Everett

Sloane and I somehow manage to get Pierce upstairs to our room and on his bed. Sloane dumps him on it and huffs annoyingly.

“He is so dead when I see him tomorrow,” she says.

“Or you can just kill him now.” I nod at her.

“No. He needs to feel the pain.”

I laugh and she grins.

“Well I need to get out of here and to my apartment. So bye.” she says, then gives me a fist bump before leaving.

I take off my shirt to get ready for bed. I look over to check on Pierce. My eyes catches his hand clutching something, I notice that he is holding on to Sloane's bandana. I immediately take it from him, put on my shirt and go out to check if she is still in the hallway. I walk a little further and turn to see if she is there. Nope. Instead, I see a male figure, Zachary, on his phone with someone. His hair is messily falling on his forehead. I know I need to just turn and leave, but I glimpse the sight of his tightly clenched fist. When I look up, I see his face and something inside me cramps. Everything about his expression is just wrong. It's just blank. Cold. It didn't have a hint of his usual arrogance or confidence in it.

“Okay.” He says into the phone and his whole face scrunches into hurt. Then he just cuts the call. He stares at the screen for a few seconds before breathing out and loosening his fist. For a minute I thought I just imagined the whole thing because now the tension he had a moment ago was gone. Completely. Like it never happened. He turns and looks right at me. So I didn't imagine it then.

We both stare at each other for a few minutes. Like a reflex, Zach scowls. “Eavesdropping is cheap even for you.”

My irritation peeks up. “Eavesdropping at you? Don't add to your already colossal ego. You are not that fucking important.”

I was about to add that I was looking for Sloane but then realize that I don't have to explain anything to this asshole. So I just stare at him.

“Then what were you doing? Admiring the beauty of the hallways? Or maybe me?” he smirks at me.

One day. One day I will punch that abominable smirk right off his lips. I stare at his lips for a moment, a second more than necessary. He has the perfect lips.

“Careful. Your hidden desires are showing,” I say giving him a full-fledged smirk of my own.

“You know nothing about my hidden desires.”

“That's funny since most of your desires are very publicly known.”

“I didn't know you kept tabs on me.”

“Again, Not everything is about you.”

Zach was about to retort when his phone chimes, and he looks at the screen. His posture immediately goes slack.  Even though we are almost the same height and have the same kind of build, all of a sudden he felt smaller. But then he was back to normal. Like he is just realizing that he was not alone.

“Fuck you,” he hisses at me and then turns sharply, heading straight for his room.

I walk back to my room knowing that there is no way Sloane is still here somewhere. I can just give the bandana to her tomorrow. My eyes fall on the bandana in my hand, but my mind drifts off towards thoughts of the man I just saw. I wonder who Zach was on the phone with. Whoever it was that person definitely wasn't anyone Zach liked. I know exactly which buttons to push to get him pissed, annoyed, frustrated and even the ones that will get him to throw the first punch. You don't hate someone without knowing a little about them. But the look he had on moments before, that I have never seen. Even his voice was too sleek. He was just detached.

Jesus, stop thinking about him. Why the fuck am I running my brain into flames thinking about him. Or the way his hair falls over his forehead. So I don't. I lay on my bed and think about the hangover Pierce is going to have tomorrow and how that will mess up my whole day. That's going to be a pain in the ass. Shit! Do we even have Advil in here? I will just have to text Sloane to get some in the morning while she is coming over.

The last thought I remember before I fell asleep is that in all the three years I have known Zach, he has never let his head hang low like that.

Zachary

Leslie frowns at me. Her eyebrows dip into a frown and her forehead wrinkles. She is wearing the same corset dress as the other day since we are having the same play today. She looks good in it. I have ticket duty and then clean up the theater after the play. But I came way earlier than necessary to help with stage settings.

“You have dark circles under your eyes, you should have slept instead of coming here early,” she says, her voice was one of those exasperated tones a mother uses on her child even though Leslie is only nine years older than me.

I knew that I have dark circles under my eyes but goddamn it! I couldn't get a wink of sleep after that horrible call with my father. To top it off Everett was right there. The last person I wanted to be seen by in that situation. It felt like the sting of a slap to the face.

“Couldn't sleep.” I tell her the truth. No point in lying to her, but I turn away before she probes any further. She doesn't though. She just looks at me sighing.

I spot Carl at the edge of the stage talking to another part-timer. He is talking to Mason. Mason runs a hand through his light brown hair as the conversation continues. Next to Carl, Mason looks a bit shorter than he actually is. Then again anyone would look short standing next to Carl's six foot five inches and broad muscles. I grin as I head over to them.

“You look horrible man,” Mason deduces as soon as he sets his eyes on me.

“Good to see you too.” I say unimpressed.

Carl turns to check if what Mason deduced was true and scowls when he sees that it is. I just grin wider.

“If I had the time I would be busting your balls right now, but as it stands I have a huge dilemma of getting a play started in two hours,” he says to me with a narrowed glare.

“But thankfully I am free for a few minutes to bust your balls.” A voice says from behind me and I turn knowing who the voice belongs to.

Jessica stands there with her arms crossed and back straight. She was stunning even in her mid-forties looking like she was in her early thirties. Jessica and Carl run this place together, she is the scriptwriter. And today we have one of her plays on the stage. She met Carl after she finished her Masters in script writing when Carl was working a ton of jobs trying to buy this place out for three years after he had finished college in a theater directing course. They took a chance on this together and got it built up into an amazing place for talent. They have also been best friends for years.

“Hey Jess.” Mason breaks into a grin.

“Get busy, both of you,” she says, addressing Carl and Mason. “I need to talk to Zach over here.”

“I don't envy you right now,” Mason says as he walks away with a grin.

“So…” she raises her eyebrows expectantly. She wants me to talk in my own terms. Guess she figured out that something was bothering me. She and Carl both know a bit about my daddy issues. Just a little part that I had to share when I was caught with my phone to my ears and aggressively talking to my father. The moment Carl and Jessica saw they asked about it and I didn't want to lie completely. Nobody knows the whole thing except me. I would like it to stay that way.

“I had a call with my father yesterday, got too fucking pissed to sleep after that.” It wasn't technically a lie. I was pissed, but I also drank a bottle of beer and sat the whole night on my desk working on a few notes and then distracted myself with some old movie that I can't remember a shit about right now.

Jessica looks at me with her eyes blazing. I think she and Carl know that I haven't given them the whole story. It's not that I don't trust them with it. It's just that I have always kept my stuff to myself and suddenly giving it all up to anyone makes me feel raw. Exposed. I don't like it. I think they realized this and that's why they don't ask more. It's as if they don't want to cross that line that I have drawn. I am so glad and thankful to them for that.

“Okay, we are here for you if you need us.” Jessica says finally. “And try to get some sleep after you get back?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

She gives me a grin. “Well get going then, I don't pay you for slacking off.”

I rush off to the ticket counter to see people in line, waiting for their tickets to be checked before they get to enter and take their seats. I search the crowd to get an estimate of how many people but stop dead when I spot three faces that I recognize easily.

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