Cora wasn't always so anxious. On the contrary, she was usually a little bit excellent at putting herself out there in social settings.

Such an instance was the night she met Siena. That night had come a couple of years ago, at a time when Cora was just coming out of a long spell of not seeing any boys. It wasn't intentional at first—she was just so busy with auditions that she didn't have the time and energy for much else. Then, once she'd realized that she was doing just fine without a man to ruin her day, she'd decided that she didn't want to make the time and energy for anyone else. She was in a committed relationship with herself.

That worked well for a little while and then it didn't work so well. All the thoughts of me, me, me began to feel more draining than empowering, especially when she wasn't getting any callbacks. So she decided that maybe it was time to find some company.

That night, she was meeting up with a guy she matched with on Bumble, which she regretted thoroughly in hindsight. But the carelessness of it felt liberating at the time. She put on her shortest dress, painted her lips wine red. She could be whoever she wanted for one night—he didn't know her in the slightest.

They went to a club. He couldn't dance to save his life.

That alone certainly wasn't a dealbreaker for her. She swore her dear Simon had two left legs. But this boy's personality was worse than his dancing, which she probably should have predicted. His name was Chase, for Christ's sake. And he just wanted to watch her be hot. Cora wanted to be hot, but not at the cost of having no conversation, no connection whatsoever with her date. She wasn't just a sparkly, shiny object to be looked at.

So after a while, she ditched him. And she made it obvious that she was ditching him because he deserved to know that he was being an ass.

Her feet carried her across the street to the closest bar. She wasn't ready to completely give up on tonight just yet, even if she might have to fend off some creepy men in the process of enjoying her drink. But this was a spot that lots of people her age frequented, many of them women, so she felt at ease as she settled onto a barstool and ordered an Old Fashioned.

"Is this seat taken?" a voice asked from off to her side just as the bartender was bringing her drink.

Cora's gaze shot to the girl who had just arrived. Even at a short glance, she was striking. She was long dark hair and grayish-blue eyes. She was sharp angles, arched eyebrows and the elegant lines of collarbones above the low v of a dress. She was magnetic, electrifying, a thunderstorm.

And Cora was intrigued. "Not at all."

The girl slipped into the spare seat and requested a glass of red wine. When the bartender walked away, she then turned to Cora with a look of repressed exaggeration on her face, and for a brief moment, she thought that this girl was somehow angry with her. But then she started talking.

"Do you ever just–" she started, gesturing vaguely with her hands, but then stopped herself when the right words weren't coming. She tried again. "You know when men–"

Cora couldn't help it—she laughed. "Yeah."

The girl cracked a smile. "You come here with anyone?" she asked.

Cora took a sip of her cocktail and shook her head. "I was at that club across the street with someone, but he turned out to be kind of the worst. I left."

It was the other girl's turn to laugh. "Seriously? I just left a guy, too. I was explaining that I'm trying to get a doctorate in Literature someday and he said that it was a useless degree—that I should really try my hand at medicine if I'm gonna bother going through that much school."

Cora looked at her in amazement. So she was a freaking genius, too. "What? That's incredible. That guy definitely didn't deserve you."

She grinned. "What about you? What do you wanna do?"

Something about this girl made Cora feel suddenly invigorated. Her lips formed a little smirk as she set her glass down, straightened in her seat, and told her with confidence, "Oh, I'm going to be on Broadway someday."

"I feel like death," Siena groaned, burying her face back against the couch cushion. "I should just call out of work."

"You can't," Cora mumbled, but she felt like someone was banging a gong inside her skull.

It was early Monday morning and in the process of celebrating that she'd made it through her first week of tech rehearsals, the both of them might have had a little too much to drink the night before. Or way too much.

"But why...why not?"

"Because..." Cora rubbed her sleepy eyes. It had been late by the time she got home the night before and much later by the time they finally fell asleep. "Last time, you looked at me and said, 'Don't let me use any more PTO on this bullshit,' remember?"

Siena grumbled into the pillow, a sigh of defeat. "I hate past me."

"I hate past you a little bit, too," Cora muttered. The world was so bright, too bright. "We could both be asleep right now."

There was only one option left: coffee. While neither of them could be bothered to venture very far, there was an excellent little coffee shop on the same block as their apartment building, and after a minute of deliberation, they concluded that the low effort of going was worth the high reward. That, and there was literally no way Sie was going to be able to function at all without some caffeine.

