Page 20 of C*cky Best Friend
Chapter Nine
Logan
Opening night.
Atornado of activity is backstage as technicians battle cables, props, curtains, and lights, while dancers, singers, and cast fend off family members sneaking a peek of the action and wishing us good luck.
Two words you never say to a performer are good luck.
Never ever ever.
It means its opposite.
We always say break a leg.
Nobody will be saying that tonight.
“No, Mom, don’t say it!” I keep hearing as I make my way to Sam’s dressing room.
From sharing one with twelve other girls to having her own, is amazing. But oh, what a price.
Her voice is muffled as she asks, “Who is it?”
“It’s me, Logan.”
“I can’t talk right now. I’ll see you out there.”
Blinking at the wood, I mutter, “Okay, sure, I’ll let you focus.”
Glancing to movement in my peripheral left, I see Jason and Sarah Cocker hurrying up, an enormous bouquet for their daughter in his hands. “Hey Logan, this her room?”
“Yeah, but she said she can’t—”
“—Hogwash,” Sarah mutters, turning the knob. Nobody stops Samantha’s mom from doing something when her face is like that.
Inside, Asher steps back from kissing Samantha. She blushes, glancing from her parents to me and back to him as she nervously licks her lips. “Mom, Dad!”
My jaw is tight, heart pounding as I stare at the flowers I sent this morning. They’re on the dresser with my note out of its envelope. Jason glances to me and I turn and walk away.
I can no longer hear the tornado. Like a robot I’m stepping around people. Numb, I’m not sure where I’m going. But I have to get away from the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
She kissed him?
That’s why she wouldn’t open the door?
Asher was inside?
How can that be true?
Am I in some sort of nightmare, about to wake up any second?
Alfredo, the man who plays our father, bumps into me on his way out of our dressing room. I’m sharing one with him since I’m not the lead. In more ways than one, turns out.
“Sorry Logan! Shit, I need a smoke. And I quit twenty years ago! You think she can pull it off?”
I blink at him. “I don’t know what she’s capable of.”
“You hear from Marion? I heard…”