Behind the Scenes

by Christina C Jones

  25

  Logan

  The emptiness from the other side of the bed woke me up.

  That’s the only way I could describe what pulled me from my slumber, even though something had been off before that. The last few days had been more stressful than usual because we had to turn in the first episode to the network at the end of this week, ahead of the premiere and sneak preview event.

  We were all stressed about it, in varying forms.

  I was out of whack, mentally and physically, in ways I never knew before due to the sheer pressure of this.

  But Pierre... he had something else going on.

  So, when I woke up in his bed to find myself there alone, I didn’t chalk it up to grabbing a drink or simple insomnia.

  I got up to see for myself what was wrong.

  For now, we’d decided that any overnight stays would need to happen at his place, since it was exponentially more private. The benefit of that was that I got to see him in his natural habitat so much that I didn’t have to search very far to figure out where he was.

  I just went to the balcony doors on the other side of the room.

  Sure enough, as soon as I pushed the doors open, I could smell the evidence of his chosen form of self-medication - which I’d read enough on to not be concerned about. Especially since it wasn’t some all the time thing.

  I wasn’t surprised at all to find his computer in his lap, and I didn’t have to see the screen to know what he was doing – obsessively watching that first episode yet another time. Looking for flaws, searching for any miniscule deficit that would, to his mind, declare him unworthy.

  “Come here,” he said, not even looking up to acknowledge that I’d stepped outside. “The color grading is off right here. You see it too, right?”

  With a sigh, I joined him on the outdoor sofa, humoring him by looking at what he was indicating to me. “I don’t see it, P,” I told him, choosing honesty over being patronizing. He didn’t need that. “Just make a note, and maybe run it by Nick or Miko or both, see if they see it. If they see it too, then editing will correct it.”

  He still hadn’t actually looked at me, so I raised a hand, running it up the back of his neck and into his hair, which hadn’t been cut in a little too long.

  More evidence of something going on.

  In the almost half a year we’d known each other, I couldn’t recall ever seeing him without a fresh haircut until very recently.

  “You really should try to get some sleep, instead of driving yourself crazy with this. There’s no such thing as perfect, but if there was… this episode would definitely be it.”

  That was honest too.

  I wasn’t just trying to get him back to bed to get some rest.

  The episode was truly – at least to my eyes – flawless. It did a wonderful job of introducing the main players, their motivations, their struggles, introducing a problem at the end for viewers to care enough about to want to see it get solved.

  Visually it was beautiful, between the directing and some stellar cinematography.

  Even the score was lovely, thanks to songbird Dani and her musically inclined partner who I just so happened to share a name with, Logan Lewis. I wasn’t biased because of that. They were just dope.

  It was clear to me, watching with as much of a neutral eye as I could, that everybody involved had really put their hearts into it.

  I hated that Pierre’s inner critic was so loud he couldn’t see it too.

  “I feel like I’m going to miss something that fucks it all up,” he admitted, finally offering more than a glance in my direction. His eyes were glossy, and not just from the weed.

  “That’s what you have a team for,” I reminded him. “This is your baby. All the rest of us are part of your birthing squad. We’re not going to let you fall.”

  He nodded. “I know. I know,” he repeated. “Like logically, on the surface, I’m fully aware of that. There’s just something, way down deep, way in the back of my mind that’s telling me I’m going to fuck this up. And the closer I get to having to turn this episode in, it just gets louder and fucking louder. And no matter what I do, I can’t seem to drown it out.”

  Shit.

  There was something there in his words, something in his tone, that put me on edge. I knew he was stressed. I’d seen him stressed before; but this felt so much deeper, so much more potent, that it was hard not to feel uneasy.

  And there was next to nothing I could do about it.

  I spent a little longer outside with him, doing my best to offer encouragement from every angle I possibly could, hoping that something would stick. But once it was clear that wasn’t happening – and I was barely keeping my eyes open while Pierre had started the episode again – I finally pulled myself up.

  He was so caught up in the screen that he barely acknowledged me slipping away, back into his room. In his bed, I closed my eyes, even while knowing my chances of any real, restful sleep were slim.

  I was worried about him.

  Worried about how this stress would manifest, how long it could keep up this attack against his mental state, and what that might mean for him.

  What it might mean for his sobriety.

  I knew him enough to know that was of equal, maybe more importance to him than the show was, but he was so deeply immersed that I wasn’t sure he could see that the pressure was drowning him.

  He was only eating when I practically forced him, like a petulant toddler, and the evidence of his exhaustion was apparent in the dark circles forming under his eyes. He had tunnel vision though, for making the show perfect. I’d already done all I could with that.

  I couldn’t save him.

  And that’s not my place.

  Their desires for my career weren’t the only things my parents had instilled in me. More specifically, my mother had drilled into me that it was never, ever, my job to restore or renovate a man. She insisted that I deserved someone already whole, someone who knew enough to not go out in the water without a life jacket.

  But… Pierre had one of those.

  I was just afraid he wasn’t blowing the attached whistle to let somebody know he was out there, sinking.

