Wherefore Art Thou, Chase?

Author\'s Note: I\'m sorry this took so long. I\'ve been having a bit of a crisis and I\'ve been really busy and I haven\'t had that much inspiration lately. Thank you for being patient, and now I present Chapter 8: \"Real\" Actors! ^_^

~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 8: “Real” Actors

“Focus, guys! We needed this scene down as of yesterday!” Professor Curtis shouted at the guys involved in the fight scene while the rest of the cast watched on. Chase had taken off his shirt and a thin sheen of sweat shimmered on his well-toned body. Janelle bit her lower lip to quell the way her stomach dropped out and her chest tightened, just from looking at him. Lowering her head, she “studied” her script and attempted to block out the noise of the swordfight.

Curtis sighed and massaged her temples, unable to look at the actors. “Okay…Take five, guys…Let’s rehearse the scene where Friar Lawrence gives the potion to Juliet while you guys rest,” the middle-aged blonde woman suggested. “Janelle! Roland! Dalton! Get your asses on-stage!” she shouted, in order to be heard across the theatre.

Janelle stood and climbed onto the stage, before going backstage. She wasn’t immediately needed in the scene, so she was forced to wait in the wings while Roland–a tall, jolly, bald man with warm blue eyes–and Dalton–a married man in his early thirties with longish black hair and hazel eyes–did their thing as Friar Lawrence and County Paris, respectively. Chase was standing in the same wing she was to enter from, in all his half-naked glory, replacing the “training rapier” that all the Capulet and Montague men needed to carry. It was the same weight and feel of the real swords they’d be using, but they couldn’t hurt themselves with the “training rapiers,” like they could with the swords, which made them ideal for practice.

He looked up as she approached the wing, and he smiled at her.

“Didja see the fight?” he teased, using his shirt to mop his brow. She laughed, shaking her head and folding her hands over her chest.

“What fight? If you call what you Three Stooges did out there ‘fighting,’ then you, my friend, are seriously mistaken,” she answered, causing Chase to chuckle a little.

“I’m your friend, now, am I?” he teased, making her blush and the smile she’d had to disappear. She turned on her heel and faced the stage in an attempt to distance herself from him, but he just walked up behind her. Sweeping her hair to one side, he then placed both his hands on her hips and dropped a kiss to her neck. He felt her shiver, and then he heard her cue from Roland/Friar Lawrence. “Go and show me how a real actor does things,” he teased, giving her a gentle push and slapping her on the behind for encouragement.

Janelle’s cheeks were flaming red as she stammered her lines, not having expected Chase to be so bold as to touch her like he had. Just because they had kissed a few times didn’t give him the right to touch her like that! And yet, a thrill had gone up her spine, causing her to shiver like she had.

**********

Janelle could still feel where he’d touched and kissed her when rehearsal was over an hour later. As she waited for Erin to talk with Professor Curtis about a certain scene, she tried to ignore his gaze boring into her. Suddenly, his voice was by her ear, much like before.

“Is that how a real actor does things?” he teased, his voice low. She didn’t know what had brought about this dark, sexual teasing in him. Maybe all of his little soldiers are backing up because he’s not getting any, she mused, a laugh bubbling out of her at the thought. After all, only a desperate man would be doing this to me…Or someone who knew about a certain crush from nine years ago and wanted to be mean and cruel. The idea made her stiffen and wrench herself out of the gentle grip he’d had on her hips.

Whirling around to glare at him and put space between them, she saw Chase had his hands by his head, as if he were being arrested and had just put the murder weapon down on the ground slowly and was now facing his arrestors. His fathoms-deep brown eyes were wide and wary.

“What did I ever do to you, Chase?” she asked, sighing wearily. All she wanted to do was go home. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Erin still chattering away with Professor Curtis. Upon closer inspection, she realized her friend was actually chattering at the professor. Their director seemed about as ready to go home as the remaining cast was. Janelle’s brow furrowed in a frown. Is it just me, or does Erin look like she’s forcing conversation between herself and our Shakespeare teacher?

“You mocked my fighting ability, and for that, you must pay!” Chase declared teasingly when she turned back to him, still frowning thoughtfully. Her expression soon changed to curiosity when he ambled over to her and threw an arm about her shoulders. “Your punishment shall be going to Toby’s party with me next week.”

Janelle eyed him like he’d just said he had E.T. attached to the back of his head. “You’re crazy, aren’t you?” she asked him dryly, mainly because her mouth had gotten parched when he put his arm around her. Thank God he’d put his shirt back on, or else she was sure she might have died from sensory overload.

