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“Sorry—” he began, then cut off. “Force of habit. I’ll stop apologizing.”
“Neither of us have anything to apologize for,” I went on, staring at him intensely. “Even if the original agreement was to be platonic friends, neither of us can help if feelings develop. Or if they don’t develop. All of it is fine.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m just in a weird place. I’m mostly over my ex, but I’m still not confident enough to put myself out there without feeling uncomfortable. But I liked our kiss!”
I leaned into him. “Me too.”
We paused while someone shouldered past us in the aisle.
“You know what else has been on my mind?” he said. “I don’t know how the others would feel about it. We’ve all sort of declared our intentions up front, and for me to suddenly change it… What? What’s the matter?”
I must’ve been grimacing. I sighed and said, “I sort of, kind of, told the others about it already.”
“Seriously?”
“Andy and Ryan,” I clarified. “I don’t know if Braden knows.”
Dorian stared at the seat in front of him. “How’d they take it?”
“They didn’t seem to care. They’re not possessive at all.”
“Still,” Dorian sighed. “I don’t want to be the only one to—”
I grabbed his hand and squeezed hard enough to make him cut off. When he turned to face me I finally told him what he needed to know.
“Braden and I slept together.”
He gave a start. “What? When?”
“Technically, it was before I agreed to your weird four-person proposition,” I explained. “The night you all sprung it on me. Since then, things have been kind of weird between us. I… have feelings for him.” I shrugged. “I can’t help it. But it’s sort of there, lingering every day I live with you guys. And he said he has complicated feelings too. I’m droning on, but the point is that you’re not the first one to potentially change the agreement we all made.”
Dorian listened quietly. The train stopped at another station, people got off and on, and then the train moved again before he finally spoke.
“That actually does make me feel better.” Relief shone in his emerald eyes. “It doesn’t resolve how… I feel about you, but it makes me feel less guilty.”
I squeezed his hand in mine. “We can figure that out later. For now, I’m glad to have you as my friend.”
“Me too, Nadia.”
The cast was whispering excitedly when we arrived backstage at the theater. “Dorian!” one of the dancers said. “Did you hear? There’s a Broadway writer watching our rehearsal tonight!”
We peeked around the curtain into the audience. A lone man sat in the back row, texting on his phone. He looked to be in his 30s.
“Wow,” Dorian said. “I had no idea!”
I struggled to keep a straight face at his overly fake enthusiasm. I forgot that the rest of the cast didn’t know the writer was coming until they showed up tonight.
“Who invited him?” Tatiana asked. She had her arms crossed over her chest and a worried expression on her face.
“Atkins must have. Or the producer,” I said.
She didn’t react to me mentioning her grandfather. That was interesting. It meant he hadn’t told her about the Times writer ahead of time. Why would he spring it on her like that without a warning?
As Tatiana paced back and forth, I couldn’t help but sympathize with her. It was one thing to give a sucky performance on a random rehearsal night, but in front of someone who would write about it in one of the most circulated papers in the world…
“Hey!” she suddenly shouted, snapping her fingers at one of the backup dancers. “Please stay out of my field of view. I’m trying to get into the proper mindset for my solo tonight!”
And there goes my sympathy. I glanced at Dorian and he rolled his eyes.
