Backstage Romance: An Austen-Inspired Romantic Comedy Box Set by Gigi Blume (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📕

lunch remained in the green room or the rehearsal studio, and since nobody was in the house, the theatre was dark. I felt like a voyeur, running my hands along the velvet-backed seats as I made my way down the aisle. How many patrons had sat in those seats over the years? What stories they could tell of entertainments long ago enjoyed, faded laughter and echoes of applause. Such history was etched within the walls, along the proscenium and upon that stage. Such a beautiful stage!

I glanced around the enormity of the theatre. Not a soul in sight, not on the stage, not in the tech booth high above the balcony, not in the orchestra pit. I was alone. Yet there was an awareness that tickled the back of my neck as I stepped onto the stage as if I were passing some invisible border. It wasn’t as though I was restricted to enter that magical realm—after all, I would be performing in a few, short weeks. But somehow, it was as if the stage were my lover, and I wasn’t to cross its virgin threshold until our wedding night. There was only one thing to do. Only one thing in answer to my fantastical little musings.

Tap dance.

If there’s one thing musical theatre performers can’t resist when presented with the broad, beautiful surface of a stage, it’s tap dancing. Flaps, shuffle off to Buffalo, pullbacks, time steps, you name it. We love to tap. It’s an addiction, like dollar slots for grandmas or Starbucks for basic white girls. I was always that annoying person, tapping down the aisles of the supermarket, at the DMV, at the museum—anywhere that had a floor that went click, click, click at my footfall. A stage? Well, that’s just tap Disneyland. The surface looked sooo satisfying—like protruding veins for nurses or clickable plaque for dental hygienists. I had to get my fix.

I began with some flaps, just to get accustomed to the resistance my Converse All Stars gave on the floor and made a mental note to bring my tap shoes (along with pointe shoes) the next day.

I transitioned into the time step and before I knew it, my feet were flying, doing paddles and syncopated digs. I was in tap heaven. Tappity tap, tap.

And for my big finish, the Bombershay Broadway!

I supposed I liked this step because of the name. Also, I had a thing for traveling steps. I could make an entrance or even a memorable exit doing the Buffalo or Bombershay Broadway. Like at the convenience store after getting my change. Just shuffle on out of there. Or at the bank. A spank step and twist ball change and a see ya later!

The whole human race needed to learn to tap. It would achieve world peace.

So I was doing my Bombershays, imagining myself in A Chorus Line or Thoroughly Modern Millie, when the rubber soles of my Converse caught on the floor, or my feet, or the laces. It happened in a millisecond, but I was flying through the air, trying to flap my arms as if that would help, and crashed onto the hard plane of man flesh. My first reaction as I fell was to grab onto something to get my bearings. My hands instinctively reached out and clutched onto the closest thing they could reach, and oh man, they were rewarded with miles and miles of muscle attached to long, sinewy arms.

At the same moment, as I slid down to my utter humiliation, my face found a place to burrow and stifle a scream. I found myself in the peculiar position of staring straight into the midst of a dark, olive-skinned set of abs. Also more muscles. A pair of strong, sure hands reached behind me and before I could be completely devastated by a crash to the floor, they scooped me up and held me close to their owner’s chest. It was indeed a fine chest, but what was more fascinating was the set of perfectly white teeth smiling down at me, attached to what could only be described as the most perfect face imaginable. It was almost unfair how perfect it was, so beautiful it might not have been real. His skin was a golden brown, a natural tan made even more bronze by the effects of the sun as was evident by the whips of blond invading his chestnut hair. A long, straight nose dipped down, pointing to lips full and plump and rounded with a single dimple on his left cheek. But what most arrested me in that moment were his eyes. Lord in heaven, those eyes! I cannot guarantee a little drool wasn’t dripping on my chin, but while the rest of this Latin demigod was carved from Quetzalcoatl’s hot chocolate, those gorgeous eyes were blue-green, like the ocean in Cozumel, and they looked at me like I was the last piece of flan. I felt gooey and soft. I probably wouldn’t have protested if he were to request a taste test.

“Do you often lose your balance, or just enjoy attacking the floor?”

The demigod speaks!

He set my feet gently on the floor and held me at arm’s length, his hands still searing into the small of my back.

“Oh, uh.” My mouth might as well have been stuffed with cotton balls because he rendered me speechless with his shirtless, golden torso and the swagger of a caliente surfer dude.

At length, I managed to say, “I was doing a gravity check.” I tapped a foot on the floor. “Yep. It works.” Dork status: check!

He smiled and generously chuckled at my dorkiness. His lips curled as he said with a shrug, “Here I was hoping a beautiful woman was finally falling for me.”

“Um…” I croaked. Was he flirting with me?

“I’m Jorge.”

Wow. He pronounced his name with a soft roll of the tongue. Also, he was so gorgeous, my IQ dropped several points.

“Hor-hay,” I repeated. “Is that spelled with a… W-H, or just an H?”

“With a J.” He