by Piper Lawson
“And what will you do with me?”
Sophie’s round face scrunches. “Cheese.”
“You’re going to turn me into cheese.”
“No.” Giggles rack her little body, vibrating through my legs. “There’s cheese up there.” She points to a high top table a few feet from the bar, lowering her voice as if we’re conspiring together.
Then she shrieks, delighted, as I boost her up on my hip.
“Does Annie like cheese?” Sophie asks as I walk us to the table.
“I have watched your sister inhale her body weight in cheese fries.”
I let Sophie pick out a few chunks of cheese with a toothpick before setting her back down.
“Want anything?” When I start to pass Annie a plate, her fingers brush mine.
“Be careful. Tyler has an ouchie,” Sophie intervenes from around a bite of Manchego.
Annie takes the plate but stares at the black rose on my hand, the vines winding down over my knuckles. “I heard it was three months before you started playing.”
When she saw my hand last, it was a mess of still-red gashes. Now, it’s covered in white lines, but the ink is all most people see.
“I was reduced to singing for eighty-six days. The guys I toured with mocked me endlessly. Got my first surgery when we came back to the States.”
There was still pain, but at least I had more control of my fingers. I remember the hope that came from the surgery, thinking it would be a cure-all, only to realize it had made a modest difference at best.
“Did you tell the band to suck it?”
“Among other things.” My lips twitch at the corner and hers curve to match.
Suddenly, I’m remembering the feel of them under mine. I’m thinking of the things that mouth has done to me. The things I never had a chance to do with it.
I wish I could say we made it work with me on tour and her in New York, or even that we tried.
But that would be a lie.
She didn’t want me.
Not that she said as much. But overnight, our relationship was reduced to stilted texts, rushed phone calls squeezed into the margins of our lives.
The shows and the work and the relentless schedule were something I ended up grateful for because they kept me from thinking too much about what could’ve been.
I was going through some shit—trauma, plus shock, chased by some depression. Some days felt fine, like cracked pieces of broken ground after an earthquake settling together over time. Some days, it was hell.
“How hard was it to learn to pick with your other hand?” Her question brings me back.
To the rest of the world, I’d diminish it. The long hours late at night, early in the morning, learning my craft from scratch until I was better than most, if not as good as I once was.
“Hard.”
Her eyes color with compassion over the rim of her glass.
I’m not the same person I was two years ago. Most people would agree that I’m more, given my career, my recognition, the gold album I recorded with the help of half a dozen nimble-fingered studio musicians.
But in some ways, I’m less.
We’ve both moved on, and I don’t blame her for our breakup. I was impossible to be around.
Still. I wish she hadn’t been so quick to ask me to leave, and so willing to accept when our schedules made it harder to connect.
Because she didn’t want us as much as I did.
So maybe I do blame her.
My gaze drops to a chain glinting dully in the sunlight and disappearing beneath the already-low V of her dress.
When she shifts, I catch a glimpse of the end of it. Instead of a ring and a rose, there’s pearl-encrusted pendant.
Because it’s not my chain.
And she’s not my girl.
There are plenty of women who’d beg for a chance to satisfy me, including the one I met at this party who was exploring the studio with me when Annie walked in.
I clear my throat. “I heard you’re writing a new show.” I haven’t been keeping tabs on her, but I get the big developments from my roommate in LA, since she and Beck are still friends.
“We’re pitching funders later this summer, but there’ve been some problems.” A frown crosses her face. “I wasn’t sure I should come to the party at all because of my deadline. Now it turns out Haley invited me and my dad didn’t know I’d be here.”
I blink. “You’re joking.”
She shakes her head, her hair slipping over one shoulder as she scrunches her face in embarrassment. “No. I guess two years is a long time to be gone.”
The pieces click into place.
That was her other surprise today.
Jax hasn’t mentioned her to me since he and I reconnected after my tour, but I figured it was for my benefit, not because he hadn’t seen her either.
Someone calls Annie’s name and she looks past me.
“Looks like Uncle Ryan wants to catch up. I should go.”
“It was good to see you, Six,” I say and mean it.
I don’t know why I slide in the nickname. Habit.
Not to see if there’s a flicker behind her eyes.
“You too, Tyler.”
But as she brushes past me, I can’t help thinking Annie’s the one on the outside looking in.
And it feels wrong.
“Congrats,” I tell Jax after Haley takes Sophie for some quiet time. The party has started to die down, and only Jax’s closer contacts and friends remain.
I lift the glass of bourbon he pushed on me to toast him at the bar inside the house. “You have everything you could want. A beautiful family. A bourbon brand. And now a label, the great ‘fuck you’ to the studio that fucked you first.”
The man of the hour has stripped out of his jacket and is now wearing a black T-shirt and black pants and cowboy boots. When I first arrived, I offered to get him a hat, and he smirked while Haley laughed and murmured something that sounded like “midlife crisis.”
“You’ve been in this business long enough to know this life doesn’t come without sacrifices.” He shakes his head. “Speaking of, how’s recording going with Zeke?”