  I was afraid he didn’t know he needed to.

  And so, instead of minding my business like I probably should have, I searched the recesses of my mind for a detail he’d given me a while ago, probably without even realizing it. Once I found it, I picked up my phone from the bedside table and pulled up the search engine to get what else I needed.

  I couldn’t pull him from the water, and he hadn’t asked me to, but… I damn sure wasn’t going to sit around waiting until it was too late. I was gonna get the lifeguard’s attention.

  The stress was going to kill me.

  Two more days had passed, and I hadn’t seen a change in Pierre to indicate something different had happened.

  Fine, so I hadn’t seen any traction on my move until late yesterday, and we’d been crazy busy filming some on location scenes from the casino. It was noisy, and it was loud, and there was so much going on and...

  Oh God he’s going to be so pissed at me.

  That concern was so prevalent it was making me dizzy and sick to my stomach.

  I guzzled what had to be my sixth bottle of water for the morning, and then finally decided to stop being a fucking wimp and just fess up before the anxiety of it all really did drive me to vomit.

  I called out to him, getting his attention just as he was walking away from a conversation with Nick.

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” I asked, nervous, which was a completely foreign feeling. Since when was I nervous to talk to him?

  “Of course, shorty,” he said, giving me the kind of smile I felt like I hadn’t seen from him in days as he led me off the casino floor to the office we used as the setup for Jason’s father. He closed the door behind us, and immediately all the noise of the casino was shut out. “You’ve been avoiding me this morning,” was the first thing out
of his mouth. which made my eyebrows bunch together.

  “I have?” I asked, even though when I thought about it… yeah, I guess I kinda had, since I was nervous about my little secret.

  He chuckled. “Yeah, you have. Every time I get close to you, you head in the other direction. What’s up?”

  Wow.

  His demeanor was so remarkably different from the energy that had caused me to take action that it suddenly felt really silly.

  “Okay,” I breathed, chewing on my lip for a second. “I… need to confess something.”

  Pierre crossed his arms, his expression completely blank as he stood there waiting for me to continue.

  “Umm, well… you’ve seemed really stressed out. Like really, really stressed out. And I was worried about you, so… I called someone. Someone I hoped would be a good person and maybe not add to your stress like if I had said something to Nubia or Elodie, but then again, they’re your family. They know you better than I do, so maybe I should have said something to one of them first,” I muttered, wondering why I hadn’t considered that in the first place before running to…

  “Who did you call, Logan?” Pierre’s voice broke into my thoughts, keeping me from traveling too far over that mental ledge.

  “I got in touch with your sponsor,” I blurted out, instead of dragging it any further. “I remembered way back to that conversation with Laurel and Rowan, you mentioned that his name was Will. I knew you were living in Blackwood at that time, so your sponsor would be there. So as soon as I had “Will from Blackwood” in my mind, it was like a light bulb went off,” I explained. “I remembered reading the story years ago about Cameron Taylor, from Sugar&Spice. She struggled with alcoholism. Her husband... back then he acted in a sponsor capacity for her. Kind of. It was messy,” I said, getting off track again. “But anyway, I remembered that her husband’s name was Will. So I tracked down contact information for him and reached out, without giving your name or anything like that. Just to make sure it was him.”

  I took a deep breath, because through all this, Pierre was just looking at me, not saying anything, and it… felt a little like my lungs were going to explode.

  “It was him,” I confirmed. “So I told him what was going on. And I’m sorry, because I know that this is a massive overstepping of boundaries, but I just couldn’t stand to see you hurting. And I really want – need – you to be okay,” I said, my voice cracking with sudden, unexpected emotion that brought tears along, too. “I’m sorry, I’m not supposed to be crying right now, and I don’t even know why I’m doing that, but… yeah. I really hope that I didn’t… get you in trouble or anything, I don’t know how it works. But you know me. You know I couldn’t not do something.”

  His expression very solemn as he nodded. “Yeah, I do know you Logan. You want to know what I know about you?”

  “That I’m a self-righteous know-it-all whose always trying to fix something, even when my own shit is very much not together?” I asked, bobbing my head. “Yeah, I know. I know it all.”

  “Nah, shorty,” he laughed, stepping toward me. “What I know is that you, Logan Byers…are one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

  Wait, what?

  I’d barely processed that he wasn’t actually angry – or at least, didn’t seem to be – before his hands were cupping my face, and his lips were on mine. My heart practically leapt into my throat, but I swallowed it back down, pulling away so I could look him in the face, with what was apparently a clear question in my eyes.

  “Will called me very early this morning,” Pierre admitted. “He told me that a very meticulous, damn near neurotic woman named Logan was very concerned about me. That was you, right? You’re Logan, and you’re could definitely be described as neurotic, so…”

  “Shut up,” I laughed, knowing I may very well have sounded like a crazy person to that man with my very organized explanation for why Pierre needed him. “So… what happened?”

