Take a Chance on Me by Kate Davies

was too busy to help her out right now and walk on down the hall. Two, open the door, show her the light switch and take off. And he wouldn’t even consider option three.
    He suddenly realized Jessica was standing there, back against the doorframe, waiting for him to say something. There was a little crinkle between her eyes, a puzzled look that radiated “polite but confused”. Great. Now he looked like a total moron who couldn’t respond to a simple statement.
    “Sorry. Not a problem. I’m off the clock now anyway. I’ll just let you in and get going.” He turned and reached for the door, keys at the ready.
    She stepped away, brushing lightly against his arm as she passed. He swallowed, tamping down the immediate reaction to her closeness. He put the master key in the lock and turned it, tugging a little at the door handle until he heard the click. He pushed the door open and reached a hand inside, sweeping the wall with his fingers until he found the master light switch. He flipped them on and stepped aside to let Jessica through.
    The theater was huge.
    Jessica swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. Spatial ability had never been her strong suit, even wandering around the perimeter hadn’t given her a clue just how big the space was. Sure, she knew there was a theater inside, but shouldn’t there be other areas as well? Rehearsal rooms? Classrooms? Olympic-size swimming pool?
    It was definitely a school built ages ago. Nowadays, they’d slap a hideaway stage at the edge of the cafeteria and call it performance space. A couple of portable lights, no backstage, a seating area whipped together out of folding chairs the day of the show by the head custodian, and you were in business. Not here. This was an honest-to-goodness theater.
    Row after row of worn velvet seats stretched from the orchestra pit to the back of the theater, each row slightly higher than the one before. It could easily seat five hundred.
    Wait a minute. Orchestra pit? Oh, God, she wasn’t going to have to direct a musical, was she?
    A glass booth occupied the back of the theater. Jessica squinted in the dim light. Lighting controls? She glanced overhead. Oh, my heavens. Hundreds—okay, dozens—of lights. All pointed at the stage. Was she supposed to teach the students how to work all of them?
    And the stage—huge, empty, hung with curtains in black and red. It had been years since she had been in a theater—any theater. She’d sworn never again to set foot in one. And now, because she needed a full-time teaching position, she would have to spend hours, days, months in this throwback of a theater that all but shouted I expect greatness!
    Legs suddenly weak, Jessica dropped into the nearest seat. I can’t do this , she thought with a shudder. In less than three months, she was expected to cast, rehearse, direct and produce a high school play. She didn’t even have a script picked out yet. And now that she’d seen the theater, she knew it had to be a doozy.
    She took a deep breath, then another, in a somewhat useless attempt to get her nerves under control. This was ridiculous. She was not going to hyperventilate over a stupid room . But the familiar gut-twisting tension was already settling in, and Jessica knew she had to get herself under control.
    A warm hand covered her shoulder, making her jump. “You okay?”
    Sucking in a breath, Jessica turned her head to look at Tom. Oh my God, she’d actually forgotten he was in the theater. “Fine,” she lied.
    The skeptical expression on his face told her he wasn’t buying it, but at least he didn’t say anything. Instead, he slid his hand down her arm and wrapped his fingers gently around her wrist. “How about I show you backstage?”
    “Uh, okay,” she stuttered. Standing, she reached down to grab her book bag and slung it over her shoulder. “That’s a good idea.”
    But when he tugged her down the aisle, she wasn’t sure if that was exactly the truth either.
     
    He was an idiot.
    A