Change of Luck

By David Connor and E.F. Mulder

Sequel to Lucky Break

Sometimes, bad luck can’t be thwarted, Renny’s mother once said. You give it what it wants, and then pick up the pieces. Two broken mirrors. A fourteen-year curse. After a series of unfortunate events, Renny gave it what it wanted. He and Waz took a break, though they never stopped loving one another.

When those fourteen years are finally over, what happens next? In Renny’s superstitious world, he needs a sign from fate before moving forward. Renny’s sister recalls a scavenger hunt their mother sent her seven years after she broke a mirror. Seven good luck charms had to be found and collected before the bad luck would officially end. Since Renny and Waz’s hex was doubled, Renny feels they must find fourteen.

Will they succeed even if they slightly bend the rules? Is their love strong enough to fight bad fortune this time? Will Renny get his sign?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Dec 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685506117

Book preview

Chapter 1

May 12–15, 2023, The Springfield Symphony Hall, in Conjunction with Lumi Full Body Deodorant Presents, The Springfield Symphony Orchestra Plays Gershwin.

Reading my name as first chair trumpet on the seating chart affixed to the dressing room wall was like pinching myself to make sure the past few months hadn’t all been a dream.

Redmond Hennessy.

So many tryouts, so many rejections. Was it really as simple as obeying one of the many superstitions with which I’d been raised?

If a deceased person’s instrument is used for an audition, it confuses the spirits, and the audition will fail.

For years, I’d auditioned exclusively with my late mother’s trumpet, including my first attempt at joining the US Army Band. Lucky for me, I was offered a second chance. Unlucky for me—or so it seemed at the time—my black cat knocked over a tallboy dresser, damaging that horn, leaving me no choice but to use my own.

It took several years and the discovery of an old videotape of my mother speaking those prophetic words for me to change things up on purpose. Now, here I was.

Knock, knock.

The stage director poked his head in. Ten minutes to curtain. Then, he was gone.

Right away, someone else wanted in.

Renny.

I turned at the sound of my name. Hey, Jordan.

Break a leg.

In my life over three years now, appropriately dressed for a night at the symphony, his body buff as a Marvel Universe actor, Jordan was stunning.

Thank you. I accepted the six long-stemmed roses he brought, as I had before shows one and two. Both of us quite tall, I didn’t have to bend to give him an appreciative kiss.

I better get to my seat. He didn’t have to bend to kiss me, either.

The huge dressing room mirror was crowded as several dozen musicians fought to check one last time for untamed cowlicks, straight bowties, missed buttons, or makeup on our collars.

Anyone have hair gel?

I stepped in to catch third chair bassoonist Vaughan Teller’s when he chucked it to Shamir Abelman, main timpani. Careful, guys.

Catching was new to me. A lifelong lack of athleticism left me helpless when a pair of gym shoes came hurtling toward me and a pair of mirrors in a high school locker room precisely fourteen years prior. At the tail end of the resulting curse, the thought of starting over was rather distressing.

The number thirteen never bothered my mother or me. Fourteen, conversely, bit us both in the ass. According to family lore, my father was none too pleased when Mom refused their fourteenth floor honeymoon suite upon learning the floor below was numbered twelve. She didn’t believe the fourteenth was subsequently cursed. Her issue was someone attempting to fool luck. That was a no-no. It was the same reason my childhood black cat was named Thirteen and the one I owned now was Jinx, as opposed to Lucky I and Lucky II.

I liked to get to my chair onstage a minute or two before the curtain went up. Believing the legend that all theaters and music halls are haunted made it easy to feel my mother’s presence. Even if I half-believed the spotlight had cost us her life, I graciously shared my time in it, making my trumpet solo a duet with harmonies only I could hear.

Knock, knock.

I opened the backstage door once more to metallic swirl wallpaper, maroon carpeting, and the glow of twenty-three illuminated letters, each almost two feet high.

SPRINGFIELD SYMPHONY HALL.

This guy is insisting you know him. Tate, the hall’s lead security guard, spoke through gritted teeth as the rather diminutive man in his firm grip never stopped smiling up at me.

Hey, Reddy.

The nickname only he used, my breath caught. Waz.

Harmon Waz Wazelle, superstar high school athlete and my first love. The spark was immediate, but even before we could kiss, those broken mirrors—bad luck—started working against us.

We laughed off minor accidents, ignored silly mishaps. When Waz’s game went to hell, he claimed bad luck from busted mirrors was bullshit. But statistics didn’t lie. Somewhere, in a dusty old Springfield High West filing cabinet, were the football coach’s notes proving hexes were real.

A little experimentation proved a theory. When I stayed away, Waz performed well. When I was near, he struggled. The jinx was me, so as much as it hurt, after one scorching, tender, romantic, sexy summer, I insisted we take a break. Sure enough, Waz found his way back to the top, not just in high school, but for many years beyond.

You know what day it is? He held a program for the evening’s concert against his chest. I remembered. Maybe protecting his heart.

Hi. That was all I could manage.

I was hoping I could score a ticket.

Sold out. Tate was a big guy—tall, broad, menacing—good for keeping out whatever riff raff might show up at a symphony orchestra performance.

Watch this, Waz addressed me, then Tate. Don’t you know who I am?

No idea.

Tate’s answer made me smile.

My ambivalence to luck was matched by my feelings toward celebrity. For half his life, fame, fortune, and notoriety, were as much a goal for Waz as a career in music was for me.

He reached his dream a lot faster.

College football and off-field antics started it all back in 2009. It was social media, however, becoming a content creator before the term was even coined, that put Waz Wazelle in a whole other stratosphere.

He wasn’t the first to strip down to white boxer briefs and stand in a kiddie pool so four other half naked studs could douse him with ice water. He wasn’t the first to plank, floss, or gyrate lip synching in the street to Drake, but something about the way Waz did those things garnered major attention. Perhaps, part of it was the uninhibited dance skills I’d known about since seventh grade.

The Gallon of Milk Challenge earned Waz a couple thousand new followers a day for