Chapter 1
Rain hit the roof of the Millhaven Regional Theater like it had a personal grudge against the place. I’d been half listening to it for the last hour, more interested in getting the second coat of paint onto the flat in front of me, when the lights flickered once and went completely dead. The saw in my hand stopped halfway through a cut, and the whole cavernous space dropped into darkness so complete it seemed to swallow the sound right along with the light.
“Oh, come on,” I said to nobody. “I had two more coats to go.”
I stood there for a second, waiting for my eyes to adjust, listening to the storm hammer the metal roof above the stage. Being backstage at eleven at night during a blackout was not exactly my favorite version of solitude, but panicking had never fixed a breaker, and it certainly wasn’t going to fix this one. I felt my way toward the workbench instead, found the edge of a paint can with my hand before I found anything useful, and hissed when the corner caught my knuckle.
“Lovely,” I muttered.
The theater had backup power for the important things, emergency exit signs, fire systems, anything that would become a very expensive lawsuit if it stopped working, but the work lights ran on a separate circuit that apparently had no interest in surviving a thunderstorm. I pulled my phone from my back pocket and switched on the flashlight, then headed toward the breaker panel near the loading dock.
Nothing.
The whole block must have gone down.
I was crouched beside my toolbox, digging around for the battery lantern I kept for exactly this kind of nonsense, when the side door banged open behind me.
Every muscle in my body tensed.
That door opened into an alley, and nobody used it except me and the two stagehands who had gone home hours ago. I forgot about the lantern and stood up slowly, my stomach sinking rapidly as I fumbled with my phone to try to get the flashlight going.
All of a sudden, I felt like I was the protagonist in a horror movie.
“Sorry, where is everyone?” a man’s voice called out, breathless and a little too loud for the empty room. “Shit, I thought it was supposed to be open, I swear I’m not breaking in.”
I raised my phone up like a weapon, which, in retrospect, would probably have been less useful against an actual intruder than I wanted to believe.
The beam landed on a man dripping rainwater onto the concrete floor, one hand braced against the doorframe, his chest still rising and falling like he’d been running. He looked as startled to see me as I was to see him, and for a second neither of us moved. Then he squinted at me.
“Is this not the Anchor?” he asked, wiping water out of his eyes with the back of his wrist.
I lowered the flashlight an inch.
“The what?”
“The bar. The Anchor, it’s supposed to be right around here somewhere.” He glanced past me into the dark, taking in shapes that were clearly not barstools. “I think I made a wrong turn.”
I lowered the flashlight slightly, though I kept my grip firm just in case my instincts were wrong about him.
He was tall in a way that made the doorway look smaller around him, broad through the shoulders, and absolutely drenched. His jacket was dark with rain and plastered to his upper body, the fabric clinging enough that I could make out the solid shape of his shoulders and the muscles underneath before I could stop myself from noticing. Water ran from the ends of his hair, down the sides of his face and along his jaw, collecting briefly at his chin before dropping onto the collar of his shirt.
His hair was dark, almost black in the weak light, thick enough that the rain had flattened it in uneven pieces across his forehead. His jeans were soaked too, darkened nearly black from the knees down, the denim clinging to his thighs and calves in a way that almost made my own pants slightly damp.
His eyes continued to look into mine, waiting for me to reply. Oops.
“The Anchor closed two years ago,” I said. “The theatre bought out that part of the building for an expansion.”
He processed that for a second, and something like embarrassment crossed his face even in the dim light.
“So… I just broke into a theater.”
“You didn’t break in, the door was unlocked because I’m an idiot who forgot to lock it behind the trash run.” I lowered the flashlight the rest of the way.
He glanced toward the door.
“So you’re the security system.”
“Obviously.”
His eyes dropped to the phone flashlight in my hand, then to the toolbox beside me.
“Very high-tech.”
“I also have a nail gun.”
That got his attention.
“See? We’re covered.” I smiled sweetly.
He laughed under his breath, then shook his head.
“So I’m standing in the wrong building, soaking wet, looking for a bar that stopped existing two years ago. This is kinda humiliating.”
“I imagine so.” I shrugged.
He laughed loudly then, probably relieved that it seemed like I wasn’t going to call the police. When his joy took over his face, it was obvious how beautiful he was.
Thunder cracked somewhere close enough to rattle the pipes overhead, and he flinched slightly before glancing toward the door he’d just come through, clearly weighing whether the rain outside was better than the stranger with a flashlight inside.
“Can I wait it out for a minute?” he asked. “Just until it lets up a little.”
I should have said no. Common sense, every safety training I had ever half paid attention to, and roughly a decade of living alone in cities that were not always kind to women at night all pointed toward no. But something about the way he stood there, dripping and mortified and clearly more embarrassed than dangerous, made the whole thing feel less like a threat and more like an inconvenience wearing a nice jacket.
“Fine,” I said. “But if you’re secretly a serial killer, I want you to know I’m willing to see if the nail gun can give a man a Prince Albert.”