They were both in tee shirts and sweatpants as they slouched down the hall towards the elevator, but Cora was a little bit proud of them for at least changing out of their pajamas and putting on bras. Hopefully, they wouldn't even have to stay in the cafe for more than a couple of minutes—she intended to just order a black coffee. She was normally a sucker for a sugary, overpriced latte, but that wasn't going to do enough for her right now when all she wanted was to feel a little less dead and gross.

Both girls grimaced when they stepped out into the sun; Cora cast her eyes to the ground. It was a good thing she hadn't planned on doing anything productive today.

To her deep dismay, they were greeted by a lengthy line at the cash register, though it had probably been foolish to expect that it would ever not be crowded on a Monday morning. Siena made a small noise of displeasure in the back of her throat, but now that they had walked all the way here, there was no backing out.

Only one or two customers had made it through the line when the door opened again and the sound of the shrill little bell grated at Cora's eardrums. She wished that it were socially acceptable to yell at a stranger to open the door less loudly, but when she looked up and saw who had come in, she abruptly cared a lot less about manners.

Rasmus was glancing at his phone as he yanked out his earbuds and shoved them into his pocket. He had clearly been exercising—she could see a glisten of sweat on his skin and no one's shirt just stuck to them like that for no reason—but he still looked infuriatingly put together. There was a faint shadow of stubble on his jaw, the result of not needing to shave on his day off, but his hair was neat and his breathing was rhythmic and regular.

She really, really hated that she knew the typical cadence of his breathing now, but she did. It came with the peculiar territory of their job.

"Have you been running?" she asked in distaste.

She shouldn't have given him a reason to talk to her, but her brain wasn't operating at full speed this morning for obvious reasons. If it had been, she would have noticed Siena straighten up a little bit when she realized who they'd run into. She'd only ever seen Rasmus in pictures while Cora droned on about him, never face-to-face.

"Of course not, I just naturally look like this." She narrowed her eyes at him, but a smirk formed on his lips as he examined the two of them. "I see that you two have also been very productive."

"Shut up."

"Do I have to?"

"Yes," she snapped, crossing her arms over the faded college tee shirt she'd thrown on. She was pretty sure he'd worn the same one to rehearsals at some point, and for some reason, the thought of them owning the same shirt was a little embarrassing to think about. "Don't bring my friend into this."

"And what exactly is this?" he asked lightly, but she could see it in the sharpness of his look that he was clearly taunting her. "I'm serious—I'm just making conversation. You're looking lovely this morning, truly."

Cora closed her eyes, wishing that he would just disappear when she opened them. "And it would be so lovely if you could actually mean that once."

Rasmus was giving her an indistinguishable expression when her eyes opened, but since she couldn't pull some stage trick and make him disappear with a clap of her hands or a snap of her fingers, she turned her back to him and grabbed Siena by the arm to pull her forward in line.

He didn't attempt to bother them again. Siena shot a not-so-stealthy glance over her shoulder at him once or twice while they inched towards the register, but he'd put his music back on and no longer seemed to notice or care about anyone besides himself.

It wasn't until they were out the door (and already gulping down their extra large black coffees) that she finally asked, "So, about what you said back there. You want him to think you're hot?"

"Well, yeah," Cora agreed. There was no point in trying to hide anything from Siena. She had the sharpest mind of anyone Cora knew. If you didn't give her all of the pieces to a story, she discovered them on her own eventually. "I need him to be physically intimidated by me. What else am I gonna hold over him?"

They were back in their lobby; Siena pressed the elevator button twice as if that would make it come to them any faster. She looked over at Cora. "...You are aware that you're also extremely talented, right? People don't make it to Broadway just because they're pretty."

Cora smiled. It was a little weak, but only because her body was very much still not functioning at full efficiency yet. "Thanks, Sie."

But as the doors opened and they got on the elevator, she was grateful for once that she couldn't pick Rasmus' brain and read his thoughts. It was best not to know if he was capable of being attracted to her in any way whatsoever, if there were any parts of her that he might find enticing even whilst he shunned the others. It was odd and slightly off-putting that she wanted him to want her while she loathed him all the while. But the alternative would definitely be worse—she hated the thought of having to kiss someone who she was certain believed her to be ugly, repulsive.

And it would be nice, she supposed, if it tortured him just a little bit that all that passion they had onstage could never take place in real life.

She wasn't sure what to make of herself for enjoying that thought.