Samantha Cocker (Cocker Brothers Book 21)

by Faleena Hopkins

  Though they’re whistling and cheering, all I can hear is the slowing of my heart. I make my way to Asher and nudge him. “Where is Samantha?”

  He cocks a black eyebrow. “She didn’t tell you?”

  “I don’t have time to play coy. She get fired?”

  He’s eyeing me. “No, Logan. She backed out. Galloway tried to talk her into coming. She didn’t want to leave her family.”

  My ribs are closing in on my lungs, and that leaves little hope for this shriveling thing I called a heart. I clear my throat and walk away in the direction that Galloway’s motioning me toward.

  She’s saying something.

  I just see moving lips.

  Faces that will become familiar. Some already are. Every one of them feels like a stranger. I wasn’t supposed to go on this journey alone.

  Was I?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  SAMANTHA

  “Do you think you made a mistake?” Zoe asks me as my sister pets my head, both of them on the bed with me.

  “She’s crying, Zoe, what do you think?”

  I burrow under my pillow so that I don’t have to see anybody anymore. “I don’t think it was a mistake. I’m just sad. Can you guys just leave me alone?”

  “No way am I leaving you like this.” Lexi adjusts herself next to my head, lifts my pillow and peeks underneath. “You’ve been in here for three days. If we didn’t bring you food, you wouldn’t be eating.”

  Zoe sighs, “Ralphie is pawing at your legs.”

  “I know, I can feel him through the comforter. Pick him up for me.”

  Lexi reaches over, grabs our fluffy, white cat, and pushes him in my face. “How can you stay depressed when this kind of beauty is staring right at you? And he actually left Zoe’s room to come see you! He can tell you’re depressed!”

  Rolling over, I pull him onto my chest. “I’m just not feeling very good, guys. Can’t you just leave me be for a few months or so?”

  They both say, “No.”

  “Let’s go for a drive,” Lexi suggests.

  Why does everything feel so damn end of the world apocalyptic? Even with them here, I feel alone.

  I let go of Ralphie and groan, “I’m allergic to water. And soap.”

  Lexi stands up and shakes out her red hair. My depression must be rubbing off on her because she didn’t straighten it today. It’s become more curly as she’s gotten older, much to her chagrin. The battle is waged on a daily basis with every new product that comes out. I don’t think she realizes that she looks great with it curly. No matter how many times we tell her. What you perceive in the mirror is not what other people do. “We’re driving!”

  With a hopeful smile Zoe offers, “What about the gardens?”

  Lexi rolls her eyes, “Listen flower addict, not everybody gets off on plants the way you do.” She walks to my mirror and straightens the green sweater I bought her for Christmas.

  Our cousin runs out of the room and returns with Sally Ashes, soft, ashen fur squished between her fingers. “You need two cats to love on, here!” Sally joins her boyfriend as he climbs over my chest, gracefully leaps to the floor and prances out of the room with his tail in the air.

  Lexi mutters, “Even Ralphie is sick of this room.”

  Pushing the comforter off, I grumble, “Okay, I’ll take a shower.” As I trudge out in my fuzzy socks, dirty tank and sweats, my phone buzzes on the nightstand.

  Lexi calls after me, “It’s Logan!”

  My heartbeat suspends, and I spin around to grab the phone from her hand. We lock eyes as I answer, “Logan?” and wave for them to leave the room.

  This demands privacy.

  Zoe starts to go.

  Lexi doesn’t budge.

  “Hey Sam,” he says, voice heavy with all that’s happened between us.

  “Hi Logan. I’m sorry, can you give me a second? My sister is being nosy.”

  Lexi throws up her hands and follows Zoe out. “Fine! You didn’t have to tell him!”

  “Close the door, please.”

  Zoe reaches back and does it, to avoid an argument.

  Logan asks, “They gone?”

  “Yeah,” I whisper, fingers shaking as I push my hair behind my ear, imagining his face and the frown I can hear etched into it. “How is it? Are you having fun?”

  “Rehearsals are harder here.”

  “Standards must be higher.”

  “That’s not why.”

  The pain cuts deep. “Oh.”

  “So I guess you decided not to come,” he chuckles with sarcasm before he adds, “I mean, that’s pretty obvious. I’m just surprised you didn’t tell me. I had to find it out by meeting your replacement. Good times, Sam.”

  Collapsing onto my bed, I stare at the ceiling. “When I realized how cutthroat things are, I just…” Closing my eyes I whisper, “It’s not the life for me, Logan. I don’t want to worry about covering up people’s secrets, or injuries that might’ve been done on purpose, or grow a thicker skin. I like my skin the way it is.”

  “Are you running because of what I said?”

  “I’m hoping we can be friends.” My voice cracks. “I haven’t been handling this well, Logan. You’re the person I always turn to when I need someone who will listen. Who will just…”

  “…love you.”

  Tears gather as I struggle to ask what’s been hurting me most, “Are you going to be able to be my friend? Is everything changed now?”

  He exhales. From years of seeing him do this when he’s frustrated, I know he’s rubbing his face. “I can try. I don’t want to lose you. It feels really weird living this dream without you. We always talked about coming here, and I’m here and you’re not. It feels wrong.”

