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CHAPTER TEN

Lucas

I should have realized things weren’t going to go as planned from the moment I picked up that call from my mom shortly after Zack and I arrived at the theater.

“So there’s nothing I can say or do to convince you that this is a bad idea?” Mom finally asked after what felt like half an hour of the same old arguments.

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose. I needed to get up to my dressing room to check out the costume situation, then head down to the rehearsal room for vocal warm-ups with the rest of the cast. “No, Mom. At this point, if I suddenly walked out, the entire show would have to close before it opened.”

“That might be a good thing,” she said.

“It really wouldn’t be,” I insisted. “It’s a great show, Mom. We’ve all worked really hard on it. The production values are top-notch, considering how fast the whole thing came together. If you would just come up here and see it, maybe you’d think differently about things.”

Mom hummed, but I wasn’t sure if that was disapproval or consideration.

“And you really need to meet Zack,” I said. “Like, really. You need to meet him. He’s going to be a big part of my life.”

I hadn’t told her about the baby yet. Maybe it was irresponsible of me, but I wanted to give her the news about her impending grandchild in person.

At last, after what felt like too long, Mom sighed and said, “I’ll think about it.”

We said our goodbyes and ended the call. I stood where I was, staring at my phone for a long time, wondering if I should have said more or if there were a better way to make things right with her.

There wasn’t much I could do at that point. Time was ticking, I had to figure out the costume situation, and I could already hear chattering from down the hall that told me the rest of the cast was starting to assemble.

There were more things going on at the theater than met the eye. I was still thinking about my mom as I headed toward the dressing rooms, but when one of the stagehands stopped me with a frantic look and said, “Have you seen Triton’s trident anywhere?” I started to suspect something was really off.

“I haven’t,” I said. “I more or less just got here.”

The young beta made a worried, frustrated sound then moved on.

By the time I made it up to my dressing room, I was certain sinister forces were at work.

“We’ve got all of the chorus costumes and for whatever reason, Greg’s understudy costumes are here, but half of Lucas’s Triton costumes are either missing or shredded,” one of the dressers was in the middle of telling Betty as I entered the room.

“Shredded?” I asked my heart rate kicking up as I stepped into the room.

Betty turned to look at me with the first really worried look I’d seen from her. “We got everything back from the cleaners, but your Act Two costumes are in tatters.”

“How did that happen?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Betty said, stepping past me to the rack of clothes against the wall. “We’re okay for the first act, but wardrobe is going to have to scramble to come up with something for Act Two. I have no idea how we’re going to make another mermaid tail as flashy as the other one for the big finale number in just four hours.”

I relaxed and smiled. That was one thing Betty didn’t have to worry about.

“I think I know how to take care of the finale tail,” I said. “Leave that to me.”

Betty stopped her rifling through the rack of costumes and glanced over her shoulder at me. “Wait, you’re one of the stars of the show and you’re volunteering to fix your own costume?”

“I…I have something handy that I could use,” I said. It wasn’t a lie, she just didn’t have to know exactly how it was the truth.

Betty continued to stare at me for a few seconds before she blinked. “Okay, whatever. I don’t have time to worry about it. I have to go sort out the fly backdrops. Someone just told me the pieces for the Act One scene change are jammed or tangled or something.”

“Go, go,” I told her, dread growing in my gut. “We’ll sort things here.”

No sooner had I said that, than Greg popped his head around the corner and said, “Hey, Bets baby. Can we talk?”

Betty flushed and sent a sheepish look over her shoulder to me and the dresser before marching for the door and Greg. “I thought I told you not to call me that at the theater. If Ben finds out….”

The conversation quickly faded as Betty and Greg walked away down the hall.

“You know that’s the whole reason Ben forbid anyone from having showmances during this thing,” the dresser said.

“Because of Betty and Greg?”

