Page 30 of Love Me Not

Now he was their chauffeur? “You’re personally guaranteeing that they’ll never be late again?”

“I give you my word. They won’t be late again.”

He was too sincere for me to continue putting up a fight.

“Fine. Then they can audition, but if they aren’t good enough to make the cast, no arguments. Agreed?”

Trey gave a curt nod. “Agreed.”

Chapter Eight

Aiden went first, and I gave him the lead role of Connor to try with Emma’s Darcy. They were performing the beginning of the party scene, and the Darcy character had the first line.

“You don’t look like you’re having fun.”

“I’m not in a party mood.”

“I know that feeling. I don’t even want to be here.”

“Then why are you?”

I had to admit, the boy had a natural quality about him. He wasn’t overdoing it, nor was he tossing the lines away. To an unknowing bystander, this could have been two teenagers having a real conversation.

“My friends convinced me.”

“Where are they?”

Emma followed the stage direction and looked around before pointing off to the side. “That’s Rebecca over by the keg. I’m not sure where Molly is.” As called for, there was a pause before she asked, “What happened to your leg?”

“Twisted my knee during a baseball game.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t feel great.”

“I’m sorry.” She turned away, as if hurt by his response.

“Nah, my bad. The brace helps, but doc says I might not be able to play again. There goes my free ride to college.”

“You can’t go to college?” Emma used the perfect inflection to show her character saw this as a big deal.

“Not where I want to go. I had offers from Big 10 schools, but they’ll probably pull those now.”

“You can still go somewhere else.”

“Easy for you to say. Being valedictorian and all.”

How Emma managed to blush on cue I did not know, but I was impressed.

“You know who I am?”

“Yeah.” Aiden extended his hand. “I’m Connor.”

“I know,” she said in a hush, taking his hand.

The pair stared at each other and I checked my script. No pause was called for. A second before I was about to feed him the line, Aiden said, “You want to get out of here?”

Emma nodded with a smile. “Yeah.”