I fought my smile because I was pretty sure it would just piss her off more. “Well, neither am I.”
“Good!” she shouted.
Eyes narrowed, it was my turn to step forward. Only she didn’t back down despite the fact that I towered over her. “What do you want from me? You followed me into the men’s room, Katherine. Not the other way around. I didn’t know you’d be at my favorite ramen spot on a date?—”
“I’m not on a date with Nate,” she blurted out, her cheeks tinging pink.
I narrowed my eyes. “You should probably tell him that, then.”
She shook her head. “Nate and I are just friends.” She looked up at me, her blue eyes large, wet, searing straight through my chest, piercing my heart.
I took another step in, so close that I could feel the heat radiating off of her. “Why’d you follow me into the bathroom, Katherine?”
She looked down at her feet, scuffing her toe across the tiled floor. “I thought… I thought you might have something you wanted to say to me.”
There was so much I wanted to say to her. So much I needed to say.
And couldn’t say.
Swallowing, I took her chin in my hands and tipped her face up to mine. “If I did, would that change anything?”
She was silent for a long beat. “You won’t know until you try.” Then, taking a step back, she headed for the door, pausing to look at me from over her shoulder. “But I won’t make it easy on you.”
A smile twitched on my mouth. “I’d be disappointed if you did.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“It’s taking longer than they expected to get me on the schedule,” Dad says, his voice even more raspy than I remember it being.
That was the understatement of the year. They’d originally said it would be within a day or two, but several had passed.
“But,” Dad continues, “I go in for the surgery tomorrow,”
I cross the street toward the theater, pressing my phone to my ear. “I’m sorry I can’t be there.” Despite her promise to talk to Holden about my having a couple days off, there’s still been no word from Missy on that front. “I might be able to come out for a visit once we open and the show is a little more on stable footing.”
“Are you kidding?” Dad says, his laugh graveled, but genuine. “Your mother and I have been waiting years to see this sort of big break for your career. Don’t you dare mess that up for some silly biopsy. I’ll be out of here in a day or two.”
I can’t help but smile at the warmth in his voice and I slow my steps as I reach the theater door where Nolan is waiting for me, a beaming smile on his face.
“Speaking of, I have to get inside to rehearsal.”
“Go! Don’t be late on my account.”
I swallow down the emotions building. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard my dad be excited for something in my career. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too, Sprout.”
I hang up the phone and finish crossing the few feet to where Nolan’s leaning against the door. He tosses me a copy of Backstage Magazine that’s already folded open to a story. There, a full color photo of us snuggling in the back corner of a bar looks back at me.
With wide eyes, I snap my gaze up at him. “They printed this?”
I skim the short article in their About Town section.
Broadway’s It-Man, Nolan Brooks has been spotted multiple times with his co-star, up and coming starlet, Kate Harris. Pictured, they’re in a bar on the Lower East Side where they were spotted catching live music. Perhaps the on-stage chemistry that everyone is buzzing about between them won’t be a testament to their acting skills, afterall?
We’ve been featured on their blog and website several times in the last few days we’d been on the Kate Middleton Tour, as Jill calls it… but this? An actual printed story speculating about our relationship? That’s next level.
“Now what?” I whisper.