I frown. “I’m halfway through an album, but I’ve been slowing down.”
The past few months in studio, I’ve gotten down four finished tracks. But they don’t make me happy the way music used to make me happy.
“Come record with me.”
I swirl my drink. “I’m on a five-year contract for three albums with a studio option.”
“Which means your ass belongs to Zeke.”
“My ass belongs to no one.”
I’ve paid off my dad’s medical bills, and I’m planning to buy a place by the ocean where it’s warm. Zeke’s sending me new songs I have zero interest in recording. Plus prods about self-promotion. Like even on break, I can placate the record execs by dropping a few poolside selfies. Hashtag tortured artist or whatever the PR team emails.
I rub my left hand over my neck, mostly to feel the mess of tingling and soreness that sets in from flexing my fingers.
Jax’s gaze narrows. “It hurts.”
“Scar tissue’s a bitch. It doesn’t like the cold or vibration or days that end in Y.”
I could write for days about the moods of a damned appendage, one that intermittently has numbness and searing pain, that makes me regret I ever took for granted a second of what I used to do.
What I’ll do again soon.
“I head out the doors to the patio, the easy laughter of the stragglers standing in familiar groups drawing me toward them. When my gaze lands on the former pool house beyond, I stop.
My mentor pulls up at my side.
“You should’ve started this label years ago,” I say.
Jax only shrugs. “Things happen at the right time. May not be your right time or mine, but they happen when they’re meant to.”
I crane my neck towards the gardens edging the patio. “There a Buddhist statue around here I h
aven’t seen?”
Jax laughs, his deep voice rumbling. “Problem with the label is I’ve got some guys booking the space, but we need new sounds. New voices.”
“You haven’t found anyone.” I’m surprised to hear that because I know dudes who’d fly from LA in a heartbeat to record at Jax’s studio.
“I have one kid, but he’s got an attitude, and with all the legal and financial red tape, I haven’t had time to work with him. Sophie’s been acting out lately, and Hales is due in six weeks.”
“Supervising a teenager can’t be that hard. I practically taught myself.”
He eyes me up. “If it’s that simple, you try getting him to lay down something good.”
I’m only half listening, my gaze finding Annie across the patio. She’s standing in a group that includes Mace, Jax’s former bassist Brick, and Brick’s fiancée, Nina.
“Haley invited her.” Awe and weariness twine in Jax’s multimillion-dollar voice.
“How long is she staying?”
“No clue. Haven’t got my wife pinned down long enough to ask her which direction the sun’s rising and setting in, either.”
I take a sip of the bourbon. It’s actually not bad. “You and Annie should’ve made up sooner.”
“I’ve tried.”
“Try harder.”
“Kids aren’t that easy, Tyler. Someday, you’ll see.”
I always figured the rift between them came from Annie’s “try anything twice” attitude and Jax’s fierce protectiveness, along with a dose of stubbornness on both sides. Regardless, I hate that Jax and I made up when he and his own daughter haven’t.
I could fix it.
The thought takes hold and won’t let go.
I turn to face my former mentor. “Give me two weeks. I’ll get a decent track out of your aspiring artist in the studio.”
Jax chuckles. “I assume you want something in return.”
I drain the rest of my bourbon and set the glass on the nearby table the caterers have started cleaning.
“You take care of your problems with your real kid. Tell Annie you’re sorry,” I go on under the weight of Jax’s stare. “That you’re an idiot and you fucked up two years ago and fans can’t buy you a scrap of perspective when it comes to the people in your life.”
When his amber eyes spark, and it’s unsettling how much they’re like Annie’s. “You’re serious. Why do you care enough to give me two weeks of your time?”
“Because I made things harder for her.”
“That’s the only reason.”
“That’s the only reason,” I echo.
But as he turns to go back inside, I yank off my jacket, feeling overheated once again.
7
I’m ripped from my dreams in my former bedroom the next morning. For once, it’s not because I’ve got an idea for a song or a line I need to write down.
It’s because of shrieking in the distance.
I tug on tailored black shorts and a white tank top I brought from New York and head downstairs, but by the time I get there, it’s quiet. The morning sun spills in through the huge kitchen windows and the slider doors. The only sign of life is Haley moving around the cavernous space, making coffee in a flowing black top.
“Everyone alive?” I ask.
She turns, smiling. “Your dad took Sophie to daycare. She’s always loved it, but recently, she’s not a fan. Oliver doesn’t like her and she doesn’t like Teddy.”
She’s moving slowly toward the fridge, either from tiredness or her gigantic belly, and I spring into action. “You sit down. I’ll make breakfast.”
I grab a carton of eggs, some bacon, and cheese for good measure, plus a huge frying pan from a cupboard, before turning on the gas.
“Why did you invite me without telling Dad?” I ask over my shoulder. “I shouldn’t be mad at a pregnant woman. But I am.”
“It was kind of a dick move, but my heart was in the right place. I wasn’t sure I could get you both here with your guards down otherwise.”