“What if I am?” he asked, leading her to the exit of the theatre slowly, hoping she wouldn’t notice the direction in which they were heading.

“Then I’m definitely not escorting you any further,” she told him, though her feet kept going without her permission. He was steering her through the doors, now, out into the dark night and towards the parking lot at the side of the theatre. “Where the hell are you taking me?” she suddenly demanded, trying to make her feet stop, but they stubbornly persisted with continuing to move with Chase.

“Hopefully, anywhere you’ll let me, if you get my drift.” His voice was pitched lower and was little more than a rumble in his chest, conjuring an image of tangled sheets and loud moans in her mind instantly.

“Pervert,” she accused darkly, her cheeks flushing brightly as she realized that she’d set herself up for his little taunt. Did I do it on purpose? she wondered as he ambled towards his car and towed her beside him.

“Anyways,” he continued, ignoring her comment about him being a pervert, “I was thinking about who we could go as–”

“Wait, what?” she demanded, not having been listening to what he’d been saying.

“We have to go to the party in costumes that go together,” Chase explained without missing a beat. “You know, like Romeo and Juliet, or Peanut Butter and Jelly.”

“Chase, I’m not going to Toby’s party with you,” Janelle explained, trying not to laugh. “I might not even go at all,” she added. He felt crushed upon that announcement, but he refused to give up.

“You have to go,” he told her, making her quirk a skeptical eyebrow.

“I ‘have to’?” she repeated, placing her hands on her hips and stopping, but only because he’d stopped, too. They’d reached the passenger side of his car and he was opening the door. For her? Well, since he was pushing her inside of the car, Janelle supposed that the answer to that question was a resounding “yes.”

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked him when Chase got into the driver’s side and started up the car.

“Taking you home,” he told her cheerfully, fiddling with the radio for a moment. As the music filled the car, Janelle smiled a little. Country, she thought, with a sideways glance at Chase, who was pretending not to notice.

**********

Erin grinned as she drove home. When Chase had first called her to ask her a favor, she’d been hesitant. Eventually, he’d convinced her to stall as long as she could while he “kidnapped” Janelle, but she’d still felt a little guilty about it. It brought back certain, unhappy memories that had been haunting her recently. Memories that, she knew, were the reason she couldn’t keep a steady boyfriend.

She came up to, and passed, the turn that would have brought her home. On a whim, she grabbed her cell phone and dialed a number that had become familiar by now through the past few nights of phone sex and “just wanted to say ‘hi’” calls.

“Hello?”

“Meet me at the park in about 10 minutes.”

“Erin? The park is closed already.” The redhead grumbled, knowing he was right, but not wanting to deal with his logic when she was feeling spontaneous and irrational simultaneously.

“Then outside the park, damnit. In ten minutes.” She disconnected the call, continuing to drive with a purpose in mind.

**********

Huey shifted from foot-to-foot agitatedly, spearing his fingers through his hair. The park security guard was eyeing him suspiciously, and he didn’t blame him. When Erin had called, he’d been unsure what was going on, but had decided to follow her direction.

Now, he wasn’t so sure he should have.

Her car, easily recognizable by the gigantic dent in the back and the lime green paint job, pulled up in front of him and the driver’s side window rolled down. Desire–and something else he couldn’t quite recognize–hit him hard and strong as Huey caught sight of Erin’s gorgeous auburn locks and green eyes.

“Get in the car,” she commanded, jerking her head in the direction of the passenger side with her usual ‘come-hither’ attitude.

With one last glance at the park security guard, Huey nodded and circled the car. As soon as he was safely inside the car, she peeled out into the sparse traffic, already knowing where her substitute for the park would be.

**********

“Where are we going, Erin?”

The redhead gritted her teeth, trying not to snap at him. It wasn’t an insane question, but a combination of him asking that question three times already and the frustration from not knowing how to get to their destination had her on edge.

“Just somewhere, Superboy,” she answered, glancing at him and feeling her chest tighten involuntarily. Even though she’d been intending to since they’d slept together that first time, Erin had been unable to break things off with him. He wasn’t like her past boyfriends, where they had some fun and then she’d get bored and she’d move on. He was fascinating on so many levels, and–even though he was so much younger–he was infinitely more mature than anyone had ever been, which was refreshing. He knew when to crack a joke and when to be serious. He was geeky in a ceaselessly adorable way, but he knew how to turn her on like a light switch. Compared to Huey, Grant had been a mediocre lover and she’d stayed with him for two months. It scared her more than she liked to admit that she could easily see herself becoming Mrs. Erin Kent.

