"For the last time, do not touch the props! If it does not have your name on it, put it down!" A fifteen year old Eloise Bridgerton screamed at the students horsing around backstage.
"Yikes," Colin winced, nudging Penelope who stood just beside him on the other side of the stage. "You think maybe my sister is taking her stage manager role a little too seriously? It's a class play," he whispered, not ready to be scolded by his little sister for talking too loud.
"That's just El," Penelope said with a laugh, defending her best friend. "Besides, she's trying to impress your buddy over there." She nodded to Phillip Crane who was busy adding the finishing touches to a rose covered trellis.
"You're joking," Colin scoffed. "Eloise is...into Phil?"
"Yup," Penelope answered with a cheerful pop of her lips. "Definitely wants to bone him."
"What?! No...that's...no." He said, barely suppressing the urge to vomit as he tried to convince himself of the words.
Penelope grinned catlike, seeing that she was riling Colin up, which happened to be a favorite pastime of hers. Ever since Mrs. Danbury asked them to take the leads in the class play, she and Colin had gotten closer, and she had grown more comfortable with him. Much to the point that she learned to love teasing him, among the many other things she loved about him. "It's true," Penelope said. "And he wants to bone her too."
"Gross!" Colin shouted in disgust, his sister shooting him an evil glare. "That's disgusting and I refuse to believe that my best friend and my sister..." He trailed off. "How do you know?"
Penelope grinned even wider, crossing her arms in a rather cocky stance. "Body language. The way he stares at her when she isn't looking. The way she leans in and laughs every time he says something even remotely funny. It's textbook," she explained with a shrug.
"What are you the love expert or something?" He asked.
"Nope, just painfully single," she said without thinking, continuing to watch their classmates make fools of themselves during their rendition of Romeo and Juliet.
"Why is that?"
Penelope shook herself from her daze. "What?"
"Why are you single?" He repeated.
She then shot him a confused, almost fearful stare. "Uh..."
"Colin! Penelope!" Mrs. Danbury shouted from her seat in the audience.
"Our scene is up," she whispered, feeling incredibly grateful for the escape from their current conversation.
"Right," he said, swallowing.
"Right," she echoed, remembering that today was actually the big scene. The kiss scene. She would have to kiss Colin, the man she had the biggest crush on since they were wee children. "Let's...get this over with," she muttered under her breath, marching towards the center of the stage.
"Pen, hold on," Colin called after her. "I want to---"
Mrs. Danbury tapped her gaudy bejeweled cane on the floor three times. "Let's go! I need my Romeo and Juliet!" She bellowed, prompting him to take his place on the stage next to Penelope.
He wiped his mind of all thoughts, forcing himself to get into character, then cleared his throat and took her hands in his, just as the script said. "I fear I’ve defiled your hands, which are like a holy shrine to me, by touching them with my own unworthy hands. But I have an agreeable way to make it up to you. My lips are ready to smooth over that rough touch with a tender kiss, like two devoted pilgrims before a holy place," he recited breezily, having committed the play to memory.
Penelope, his perfect Juliet, then responded in a soft, teasing voice. "Good worshipper, you’re too harsh on your own hand, as it shows a perfectly polite devotion by holding mine. After all, pilgrims touch the hands of saints, and the hands kiss when their palms are brought together."
Her hands felt so right in his, Colin realized. So dainty, so warm, so soft. "Y-yes," he stammered. "But don’t the saints and the worshipers have lips, too?"
Penelope smiled, and he could tell it for him and not for the play. "Yes, pilgrim, lips that they should use for prayer."
Her lips. God, her lips looked so soft, and now because of Shakespeare's cursed writings, he couldn't stop thinking about kissing them. "Well then, dear saint, let our lips do what our hands are doing. They’re praying for something after all, a kiss, so their faith doesn’t turn into despair."
"Saints don’t act first," Penelope replied demurely, batting her lashes at him. "Although they may respond to prayers."
"Then don’t move while I get my prayers answered." This was it. He was meant to kiss Penelope Featherington. For the play, of course. Under different circumstances, he wouldn't want to...he couldn't imagine ever...oh screw it. Colin took Penelope's face in his hands, stealing a sweet kiss from her pillowy, raspberry colored lips. All too quickly, she pulled away, breathless as she stared up into his eyes. He had never felt more seen. More than just the third of eight Bridgerton siblings. More than just a charming teen heartthrob that the girls their age believed him to be. Just...more. "Now all the sin has been purged from my lips thanks to yours," he said.
"Then that sin has passed from your lips to mine," she whispered, barely heard from the audience, but neither of them cared. This was a just a dress rehearsal anyway. And after their first kiss, the rest of the world seemed to vanish from their view. It was just them in that moment, speaking their feelings through beautifully written words.
"A sin from my lips?" Colin said, hardly in character anymore. "Oh what a sweetly suggested trespass! Give it back to me," he ordered, pulling her in for another kiss, this one much more powerful than the last. It was long, passionate, lingering, and full of devotion. So much devotion, in fact, that Mrs. Danbury actually had to wack her cane on the stage in front of them so they would break apart. Colin couldn't help but grin at the flushed look on Penelope's face. How was she still single? He certainly had some plans to change that.
"For Christ sake, the script said a chaste kiss!" Mrs Danbury yelled, sounding more exasperated than angry.
"That was disgusting to watch," Eloise declared, making a show of shuddering and wretching dramatically.
Colin rolled his eyes at his sister. "Then don't watch next time." He definitely wouldn't be waiting until the next time they practiced this scene to do that again, however.
Penelope giggled, as if sensing where his mind was headed. "You definitely do not kiss by the book, by the way." And really, how could he help kissing her again when she said things like that?