  “He talked some sense into me,” he admitted with a nod. “A bit of a tough love, if you can call cussing somebody out for five minutes straight that,” he laughed. “But… the gist of the message was to get my shit together before I ended up right back where I was. Which is probably exactly where I was headed. I was spiraling and you saw that. And did something about it. And I’m… grateful.”

  “I’m just glad it helped,” I gushed. “I’m glad you’re not pissed at me.”

  “Definitely not that,” he chuckled, pulling me back against his chest.

  I submitted to that hug, and the relief it brought, but my mind was rolling back to when he called me one of the best things that ever happened to him.

  Just… wow.

  What in the world was I supposed to do with that?!

  “I sent the episode off this morning,” he told me, muttering the words into my hair.

  My head popped up. “What?!”

  He grinned at me. “Yep. After talking with Will and realizing how I was fixating… how unhealthy it was… I said fuck it. And I sent it off. And I feel about five tons lighter.”

  I didn’t even bother trying to suppress my smile as I nodded. “Good.”

  “You know… staring at me isn’t going to make that test not positive, right?”

  “I haven’t even taken it yet.”

  Across the desk, Loren, my doctor, smirked. “You said you were late.”

  “Just a couple weeks.”

  She snickered. “Logan… you’ve never been late before. Like… ever.”

  Ugh.

  She was right.

  In fact, the exact point she was making was what had made me stop putting it off and seek advice from a doctor. Pierre – and his sponsor – had called me neurotic, and that wasn’t… wrong. I had a whole running chart of my daily moods, I tracked my periods down to the heaviness of flow, amongst a whole list of other things that had enabled me to predict my cycles with a very particular level of certainty.

  I knew my body.

  And I just wasn’t sure an abnormal level of stress could account for all the strange things it seemed to be doing now.

  Apparently, Loren agreed.

  “Sweetie… I use you as my “ideal” example for keeping up with all this stuff when I’m talking to other patients,” Loren said, eyeing me across the desk. “You’ve been coming to me for how long? Since you came back from college?” she asked. “In all that time, I’ve never met a woman as in tune with her body as you. I think we both know what it’s going to say when you take that test.”

  “But I have an IUD.”

  “Women get pregnant with IUDs every single day,” Loren said, very simply, like that wasn’t a gut-rending blow. “They are not one hundred percent effective. Which you were very aware of, because I distinctly remember you telling me you and your man would also avoid or take extra precautions around your ovulation days. I remember marveling at how well you planned to… plan. What happened to that?”

  “Well, I started having sex that wasn’t nearly as… planned.”

  Or rather, not at all.

  If I was pregnant, and far enough along to have missed a period, this had to have happened weeks ago… when we first started messing around again.

  Maybe that first time we messed around again.

  On his desk.

  Right next to Anthony’s flowers.

  “Well good for you,” Loren gushed. “I thought it all sounded kinda stuffy, but you and your boyfriend have been together so long, that’s to be expected I guess. Glad y’all started spicing it up.”

  I swallowed, hard. “Um… actually, Les and I are not together anymore. This is… someone else.”

  “Oh. Like a fling or something?” Loren smirked. “Don’t be embarrassed about that.” She turned around a framed picture on her desk, showing me an adorable toddler. “My baby girl is the result of a fling – and it was a messy situation. But it all worked out, and everybody loves each other, and we’re good. But if my mess can work out… surely yours
can. Whatever you decide to do.”

  I blew out a sigh.

  I wasn’t worried about it working out, because mentally, I hadn’t even gotten that far yet. But… I was going to have to catch up, quickly.

  After a little more back and forth, Loren took a blood sample instead of having me pee on a stick or in a little cup. And then, way too soon, she was confirming what she’d already been sure of, but I’d stupidly hoped wasn’t true.

  I was pregnant.

  Still very early, but no less… positive.

  I left Loren’s office in a daze and didn’t even bother dragging myself back to WAWG to attempt any work. My head was all over the place, but what I kept coming back to was the fact that… this was not how my life was supposed to go.

  I was just starting to really feel like I knew who I was, but I was still very deep into figuring that out. I’d imagined myself as a mother, sure, but… where the fuck was I supposed to fit that into my life right now?

  And then… there was Pierre.

  Brooding Pierre who felt everything so deeply, but still somehow managed to have a casual energy about him.

  A great foil to my pragmatism and “logic”.

  He, too, was just now figuring himself out, and finding confidence in his work, and just… being.

  Where was he supposed to find the mental space to be a father?

  I climbed straight into my bed, in my clothes.

  Chaos.

  I couldn’t find it in me to care, though.

  Loren had removed the IUD there in the office and sent me home with prenatal vitamins I couldn’t even stomach the thought of. Now that I knew what I’d been all too willing to deny – what I hadn’t even considered a possibility… everything seemed to be in a fog.

  Pierre called several times, but I couldn’t wrap my head around speaking to him yet. I’d told him I was going to the doctor, and it was only because he was distracted that I’d been able to get away without giving more details than that.

  Since his talk with his sponsor, he’d been much better – not withdrawn, less stressed – but there was still a lot happening, still a lot that required his attention.