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“Your phone number?” Cameron asked as he took it. “Finally!”

Anthony seemed confused. “Huh?”

Cameron glanced around before leaning closer. “You’re the first guy to give me his number.”

“Oh,” Anthony said with another laugh. “I’m still zero for zero.”

“Let me fix that for you,” Cameron said, reaching for the pen and paper.

As he wrote his number down, he thought about their most recent exchange. After he’d said “finally” Skylar surely would have replied with something along the lines of, “I know, but like I said, my parents are paranoid.” Except he hadn’t. In fact, nothing from those previous conversations had been referenced.

“Are you any good with computers?” Cameron asked.

Anthony shook his head. “How come?”

“There’s a way we could chat. If it’s too late to call. Ever been on a BBS before?”

“Nope. Sorry.” Anthony rolled his eyes when the bell rang again. “We could cut class together. Make a run for it and never look back.”

Cameron smiled. “Some other time. See you around.”

“Yeah,” Anthony said, sounding short of breath. “See ya.”

As it turned out, they needed to walk in the same direction to get where they were going. This made them laugh. Especially when it turned out their classes were directly across the hall from each other. They both turned around when at their respective doors, taking one last look at each other before forced to go their separate ways. The funny thing was, Cameron was now convinced that he had never chatted with Anthony previously. They were strangers. And yet, somehow he felt like they’d already known each other for a lifetime.

— — —

“Six weeks of Hell,” Ms. Deville declared in a loud booming voice that carried across the auditorium. “That’s what you’ll have to go through before you take this stage in front of an audience. By then you will most assuredly hate me. You probably won’t be very fond of each other either. But when the curtain falls at the end of the evening, and you hear the roar of applause as you take your final bow, you’ll understand why all the pain and misery was both necessary and worthwhile.”

Cameron watched, from a seat in the third row, as Ms. Deville swept her gaze across her theater students. Her presence commanded attention. She was an energetic full-figured woman with blond hair that was fading to gray. The shawls that she tended to wear would float behind her as she rushed around, as she was doing now, marching up and down the length of the stage while lecturing them. “If at any time you doubt yourability to see this production through to its opening night, if a voice inside your head insists that you’re not talented, dedicated, or strong enough, then I suggest you take a knife and slit its miserable little throat. Figuratively speaking of course. And if that doesn’t work, turn to your fellow classmates or come speak to me. We are more than a team now. We are more than a family. We are a company, in the most theatrical sense of the word, and you’ll soon discover that there is no greater bond. Now then… Let’s get this show on the road!”

Cameron let out a sigh of relief. The pressure wasn’t on him yet. His job today was to watch rehearsals while envisioning how the sets would function. Once it came time to build them, that’s when he would begin stressing the hell out. For now, he only needed to daydream.

“Aren’t you glad you’re not an actor?” he murmured after watching a series of disasters unfold on stage.

“Yes,” Keisha said from next to him. “You’re lucky you don’t have to work directly with them. Why are they all so damn stiff?” Choreography was her responsibility. Not just the dancing that would feature in the musical they performed each spring. She also had to ensure that the body language of the actors was both natural and expressive of what their characters felt. “And how come Whitney keeps putting a hand over her boobs each time she has a line?”

“Because you told her to do more with her arms during auditions,” Mindy said from the other side of him. “And you’re both crazy. I’d much rather be on stage.”

Except each time she tried, Mindy froze. Not that Cameron was judging. He always forgot his lines, no matter how well he memorized them beforehand.

“I can’t take any more,” Keisha said a few minutes later. “I know it’s only day one, but I see way too much that needs to stopnow. Liam is supposed to be a ninety-year-old man and he keeps prancing around the stage.”

They watched her swoop down the aisle and parkour onto the stage so she could berate everyone in sight.

“Then again,” Mindy said with a wince, “itismore comfortable being in the audience.”

“You’ll still be there on stage,” Cameron said. “Wardrobe is important. Without it, we’ll look like a bunch of teenagers playing make-believe.”

“Which is exactly what we are,” Mindy said.

“Yep. That’s why you and me need to work our magic to convince the audience otherwise.” He yawned and rested his feet on the chairback in front of him. “But not yet.”

Instead of visualizing the sets, his mind kept returning to Anthony and everything that had happened at lunch. He repeatedly had to remind himself that he was dealing with two different people. The sweet guy he had chatted with on the computer who had a wounded heart. And the cute guy he felt incredibly drawn to, despite knowing so little about him. Cameron wanted to learn more though, and he wasn’t sure if he could wait. So he didn’t.

“I ran into your ex-boyfriend today,” he said, turning to Mindy.

She turned her head to look down the aisle, as if expecting to see who he was talking to, but they were alone. “Was he hot?” Mindy asked. “I’m dying to know because I’ve never met him.”