance evaporates as I drop my book to the lap tray. “Plotting world domination?”
She peers up and locks eyes with me. A slow grin warms her face. “But of course.”
I feel a blush heating my cheeks. Thank God for the playoff beard somewhat hiding it. How can I be so calm on the ice, in press rooms, in front of everyone else, but I’m a blushing schoolboy when it comes to her?
“You’re staring at me,” she says.
I blink rapidly. “Um. I. What?”
Frankie lifts a hand self-consciously to her face. “Do I have powdered sugar on my face or something?”
Earlier on the flight I had to studiously not observe Frankie eat a box of powdered mini donuts. I made sure I didn’t watch her lick every single fingertip. And I definitely didn’t put down my lap tray to cover a growing problem crushed against my fly after watching each long finger slip into her mouth, then slide out with an erotic pop.