Page 48 of He's The Reason Why

“Why?” Marshall’s smile widened. “It’s a very nice hand. I like holding it.”

“We’re working here,” Blake said. There was something pointed underneath his amused tone.

Marshall leaned toward her in a conspiratorial way. “Someone sounds cranky.”

“You’re a flirt.” Piper couldn’t stop smiling. She was holding Marshall Weston’s hand. Every teen fantasy she’d ever had swirled around her in Technicolor detail.

“Is that a bad thing?” Marshall asked.

“Not to me.”

“Okay, break it up.” Blake stepped in between them, forcing Marshall to let go of her hand. “It’s time for you to go.”

“You can’t kick me out. I have a key. Besides,” Marshall gestured toward the bag he’d left on the entry table, “I figured you being you, nobody ate dinner, so I brought snacks.”

Blake gave him a hard stare. “We don’t have time to stop for dinner.”

The rush of adrenaline and excitement settled into Piper’s stomach to play with her nerves about tomorrow’s attempt at the big scene. She needed to focus, and she couldn’t do that with Marshall in the room. It was too much like having an out-of-body experience.

“I hate to say this, but he’s right. We’ve been at this for hours and I’m nowhere near ready. It was really thoughtful of you to think of us, though.”

Marshall waved a negligent hand. “That’s why I brought sandwich wraps. They’re the perfect food for reading lines. Grab one, and I’ll help you work through the scene while we eat.”

Marshall Weston wanted to help her run a scene. Reality skittered away to play in someone else’s yard for a while.

One hour and one excellent roast beef wrap later, Piper was over her schoolgirl crush on Marshall and back to feeling a level of frustration she hadn’t experienced since she was eight and trying to learn guitar with her stubby little girl fingers.

“Look, I hear what you’re both saying, I do.” Piper picked up a discarded wrapper and tossed it into the trash. “I just don’t see how thinking about a time when I was mad at my sister makes me better at saying these lines. And I’ve never been the kind of scared that Jewel is supposed to be. Nobody’s ever tried to kill Della, or even kidnap her, though lord knows I’d understand if they did. And forget the whole magic rock thing.”

“That’s very literal-minded of you,” Marshall said. He still held half a sandwich in one hand. “Surely when you go on stage you do something like this? I mean, when you sing ‘Love Is Addiction,’ do you mean you’ve actually been addicted?”

“No. Yes. Of course not. You’re not serious, are you?” She studied his eyes and realized that yes, he was serious. “Songs, especially The Bellamy Sisters songs, are mostly metaphors forother things. ‘Love Is Addiction’ is about a teenage crush and, yes, I had one and, yes, it felt like an addiction but, no, I’ve never been actually addicted to drugs or something like that. It was that can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t stop thinking about him feeling. You know? It’s what I imagine an addiction would feel like, if it were to a person and not a drug or something.”

He and Blake glanced at each other, and there was a whole conversation that passed between them.

“So youdohave an imagination,” Blake said.

“It’s not the same thing,” Piper said. Exasperation made her voice louder than she’d intended.

“It’sexactlythe same thing.” Marshall nodded emphatically.

Now they were ganging up on her for sport. “Having an imagination and doing what you two are doing isnotthe same thing. At all.”

“You know what I think the problem is?” Blake asked Marshall.

“She’s too much in her own head.” Marshall crumpled up his empty sandwich wrapper. “Improv?”

“It’s time for some ABCs.” Blake gestured for her to stand up. “Come on. Everybody on your feet.”

She had no idea what he meant by ABCs. “I don’t get how singing the ABCs is going to help me say my lines.”

Blake flashed her a devilish smile. “Not the song. The game. The rules are simple. The three of us tell a story, one sentence at a time. The first person must start their sentence with the lettera, the next with the letterb. We go like that until we get to the end of the alphabet or until someone freezes. Last one standing wins. Got it?”

It sounded simple enough. “How does this help?”

“It’s a great way to take your mind off things,” Blake said.

“By the time we get toz, you won’t care about your lines,” Marshall said. “What are the stakes?”

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