“Thanks, Tins. I appreciate the advice, but I can take care of myself.”
“I know.” She shifted her weight to the other foot. “Sometimes, though, it can be hard to see it when you’re in the midst of it all, you know? Trust me on this. Don’t let yourself get hurt, okay?”
“I won’t.”
She let herself in to her dressing room and tried to shrug off the uncomfortable conversation and prediction. That’s not what today was about. She looked around her dressing room instead to find an embarrassment of riches in the form of good show gifts. Custom coffee mugs, ball caps, more flowers, and even a show hoodie. Her company had gone all out. She’d distribute her own gifts, small survival kits with a celestial theme, soon enough. In the corner of her dressing room, something large caught her eye. She tilted her head and studied the strange arrival: a shrink-wrapped pallet of boxes of some kind. Lauren dipped into her stage manager’s kit, always at the ready, grabbed a pocketknife, and tore through the wrap to spring open one of the boxes. What she found made her laugh out loud. Boxes and boxes of multicolored Post-its in all shapes. With her hands on her hips, she marveled at the volume. She’d not live long enough to use them all.
“Has anyone ever expressed their preshow affection via office supplies before?” She turned to see Carly standing behind her, sporting a triumphant grin.
“I can’t say they have. You’re definitely proving yourself to be memorable.”
Carly wiped her brow to dramatically convey her relief. “Thank God. I can’t compete with red roses.” She pointed to the large arrangement. “I’ll just blend.”
Lauren walked to Carly and wrapped her arms around her neck, not even bothering to close the door. “You couldn’t blend if you wanted to.”
Carly looked skyward, pulling Lauren closer. “I feel like that’s a challenge. What did you get me? Tell me. I can’t take it.”
Lauren pulled her face back. “You? Nothing at all. You’re rich and need no further material possessions.” Carly’s bottom lip emerged in a pout for the history books.
“Don’t level the Daniel pout on me. That’s playing dirty.” More pouting. “I’m not made of stone.”
“Then kiss me and give me a gift because I love gifts.” Carly looked so expectant in that moment that anyone would be an idiot not to fall for her immediately.
Lauren touched Carly’s chin and offered her a slow kiss that she hoped communicated Good show. I find you very sexy. Break a leg. I could kiss you for days. Surely, she’d succeeded on all four counts. “Now, about that gift.”
Carly grinned and clapped like a kid on her birthday. She went from beautiful to sweet to sophisticated to innocent and back again with such ease. The contradictions kept Lauren captivated. She went to her bag of survival kits and pulled out a separate gift that she’d wrapped up special for Carly.
“I believe this is what you’re looking for,” she said and presented the rectangular present.
Carly carried it to the couch, already enamored. “I was actually just kidding,” she said, sounding nervous. “You didn’t need to do anything special for me.”
Lauren shrugged and sat next to her. “I wanted to.”
The moment felt quiet, like the hubbub of the day had gone still for them for a few minutes. Carly unwrapped the gift and stared down at the inscribed frame that held a print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
“Lauren,” Carly whispered achingly, running her hand down the mahogany frame. That’s when she caught sight of the inscription. To the only other person I’d want to watch stars with. –L. Carly shook her head in wonder and then touched her heart. “This is an amazing gift. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say it goes with the décor in your home and that you’re not secretly scheming to ditch it in the deepest recesses of your garage. Which, of course, is very much your right.”
Carly was still admiring the painting. “It’s going someplace special where I can see it each and every day.”
“Really?” Lauren felt her heart reaching. She needed to be careful. Maybe because it felt like she’d climbed to a very precarious height? Things between her and Carly had started rocky but had steadily built to something she never in a million years would have predicted. Yet here she sat. Caring. Wanting. Reaching.
“Really.” Carly kissed her softly. “I will treasure it.”
“You smell amazing,” Lauren said. “How do you do that so