Method Acting: An opposites attract, found family romance (Center Stage Book 2) Adele Buck (e novels to read .TXT) 📖

Colin had to acknowledge the point of her question. “I…hadn’t thought about that, to be honest.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind volunteering my time for a good cause. But artists have to be very clear about this. We’re asked to volunteer all the time because people don’t consider what we do to be ‘worth’ anything.”

Assembling more ingredients in the pan, Colin stirred and thought. “Fair enough. There may be additional funds in the program budget.”

“No. It’s fine. I’m happy to volunteer. I like the kids. If I can help, I will. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t take me for granted.”

Colin added the potatoes and cauliflower to the dish, stirring and covering the pan. Wiping his hands on a towel, he refilled Alicia’s wine glass.

“My dear, I hope never to take you for granted.”

Chapter 16

To: Susan Vernon

From: Alicia Johnson

Subject: Things sure change

Hey there—not headed back to New York any time soon. I have a new role on Chamber of Lies and will be down here for the foreseeable future.

Also…am actually dating the lobbyist now. Turns out he’s not a jerk after all. I’m going to give a workshop to some kids he’s involved with. Science kids, not theater kids, so this should get interesting…

Got any auditions lined up? Work on the horizon? Give me the news from New York.

Best, ’Lis

Alicia wiped her palms on her slim black trousers, glancing at Colin before she entered the hotel meeting room. “You didn’t have to come with me,” she said, glancing at his charcoal suit and subtly patterned tie. “I’m sure you have very important…lobby-ist-ing things to do.”

Placing a hand on hers before she could reach for the door handle, he pulled her toward him, glancing up and down the hallway. “Well, I did have plans to work over the weekend, but someone derailed those pretty completely.”

Alicia smiled as his lips descended to hers, teasing. “Is this your revenge? You’re going to distract me when I’m supposed to be working?”

“You’re volunteering.”

“That’s still work,” she said, trying to suppress a shiver as his lips traced down her neck.

“True.” Colin straightened, smoothing his hair and regarding Alicia with a glittering smile. “Ready to face the kids?”

Feeling an unfamiliar flutter of pure nervousness, Alicia flicked her bangs off her forehead with a jerk of her chin. “I guess I have to be.”

Colin looked closely at her. “Do you have stage fright?”

Alicia gave him a heavy-lidded look of disdain. “No. Stage fright I can deal with. Stage fright is a professional hazard. This is just…nerves.”

Colin’s chin tucked in, and his eyes widened. “What’s the difference?”

“One’s something I deal with all the time that I have the coping skills to overcome. And the other is…teenagers.”

Colin started to laugh, and Alicia smothered an impulse to slap him. He caught her expression and covered his mouth with his hand. “Sorry. The idea that you could be frightened by anything…let alone adolescents…”

“Don’t fool yourself. Adolescents are terrifying. Every Shakespeare production’s Wednesday matinée during the school year is full of the feral beasts.”

Colin moved to open the door and watched as Alicia composed herself. Her spine straightened, her chin lifted, and she shrugged her shoulders, letting them drop loosely. She looked poised, like a dancer or a fencer.

En garde, kids.

Pulling open the heavy door, he grinned as she strode into the room like she owned it. He followed and introduced her to the group’s chaperone, a high school science teacher from Ohio. The poor woman looked exhausted, dark circles ringing her eyes, but she gamely introduced Alicia. Twenty pairs of eyes swiveled to look at her. Colin felt the urge to step in front of her, to protect her from those mostly lackluster gazes. Her eyes scanned the group, and she fixed her smile on the girl who had recognized her at the gala. The girl was smiling back, friendly and excited, her large dark eyes shining behind her glasses frames.

“So, most of you are probably wondering what the heck an actress has to teach you scientific geniuses about anything. And you’re right. I don’t know a microbe from a micron. But I do know about communicating things with passion and sincerity.”

A hand went up, a jaded-looking boy with pale blond hair in the back row. She nodded at him, and he gave her a patronizing smile that made Colin want to pick him up by the scruff of the neck and frog-march him out of the room. “No offense, but the ideas are important, not the presentation.”

Alicia paused for a moment. “Right.” She affected a bored look, mimicking the boy’s expression almost perfectly and droning in a rapid, flat voice, “‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date.’ Just words. Just ideas. In fact, they’re Shakespeare’s words. So, they don’t need any special treatment. They stand on their own, right?”

“But that’s a play,” the boy objected. “Totally different.”

“Actually, it’s a poem. A sonnet. But let’s put this to the test. How many people have watched TED talks online?” Every hand in the room went up.

“Okay, how many people have started watching a boring lecturer and noped out of that thing faster than you can say ‘thermodynamics’ because it was so painful regardless of how much you wanted to know the information?” Most, though not all, of the hands went up again. The jaded boy in the back seemed to be keeping his hand down on principle.

Smug little bastard. “No offense,” indeed.

Alicia ignored her almost-heckler and counted hands. “Fourteen out of twenty. I’m guessing that most of you see my point.” She resisted the urge to look over at Colin. She was surprised he had stayed.

Well, she was surprised he had come in the first place.

“So, what’s the key to a compelling presentation? Anyone?” Alicia