Chapter 46: Chapter 46: The Sidekick and Play Preparations (Part 1)

Juliet’s hands were soft and small, completely dwarfed within my own. As was to be expected of a noble lady from the House of Capulet. What was unexpected were the rugged calluses lining the pads of her fingers. Did she perhaps partake in the rugged pastime of fencing? But I hardly had time to contemplate that fact when I would rather contemplate her beauty. Her sparkling eyes seemed to study me, golden hair tucked behind her ears, as her pink lips parted to impart a message:

“Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this;

For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,

And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.”

Suddenly, I felt like my brain could no longer understand the modern English vernacular. Such an occurrence could undoubtedly be chalked up to overtiredness, so I returned to the fair lady with a smile. “Have not saints' lips, and holy palmers too?”

Juliet broke into raucous bouts of chortling, unfit of such status pertained to her. This behavior continued until her character was broken completely. She clung to me, unable to stop laughing. For an instant, I considered pulling away and letting her fall, but I was a gentleman even when I wasn’t forced to act.

“You know, you’re letting an amateur show you up.”

“Somehow I’m not concerned about it.” Nora snorted so loud it sounded like a whistle. “Thanks for helping me run through the lines, but could you put a little more emotion into it? You sound like you’re reading off a grocery list.”

“Well, pardon me for having less acting experience. I literally told you that me and Ethan faked being sick to get out of having to be in a play.”

“What role could the two of you have even gotten?” she asked.

“Trees. We were trees.”

That set her off all over again, except she decided to lean on one of the desks in Mr. Morrison’s classroom. He had been kind enough to lend Nora his room during lunch to practice her script, and this was how she repaid his kindness? By making fun of his favorite student? That was crossing a line.

Nora remained keeled over by the desk but refrained from any more random bursts of laughter. “You realize this scene is about Romeo convincing Juliet to kiss him? You need to be a little more passionate.”

“In that case, we should skip straight to the kiss, and I’ll show you how passionate I can be.”

She huffed and glanced away. “You’ll have to take me on a few dates before we talk about letting lips do what hands do.”

I had been messing around with her, but her embarrassed reaction made it worth it. Not that I was joking about wanting to kiss her. I wanted to do that. There was a process with this kind of stuff, though, and neither Nora nor me were going to ruin this by rushing into things. Also, while there would never be a perfect moment, I didn’t want our first kiss to be shared in a classroom. Even I was a little more romantic than that.

This was a convenient moment for Ethan, Amelia, and Chloe to enter the classroom and witness her acting all flustered while I stood there with my mouth partway agape, trying to think of how to apologize.

“And we came all the way over here to congratulate the new couple only to find them already fighting. How sad! How tragic! How befitting of the successors to Romeo and Juliet! Young love not meant to be.” Amelia finished her short monologue with a bow and applause from the other two.

I slapped a hand against my forehead. “You guys are hysterical. Truly.”

“I keep telling them we should consider stand-up comedy,” Ethan said.

“Just let me know when your shows are. I promise I won’t heckle you or anything,” Nora said, placing her script down. “And we weren’t fighting. He was trying to make me stop practicing the script and start practicing kissing him.”

Now it was my turn for my face to light up. “No, it was a part of the script.”

I could feel everybody’s eyes on me.

“Ok, alright. I may have ad-libbed a little. Only like seventy-thirty if I had to put a number on it.”

I could feel everybody’s eyes narrow. Amelia’s especially were starting to frighten me. Brimstone and fire were all I could see reflected there, and I wanted no piece of that.

“I was just kidding, but is it really that bad to want to kiss my girlfriend?”

Ethan clapped me on the back, making me stumble forward a few steps. “Day two of dating, and you’re already trying to put the moves on our little Nora? You're a regular Casanova.”

“We should leave them be. They were trying to enjoy their lunch in peace,” Chloe said. “We came by to check what time your rehearsal was tomorrow, and if you needed anything from us.”

Thank you, Chloe. I always believed you were the voice of reason.

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Nora shook her head. “I think we’re good on that front, so all you have to do is show up and let me know what you think.”

I turned to her with a start, realizing I missed an important detail. “Wait, what rehearsal?”

Amelia giggled. “Nora told us about it in the group chat last night… which nobody added you to yet. Whoops?”

Group chat? This was the first I was hearing of it. And Nora was at my house last night. Why didn’t she extend an invite? I felt kind of hurt until I figured there must have been a reasonable explanation for this. Thinking things through logically, it wasn’t like anyone here had a vendetta against me.

Ethan let out a weak chuckle. “That’s my bad. I meant to invite you but kept forgetting.”

And the reason was my best friend was an idiot. I should have known.

“That’s my bad, but you can’t blame me for being a little distracted yesterday, though.” Nora pointed a finger at the rest of them. “Not like it’s a big deal, though. They never put anything useful in there anyway.”

“What do you use it for then?” I asked, uncertain whether I wanted to hear their responses.

“Memes.”

“Cat videos.”

“Rating unflattering photos of you and Ethan.”

“Yeah, I mean that last one was originally why the group was created.”

“...I’ve decided I want nothing to do with this group.”

“It’s fine,” Ethan said. “Chloe and Amelia always rate the photos really high. It’s Nora who’s a stick in the mud and always gives us a three or less.”

“Nora? You don’t really rate me that low, right?” I asked.

She tilted her head cutely. “What can I say? You’re dating up.”

“How is it that everybody I know is impossible to deal with?” I sighed dramatically. “Anyway, is Rika going to be there?”

A subtle glance was exchanged between Chloe and Ethan. It became less subtle when he nodded his head, but she vehemently shook hers. He grumbled a complaint that sounded like something about never being able to understand women. “I don’t think so. Me and her got into a little disagreement yesterday, and she’s also busy with helping prep for the Spring Fling.”

That was difficult to believe. Rika and Ethan never seemed to have any bad blood before, and I couldn’t imagine what they would have to fight about. Then again, maybe that was part of the reason she seemed a little off yesterday and didn’t want to talk much. They could have gotten into an argument right before I arrived and made everything awkward. That sucked, but I’d keep my nose out of it, trusting Ethan would come to me if he really needed advice.

Still, I felt bad at the amount of relief that flooded through me about her being upset at Ethan rather than something else.

The bell chimed, signaling the end of our lunch. Like magic, the hallways filled with students loudly stomping, laughing, and pushing their way toward class. It drowned out our conversation and ruined the fun atmosphere we had going, reminding us we also had classes to attend.

Chloe cleared her throat. “When is it?”

“It starts at 3:45 in the auditorium. We’re still a little rough around the edges, but I hope you’ll enjoy it.”

“I’m sure it’ll be great. And if you need any trees, you can count on us!” Ethan proclaimed.

The dam broke once more, and we had to work as a team to herd Nora to science. It wasn’t like she could see where she was going with all those tears streaming down her face. Amelia wiped under her eyes with her sleeve before nudging her into the room. Her teacher glanced up from taking attendance, telling her to take a seat. We milled around the door until she took a seat and then began to hurry away so we weren’t late.

“You told her about that?” my best friend asked, keeping pace with me since we were both in art next.

“Don’t worry. I regret it.”

We nodded in unison, an unspoken agreement that we would never tell another soul about that damn play.