I drop four strips of bacon into the pan. “I shouldn’t have lied to him—to both of you—about school, but he overreacted when he found out.”
“I get why you feel that way. I do. But if you look for evidence to be angry with someone, you’ll always find it. What kind of place would the world be if we stopped weighing and measuring mistakes, and using those measurements to define our relationships? Maybe we’d be able to choose how we want to feel about other people from love instead of judgement.”
I crack eggs into the remaining half of the simmering pan, watching the whites spread.
“How come Dad has eight years on you, but you’re the sensible one?”
She snorts. “The question for you,” she continues, “isn’t whether you want to be part of this family, but how you want to be part of it. I’m the one with the least say, but for what it’s worth, I’d love for you to be here to celebrate days like yesterday. To feel like this is your home when you need one. I want to see you and your dad laugh when Sophie names her trucks after eighties bands and races them down the hallway. I want all of us to raise a glass to you when you conquer the world, or when you go down trying.”
I don’t know how I’m going to settle things with my dad, but hearing how Haley talks, seeing the three of them together, knowing I’ll have a new half brother or sister soon, I want to be a part of it.
The plates are in the same cabinet they used to be, and I retrieve two.
I finish cooking our breakfast and set both plates in front of us. Haley chuckles as she takes in the flower design I made on her plate with syrup.
“I figured no one’s done this for you lately.”
She smiles. “You’d be right. Does this mean you’re not mad anymore?”
“Jury’s still out.”
I drop into the seat across from her, and we dig in.
“How’s the musical coming? You told me you’re working with mostly the same team, but you and your writing partner are leading this time instead of following.” She reaches for her mug.
Nervous energy has me swallowing an extra big bite of egg. “It’s going to be amazing. Creatively, it’s been going well until now. We have ten songs written, but I’m struggling to drag it across the finish line. It’s not like I can’t write anything. But nothing seems to matter enough. Nothing feels good enough or big enough or true enough.”
I’ve spent hours a day trying to get myself out of this rut—reading, going for walks, brainstorming... I even bought a dream journal which, so far, succeeded in telling me I spend way too much of my subconscious thinking about pastries.
“The end is always the hardest.”
“Right? And I’ve been distracted because the funders…” I savagely bite into a piece of bacon. “The money is complicated. We have a reading scheduled with prospective funders at the end of the summer. Miranda and I thought it would be a slam dunk, but it’s looking harder every day.”
Because Ian was supposed to fund this.
Ian was not, however, supposed to fuck another woman, particularly the afternoon I walked into his apartment unannounced.
My stepmom takes a long sip of decaf, staring thoughtfully at her empty plate. “You need a change of scenery.”
I lift my brows in surprise. “Here?”
“It’s a huge house. There’s plenty of room without stepping on anyone’s toes. Plus, you always loved the patio in the summer.”
Dad and I might kill each other.
But my gaze drops to the hand she rubs over her stomach. “This guy or girl has been keeping me up. They’re not due for another six weeks, but I don’t think we’re going to last that long. Sophie’s started waking in the middle of the night, and your dad’s been busy with unexpected administration issues for the label.”
Compassion washes over me.
“Let me help,” I hear myself say. “I can’t stay for six weeks, but maybe two? I can flex my work around watching Sophie and whatever you need.”
Her face relaxes. “I’d love that. And your dad would, too.”
“Let’s not go crazy,” I say dryly, and she laughs again.
I take our plates to the dishwasher and look out the kitchen windows over the patio. There are a couple of cars I can make out through the hedges separating us from the small tree-lined parking lot. “Who’s at the label this early?”
“Probably Shay. Maybe someone’s booked in to record.”
“Okay. I’ll catch up with you later.”
I head outside and go to the label, letting myself through the side door and into the lobby.
The girl behind the desk is the same one from yesterday. She’s facing away, humming a catchy song. She turns around and spots me, startled, and pulls off her headphones. “Annie! Can I help with something? I’m supposed to make sure everyone signs in. I know it’s weird to ask you to, but… I got a new book and everything,” she says proudly.
I write on the fresh sheet of paper. “Sure. No one else has signed in yet?”
“Studio One is booked all week starting at noon. Your dad is holding studio two for his own artists. Today you’re our first guest.”
I head down the hall, bracing myself as I glance into Studio Two.
I know I won’t see the same thing I saw yesterday—that woman and Tyler—but my stomach tightens anyway.
The studio is empty.
I continue to the offices. The door of the one with Dad’s name on it is closed, but the second’s is open.
It’s sparse but stylish. There’s a desk, a potted palm in one corner, and a beautiful piano.
Unable to resist, I cross to the piano, skimming a finger over the ivory keys and playing a few bars of the song I’ve been working on all month.
“Don’t stop now, it was just getting good.”
I jump at the sound of Tyler’s voice, spinning to see him emerge from under the desk wearing jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a crooked grin.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Trying to plug in. I need to hardwire the internet for a virtual meeting later. I’m babysitting your dad’s new shining star, who is coming by”—from under the edge, I see him check his watch—“twenty minutes ago, supposedly.”
