Page 96 of The Summer Show

So, not charades then.

That was mildly disappointing. Now I might never see Nick’s dance moves.

There was a creaking as the doors opened. There, framed by darkness, was Nick.

Everything went silent. You could have heard a marshmallow drop. And it stayed that way for a good while as Nick jogged down the amphitheater steps, dressed in his street clothes. He was wearing yesterday’s jeans and a thin blue henley with the long sleeves shoved up to his elbows. The fabric clung to his muscles like it never wanted to let go. Which, look, I totally understood.

He was magnificent.

Everyone remained quiet as he spoke to Mairi. In Greek, unfortunately. Lucky for me, Memo was right beside me, translating on the fly.

“He says he will do whatever challenge they want. But he has one condition.”

“What is it?”

“Kathleen has to leave. He does not want her—that is you—in the audience.”

Down on the amphitheater floor, the director craned her neck. “Kathleen? Pou einai Kathleen?”

“Kathleen? Where is Kathleen?” Memo translated before pointing directly to me.

I stood and raised my hand.

“Get out,” Mairi said to me in English.

Befuddled, I glanced around. Was she talking to me? She was staring at me, so I was afraid the answer was yes. “Are you serious right now?”

“Do I look like I am laughing?”

Her lips were a grim, lipsticked line. So that was a no then.

I decided to bypass the bearer of bad news. My follow-up question was for Nick, and Nick alone. “You really want me to leave?”

He didn’t turn around, didn’t relax an inch. His hands remained in fists at his side. “Yeah.”

“But … why? Everyone else is here.”

“They’ve got a right to be here. You ducked out on last night’s show. Why should you get to pick and choose when you want to be part of it?”

Had a cosmic hand dropped him on his head sometime between last night and now?

“I was in the hospital.” Why was I explaining my whereabouts? He knew perfectly well where I was last night and why I couldn’t be here. “If you’re going to be a horse’s ass, at least turn around and look me in the eye.”

Nick didn’t so much turn as he did swagger in a circle until he was facing me.

“What’s going on?” I splayed my hands out at my side and shrugged. “You stood up for me at the hospital. I heard you. And now you’re acting like we’re strangers?”

“I did it for my sister, because you’re her best friend.”

“I thought we were friends.”

That was me downplaying what I believed we were to each other. Reducing my value so that it wouldn’t hurt so much when he brushed me off. But it didn’t prepare me for what he said next.

“We were never friends.”

A direct hit to the heart, crushing my feelings.

“Funny, it felt like we were friends.”