Attraction - a fraudulent marriage

20. interlude

This is the revised version of Attraction

Two days. We'd had two days together before Lara whisked him away on another trip out of the city. I called it a trip, but it was a three week venture of hauling Dante between concert halls. Chris had gone with them again, leaving me to a silent apartment and nothing to do except meeting stray acquaintances for drinks. After weeks without Tom, I was tired of waiting.

A note fluttered in the wind, fastened with a bit of tape on the door to the dilapidated building. I'd found the right place at least even though I never would have guessed. I wondered what Tom would have thought about this. A dark street, not much life around the block, a door with enough bolts to give me shivers. I decided that I didn't care. He wasn't here to stop me. Besides, he'd been the one to suggest I try this out again.

One part of me knew that it was a good idea to get some time away from him. Looking back, we'd gone from nothing to something with the speed of a freight train. If anything, that should have scared me shitless. I'd even opened up about my family. I'd told Tom stuff that I hadn't said to anyone in years. On the other hand, I craved more and that scared me the most.

The door whined on its hinges. The eerie feeling I'd had about the setting disappeared as soon as I stepped inside. Perhaps because I'd seen similar places before. There were posters absolutely everywhere, announcing premiere dates from years past.

Low voices beckoned me further into the building, and I entered a large room with a small stage and some chairs. A woman stood beneath the lights, reading from a script.

"Didn't think I'd see you again." Dave pulled one side of his mouth into a grin. He stood with crossed arms and his back against the wall, half-hidden in the shadows.

I wanted to reply that it wasn't my intention to ever see him in particular, but how likely was it to bump into him at a completely different audition?

"What, you're not talking tonight?" The guy was obnoxious but still ridiculously good looking. Not that it mattered, but it annoyed me that someone had graced this vile excuse for a human being with a face worthy of a front cover. It did make the point of proving that hot guys can be idiots.

I shrugged past him and settled on a chair, listening to the director as he went through the details of the scene. He looked over his shoulder when someone on the stage nodded toward me.

"Yes?" His frown spoke volumes. They weren't exactly rolling out the welcome wagon.

"Just here to audition."

He studied me from head to toe with a strange kind of impatience. "Very well." Turning toward the stage, the middle-aged director with graying hair and a suit that came off as way over the top dismissed me as someone of no importance. It wasn't an open audition after all, but with Tom's encouragement, I'd managed to track down the time and address in the hopes of finding a better place to get back into the game.

Dave settled in the chair next to mine. "Gerard is notoriously difficult to please." He leaned back and raked his fingers through his coiffed brown hair.

I had a feeling he'd spent hours styling it into perfection so that no one would think he'd arranged it at all. He was like a bad version of me and it pissed me off.

"Oh, come on, we're too old for the silent treatment."

I almost smiled. Ignoring him definitely worked to get under his skin, not that I wanted to be anywhere near it.

He sighed and took out his phone, fiddling around with it for a while before he lost the last lick of patience. "Look, I'm sorry about last time. My friends can be a little full on."