Free Siempre by Tessa Cárdenas Page B

to apologize and ask if he could come to the show tonight.”
    “You didn’t tell him no, did you?” Travis didn’t need him to answer any more than he needed to hear what Travis had to say next. “Why do you do this to yourself?”
    “I didn’t just say yes. I said he could come tonight, but he needs to come over Saturday night when we have time to talk, and he said he will.” Sean cut Travis off before he could speak. “If I want to give him another chance, I can give him another chance.”
    “What has he done to earn another chance?” Travis asked.
    “What has he done that he doesn’t deserve one? He didn’t really cheat on me, and he didn’t lie about anything.” Sean looked up, even though he didn’t want to see the disappointment on Travis’s face.
    “That’s not an excuse, and I’m not clearing out Saturday, so you’ll just have to stick to talking. I can’t tell you what to do, but you know what I think about it.” Travis turned and walked back into the living room as he called back, “You get to tell Alana yourself. And tell her I’m canceling the cable so I don’t have to watch any more of your awful TV when this blows up.”
    “Good luck with that!” Sean called back. Alana loved him. Alana would not let Travis cancel their cable.
     
     
    “I F YOU drop me on that third lift because you’re trying to find him in the audience, I swear, I will injure you worse than Travis, and we’ll just have to rework everything so he can dance it,” Alana said when he told her about Jaime. He’d thought he was safe telling her right before the warm-up class, but no. Travis wasn’t teaching it, so it was running late.
    “No one does that. He’d have to be wearing a crazy bright light for me to even find him, and I’ve never dropped anyone on stage ever.”
    “But you’ve dropped me,” Alana said as she pulled against him to stretch.
    “One time.”
    “Two times,” Alana corrected.
    “I did not drop you twice. One time, you got dizzy, blacked out, and I put you down. If I’d dropped you, you would have had at least one bruise.”
    “Travis caught me.”
    “Travis helped me put you on the floor so I wouldn’t drop you.” Sean could have this argument without paying attention by now.
    “So you would have dropped me if Travis hadn’t caught me.”
    “You passed out during a lift because you didn’t tell us you were sick. I might have been able to catch you myself, but that wasn’t really a risk Travis felt like taking in the half second he had to think about it.”
    Alana shrugged as Steph came from backstage and waved for them all to line up.
    “I’m coming over on Sunday morning for breakfast. If you’re sad, I’m killing him.”
    “Travis says he’s canceling the cable if that happens.”
    “I’ll remind him about my DVD collection.”
     
     
    H EY . I’ M here. Lexi and I have seats. Lupe has begun ushering. Good luck with everyone Michael seats. He’s confused.
    Sean smiled at the text as Alana groaned. The doors had only opened a few minutes ago, so he had to hope Michael would catch on as he typed a reply.
    Thanks. I’ll see you for a few minutes after the show?
    “I’m taking your phone,” Alana said as she typed into her own.
    Lexi being here means we get to actually officially meet you guys after the show. Technically Travis met me once, but should I avoid this so Lupe doesn’t figure something out?
    Sean started to type back to ask when this had happened before he remembered Travis probably met Jaime at some point when they filled out paperwork for the internships.
    If he does anything, Lupe won’t have a clue.
    When Sean looked up, Travis was standing by the winding staircase next to the stage, where he and Alana were sitting. He pointed at Sean’s phone and held out his hand.
    Travis is confiscating phones. I’ll text after the show. Don’t worry. I changed the passcode again.
    It buzzed as he started to hand it to Travis, and Sean didn’t need to