  It does to me as well. “I’m sorry. I’m having an existential crisis. Especially with you gone.”

  “Was it what I said about Asher? Is it because you were afraid he was going to drop you, like he did Marion?”

  “I don’t think he did. What I don’t like is that I’m not sure,” I sigh, rolling into the fetal position, “People suspect it, but are letting it continue because that’s just how it is in show business? That’s not part of the dream I had, Logan. I’d rather live in the small pond and be happy.”

  In the background I hear male voices calling his name.

  “Look, the guys and I are going to Central Park before rehearsal since we get no days off.”

  “What’s New York like?”

  “Busy, just like they say it is. You go outside and there are a million people passing you, some speaking different languages, all in a hurry. Horns and sirens never stop, but you get used to that. We’ve only been here a week. I still have a lot to see.” Keeping it to myself that it doesn’t sound good to me, I listen as he continues, “Galloway has been working us so hard we haven’t time to explore. We’re beat up every night. I go to the local coffee shop, get food from bodegas, and pass out. Stuart has lofts for the performers. There are five guys staying with me.”

  Wondering if Stuart told his wife, I try to smile as I say, “Five! That sounds like a lot of fun.”

  “It is. I’m having a pretty good time when I’m not missing you.” My heart thuds and I bite my lip on a frown as he goes silent. We stay like this, knowing we have to hang up soon, but neither of us wanting to. Finally his friends shout at him again. “I’ll give you a call sometime.”

  “No!” I bolt upright. “Logan Clark, you have to call me once a week! We have to make it a thing.”

  “Sam…”

  I wipe away a tear as I insist, “We have to make it a thing or you’re going to be swept up, and I’m never going to see you again.”

  “The production isn’t going for long.”

  “But then there will be another one. And another. You’ll fly to a different country. Then maybe five more. And you’ll forget about me, your best friend living all the way over here in boring Georgia. So we have to make it a thing. Once a week. Promise me!”

  H
is voice is hoarse with emotion. “What day?”

  “Monday. Mondays are terrible, but they won’t be if I know I’ll be talking to you.”

  Logan sniffs, clears his throat, says a low, “Mondays. Promise,” and hangs up.

  I stuff the pillow over my head and sob.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  LOGAN

  “P laces!”

  Backstage wakes up, everyone hurrying to where they’re supposed to be. Asher is smoothing his shirt, dark hair falling over his eyes as he looks down.

  I’m to his right, as usual.

  Curiosity gets the best of me tonight, though. I sidle up to him. He glances to me and holds my look before straightening and asking, “I was wondering when this was coming.”

  “What happened with you and Sam?”

  “She didn’t tell you.” It was a statement, not a question, like I just answered the one he’d been asking himself this whole time. “Huh. Seems like she doesn’t tell you much.”

  Fire shoots into my blood. “You want to go there right now, Asher? Because we can take this onstage in front of hundreds of people. I don’t mind.”

  “Don’t fucking blow it just because of a girl, Logan,” he hisses, eyes cutting to me. “You’d take you down with me.”

  “Tell me what you said! You crush her? Make her want to stay in Atlanta while you moved up in the world? Is that what you do with your co-leads?”

  He chuckles, shaking his head. “You don’t know anything.”

  “Fill me in.”

  “Nah. I’m good.”

  “What did I miss?”

  There’s so much going on behind his eyes. “Nothing. She chose to stay back.”

  My blood is pounding. “You make a move on her?”

  “Whoa!” He throws a hand between us, glancing to the curtain that’s about to open. “Calm down.”

  “Tell me you didn’t!”

  “I swear I never did.”

  “You better not have.”

  He clocks me, hears the announcement for people to turn off their cell phones as house lights dim. “Sam said she didn’t love me. I was the one who got crushed. Ever thought of that? You and I have something in common.”

  Someone grabs my arm, and I get tugged backward. Galloway is inches from my face. “Is there a problem?”

  “No, Ma’am.”

  She releases me with a warning in her sharp eyes. “Good.”

  The curtain opens and we walk out. I remember nothing from the entire performance. Not one thing. Thank God for practice, because auto-pilot saved my life tonight.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  LOGAN

  T errence is standing beside the stove while I cook scrambled eggs. “Let me get this right. You’re flying back for a BBQ that’s not for your family, but for the family of the girl you’ve been moping around after ever since I met you?”

  Sprinkling salt, I remind him, “Which has only been a couple months.”

  “Exactly!” He drops his leg and smacks the counter, rattling the stack of plates. “You need more time before you put yourself in that close of a proximity! When I left Michael I could not see that man for a year. Then and only then. You think I could trust myself not to act a fool? Think again. Know thyself, Logan. Know thyself!”

  He’s voicing my fears, and not making this easier. “Her brother is coming home from Chicago. He’s like my brother, too. Her parents are my second parents, I was at their house all the time ever since I was a kid.”

  Johan walks in with a towel wrapped around his narrow waist. “My body is loving these nightly performances that all the pansy singers can’t stop fucking griping about. They need to hush their ungrateful asses up.”

