Page 55 of Hot to Trot

"You have to want to move forward." His voice was as soft as his gaze, like the stroke of a mother's hand on her newborn's back.

"Maybe. But moving forward means letting go of something I thought I wanted. Someone I thought I loved." Suddenly emotion overwhelmed her. Tears hovered in the back of her throat, making her voice husky.

Adam moved closer. "You can't be afraid. And you can't make love work with someone who doesn't want it to work. Can't build something on sand. It'll crumble and fall apart. Sometimes you can't fix it. You have to walk away."

Scarlet nodded, reaching for the necklace that was no longer there. Her fingers brushed her chest and dropped. Adam pickedup her hand and squeezed it. "So walk away from what can't be fixed. Move toward someone new. Someone worthy of your love. Move toward-"

"This is some serious shit," Marco called out, breaking the bond Scarlet had created with Adam.

She blinked and focused her attention on Marco. "You're not supposed to interrupt."

"Oops. My bad," Marco said, looking around at the other guys sitting around him. A few of them looked annoyed at him. Tito frowned.

Adam stiffened beside her. What had he been about to say? Move toward...him? With all defenses, all the restrictions and rules, stripped away, maybe deep down inside that was his true desire. Something awakened in her at that thought. What if this thing between them was more than sexual attraction? What if there was some cosmic force at work, drawing them together, creating bonds, tugging them toward each other until there was no other recourse? Until they both accepted everything that had happened thus far had happened to push them together.

The thought paralyzed her, so she tucked it in the recesses of her mind.

Adam looked extremely ill at ease. As in, forgot-his-pants-this-morning uncomfortable.

''Apology accepted," Scarlet said to Marco.

"But that's a good point. Things can get deep when you do a repetition exercise. Allow yourself to get caught up, as Chief Hinton and I did. This is not therapy, but tapping into the truth of the moment. If you are given a scene of about a murder, you must be truthful under imaginary circumstances. If you have not had a person close to you murdered, you can still allow yourself to feel what a person who has would feel."

"What if you've had a friend murdered? Right in front of you," Juan said. Anger laced his words. Real emotion. Not fabricated.

"Then you already know, don't you? You know what it feels like. You won't have to dig deep to feel angry, lost, desperate for revenge," Scarlet said.

"No, I won't," Juan said.

"But remember, this is an acting class. We will use repetition exercises to bond us to our partner. You may say, 'You look angry,' but you can't act on it."

"Why not?" Tito asked, "We're in acting class."

"Because you can't," Adam said.

Scarlet sighed. This wasn't going how she'd planned. She'd studied Meisner for years, adapting some of the legendary drama teacher's techniques, fusing them with some of her own. She gave leeway, but she didn't want too much flowing between guys who might have grudges against one another. "Let's try something different."

The guys gave her their full attention.

"I ended up in here because I stupidly refused to leave the scene of a protest."

Adam arched an eyebrow.

"Okay, fine. I handcuffed myself to a flagpole, but what's important is I took a stand on an issue I feel strongly about which is censorship."

"What's that mean?" Julio asked, scooting his folding chair closer.

She explained a little about the children's book and the reactions in the community about such books, citing the Harry Potter books as another example of debate over what children should be able to read. Then she told them her thoughts. “Know what! I’ll get copies of the book for each of you to read."

"Aw, man. That's like homework," Marco complained.

"Well, if you don't want to read it, then don't," Scarlet said. "But I thought we might focus on a few scenes from the book and work up a sort of screenplay. Any of you like to write?"

Six blank stares met her query.

"Okay, I'll work up the scenes. Then we can use some of the emotions you delve into tonight to portray what happens in that book. Any objections?"

More blank stares.

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