Page 82 of Broken Romeo
“You’re coming to see my show?”
“Opening night tickets were in the envelope with the payment.”
Even as a famous actor, Holden is still so clearly the son of a politician—adept at smoothing and schmoozing. I hold out my check for her once again and urge her to take it. “Well, then consider this an early rent payment for next month.”
She gives me a strange look. “Did your employer not talk to you about this? You’re paid through the end of the year for the apartment. In full.”
My jaw unhinges. “Jill’s half, too?”
She nods. “He said it was standard practice for professional theater to cover housing for their cast and crew. Seemed weird to me, but what do I know?”
That’s true if you’re in a touring company or doing a show in a city that you don’t live in—the union regulates that the production budget must cover your living expenses. But not for actors already living in New York. And usually not for Broadway shows. It’s understood… to be on Broadway, you have to live in New York. That’s just how it is.
Warmth tingles down my spine and I’m not sure what I feel. Angry? Maybe a little. Relieved? Hell yeah. And also, completely uncomfortable with the situation.
Even still, Ms. Greene has never been this nice to me. Ever. Hell, I guess I wouldn’t have been nice to me either if my tenant wasn’t able to pay me the reasonable rent I was owed.
I lower my arm and shove the check into my bag. No point in giving it to her, not when it’s really owed to Holden.
“You really didn’t know?” she asks.
I stand there, dumbfounded before shaking my head. When I don’t offer anything more, she says, “That’s strange. Why wouldn’t they have told you?”
Because I wouldn’t have accepted it. Because I would have fought him. Because it’s inappropriate. Take your pick, any of the answers are true.
I merely shrug and say, “I don’t know.”
* * *
I thought the fifteen-minute walk to rehearsal would be enough time to figure out what to say to Holden when I saw him. But as I approach the front door and see him standing outside, unlit cigarette pinched between his index and middle finger, all the arguments I have fly out the window.
I can tell the moment he recognizes me from across the street from the tension that bunches in his shoulders. The world around us stills with my approach. Traffic ceases. Pedestrians freeze. Even the breeze seems to stop until the only sound I hear is his breath and mine, syncing with each inhale and exhale, and the rapid thrum of my pulse.
“Hey,” he says, tapping the cigarette with his thumb.
I always hated that he smoked in college. It was a disgusting habit. Maybe the only disgusting thing about Holden.
When I don’t speak, he continues, “I quit smoking, I swear. But I always carry this one with me. I hold it when I’m nervous. It reminds me that if I want to smoke, there’s always one ready for me. It’s weird, but it helps.”
“I remember,” I say.
His brow dips. “From when? I didn’t quit until after college.”
That’s not entirely true. He quit multiple times in college. He just could never last as a nonsmoker.
I shrug. “I read it in a Backstage article last year.”
His laugh comes out as a single huff.
I reach into my bag and hold out the check I wrote for him on my way over. “Here.”
“What’s this?”
“I hear you’re kind of my landlord now.”
He mumbles a curse. “I thought I had at least a week before you found that out.”
“Oh yeah? And what did you expect to happen when I did? I wouldn’t take a handout from Jill, but somehow you thought I’d magically be okay taking one from you?”