Starlight

III: By My Side

And when we both have had enough

I will take him from my shoe, singing

"Meet your new road!"

Finally glad

That I am here

By your side.

- By My Side, Godspell

__________

Why is he looking at me that way? He keeps giving me side eye. I don't smell bad. Maybe it's because I smell good?

He's oddly familiar...

How old is this guy? Who goes grey before they get any wrinkles?

Why am I obsessing over this?

Where is Scott?

Robbie's mind - as Robbie's mind tended to do - quietly raced with a multitude of anxious questions.

She had been sat in her seat for what had probably only been a minute or two, yet the awkward tension had made it feel like ten. Awkwardness which, she would be the first to admit, was only exacerbated by the fact that she and the older man sat beside her were clearly trying to catch glimpses of each other's faces. She squirmed, sinking a little lower into the soft red velvet cushion.

Their mutual hesitation to speak to each other hung in the air like smog. And then, cutting through that dense mist--

"Excited for the show?"

His voice was at once deep and masculine, lilting and theatrical: it took her by surprise.

"Oh - uhh, yeah." She turned to look at him, looking at his face up-close for the first time. He was as striking as he had been at a distance - youthful yet distinguished, non-classically handsome. She met his pale blue gaze and the corners of his eyes crinkled as he gave her a genuine smile.

"Me too. Godspell is a beautiful musical - I'm not religious by any stretch of the imagination, but those harmonies... They could almost convert me." He chuckled, and he sounded giddy. Despite her anxieties, Robbie couldn't help but be charmed a little by his near-childlike glee.

"Well... I've got to admit I don't know anything about the show, but my friend is in it." Breaking her gaze away from his - admittedly very pretty - eyes, she began fidgeting with her phone. The show would be starting any second and her date was still nowhere to be seen. "It's his first musical."

The man clapped his hands together. "Wonderful! Who's he playing?"

"I can't remember exactly - but he told me that I won't have to watch him get crucified, so I'm guessing it won't be Jesus."

He laughed once more, and Robbie sensed that glimmer of recognition again - she was sure that he, too, could sense that they had met somewhere before.

"Sorry, but I've got to ask, do I know you from somewh..."

She trailed off as the house lights dimmed, and the first few notes of the overture soared into the air.

Her question would have to wait, and Scott would have some explaining to do.

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