Chapter 39: Yucky

Beth feels… yucky.

Her skin is crawling a little, even curled up on the greenroom couch with Courtney, between the matinee and evening shows. Sweet, Beta Courtney, who doesn’t understand why Beth feels so unclean, but pats her head and holds her hand anyway.

“It’s what friends do,” she says by way of explanation, and gives Beth’s hand a squeeze.

Beth likes her new leading man, just enough. He’s like a macho Beta, which is pretty nice. No nose for anything, no uncanny ability to read her mood based solely off of her scent. It’s nice, and so is he. Cole, his name is, with pretty, dark hair and gentle grey eyes. She would have been into him, before she presented. Maybe all the way up until she met—

No. God. Not now.

Cole, though, is married with a little one on the way, and since his wife is having troubles that look alarmingly like toxemia, he left right after first show to go sit with her at the doctors for a late, quick checkup.