SUBLET – Part 3
What happens when two exes have to live in an apartment built for one?
Steven and Mariah were once lovers, but working in professional theater doesn’t make a love affair easy, or even possible for many who find themselves all over the world on tours. Working on a stage show in New York City, Steven sublets Mariah’s barely-big-enough-for-one apartment. What are they to do when her world tour shuts down as well as his show?
They can’t go anywhere else, so they’ll just have to stay together.
Published in short story sized sections, “Sublet” will give you a love story in several acts and, hopefully, leave you calling for an encore at the end! ALL three parts of the story are in this file, so if you’ve read Parts 1 & 2, select Part 3 to continue!
Read an Excerpt
Forced proximity. It’s a dramatic device in improv. You get up close, like really close, and then things happen. You don’t, or rather, you can’t predict what’s going to happen between two scene partners when that happens. Sometimes, you get a fight. Sometimes, a kiss. And once, Mariah remembered with a shudder, she’d broken into tears, and her scene partner had fled the room.
It hadn’t really been his fault. She didn’t pretty cry. Nope, when she was all in, she ugly cried, and that day, he’d lost his cool.
That scenario wasn’t exactly what happened this morning, but it had been close.
They’d been making do with her tiny shoebox apartment for almost three weeks, and somewhere between trying to boil water for tea and Steven casually dropping a couple of eggs in the pot, Mariah had frozen. When Steven had continued his preparations, moving around her without saying a word, she’d tensed up. And finally, when he’d bumped into her and she’d stepped back against the sink, she’d started to cry.
Her reaction had been crazy. She’d known that. And it had made her angry…at herself.
But she hadn’t been able to put anything into words.
Words had been beyond her. All she’d had were tears.
Stepping away, she’d turned to the sink and started the water. As the strong stream of water had splashed down into the basin, she’d gasped in a breath before she’d pushed her hands under the water. Mariah had leaned forward and splashed the water on her face, struggling for calm.
It hadn’t come.