Page 91 of Broken Romeo

I sighed and scrubbed my palms over my face. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s… like, a rebound thing.”

Professor McCay and Keith shared a look, and I felt like I’d just failed some sort of oral exam.

I dropped the script to the ground. “I told you I’m not cut out—”

Professor McCay silenced me with her outstretched palm. “Hold on. This could be an interesting acting choice. What if, when Remy sees Julie before she sees him, he’s momentarily mesmerized… but you go with that instinct to run away. Turn and book it for the door. But something has to stop you.”

Keith examined me closely as he asked, “What would stop you?”

“Her laugh.” The answer was out before I had the sense to stop myself.

A smile flickered across professor McCay’s face. “Her laugh,” she repeated, before turning to face Kate. “So, as he’s walking toward the door, you laugh at something your date says to you and it makes Remy halt mid-step.”

“You turn around and that’s when you two make eye contact for the first time,” Keith finished the statement for her, trading a brief look with McCay. “That could work. After that moment, cross to each other and meet center stage. Say your lines. Then you kiss.”

Across from me, Kate’s electric blue eyes lifted to meet mine as Keith kept talking. “I just want to remind each of you really quickly why you got these parts. Holden, your audition brought a cynicism to Remy’s character that I’ve literally never seen before. And I’ve seen Romeo and Juliet a lot. That raw, rugged, and jaded sensibility is going to breathe new life into this show. But the key with that character is you have to make him learn through his newfound love of Julie that his cynicism is misplaced.”

Yep, there was the hard part. Jaded and cynical I could do. A sucker in love? Not so much.

Keith looked intensely in Kate’s eyes. “Kate—you’re a girl any man could fall in love with. But what made your performance so unique was how strong you made Julie. She’s not just a lovesick flower or a set piece where things happen around her. Your performance gave her agency. Focus on those things and you two will make something really beautiful.”

Professor McCay eyed us both carefully. “You two, take a couple minutes to talk over the scene before we start, okay? I want to see the scene with just the two of you before we incorporate the other actors back on stage.”

“Let’s get Parker, Tyler, and Julie’s father on stage too to read their lines as Julie and Remy walk toward each other. It’ll give them a sense of how long they have to get to center stage,” Keith said as he and the professor took their seats in the audience.

One of our classmates, a good-looking all-American mother fucker named Nate smiled encouragingly at Kate from the wings giving her a goofy fucking thumbs up.

She grinned a glowing smile and waved back at him.

That smile, that electrically beautiful smile was being tossed toward that guy? What the fuck.

I snorted and shook my head. “New boyfriend?”

She jerked her gaze to look up at me. “Who, Nate?” she whispered.

All I did was lift my brows in response, then she quickly shook her head. “We’re just friends.”

“Newsflash, Katherine. He wants to get in your pants.”

Two splotches of pink formed on the apples of her cheeks. “Not everyone is only interested in sex.” Then she dipped her head back into her script to study her lines… or probably more accurately, avoid my gaze.

Fuck. The thought that Nate was some lovesick puppy that followed Kate around and could give her all the things I couldn’t made it even worse.

I shoved my hands in my pockets as Kate blew a long breath from her pursed lips. “Can we just get this fucking scene over with?”

Kate glanced up from where she was reading her script, the arch of her eyebrow impressively high. “Wow. The words every girl longs to hear before getting kissed in front of an entire class of her peers.”

Threading my fingers through my hair, I sighed. “I just meant, it’s been a long day. I’m not like you. I’m not used to standing in front of a shit ton of people and pretending to be someone I’m not.”

Her eyes narrowed at me. “Maybe that’s your problem. Stop thinking you’re pretending to be someone. Be you. Be you in this particular scene and this particular character.”

With a shake of my head, I snorted. “Except I would never be in this scenario because I’d be out that fucking door.”

She rolled her eyes and stepped closer into me. “You’re not getting it. Method acting is about being you… if you were someone else.”

I clenched my eyes shut. “I’m not getting it because it’s fucking stupid and makes no sense. How can I be me and someone else at the same time?”

“Because it’s you under different circumstances, you idiot!” She took a deep breath before speaking again. “Look, I don’t know why you are like you are. I don’t know what happened to make you so anti-relationship. But imagine that thing had never happened. Imagine that guy—like alternate universe Holden—in this scenario. How would he act?”

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