“Yeah. It’s probably at least half the reason Ben gave you the role of Triton pretty much on the spot, too,” she said. Although she immediately added, “But you were also amazing at your audition. I didn’t mean to imply you only got the role because Ben doesn’t want that horse’s behind dating his sister. You’re really great, the best thing about this show. I’m going to head down to the costume room and see if I can find a way to fix your ballroom costume.”

Before I could tell her that I wasn’t offended by anything she’d said, the dresser darted out of the room.

I hoped I could have a few moments peace to get dressed and make my way down to the rehearsal room, but as I was midway through putting on my pretty unimpressive Act One tail costume, Eric sauntered into the room.

“Hey, loser,” he said.

I barely glanced up at him, no time at all for his peevish antics. “Hey, Eric.”

“So did you hear about your little friend, Zack, and Dion the VPAC director?” Eric asked.

I didn’t even look at him as I said, “Nice try, Eric. I’m not going to believe a word you say about Zack, or anything else for that matter. You’re as transparent as bubbles.”

“I’m what?” Eric asked, his face pinched in a genuinely confused frown.

I finished tucking in the tunic I wore with my Act One costume and twisted to head for the door. “Are you coming to warm-ups?” I asked as I headed into the hall.

“I’m telling you that your special little omega friend was seen crying in Dion’s office with Dion himself sitting by his side, comforting him, and you’re not even slightly concerned?”

I stopped just before turning the corner. I could hear the piano going and the chorus singing scales, but suddenly my own heartbeat was louder in my ears.

“Zack was crying?” I mean, of course he was. My adorable omega was sensitive and high-strung sometimes, but that was to be expected with him being pregnant.

I reached out through the bond, finding only strange, conflicted emotions from Zack as Eric answered, “Yeah. He looked really upset. Something about thinking things aren’t going to work out between the two of you. I think he was asking Dion’s advice about how to break up with you, and Dion was being very attentive in return.”

That was a complete load of fish paste, but I was still concerned about Zack.

“Excuse me,” I said, turning and heading back down the corridor in search of my omega.

I could have sworn I heard Eric chuckling behind me.

I only got a few steps before I met Ben coming the other way.

“Where are you going?” Ben asked. “I need the entire cast in the rehearsal room at once. There’s been some last-minute changes to the script because of the messed-up lighting cues and we need to go over them.”

I glanced longingly down the hall. My search for Zack would have to wait, although the strange bundle of conflicted feelings inside me hinted it couldn’t wait long.

The changes to the script, songs, and blocking for Act One were minimal. Ben had us all run through some of the scenes in the rehearsal room, and then a second time on the stage itself, with the reprogrammed lighting cues. That was the first glimpse of Zack that I had since my Mom had called me.

Zack was setting up the table of props off to one side. He looked intent in his work, but I could feel a sort of dazed buzz coming off him through the bond. I really wanted to know what that was all about.

I thought I’d have my chance when Ben finally let us go to finish dressing and go to make-up. Zack was helping another of the stagehands untangle some cord at that point, and he looked up as I strolled in his direction. His expression flashed instantly to a smile before dropping to a worried frown.

“Zack, we need to talk,” I said approaching him.

Zack stood, looking and feeling horrifically worried. “It’s true, isn’t it. You’re going back to the lake, er, I mean, home after the show and you’re not taking me.”

“What? No!” I said, my anger at Eric, who had to be behind everything, flaring.

Unfortunately, I could tell Zack felt my anger and misinterpreted it. “I knew it,” he said. “And even though Dion said?—”

“Dion?” Maybe Zack and Dion had something going on after all.

I rejected that notion as soon as it popped into my mind. It was frustrating how Eric’s douchery could infect my thoughts and make me doubt the things I knew.

I shook my head and was about to tell Zack that when Betty came racing up to me.

“There you are. You’re needed in the make-up room immediately. Xavier just called in sick, and the intern who needs to do your make-up has no idea what he’s doing, so it’s going to take twice as long.”

She grabbed my wrist and started pulling.

“I’ll talk to you later,” I told Zack as she pulled me off.

The residual worry I felt from him did not make leaving him easy.

