The number of times Cora had kissed her worst enemy in the past week was absolutely infuriating.

If someone ever told you that any actor can kiss someone they're not romantically involved with without it feeling weird, they were lying. It is weird, but most of the time, you're able to move past the feeling quickly enough.

That wasn't proving to be so easy with Rasmus North.

He was definitely the prettiest boy she'd ever kissed, but that hardly mattered since she'd wanted to punch that pretty face of his since elementary school. And now her hands were tangled in his dark hair and his mouth was all over hers, hot and tasting of the ginger tea he drank before rehearsals, and she had to act like she was enjoying it.

It was a cruel twist of fate, finally getting her Broadway debut but having to experience it alongside her absolute least favorite person on the planet. His eyes – sometimes more green, sometimes more blue, but endlessly taunting – were lazy on her when she got to break away from him, like he was perfectly pleased to be miserable as long as it made her miserable, too.

"Let's take five, guys," their director Annie suggested, a welcome reprieve from having to look at his oh so punchable face.

Cora fled to her small locker of belongings to gulp down some water and text Siena. She instinctively wiped at her mouth, feeling gross after kissing him. When she pulled her phone out of her purse, there was already a message from her concerned roommate waiting there for her.

how is he today?

Cora is typing...

the usual.

Rasmus, also affectionately known as Raz (or Rasshole, depending on who you asked), was the same irritating boy he'd been in high school and college, only substantially worse now that he had all the more reasons to be conceited. Over a period of just a few years, he'd managed to propel himself from being an unknown college graduate to a prominent up-and-coming theatre star. In a month's time, they opened on Broadway, originating the lead roles in the new play Illicit Affairs. Rasmus played the exact sort of character that everyone would expect him to – the charming, devilishly handsome and witty husband. Cora, the vengeful wife who hatches a plan to take him down when she learns he's been unfaithful. Their romantic scenes made her want to gag, but it certainly wasn't hard to behave like she was angry with him.

She occasionally had to remind herself that she'd accomplished the exact same amount as he had—she just wasn't letting it get to her head and being a jerk about it.

She closed her eyes, clenching her phone so firmly that it made her fingers ache, and breathed. She always used these little breaks to remind herself that she was grateful, that she absolutely was not going to let that boy ruin her Broadway debut for her. The show was beautiful, and a huge piece of her still couldn't believe that she was being trusted to originate such a fierce, complicated, sensual woman on the Great White Way when she thought she'd spend her whole career in cookie-cutter supporting roles. Most girls were never so lucky.

And yet she didn't feel lucky at all when she had to go back to him. Evident amusement danced in his eyes when she returned to the main room of the studio, planting herself across from him and bracing herself for another kiss.

Pucker up, Coraline, he mouthed.

She glared. People were always exclaiming to her that Cora Kline sounded like Coraline (as if she wasn't already aware of this and they had just come up with an entirely novel idea), and she hated it, and he knew it. He had always loved that she hated it. He'd pointed out to her on many occasions that the character Coraline also hated being called by the wrong name and therefore she was only digging herself further into the hole by not wanting to listen to him call her that. That didn't make her stop hating it. She only hated it more.

And her patience was wearing thin. If he did one more thing to piss her off today, she was going to buy gum to chew in rehearsals tomorrow just so she could spit it in his fucking mouth. 

She didn't go straight home after rehearsals. Yes, the sun was already low in the sky; and no, she didn't have any errands she had to run. But she was going to create an errand. Because on top of all of her other misfortunes, Rasmus also had to live in the same building as her, and if she went right now she would have to endure the entire journey home with him. He'd probably watch her with that unsettling gaze of his, as though he were imagining all the different ways she might mess up onstage and make an utter fool of herself.

So she went to the convenience store and grabbed some gum – just in case – and then stopped at a Japanese restaurant near her apartment to grab some takeout for herself and Siena. There was hardly a foul mood that teriyaki chicken couldn't improve.

Considering that they were two twenty-somethings attempting to afford life in New York City, Cora didn't find their apartment building to be all that bad. They hardly got creepy bugs or creepy men and the appliances worked at least fifty percent of the time. The view out her bedroom window was a plain brick wall, but she hadn't observed any sketchy happenings in the alley below yet. At least she had her own bedroom at all.

When she eventually got home, Siena was reading. Siena was always reading – outside of her day job at an e-learning company, she was working on a Master's in Literature from Columbia – but when she saw the bag of food, she perked up like a cat who'd seen a squirrel outside and hopped up from the couch.

