The World is a Stage Read Free

delightful. That’s exactly what our guests pay to see.”
    “Shove off, Dominic,” Rachel promptly replied.
    Most of the cast and crew didn’t dare question Dominic’s superior opinion in all matters Shakespeare and stage. The man, aged gracefully into his late forties with the salt-and-pepper hair that had always been his signature, boasted of the quintessential academic. For years, he’d taught English classes at the local university. This production was his brainchild, a gutsy move to introduce classic literature to the masses by whatever means were necessary.
    Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one whose nipples had to be taped down to keep them from popping out of his top.
    “Five minutes to places. We won’t wait for you, Rachel—I mean it this time.”
    “I hear you, already. I’m just going to give Molly a quick touch-up.”
    He paused a beat too long, his gaze lingering on the band of thigh where garter met stocking. “Okay. Break a leg.”
    As the door clicked shut behind him, Molly sucked in a sharp, excited breath. “Ooooh, he likes you. Are you going to start seeing him again?”
    Rachel’s response was a sharp look and a strong hand that forced her sister to the seat she’d just been occupying.  
    It was no secret she and Dominic had once dated. And by dated, she meant she’d been a starry-eyed drama student and he’d been the bespectacled and patchouli-scented professor of all her college-age longings. There had been a lot of clandestine, locked-office sex. Not a whole lot of nice dinners for two.
    A real gentleman. Even if he redeemed himself with an entire month of nice dinners, dating a guy like Dominic wasn’t in the long-term plan. Dating anyone wasn’t in the long-term plan. These days, a girl either got a Neanderthal whose knuckles and balls dragged on the ground, or a clean-shaven city boy with retractable testes.
    It was slim pickings out there.
    Rachel peered into her sister’s face and quickly worked her over with some powder and an eye pencil. She thought they were done with the conversation, but Molly had more to say.
    “You’re wrong, you know.” Molly kept her facial movements to a minimum, her voice soft. “Eric is different. You’ll see. He’s coming to the show and to the cast party at Dominic’s tonight. He really wants to meet you.”
    “Good,” Rachel agreed. She turned away so her sister couldn’t see how hard it was for her to keep a smile plastered on her face. “I can’t wait to meet him too.”
    “Really?”
    “Really.”
    They hurried out of the room and to the backstage area, a fairly large extension of the stage that held all their equipment, changes of costume, and one or two weather-beaten couches that were a welcome respite from their dangerously tall heels. The entire female cast hobbled around in said heels and bustiers, the men primarily in pants so tight the little muscular indentation of every one of their butt cheeks within a twenty-foot radius was clearly outlined.
    Another day, another dollar.
    Even though it was obvious Molly wanted to keep talking, Rachel expertly maneuvered them to their spots without once mentioning the tattooed and ineligible man of her sister’s dreams.
    Because Rachel would go ahead and meet this guy, all right.
    And then she’d get rid of him before he got anywhere near her sister’s soft, malleable and completely patchwork heart.

Chapter Two
    A Freckled Whelp
     
    Michael didn’t normally favor hats for casual wear. If you asked him, they had a tendency to move a man firmly up the charts of tool-dom. The jauntier the angle, the more likely the guy was to post pictures of his dick on the Internet.
    But if there was one thing he learned in high school, it was that a hat provided the perfect cover for long, boring lectures given by long-faced, boring men. He wasn’t taking any chances on this Shakespeare fellow. A wool fedora went firmly over his head, and just to give Peterson something to bitch about, he