As she swung onto a tiny dirt path that led behind an elementary school, the redhead came to a startling revelation: She was falling in love with Huey Kent!

Trying to control her breathing and maintain her composure, Erin parked the car and got out. They were at the elementary school’s newly renovated playground, which confused Huey, considering it was fenced off. As he got out of the car, she hopped the fence and started running through the limited open space the children were given. He followed her, jumping the fence and running after her.

He began to laugh, though he wasn’t sure why. A burst of happiness flooded his heart as she slowed and he caught up to her. His arms wrapped around her and she had time only to lift her chin and offer her lips to him before he’d covered them with his own. For many long moments, the only sounds filling the schoolyard were the low moans and heavy breathing of the couple.

Soon, they broke apart and she slid her hand into his, tugging him along until they got to a tire swing about the size of a monster-truck tire. I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually is a monster-truck tire that the people who built this playground salvaged from the dump, she thought ruefully. It could easily fit, at least, four children, as long as those children didn’t mind clinging tightly to the long metal chains that held it up.

Erin got in one side and Huey got into the opposite side, eyeing her curiously. “Why are we here, Erin?” he asked, breaking the calm of the chirping peepers and crickets.

“I wanted to tell you something,” she answered him carefully after a long pause. He was silent for a minute, waiting patiently for her to continue. When she didn’t say anything, he sighed.

“Well?” he demanded. The suspense was killing him.

“I have a penchant for going out with guys for a little while, then dumping them as soon as I’m bored,” she began, staring at the ground in the beneath the gaping hole of the tire swing. “There’s a reason for it…” She stopped, a cold hand squeezing her heart and blocking her throat. She almost couldn’t breath with the enormity of what she was about to tell Huey.

“Erin…” he coaxed softly. She looked up and met his encouraging smile. It was the timid, unsure smile of a boy, but had the potential to become heart stopping with age. Fear clawed at her insides as she stared at him. She just couldn’t load him down with the burden she’d been about to drop on him. Finally, she decided to take the coward’s way out instead of sharing the encumbrance she’d shouldered for a very long time.

“My parents are very strict about who each of my siblings and I date. They tend to push us towards Irish people and I don’t think it’s ever occurred to them that we might be able to pick our own dates from other people than those who are purely Irish. I’ve never liked it, and neither has my sister, Fiona. The difference between us is that I decided to date around to anger my parents, while Fiona just doesn’t date at all, which really doesn’t even work because they just invite the guy over for lunch or dinner without telling her.”

**********

On his drive back home, Huey reflected on what Erin had told him. He was more relieved than concerned about her parents because he was sure she’d been about to break up with him to fill her monthly quota.

Still, he got the sense that she wasn’t telling him something and that concerned him. More than the threat of her parents and more than the threat of her breaking up with him. Maybe Janelle knew and he could ask her? He shook his head, dismissing the idea. He wouldn’t feel comfortable doing something so underhanded.

Sighing, he pulled into his driveway and locked the door to his car, unaware of a pair of eyes in the bushes that separated them from their neighbors.

**********

When Erin entered the apartment, the sight that greeted her cheered her up immensely. Janelle and Lily each held a brown paper-wrapped package over their heads and were arguing at the top of their lungs.

“Just give me the package, Lily!”

“No! Aunt Gabby said not to give each other our birthday packages!”

“I don’t care what my mom said! I’ll throw yours on the ground–”

“NO!”

“Then give me my package, and I’ll give you yours and we’ll call it even.”

“I don’t want my package–” Janelle made as if to throw it on the ground and Lily squeaked in protest–“early! I want it eventually, but not now!” she added hurriedly, watching in a panic as her older cousin pretended to drop it over and over again.

“This is why I hate being around you two on your birthdays…” Erin remarked dryly, trying not to laugh. Both Scotts turned to look, but Janelle recovered first, snatching the package Lily was holding out of her hands.

“Yes!” she hissed, before Lily’s outraged, “Janelle!!” Quickly, the older Scott set the package she’d been holding on the table, then raced up the stairs, the blonde on her heels.

“Janelle, give that back!”

“Never!”

Erin shook her head and took a deep breath, slipping out of her shoes and dropping onto the couch without a second look at the package resting peacefully on their table. The packages they got for their birthdays from their other relatives would be coming soon and, no doubt, there would be a repeat performance of this every day until Lily’s birthday just like last year, and the year before, when they’d moved in here.

Soon, Janelle would give the package back without having opened it and they’d both hide the packages in their separate rooms. Then, tomorrow, it would start all over again. She smiled as she turned on the television.

It was just like at home, and it made her feel endlessly happy.