“Noted.” He held up both hands like he was surrendering as he visibly cringed. “For the record, I’m not a serial killer.”
“That is exactly what a serial killer would say.”
“Fair point.”
He stepped further inside, letting the door swing shut behind him, and the storm noise dropped to a muffled roar.
I finally found the lantern, clicked it on, and set it on the workbench. It cast a soft yellow glow across the workbench and the half-painted flat leaning against the wall, and his eyes went wide taking in the space properly.
“Wow, this really is a theater,” he said, like he was only now confirming it out loud.
“That’s usually what happens when a building has a stage in it. Did you think I lied to you to get you in the door?”
“Maybe you were the serial killer all along.” He turned in a slow circle, taking in the rigging above and the rows of seats disappearing into the dark house beyond the proscenium. “I didn’t expect it to be this big from the outside.”
“Most things are bigger than they look from the outside.” I crouched to grab a folding chair from the stack near the workbench and set it upright for him. “Sit, dry off, try not to touch the wet paint.”
He looked at the chair, then at me.
“Are you always this welcoming?”
“Only with trespassers.”
He smiled at me, and I gave him a small smile back.
He sat down carefully, still dripping, and glanced at the half-finished flat like it might explain something about the strange night he was having. Good luck to him; if he stared too long at the set he may become even more disoriented. The last thing I needed was for this soaking wet and too large of a man to decide that he was on another planet and that I was an alien masquerading in a human suit.
I settled onto my usual stool, the one with the wobbly leg I kept meaning to fix, and reached for the battered thermos I always brought for the late nights. It still had coffee left, barely warm, but warm counted for something in a blackout.
“You want some?” I asked, holding it out. “Fair warning, it’s been sitting for hours and it’s probably terrible.”
“At this point I’d drink paint thinner if it was warm.” He took the thermos and the single cup lid I handed over, pouring a careful amount before passing it back. “Thank you. Really.”
“Please don’t. I have enough paperwork.”
He smiled and took a sip and made a face that told me everything I needed to know about how the coffee had aged. I laughed despite myself, and he laughed too once the initial grimace passed, both of us sitting there in the lantern light like the whole situation made perfect sense. He looked completely out of place sitting on a folding chair in the middle of my backstage mess, but at least he was making my night a bit more interesting.
Something about him felt easy in a way strangers rarely did, and I found myself studying him without meaning to while he studied the space around us with equal curiosity. His dark hair was still wet from the rain, and the soft expression on his face seemed like a contradiction to the rest of him. He caught me looking and didn’t seem to mind.
“So what do you actually do back here?” he asked, gesturing at the flat and the paint cans scattered around us. “Besides rescue idiots from the rain.”
“I build the world the actors get to pretend in.” I said a little dramatically on purpose, enjoying the way his eyebrows lifted. “Sets, mostly. Sometimes props if the budget’s tight, which it always is.”
“Sets and props and rescuing strangers,” he said. “You’ve got a whole operation going back here.”
“You’ve walked into a one-woman miracle operation.”
He laughed, turning his coffee cup between his hands. “That’s actually pretty cool. I spend most of my time arguing with people about where a wall should go, so I think you’ve got me beat.”
“Let me guess. You’re an architect?”
He glanced down at his jacket, then back at me. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only because you look like a nerd.” I teased him, letting my eyes travel over him.
He pressed a hand to his chest, mouth falling open in exaggerated shock. “A nerd? Me?” He shook his head slowly, like I’d wounded him. “I’ll have you know I’m extremely fun at parties. Reliably. Ask anyone.”
“Anyone who’s not an architect, AKA fellow nerd, you mean.”
“That’s most people, so it counts.”
We both laughed at the same time, and something about it, his laugh low and a little surprised, mine louder than I meant it to be, made the small room feel warmer than the lantern had managed all night. When the laughing wound down, neither of us looked away. He was watching me like he was seeing me a little differently now, and I let him, suddenly aware of my own pulse in a way I hadn’t been ten minutes ago.
The storm kept battering the roof, and somewhere in the dark theater beyond us water was probably finding its way through a gap in the old gutters, but none of that felt urgent anymore.
I could have gone back to worrying about the flat or the power staying out for the rest of the night, but instead I just sat there in the lantern light with an interesting stranger and I let myself enjoy it.
There was something almost funny about how random the entire night had turned, one wrong door away from being completely uneventful, and I kept catching myself smiling. I had spent enough nights in this building alone, painting until my hands cramped and my back ached from bending over the same three feet of plywood, that the company felt like a strange gift I hadn’t asked for but wasn’t about to refuse.
As we continued to talk, I noticed how he had this way of talking with his whole body, hands moving when he described things, like his enthusiasm needed somewhere to go besides his voice.
I noticed the little things too, the chip in his front tooth when he smiled wide enough, the way he kept glancing at the rigging above us like he was mentally calculating whether it could hold weight. Most people who wandered backstage looked bored within minutes, more interested in getting to their seats than in the machinery that made the whole show possible, but he looked genuinely fascinated by the mess of ropes and sandbags and half-built scenery around him. It made me wonder what his actual life looked like outside of a rainy alley and a wrong turn.