From that point, nothing was easy. Tony, the new make-up guy, was good at his job, but he took so long to get the fishy accents and fake gems glued to my face. After that, Betty needed me for some more wardrobe problems. Once those were taken care of, we had another round of warm-ups.

All through the buzz and fuss, I tried to find Zack again to tell him everything was okay between us, I loved him, and we were going to figure out a way to get through every challenge being thrown at us. But every time I so much as opened my mouth or raised a hand to wave to him, either he or I were dragged away. It would have been funny if I didn’t feel like we both needed the reassurance of each other or we would crack.

That was stressful enough, but when Betty called out “Fifteen minutes, everyone. Fifteen!” my anxiety kicked up another notch.

This was it. This was the ostensible reason I’d come up onto land. The real reason was Zack, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t care about the play. I absolutely cared about it. I wanted to do a good job, not just for my own sake, but for the sake of the cast and crew. Everyone had put so much into the production, and I owed it to all of them to make it as much of a success as it could be.

“We’ve got this,” Lindsey said as the two of us headed out to the stage to take our places. “The costumes are messed up, the lighting cues might be off, half the set pieces aren’t working?—”

“Half the set pieces aren’t working?” I asked, eyes wide.

Lindsey looked back at me as we reached the wings. “Yeah, didn’t you hear? The mechanical ones all suddenly have blown motors. Stagehands are going to have to push them onto the stage for scene changes.”

I hadn’t heard. I searched around for Zack, worried that he might strain himself and hurt the baby by pushing the heavy set pieces.

“But we’re going to nail this,” Lindsey finished her pep talk. I glanced to her and she finished with, “Really, Lucas, we are.”

“I hope so,” I said, as she headed all the way onto the set, where she started when the curtain went up.

“Don’t screw this up,” Eric whispered, surprising me as he snuck up behind me. “It would be a shame if you forgot your lines or your voice cracked on a high note or you tripped over something on the stage.”

I whipped to face him with narrowed eyes as the orchestra began to tune. “You’re responsible for all of this,” I said. It wasn’t a question. “You’re so sore about not being the sole center of attention for this show that you just had to ruin it for everyone else.”

Eric shrugged. “It won’t be completely ruined. The storm scene is going to look fantastic.”

Before I could say or do anything, he walked off to take his place for his first entrance.

I wanted to strangle the man. His ego was so big that he had to ruin things for everyone else to get his way. He should have been a politician.

“Lucas!”

I immediately dropped those thoughts and turned as Zack hurried up to me, dressed in stagehand blacks.

“Hey, guppy,” I said, pulling him halfway into my arms. “Look, I’m sorry about everything that’s happening. I feel like this is all my fault.”

“It’s not,” Zack said. “Eric is behind everything, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I know he is,” I said. “And he’s a jerk for it. But I’m not going to let his sabotage ruin this show, and I’m not going to let it ruin what we have. We have something special, Zack.” I put my hand on the side of his face. “We’re a couple, a team. I love?—”

“It’s your cue! Go! Go!” Zack hissed, then spun me toward the stage and pushed me.

He was right. Lindsey had finished her opening song and it was my cue. I pulled it together as fast as I could and strode out onto the stage, my first time ever in front of an audience.

I wish I could say that everything went perfectly and nothing Eric did to sabotage the show worked. I wished I could say that, but it didn’t go down like that.

First off, something must have been wrong with the follow spots. I tried to keep to my marks, but the light kept swaying, leaving me in darkness. I tried subtly chasing it for that first scene, but that only made the audience laugh.

Then came my first song with Lindsey, a sweet father-daughter number. Or it would have been sweet if something hadn’t been wrong with one of the clarinets that accompanied my part. It kept squawking and breaking, especially when I reached a high note. At least the audience was entertained.

The set pieces did, indeed, have trouble as they were moved around the set for scene changes. More than that, because the pieces moved slower, the orchestra got ahead of the change, and I had to begin our first large chorus number before the set was entirely in place.

