No Rules To Love

Chapter Twenty Five:

"What?" I screeched, panic clear in my voice. "We can't be stuck up here! What if we don't get down?"

"Talia, calm down." He chuckled at first, but then he grabbed both of my hands and squeezed them tight as he realised my panic was genuine. "We'll be fine. We won't be up here for long... Half an hour at the most."

My jaw dropped, and the blood drained from my face at the prospect of being stuck for a prolonged amount of time.

"Half an..." I breathed.

"Okay, so maybe that wasn't the best way of putting things," Hunter mumbled, hasty in reassuring me. He squeezed my hands once more. He then tugged on them, so I was facing him. "Look, let's do something to take our mind off things."

"Like what?"

Hunter thought carefully. "Why don't we just... talk? Get to know each other better? What's the point in a date where we don't talk?"

I nodded in shaky movements and tried to sit back, taking a few deep breaths to calm myself down. "Okay... talk. I can do that."

"Great." Hunter grinned. "Let's talk."

And that's exactly what we did.

We talked for a little while and I found myself calming down. Hunter always had a way of making me feel better about things; I didn't know what it was. It could be the soothing way he spoke and the way he tried to make me laugh. Or the way his firm hands gripped my own, and he didn't let go once.

Whatever he was doing, he was doing it right.

"So, what's the one place in the world you would want to go?" Hunter questioned me. He had been asking me random questions because he noticed my panic levels rising.

I didn't even have to think of the answer. "New York."

"New York? Really?" He asked. "You've never been?"

"Nope." I shook my head. "I have always wanted to go, but never had the chance."

"Why is that the one place you would visit?"

"Come on, I'm a musical fan!" I laughed. "What musical fan doesn't want to go to New York at least once in their life? One word: Broadway!"

Hunter chuckled. "New York is an amazing place. I would love to go back someday. You should definitely try to go one day."

I nodded. "I do want to go one day. But it will take a lot of my savings."

"Speaking of going to New York, I forgot to tell you about my conversation with my agent the other day. You know, the one that interrupted our... Rehearsal."

My cheeks flared up as I thought back to that day. The day that Hunter and I almost kissed. I was losing count of how many times Hunter and I almost kissed and had the moment cruelly taken away from us.

"Oh yeah, I remember." I nodded, in an attempt to dash the embarrassing thoughts away. "I didn't want to ask in case it was, you know, personal."

"You should have asked, anyway. I wouldn't have minded." Hunter chuckled. "Anyway, my agent told me the producers of Once the musical have offered me an audition."

My eyes widened, and I took an intake of breath. "Really? Wow, that's amazing! Please tell me you're going for it!"

Hunter scratched his eyebrow. "Yeah, I will do it because the audition is in London, but there is a catch. The production I'm auditioning for is the Broadway production."

My smile fell from my face. "Broadway? As in New York? In America? The place we've just been talking about?"

"Is there any other place?" He chuckled. He became nervous as he saw my reaction.