Midsummer: Love's Labours, #1

By Racheline Maltese and Erin McRae

Summer... Shakespeare... skulls?!?

 

When long-time theater professional John heads to Virginia to play Oberon in the Theater in the Woods's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the last thing he expects is become captivated by Michael, the actor playing Puck. 

 

Despite reeling from a personal loss - and being inexperienced with men - John rushes headlong into an affair with Michael. But their fling may be doomed by secrets and a sinister discovery neither man is prepared for. 

 

A sumptuous tale of summer passion and unexpected romance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Avian30
• Release date: Apr 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781946192080

Racheline Maltese

Racheline is a writer and performer. She's not a self-help expert and has absolutely no qualifications other than being a disaster human who is good at getting shit done, persevering, and swearing. You can find her on Twitter @racheline_m. With Erin McRae, she writes romance novels about difficult people with complicated lives finding their happily ever afters.

Book preview

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

W.B. Yeats, The Stolen Child.

Chapter 1

The late afternoon sun slants through the trees as John navigates down the long and winding road that leads to The Theater in the Woods, and the cluster of camp buildings that will be home for the next three months. After six hours on the road with dubious air-conditioning, he has the windows rolled down. The air is heavy and sweet with humidity and the scent of damp foliage, along with a kind of heat that seems obscene for the end of May, even to John’s New York City sensibilities. This is, he supposes, what he gets for agreeing to do a summer stock production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at a theater tucked deep in the Virginia woods. John’s pretty sure the minimart gas station he passed twenty minutes ago is the last outpost of civilization he’ll see for the rest of the season. From what Keith’s mentioned, people don’t go into town on their day off. In fact, the population of the theater is probably as large as the town itself. For the most part, John’s okay with lurking in the forest.

Finally, he sees buildings and then people through the trees, which is great, except that by the time he drives into the grounds of the theater proper there are so many people standing and talking in the middle of the road that John gives up any hope of making it to the parking lot. He sighs and pulls in next to the nearest cabin. He can move the damn car later, or it can stay here for the summer for all he cares.

You made it! a familiar voice calls. John barely manages to get out of the car before getting engulfed in a hug by Rose, the season’s Titania and one of his best friends. I thought we were gonna have to send out search parties, she says.

No, just waylaid by the jubilant masses. John hugs her back. Now that he is here, or as close to here as he’s likely to get for now, he lets himself relax. The late afternoon back here in the woods is even steamier now that he’s outside of the car. He should probably get used to the idea of heat and humidity for the rest of the season. It’s not like summer stock buildings ever come with air conditioning.

How was the drive?

Long. Quiet. Good to be alone with my thoughts, but better to be here, John says, as he pops the trunk and pulls out his bags.

Well, we’re glad you made it. Come on, say hi to Keith. He’s been freaking that you got lost, that people will get in a car crash, or the flights will be late, and someone’ll get stranded at the airport, and the schedule will get thrown off before anything even starts.

They’re nearly to the main administrative building — that from the outside looks like all the other buildings, which is to say that it looks like a cabin, just larger — when another car pulls in, this one crammed full of more people than is probably legal. John raises an eyebrow. Arranging rides for everybody from Richmond, where almost everyone flew or took the train into, has got to be complicated, but they could at least make sure everybody has a seatbelt. But then, the kids probably don’t care.

Oh, to be young again, Rose observes dryly, when the car comes to a stop and the occupants tumble out with shouted greetings to their various friends in the milling confusion.

Mmm, no thank you, John says.

They climb the steps to the admin building where Keith is holding court from an Adirondack chair on the porch. He waves to them as soon as they appear. John’s known Keith since college, and they’ve worked together almost as long. Keith lives in Washington now with his wife and kids, and works in the professional theater scene there during the rest of the year. He’s been working summers at Theater in the Woods in various capacities for as long as John has known him, and has directed the summer season here for a decade. He won’t give it up, even if there is more prestige back in the city. John doesn’t quite know what keeps him coming back every year.

Clearly, though, Keith enjoys watching all his people roll in before the real business of the camp begins.

John. Good to see you, he says, standing up to shake John’s hand and then offering them both chairs. "How are you doing?

Ready to not be asked that for three months.

Keith gives him a concerned look but drops it when John shakes his head. After everything that’s happened the last two years, he’s just happy to be away.

Heyo, look who’s here! somebody shouts, and John glances up in time to see the guy tackle a sandy-haired boy who’s just gotten out of a car.

Oh God, who’s the kid? John asks as the young man turns around, smiling, to hug his tackler. He hugs several other people who have gathered around too, chatting animatedly with all of them. Whoever he is, he’s clearly a favorite among the company’s veterans, at least the ones under forty.

Keith chuckles. "That is our Puck."

HIS NAME IS MICHAEL, and he’s not a kid, any more than everyone under thirty looks twelve to everyone over forty. But he’s ridiculously slight and not terribly tall, especially compared to John, who can’t help but be surprised to find out he’s actually twenty-five.

Some of that is the guy’s looks, but more of it is his unwillingness to stop climbing on furniture, people, and sets, even during their first read through.

I don’t think I was ever that young, John says.

You were certainly never that happy, Rose mutters beside him.

The idea that maybe he’s always been a little bit melancholy is, after the last two years, an odd relief. He smiles at Rose as Keith yells at Michael to stop walking on the damn table.

Indoor Puck today, please. Keith sighs heavily, as if Michael represents an ongoing and somewhat tedious battle.

Pathetic human laws, Michael mutters. He tilts his head, gives Keith a wry look, and jumps down from the table with a grin, upsetting John’s glass of water as he goes.

It’s going to be a really long summer, isn’t it? he says to Rose as he halfheartedly mops up the spill.

KEITH KEEPS THE BIG, wobbly machine of the company moving forward. The days quickly dissolve into rehearsals and set building and what is, in the evenings, probably too much drinking around the big campfire for so early in the season.

The camp is split vaguely into two halves. There’s the front, public half, where the theater itself is, along with the admin building, the props shed, and the costume shop. But behind the theater are paths that run back a little way into the woods, until the forest opens up again into a clearing filled with cabins and the dining hall. The firepit is at the far end of the clearing, up against the woods.

The cabins, which house the sixty-odd people it takes to make the Theater in the Woods productions run every summer, are rustic but far more civilized than any of the summer camps the corps attended as children. The mattresses are still terrible, but braided rugs, ceiling fans, large porches, and reasonably timely repairs make it livable — when the spider population hasn’t reached critical levels. John’s glad the union requires its members have single rooms. The nonunion staff and some of the interns aren’t so lucky.

The worst part about the whole experience, aside from the spiders, is the heat.

My script is melting, Michael notes one afternoon, amused, from where he’s getting a piggyback ride from Scott, who plays Lysander, while they run lines together. It’s so humid, the pages aren’t just warping but growing faintly translucent from the moisture in the air. When John tries to make a note in his, the pencil goes right through the paper.

When they paint sets, John pulls off his shirt because it is too damn hot, and the paint is getting everywhere anyway. He winds up with a sunburn. That, along with