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“I AM ALL IN A SEA OF wonders. I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.”
Bram Stoker, Dracula
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“OKAY EVERYONE, CAN we move onto the last scene while we’ve got you all here? This is our last rehearsal before Easter break, so it would be great to actually get to the end of the play.” Owen stopped shouting and dropped his voice so only Pam could hear him, “Chances are they’ll mess their way through this one as well. At least we should get some good comedy value when Beatrice kisses Gabe, I can’t wait to see his face.”
It was only a short scene but Beatrice was incredibly nervous. So far she had managed to stay focussed on the play and ignore all the people watching, but she’d had all the others about her and a lot of the attention would have been on Jenna. Now she had to do the final scene, which included a kiss.
The sets had been quickly changed, the castle was gone as they were now inside, but the set for the interior hadn’t been made yet so she just had to visualise where they were.
Ben was now supposed to be dead from his wounds, and Liam and Alex delivered a few lines and then left. It was just her and Gabriel.
He lay on his back on the floor of the stage and she knelt beside him. She stroked his cheek. “My love,” she tried to project a tearful voice, “I am beside thee.”
Gabriel clutched her skirts, coughed, and cried out for her to hold him. Damn, she loved acting with Gabriel!
“Give me peace,” he beseeched her. She picked up the dagger with genuinely shaking hands and plunged it into his heart. His back arched in awful agony, though in reality the knife was rubber. He looked up at her with such tenderness and love in his eyes that the wolf whistles of the audience just melted away. She bent her head and passionately kissed the hell out of her Romanian Prince.
***
“IS THERE SOMETHING you want to tell me?” Jenna teased Beatrice later as they climbed the stairs to their room.
“Like what?” Beatrice was genuinely confused.
“Like you and Gabriel Brenner. You dark horse! Are you guys having a secret fling or something” Because if you are you totally gave the game away.”
“What are you talking about?” Beatrice was quietly thrilled that Jenna would even consider it a possibility.
“That hilarious scene at the end.” Jenna started to laugh thinking about it.
“Hilarious?” Beatrice looked stricken. It was supposed to be sad and poignant, not funny!
“Yeah, totally hilarious. Owen Lang jumping up and down shouting ‘cut’ like it was a film set or something, and you and Gabriel openly smooching completely oblivious to his tantrum. He was literally going to rip the two of you apart if you’d carried on much longer.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, totally flipped out. So are you and Gabriel having a thang” Because it sure looked like it. For someone who was supposed to be dying he was certainly giving you a tongue-full!”
“Don’t be silly. Why would someone like Gabriel go for someone like me?” Beatrice kept her voice neutral.
“Why not?” Jenna actually seemed genuinely surprised. Beatrice wanted to hug her in that moment; no one else would surely think it at all likely, but how nice that Jenna was acting as if it were.
“I’m afraid not, sorry.” Beatrice gave her a rueful smile. “Gabriel is a consummate professional when it comes to acting.”
“Bull! He was still kissing you long after he was supposed to be dead, and you both looked like you were enjoying it. You must have kissed before, it wasn’t remotely awkward between the two of you. I could tell, and so could Owen.” Jenna began to giggle again at the memory.
“Well, we have rehearsed the kissing a bit,” Beatrice confessed.
“Rehearsed it a lot I would say.” Jenna nudged her suggestively. “So what about Owen?”
“What about Owen?” Beatrice knew what Jenna was really asking. Back when the two of them had been close friends, Beatrice had confided in Jenna about her feelings for Owen Lang. Jenna had been unable to see what Beatrice saw in him, but she had been sympathetic over his cold treatment of Beatrice.
“Well, do you like him anymore? I think you and Gabriel surprised him with your tongue session, and he definitely didn’t like it. It looked like jealousy to me.”
“There were no tongues,” Beatrice said absentmindedly and not altogether truthfully. She was trying to weigh up how she felt about the possibility that Owen might be jealous. But the reality was that he had probably just been cross about them kissing a bit more than was necessary for the scene. She wasn’t sure why they had kissed for that long. She only knew that Gabriel had made her feel “in the moment” and that she had forgotten everyone else was even there. She certainly hadn’t been thinking about Owen.
Would Owen care even a tiny bit that she had kissed Gabriel?
***
“WHY DO YOU CARE SO much that I was kissing Beatrice?” Gabriel folded his hands behind his head and relaxed on his bed. “You’ve made it clear that you don’t want her.”
Owen continued his furious pacing of their room. “That isn’t the point, Gabe!”
Nate Naverly, who was sitting at his desk, swung round in his chair to observe the scene better, and Jerry Doury, who was sitting on his bed cleaning mud off his rugby boots ahead of the game the next day, also looked at Owen with interest.
The four of them had shared a room for nearly six years now and there were very few secrets among them. They had certainly never rowed over a girl before.
“What is the point?” Gabriel goaded.
“Well, you know, the play...” Owen kicked his own desk chair out of his path. “Look, Gabe, I know you were upset when Vanessa dumped you...”
“I dumped her, and well you know it!” Gabriel growled, momentarily irritated.
“Whatever, but that doesn’t explain why you were kissing Beatrice like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you fancy her! I mean, get real!”
Gabriel shrugged. “Don’t see why I shouldn’t. She’s not bad-looking. And she is a great kisser.”
Nate smirked. He could see Gabriel was deliberately winding Owen up, and it was working.
“Had a lot of practice, have you?” Owen was certainly taking the bait.
“Well yes, now you come to mention it, I think I can honestly say we have had a lot of practice.”
“But she’s hardly your type, she’s fat and ugly for a start!”
“Oh, that’s not true,” Jerry interjected hotly. “I think she’s quite pretty actually.”
“Et tu, Brute?” Nate joked, as Owen turned on Jerry.
“You think she’s pretty?” Owen asked.
Jerry looked at Gabriel for help, but Gabriel just smiled at the ceiling.
“Yes, Owen, I think she’s pretty, and she has a nice personality too.”
Owen rounded on Nate. “And what about you? You fancy her as well I suppose?”
Nate held up his hands. “Not me, Gov. Ellie would barbeque my balls if I said yes. But I have to admit she’s got a certain something about her.” Nate looked at Gabriel. “You should have a proper crack at her, see if you can get to second base.”
“Already did, my friend,” Gabriel looked smug.
Owen mouthed soundlessly for a few seconds and then slammed out of the room.
They all waited until his footsteps could no longer be heard and then they began to laugh.