“Can I ask you something?” he said, breaking through my thoughts.
“Depends on the something,” I replied, glancing back at him and catching him already looking at me. His eyes darted down to his hands, and a faint flush climbed his neck.
“It’s Friday night,” he said, nodding toward the flat. “Why are you still here painting instead of doing something fun?”
I laughed. “Because I have two coats left, and my friends know better than to get between me and my work.”
“Fair enough, I hate to be interrupted when I’m in the middle of something too,” he replied. “Seriously, though, you really don’t have anyone waiting for you somewhere? Friends, a date, somebody who’s going to wonder why you’re not home?”
I snorted. “No. Nobody.”
At his smile, I backtracked.
“Scratch that, Mr. Serial Killer. I have ten hunky men at home, my mother, many friends and a feral wolf-dog all waiting for me to return home for a party, and they have the police on speed dial if I show up even a minute late.”
“Good to know. I’m glad you have such a good support system; parents and friends are so important,” he replied, notably not acknowledging the imaginary men.
I let the silence stretch for a second, neither of us seeming particularly interested in being the one to break it. “You’re staring.”
“Am I?” He blinked, looked down at his coffee, then back up, and the flush from before spread properly across his cheeks. “Sorry. It’s… you’ve got paint on your jaw.”
My hand went up before I could stop it, patting the wrong side. He tipped his head, silently correcting me, and I found the spot, and the whole time he was watching my fingers like the paint was something worth memorizing. I couldn’t stop the blush from spreading across my face. When I looked back at him, we both laughed softly.
We fell into an easy rhythm after that, trading stories as if we had known each other for years, mine about a set piece that collapsed during a dress rehearsal a few years ago, his about a client who insisted a load-bearing column could simply be moved because it “looked better somewhere else.” He groaned through the whole memory like it still personally offended him, and I laughed hard enough that my coffee nearly went everywhere.
“I swear, some people don’t understand that walls serve a purpose,” he said, dead serious. “You can’t just relocate a column because it’s inconvenient for your feng shui.”
“Feng shui columns, incredible. Truly the frontier of modern architecture.”
“You joke, but I’ve had that exact conversation.”
“I believe you.” I wiped my eyes, still grinning. “Backstage has its own version. Actors can be so particular about the set pieces, and I’ve had some who are insistent that a set piece is ‘blocking their light’, as if every prop is out to get them.”
“So we’re basically the same person.”
“Don’t push it.”
He grinned at that, wide and a little crooked, and something in my chest did a small, embarrassing flip.
For a few seconds, I just sat there looking at him, completely absorbed in the way he smiled, the way his eyes stayed on mine, and every mysterious thing about him.
“It sounds like it is quieting down out there, I should probably let you get back to your job,” he said eventually, though he made no move to actually stand. It took me a second to realize that the rain outside had softened from a roar to a steady patter.
“Probably.”
Neither of us moved for another minute, the lantern casting long shadows across the workbench, and I felt strangely reluctant to let the night end. He finally stood, stretching in a way that pulled his damp shirt tight across his shoulders.
Earth to Seraphina, regular humans blink.
Blink.
BLINK!
“I feel like I owe you a drink,” he said, “for saving me from the storm. My hero.” He said it like a joke, but his face didn’t quite sell it, his soft eyes never leaving my face, a warm smile on his lips, his entire being seeming so focused on me.
“You don’t owe me anything, you just sat in a folding chair and drank bad coffee.”
“Exactly, that’s a debt if I’ve ever heard one.” He pulled his phone out, already unlocking it like the outcome of this conversation was a foregone conclusion. “Let me buy you a drink at a bar that still exists. I’ll even let you pick it, since apparently my sense of direction can’t be trusted.”
I studied him for a second, weighing the version of me that guarded her number like state secrets against the version currently laughing in a dark theater with a strange, soaking wet man. The second version won without much of a fight.
“Fine,” I said, reaching for his phone. “But if you ghost me after this, I want you to know I will hold a grudge against every building you ever design. Eggs would be in both of our futures.”
“Understood. That’s fair.”
I typed my number in quickly before I could talk myself out of it, handing the phone back with what I hoped looked like casual confidence instead of the ridiculous flutter actually happening in my stomach. He glanced at the screen, then back at me, and the smile that spread across his face seemed bright enough to put the lantern to shame.
“I’m Beck, by the way,” he said. “Feels like something I should’ve led with.”
“Seraphina.”
“Seraphina.” He said it slowly, like he was testing how it felt in his mouth. “I’ll be in touch, Seraphina.”
He headed for the door, pausing once to glance back at the mess of the theater like he still couldn’t quite believe where the night had led him, and then he was gone. I sat there for a long moment in the lantern light, staring at the folding chair he’d left behind, still slightly damp from the rain.
Then my eyes turned back to my phone, and I grinned at it like a complete idiot.
Authors note
Welcome to the next book!! I hope you love it :)
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