“Are you free tonight?” Christy’s voice sounds breathless, like she’s walking fast down a sidewalk in the city. She probably is.

“Are you asking me out on a date?” I lean back in my chair at the insurance agency and pat at the elegant bun I’ve twisted my hair into this fine morning. “It’s not like you to make last-minute plans, but—”

“I’ve got an audition for you, Whit.” She steamrolls me with the excited confidence only an agent can pretend to have. “I know it’s last-minute, so if you turn it down, I’ll understand. But it’s also something out of the norm.”

“Like a Viagra commercial?” I’ve done auditions for tens of commercials—hundreds, even—and most of them involve wearing scrubs and smiling into the camera while holding a clipboard. “Slinky red dress?”

The guessing isn’t half-hearted out of defeat so much as an aching nostalgia. I miss last weekend with Wes like I miss some of the better Christmases of my childhood. I want to be back on that balcony with him, at that strange American castle. It wasn’t called a castle when it was originally built. I learned that much from the tour guide. It was only the man’s home.

“You still there?”

Christy didn’t hear my Viagra joke. I sit up straight in my chair. “I’m here. What kind of audition is it?”

She says something that’s muffled by a cacophony that highly resembles traffic.

“I didn’t catch that, Chris. What did you say?”

“It’s for the stage. Off-Broadway.”

I burst out laughing. “Are you shitting me?”

“I’m not kidding. It’s a cool role. You could be good for it. I convinced them you had the chops. Seven?”

“I’ll be there.”

“I’ll text you the address.”

“—you’ll be paired with Jason, who’s cast for the romantic lead. We’re still working out the understudies. I’m sure you know how that is.”

The director, Rowan, doesn’t look up from where she’s scribbling on a notepad.

Me? I’m center stage, in the middle of jumbled set pieces that seem to be standing in for someone’s vision of a living room. It’s hot under the lights, and they’re bright as hell. Jason sits on a stool made from two milk crates stacked together, flipping through the script.

“Do you mind if we switch places?”

Rowan looks up at me over her glasses. “Excuse me?”

“I’d like to switch places with Jason.”

His mouth quirks in a smile. I throw Rowan the most confident expression of my entire lifetime. Her eyebrows lift. Is she impressed or annoyed? It doesn’t matter, in the end. She’ll remember me.

My heart pounds, but I coolly look down at the script, like I’m just working out the final details. Like I’ve had it far longer than the fifteen minutes I’ve been staring at the pages, trying to make the words shuffle themselves into a discernible order. Christy met me outside the theater, shoved the packet into my hands, and left, still on the phone.

“Switch places with her, Jason.”

He stands up from his crate-stool and gives me a subtle nod on the way to my spot on the stage. There’s another reason for this, too—I want Rowan to see my good side. In these ridiculously bright lights, I’m going to need every advantage. She can’t spend the entire audition looking at the way my nose looks weird from that angle.

“Take it from the top. Page thirty,” calls Rowan.

I take a deep breath. The house lights are up, which reminds me of theater class back in high school. All those practices, and when those damn lights finally went down, you could find yourself in another world. No such luxury. Not this time. I have to find myself in another world right now, three feet away from Jason, in the middle of a Goodwill junkyard.

It’s not a walk in the park, either. This isn’t the giddy meet-cute at the beginning of the play, where our characters first meet. This is the heartbreak at the center of the show. I can feel it, even though I haven’t read the entire script.

“You good?” Jason gives me the grace of one final moment to collect myself.

“Let’s do it.”

His face transforms. That’s the only way I can think to describe it. One moment, his expression is neutral, positive even, and the next, it’s darkly seething. The set pieces around us fade out, becoming an apartment in my peripheral vision. I feel her—I feel the character I’m supposed to be playing settle in over my skin, feel her rage, feel the subtle way it shapes my face—jaw jutted, on the verge of angry tears.

“I’ve had enough,” growls Jason. “Do you ever think of anything but yourself?”

“Me?” I jab my fingers into my own chest, flicking my eyes down to be sure I’ve got the lines. “You have no idea what I’ve done for you. You have no idea—”

“Say that again.” He storms toward me, and I plant my feet. “Say it to my face.”

“I will say it to your face, because it’s true. Look at me. Look at me when I say it.”

He inches closer, and the chemistry between us crackles in the air. “How?” His hand comes up to the downstage side of my neck, a featherlight touch that will look like a grab from the first row. “Like this? Is this how you want it?”

“Yes.” I deliver the line with all the thunder I’ve ever stored in my chest, all the hope and hurt locked away for my days at the insurance agency. “That’s how I want it, damn you, that’s how I want it.” The script falls to the floor of the stage. My hands, I find, are wrapped around the front of his shirt.

He leans in, closer and closer, and then—

“Thank you so much, Whitney.” Rowan’s voice is a clear cut across the heat of the scene, and all at once, the weight of Jason’s fingers on my neck reads differently. Outside the scene, it’s all wrong for a man to be touching me there. Outside the scene, I want to run from the theater and straight into Wes’s arms.

He’ll be at home, waiting for me. Waiting to hear all about it.

Jason and I break apart.

“Great job,” he says, wearing an encouraging smile. “That was really good.”

“Thanks.” The adrenaline spikes again then, glittering in my veins, the rush that comes from nailing an audition. And I did nail it. I absolutely did. I beam out at Rowan. “Thanks so much.”

“We’ll get back with you,” she says, scribbling more notes on her notepad.

I grab my purse and stroll out through the theater, taking deep breaths to cleanse myself of the dangerous excitement pulsing through me. Damn, my hopes are high. It would be icing on the cake, really, to finally land a role. This thing with Wes—this risky, tentative, serious thing—is enough to make all those hours at the agency seem like nothing.

But getting this?

This would be a godsend. I’d finally have a success to tell Summer about. The four of us could all go out together and talk about how our dreams were coming true.

I walk through the dusky evening light. I should call her. I should call her and tell her everything. It’s her brother, after all.

If I get the part, I’ll tell her. That’s what I’ll do. It’ll be a surprise. Everyone will be so surprised and happy for me, especially Wes.

I catch the train home with his name on my lips.