Chapter One

Olivia

Stage lights burned into the back of my neck, and my stomach dropped into my ass as Mark held the ring out in front of me. Placed perfectly in its velvet box, it glittered in the harsh artificial light as he knelt amongst the scattered rose petals.

Oh no. 

I couldn’t breathe. Beads of sweat adorned my neck, and pooled under my breasts. The rest of the theater was dark. Crimson seats sat empty, void of unexpectant gasps and congratulatory applause, because this wasn’t a show. This was my real fucking life. 

I left my office to lock up and head home after prepping for the touring summer season. Instead, I found my freshly cleaned theater full of fluttering candles, like a scene out of a Lifetime movie I’d never watch. 

Mark knelt center stage in his neatly tailored gray suit. He seemed a little breathless, but not nervous. Then he asked it, the dreaded question. “Olivia Turner, will you marry me?” 

I didn’t know what to say—I mean, “yes” would’ve been the obvious answer. Mark and I had been together for three years. A proposal shouldn’t have been a complete surprise. So then why could I do nothing except stand there with my mouth agape? 

Freeze had never been my preferred reactionary response. I’d always been a flight kind of girl. I shifted my weight, so my feet weren’t actually frozen to the floor, but I still couldn’t seem to run. My paint splattered sweatpants created a sauna against my legs, but at least they matched the equally crusty University of California Oak Valley ball cap I wore to hide the sheen of my unwashed hair—not exactly what I envisioned myself wearing when getting proposed to. In fact, nothing about this moment was what I envisioned. Mostly because I didn’t envision it. Ever. 

A flutter of motion from the wings drew my attention, curtains rustling. My co-workers lingered in the shadows, presumably waiting to see me get engaged. 

Jesus, is Leo recording this on his phone? 

The sickly sweet smell of rose petals scattered in romantic grandstanding was foul. They baked in the flood of light streaming from the rafters. Wilting. Shriveling. I was pretty sure I was gonna be sick.

“Olivia?” Mark asked, still kneeling, still offering the ring to me.

Say something, Liv. 

A whooshing throbbed in my ears. My heart slammed against my ribs, as hard as if I had actually managed to bolt like my limbs longed for. I tried to breathe. Air was going in, but it wasn’t going out. 

Am—am I having a panic attack? 

I tried not to linger on the thought that a panic attack probably wasn’t a normal reaction to getting proposed to, and forced myself to take a few steadying gulps of air. 

In. Out. Speak. “Um. Wow.”

“I needed to tell you how I felt before you left for the summer,” Mark said quickly. “I couldn’t let you leave without asking you to marry me, Liv.”

Oh right. I had almost forgotten I was leaving in the morning to teach at my alma mater for four months. A whole separate panic-inducing event. 

One fire at a time.

Mark brushed back into place the singular strand of cropped blonde hair that had escaped its gelled brethren. I took his hands, encouraging him to stand, and his brows pinched in confusion. I gritted my teeth against the unmistakable watery feeling in my mouth. 

I’m definitely going to be sick…

Leo, my assistant director, lowered his phone with a grimace. Whereas Gayle, my boss and production manager, looked even more uncomfortable than I did. One of them had to have let Mark in the building to set all this up. 

Traitors.

I still hadn’t said more than a few words, and none of them had been “yes.” The suspenseful stares of my staff  seared into my back like lasers. It was all too much.

Mark’s face fell. The absence of an answer speaking for itself. He might’ve been disappointed, but before I could assess his emotions, his features forced themselves into a mask of neutrality. One I’d seen him wear countless times. 

As a lawyer, Mark’s knack for faking composure made him eerily good at his job. But the unnatural emptiness behind his eyes unnerved me. I could only speculate about how his repressed disappointment would manifest later. It always came out eventually. Often loudly.

Unease soured my gut. I desperately needed a moment away from Gayle, Leo, and the baked floral smell. Just a moment where I had full use of my brain, and wasn’t on the precipice of barfing. 

“Can we go outside?” I finally asked. “It’s hot as hell in here. Let’s talk for a sec.” 

Eyes, once soft brown, were cold stone staring back at me. Mark gathered himself, straightening his jacket, and closing the ring box with a snap, returning it to his pocket. He didn’t look back as he strode down the stairs, past the rows of empty chairs, and through the lobby doors that slammed ominously behind him. 

My whole body cringed at the sound. 

I knew from experience to give him a moment. A break before the buzzer. Then I’d have to get back in the ring for, what I assumed would be, a hell of a round two. 

I ran a hand down my face. “Would you guys mind locking up? I need to—deal with this.”

Leo dismissively waved me off. “We’ve got it.”

Already blowing out the wax pillars, he gathered an armful and dumped them into a nearby trash can. The tang of soot burned my nose. A thick lump bobbed in my throat, but I was well rehearsed in forcing it into submission. I swallowed, trapping it behind the constricting of my vocal chords.

I wouldn’t cry. I refused to cry.

Despite the sensation of not quite being in my body, I managed to nod and say, “Thanks.”

Leo tilted his head. “You okay, kid?”

A lot of people around here still called me that, despite being twenty-nine. I was one of the youngest directors they had on staff at the San Francisco Regional Theater, so I had accepted the nickname as a term of endearment and not a slight.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself.

As if it were just another scene change, Gayle retrieved a broom from the wings, and they cleared the remaining evidence of Mark’s proposal quickly and efficiently. 

“He cornered one of the stagehands,” Leo said. “They let him in.”

The relief that Leo had nothing to do with my blindside loosened some of the tension paining my shoulders. Though Gayle remained unusually quiet. 

She gave me a weighted look I couldn’t read. Like she was trying to tell me something, and I was supposed to decipher from a bark that Timmy had fallen into the well again. Her movements were tight as she emptied a dustpan of petals, averting her gaze.

Weird.

I tossed her the thick ring of keys that jangled from the clip on my waistband. “See you guys in August.”

“Have a good summer, Liv. Don’t—don’t be too hard on him.” She glanced over her shoulder where Mark had disappeared, her lips tightening into a thin line.

As she and Leo exited through the stage door, Gayle flipped the switch behind them.  Darkness swept in. The ghost light illuminated behind me as I walked down the aisle. The panic began to subside, but my head was airy, unfocused. I felt a little like one of the spirits the light on stage was meant to deter, watching this shitshow unfold from above. 

My pace slowed. Maybe I was going insane, maybe it was shock, but suddenly, and without warning, I began to laugh. Full-bellied madness howled through me, and I gripped a velvet seat back for support. 

If I couldn’t cry, my body needed to release the pressure inside me somehow. 

And it was kinda funny. Despite the countless shows I had directed in my eight years working at the Regional—it had to have been one of the most dramatic events to unfold on that stage.