"How was today?" she asked cautiously as she padded over to the kitchen island, her pink fuzzy socks standing out in hilarious contrast to the rest of her all-black outfit. When it came to fashion, black, brown, and gray were typically the only words in her vocabulary.

Cora dropped the bag on the counter and pulled out a barstool for herself, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. One of the annoying things about keeping it cut short was that it was always falling in her face.

"I think I ended up kissing him for an entire hour. Anne kept changing her mind about how she wanted to block it," she sighed as Siena opened her box and prodded at her food with a fork. "I know I just have to learn how to be mature about it because we're gonna be doing this eight times a week for who knows how long, but..." But it feels impossible when he's making me mad on purpose.

"Simon might make you feel better."

Cora shook her head. Simon was her best friend, her confidante, but for all his years of trying like his life depended on it, he'd never managed to draw her hatred for Rasmus out of her. It wasn't so simple to expel a poison that had been in you for as long as you could remember.

"I don't want him worrying that I'm miserable," she admitted, jabbing her fork into her rice a little too aggressively. "He knows how hard I've worked for this. He needs to believe that I'm happy. So what if there are a few moments where I'm not?"

"C'mon, Cora." Siena propped her elbow on the counter, eyeing her sympathetically. "You know he's not naive. He'll see right through it."

Cora just shrugged, but Siena dropped the matter—she knew how far to push and when to stop. Cora could handle quite a lot, but she sensed Siena realized how sensitive all of this was for her; how deep down, she was a little bit terrified. Rasmus would have laughed if he knew just how capable he was of digging into her head and gnawing at it constantly. Or maybe he did know. Maybe he was lounging just a few floors away from her right now, pleased with himself for how he treated her today. After all, she could tell it was all a game to him. How he desperately wanted her to be angry with him.

Cora's drug of choice was the adrenaline that came with being on the stage. But Rasmus, his was getting a reaction out of people – grabbing a hold of their attention and never, ever letting them go.

She tried to cast her attention entirely on the delicious-looking box of chicken and vegetables in front of her, but the whole time while they were eating their dinner, her fingers were itching to grab her phone and text her other oldest friend, the only person who had ever managed to tame Rasmus North and even draw kindness out of him. She still remembered clear as day the way he would look at Natasha, like he wanted to protect her from the same kind of cruelty he cast onto everyone else. But in the end, he'd cracked, and even she was not immune to being pulled within the reach of his bitterness and crushed by it. As far as Cora was aware, Natasha Wilde didn't want anything to have to do with him anymore. She'd left him – all of them – for good reason.

And now she had a life that she was happy with. She'd kept in touch with Cora over the past few years, of course, which meant that every now and again she got to hear little bits and bobs about how life in Music City was going. Nat had sounded like she had enough drama of her own going on these days – something about someone going missing and an ex-boyfriend of hers popping up after she hadn't seen him for a few years. The last Cora had heard, the missing girl was apparently no longer missing, but that was hardly an excuse to go haunt Natasha with her old ghosts.

After dinner, she went straight to her bathroom to rinse off the grime of the day. She gave herself a long look in the mirror, which was covered in old smudges that she hadn't had the energy to wipe away. Her hair was frizzing. Her tee shirt hung a little loosely on her, giving her torso the shape of a box.

Her lips pulled down into a frown. It was obviously impractical to wear anything aside from workout clothes to rehearsals—they needed to be able to move around easily and were always sweating in a matter of a few minutes. But Cora hated looking so messy in front of anyone, much less him. Beauty was her shield, and without it, she felt defenseless.

For the rest of the evening, as she bathed and pulled on silky pajamas and poured herself a glass of wine, she couldn't rid herself of the sensation of constantly being on edge. The realness, the impending, tangible fruition of it all hadn't hit her so much before today. But in less than a week, they moved into the theater for their final two weeks of rehearsals before they had audiences.

Then she wouldn't just be kissing him, nearly being undressed by him. No – thousands of people would be watching her do it.

Her stomach twisted in on itself. She closed her eyes; her breathing hitched. The familiar pang of anxiety. But all she could do was ride out the wave and pray it didn't leave her too drained. As she slowly, painfully drifted off to rest, there was one thing, one thought that brought her comfort.

At least she got to stab a knife in his back at the end of the show. 

____________________

A/N:

Welcome to the show, everyone!