  Elliot calls over from where he’s reading a magazine on a couch stained by parties before our time. “This is what I was meant to be doing!”

  Terrence and I glance over, then he returns to his mission. “Logan, do not for one second think that you will come back to New York after this trip and be floating on puffy clouds of happiness. You will be a sloppy mess we’ll have to clean up!”

  Johan jumps onto the counter and picks at a bowl of figs, interest piqued. “What’s this I hear? Our Georgia peach is flying south for some nookie?”

  I chuckle, “I wish.”

  “No, he is flying south because he is pussy-whipped but isn’t getting any pussy! Give me one of those. Thank you. Now Logan, if you go then heed my warning and tell that stubborn addiction to release you from its gnarly clutches!”

  “I’m not addicted,” I mutter, sliding the cooked eggs onto a plate and sprinkling crumbled feta over them. We work our bodies so hard. Nobody’s scarfing cake every night, but adding cheese to a meal is just plain necessary. “She asked me to come. I’m showing her I can.”

  They stare at me, and start hollering like I’m the biggest dumbass ever created. Elliot throws his magazine at me, but the fluttering pages don’t make it halfway across the large room.

  Joel rushes out. “What’s up?”

  Johan’s towel is barely doing its job when he spreads his legs and slaps the counter. “Oh, you’ll show her you’re wrapped around her pinky!”

  Terrence wipes his eyes from laughing so hard. “Boy, you are daft.”

  I cock an eyebrow. “Daft? They still say that word?”

  “I’m bringing it back. Because I am looking at this!” He waves a circle in front of my face. “Daft daft daft daft DAFT.”

  Joel mutters, “I missed something,” and sticks a fork in eggs he didn’t bother to separate from the main plate. I don’t know why I even brought out more.

  From the couch, Elliott stretches to smugly announce, “You know what we see every Monday morning? You looking at the clock and checking your damn phone every two minutes. Oh, it’s Monday! Is it Monday yet? Why is there any day other than Mondays?”

  I dig in, despite their efforts to make me lose my appetite. Fact is, my stomach growls me awake every morning since Galloway turned our musical into boot camp. I mumble through a mouthful, “Look. She’s my best friend. She calls. I answer. Just because you nimrods don’t have someone that special to you doesn’t make it wrong.”

  “Special?” Johan chortles. “Oh, I have special. And excellent. And dayum, did we really just do that?! Only with me, I’m actually getting laid by those adjectives! Are you ever going to have sex with this girl? Because I have witnessed zero nights where you are not A to the L to the LONE.”

  “Sex isn’t everything.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Joel cuts in. “You think you love her?”

  “I know I love her.”

  They stare at me, and eat their breakfast with silence in full swing. Wow. That’s worse than an argument.

  Maybe I shouldn’t go.

  But I have to see her again.

  I came to New York thinking she’d be here, too. I need closure, and to make sure she hasn’t changed her mind about me. Foolish? Maybe. But this is love we’re talking about.

  Chapter Thirty

  LOGAN

  Everyone is cracking up because Grams swore, and sweet, old, May Cocker never does. It’s the matriarch’s ‘thing’ to reprimand her large family by shouting, “Language!” whenever a cuss word slips out—often intentionally.

  So I’m smiling along with everyone as she shouts, “That’s my fucking title!” but I can’t laugh.

  Ryder’s cough draws my attention. “Can I ask you a question?”

  Frowning, I nod, “Sure.”

  He glances to Zoe who shifts positions like she wasn’t staring at him. Taking my elbow he leads me out of earshot. “You and Sam hook up before you went to New York?”

  “No. We’re just friends.”

  Ryder nods. “I know you were.”

  “Are.”

  “Something feels off today.”

  I look over to where she and Lexi are meeting Caden’s new girlfriend. Turns out what they say about absence is true—S
amantha is even more beautiful than before I left.

  She was so happy to see me it almost wasn’t awkward. Except for how intensely I wanted to kiss her. Knowing that’s off the table when I ache for it, doesn’t make this easy for me. But her attitude lightened the load.

  Lexi and Hunter are fighting over who can be the biggest dick while she just watches and takes her turn in the big event, happy to be here. Their eldest brother, Max, just walked up with his new fiancé. Samantha is smiling as Lexi grabs the engagement ring and falls apart.

  “We’re just friends, Ryder. That’s it.”

  “That all you want to be?”

  I meet his eyes and hold. “Does it matter?”

  His breath is deep. “Ah.”

  “Yeah.”

  The two of us stand off to the side and watch the Cocker Family doing their thing, messing around and having a great time doing it. Samantha works her way back and because everyone is involved in their own conversations, they don’t notice her. It’s only Lexi they react to.

  But I notice.

  She doesn’t blend, to me.

  I don’t have to look at Ryder to know he’s watching us and understands me as only an outsider could. He’s the nephew of Tanner, husband to Emma Cocker, Jake’s only daughter. Ryder moved here from California with his mom, Jen, and he’s always at these infamous Family BBQs. But like me, he’s not a blood-relation to a Cocker, nor is he dating or married to one. We are the rare type of guest, getting in because someone in this family loves us.

  Only wish she loved me more.