I Was Already Gone novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Lost the Bridge

At the Winter Showcase, a stagehand stood in the wings holding a plastic bin, and everyone who walked past dropped a phone into it.

Brecken dropped his last.

He held it a second too long, and I watched his thumb brush the screen.

"Cheer up," the stagehand said. "You'll get it back."

"I know how this works," Brecken said.

He didn't look at me.

The scout had flipped a coin in the dressing room with the lights off and six people watching, and it had come up for him.

He would go first.

I stood in the dark beside the curtain with my guitar, and Roxie stood beside me with her hand in my back pocket.

Gus was on my other side, in his good hoodie.

"I brought it," he whispered.

"Brought what?"

He opened his coat a few inches.

The frying pan was tucked in the lining.

"Gus."

"For whatever."

Out in the theater, six hundred people were settling into their seats.

I could hear the program pages rustle and the low roar of voices.

Through a gap in the curtain I saw row one.

Laney sat at the center with her bag in her lap and both hands on the strap.

The woman in the dark blazer sat three seats down from her, with her notebook closed.

In row six, Brecken's friend with the phone was sitting with his hands empty, looking lost.

The lights went down.

The host said, "Please welcome Brecken Hartley," and the theater exploded.

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