Completely unsurprisingly, as soon as Eric’s storm scene began, everything functioned perfectly. The set piece for the ship worked as it should have, the lighting cues were on point, and the orchestra was fine.

Only after that, after the scene where Lindsey rescued Eric and they had their first duet, when Lindsey returned to the sea for one of the new numbers that had been written especially for me, did things start to go wrong again.

From the sound of things, half the orchestra was missing the sheet music for the new number. Then one of the dancers doing their thing behind us tripped. Thirty seconds later, another one tripped. When I stole a moment to see why, it looked like someone had spilled a bowl of marbles across the back of the stage.

That was a problem, but just as I was trying to decide whether to stop the show so the marbles could be cleaned up and the dancers’ ankles spared, Zack appeared from one side of the stage with his huge broom, wearing half of one of the dancers’ merperson costumes.

The audience laughed as he swept the marbles up, Lindsey and I finished the number and the scene, Lindsey had her scene with the Sea Witch, and Act One ended with her swimming up to land to try to win her prince.

I’d never been so relieved to end the first act of a play in my life.

“That was harrowing,” I told Zack when the two of us met in the wings as the stage crew ran frantically around, changing the scenery for the land palace scene that needed to be in place for Act Two. “I was three seconds away from stopping the whole thing. I don’t know why Betty didn’t call a hold when the marbles came out.”

“Betty was distracted,” Zack informed me with a stunned look. “Greg decided to confess his undying love for her at just that moment. She didn’t see the marbles.”

“That has Eric written all over it,” I growled.

“Yeah, and the other thing that has Eric written all over it is the fact that the palace set just collapsed,” Zack said, pointing past me to the stage.

Sure enough, the pillars that suggested the ballroom of the palace had just tumbled as the stagehands tried to move them into place.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Betty said, charging out onto the stage to see to the carnage. “What happened here?”

“They just fell over,” one of the stagehands said.

“Can you get them back up before Act Two?” Betty asked.

“We’ll have to,” the stagehand said. “But there’s another problem. The ball guests’ props are all mixed up with the goblets and ribbons from the finale.”

“Get it sorted,” Betty said. “This show will go on, no matter who or what is trying to stop it.”

She glanced past me and Zack to where Eric was leaning against the stage wall in the wings, looking at his nails with a smug look.

“I have nothing to do with it,” Eric said, completely unconvincingly.

We all knew that wasn’t true.

Betty turned back to me and Zack. “We can fix this, but it’s going to prolong intermission. People are going to get restless and angry.”

“Not unless we entertain them with something else,” I said, feeling like a lightning bolt of inspiration hit me. I turned to Zack with a smile and said, “Zack can go out on stage and do his stand-up routine.”

“I can what now?” Zack said, his face going pale.

I grabbed his shoulders. “This is perfect,” I said. “Your whole purpose in coming to Valleywood was to give stand-up a try.”

“I’m not sure that was really the reason,” he stammered.

“Well, now’s your opportunity,” I went on. “I know you’ll be fantastic. You’re the funniest person I know. All you have to do is go out there and tell people about everything that’s happened for the last few weeks and you’ll have them in stitches.”

“I’m not sure that’s actually a good thing,” Zack said in a slightly sick voice.

“You can do this, guppy,” I said, resting a hand on the side of his face. “I know you can.”

“You have to do this,” Betty said in an entirely different, more terrified voice. “We don’t have any other choice. Hey, Norbert! Give Zack here your jacket!”

Norbert, who was one of the chorus members and happened to be standing nearby, wearing a glittery jacket, veered toward us. Without questioning why, he shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to Betty.

“Here you go, kid,” Betty said, moving behind Zack to throw the glittery jacket over his shoulders and stuff his arms in the sleeves. “It’s your moment to shine. You’re going to buy us some time, keep the audience happy, and give us a chance to save the show.”

“I am?” Zack asked, his voice small and thin.

“Yep. You sure are,” Betty said, then shoved Zack through the gap in the side of the curtain and straight out onto the stage.