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

“Buttercup?” I questioned although I knew what the answer would be.

Lydia shrugged out of her faux pink fur coat, revealing a terribly skimpy spaghetti-strap dress.

“Don’t be silly, Edith,” she said to me. “Buttercup is our sister.”

Right—her zany method acting, if you could call it that. So Holly was now Buttercup, and I wondered, by the way she was nuzzled close to Cole, if he was her Wesley.

I’d never been inside Phillip’s Gastro Pub before. The location was a former Blockbuster Video and had been vacant for some time before some developers tore the building down to the foundation. I remember watching the progress each time I passed that way, and once it was finally finished, I figured it was far too hipster for me and my pocketbook. One look at the trendy hemp menu and my suspicions were confirmed. A hamburger with a side of slaw was twenty-eight dollars, and that was the cheapest entree they had. My reaction must have played plainly on my features because Cole leaned across the table and placed his warm, heavy hand on mine.

“It’s my treat tonight.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t accept—”

“Just order something,” Jorge interjected. “You’ll make all the rest of us look like jerks if you don’t.”

I looked around the table to find the nodding faces of Lydia and Holly in agreement with Jorge.

“You can repay me with a song,” Cole bade to me. “It’s karaoke night.”

Great! Karaoke. I considered myself an open-minded person, but there were a select few things I disliked on this great earth of ours: war, poverty, global warming, Will Darcy, and karaoke.

This evening was turning out to be far from what I expected. I wasn’t prepared to make a fool out of myself by singing I Got You Babe in front of my director, much less the humiliation of conceding to the offer of a free dinner. To compound the whole armpit of a night, Lydia took the seat closest to Jorge, placing me far from his side. Even though we had hit it off earlier, I didn’t have a claim on him, nor was I sure I wanted to just yet, but for the hours that led up to meeting up with him, all I wanted was to do was ask about his acquaintance with Will. There was a juicy story in there somewhere, and I was too curious for my own good. As it stood, we were in a bar too noisy for conversation, a night of drunk karaoke revelry was on the horizon, and our party was getting bigger by the minute by the addition of the lip-syncing pirate.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Denny took the empty chair between me and Cole, rounding out our party of six. Presently, Denny the lip-syncing pirate, with whom I’d never spoken two words in succession, gave me an artless grin and claimed my water for himself.

“You’re not drinking this, are you?” he asked. “I’m parched.”

I just shook my head because, frankly, I’d never given it more of a passing thought that he could have any word in his vocabulary other than watermelon.

“You all know my nephew Denny, of course,” said Cole.

We all nodded and smiled, but Lydia twirled her hair and winked.

“Hi Danny.”

“It’s Denny. With an ‘e,’” he said nonplussed. “Like the restaurant.”

“Oh,” she purred, casting her eyeballs all over him in open assessment. “Are you open all night?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” he said without a pause. “And I’ve got hot cakes.”

“I like to call them flapjacks,” she cooed.

Jorge laughed lightly—that beautiful, unaffected laugh—and he caught my stare. His eyes flickered over me with awareness, sharing a moment—the sort of telepathic moment that suggests Let’s blow this taco stand. Or maybe I was imagining things.

All I knew was that this conversation was getting weird and oddly enough, making me hungry for pancakes. Denny’s (the restaurant, not the pirate) would have been much cheaper, less hipster, and best of all, have no karaoke.

I had to admit, however, as the evening progressed and after a few margaritas, we all relaxed into comfortable intimacy like good friends. Cole surprised me the most with his easy humor. I suppose I never thought of him more than the stern director he wore as a facade at the theatre. He wore many hats as any professional would. It was a pleasant discovery on my part. It was also alarmingly plain there was a lot more going on between him and Holly than innocent flirting. I found myself watching them every so often through the night—the touches, the stolen whispers. What was the age difference between them? It had to be close to thirty years. And yet they were so beautifully matched and so incandescently in love, it hardly mattered.

Lydia, never one to turn down a free drink, made good use of Cole’s generosity. He’d left an open tab for our table, ordering pitcher after pitcher of margaritas. And Phillip’s Gastro Pub, being overly trendy and hipster, had delicious and expensive artisan-crafted margaritas. We were all a little buzzed and so cozily paired, we danced all night. And when a patron on the karaoke mic would sing painfully off key, we’d cheer them on with raucous encouragement. To Cole’s amusement, and my astonishment, Denny and Lydia sang Don’t Go Breaking My Heart as a duet. Denny actually had a great voice as he channeled his inner Elton John. No lip-syncing at all. It was so contagious, I dragged Jorge on stage to join as back-up singers. He was reluctant at first, and I found the timid reaction an endearing, awkward garment he clearly didn’t frequently wear.

“I’m a backstage guy,” he said later on. “I’ll leave the performing to you.”

“You did great.” I laughed. “With the exception of all the ho-ho-hos.”

“It’s not ho-ho?”

“No, Santa Claus, it’s ooo-ooo.”

The corners of his lips curled and leaned into me, brushing his stubble against my ear. “I’m really good at coming down chimneys.”

His breath was hot on the