Three Girls And A Leading Man by Rachel Schurig Page B

to me. I would be thrilled to
play Jillian.”
    “Wonderful!” he said, sounding
amused. I wondered if he had some inkling of the total freak-out occurring in
my head. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, we’re on a very short rehearsal schedule,
unfortunately. Some opportunities have come up that are going to push the
production dates forward a bit. I’ll explain it all at rehearsal, but we’d like
to start tomorrow. Five o’clock. Can you clear your schedule?”
    “Absolutely,” I told him, nodding
my head rapidly before I realized he couldn’t see me. “That won’t be a problem
at all.”
    “Great,” he replied. “We’ll be
switching up rehearsal spaces for a few weeks until we can get into the theater
on a regular basis. My assistant is going to send you an email with the details.”
    “That sounds good,” I said,
gripping the phone tighter. It still felt like it was about to slip out of my
fingers.
    “Then I’ll see you tomorrow,
Annie.”
    “I’m looking forward to it,” I
replied. “Thank you so much.”
    We said goodbye and I ended the
call. I stared down at my phone in shock, still hardly daring to believe the
call had actually happened.
    I don’t know how long I stood like
that, staring at my phone, before I finally heard the sound of Nate’s voice.
    “Annie?” he asked, standing in the
doorway to his bedroom. “What’s up?”
    I realized then that I was shaking.
Literally shaking. I couldn’t believe that this was happening to me. It was the
moment I had dreamt of my entire life.
    “Annie?” he asked again, more
sharply. “What’s wrong?”
    I looked up at Nate and felt the
urge to tell him, to scream it at him, to throw my arms around him and ask him
to celebrate with me.
    Then it hit me. What the hell was I
doing? My life was about to change and I was in some strange guy’s bedroom? I
should be sharing this with Jen and Ginny, no one else. Not Nate, not any man.
I stood up, managing to control the trembling in my limbs.
    “I got that part,” I said casually.
“Rehearsals start tomorrow.”
    “Oh my God!” he said, his face
lighting up. “That’s amazing!”
    “Yeah,” I said. “I better get going
though. Lots to do. And I need to get home to tell the girls.”
    I saw his face fall, but I couldn’t
let myself worry about it. I knew what I was doing.
    “Well,” he said, smiling again. “I
want to take you out to celebrate. This is really amazing.”
    I shook my head. “I don’t know,
Nate. I mean, I’m gonna be really busy. This is a huge deal for me, you know?”
    “Annie,” he said uncertainly.
“What’s going on? Why are…why are you blowing me off?”
    I plastered a look of surprise on
my face. “I’m not blowing you off,” I said. “I mean, it’s not like we’re in
some serious relationship, right? Wasn’t this all supposed to be just a bit of
fun?”
    “Fun,” he said, his voice suddenly
tight. “Yeah. Fun.”
    I chanced a glance at his face and
regretted it almost immediately. He looked so sad, so disappointed. I forced it
from my mind. I had gone too far with him already, way too far. If I didn’t end
this now, he would just do it soon himself. I knew that. It was the way it
always worked.
    “Look, I’ll give you a call, okay?”
I asked, struggling to keep my voice light.
    “Okay,” he said. “Sure. Whatever.”
    I slipped around him and headed
down the hall to the front room. I found my purse and put my shoes on, then
paused for a moment, waiting for him to come back out. He never did. “See you
around, Nate,” I finally said, softly, before I left his house.
     

 
 
 
    Chapter Fifteen

 
    I spent the next eighteen hours
feeling incredibly annoyed. While I should have been bouncing off the walls in
excitement over the show, I instead found that I couldn’t keep my mind off of
Nate. I had clearly hurt his feelings and that didn’t sit well with me. I tried
to remind myself that it was no big deal, that I had been clear about