“Pathetic,” Ruks muttered to Liv. “He’s falling in love with a houseplant. Typical actor.”

He turned to her. In the half-light, his face was all sharp angles and soft worry. “Because I don’t know what to do with the silence between the lines. When Benedick stops joking. When it’s just… real.”

After the final curtain, after the cast party spilled into the rainy street, Arin found her coiling cables in the empty wings.