Love is a Lyric (Rockstars Anonymous)

by Michelle MacQueen

  “Piper.”

  “Just don’t, okay? I don’t want to cause any problems.” She never had. She let others dictate her life because it was easier than being a burden, someone Quinn had to look out for, someone the Evans had to raise.

  He put his hand on the door before she could shut it. “Fine. Are you… I really don’t want to ask you for anything right now, but can you meet me tomorrow somewhere Quinn won’t see us? She told me she’ll have a new song by then, and I need your help.”

  The insecurity in his eyes nearly broke her. Piper loved being needed for something other than laundry or coffee. This, helping Ben, gave her just one more reason for staying.

  And she’d never say no to him.

  “Okay. Tomorrow.”

  The grin he rewarded her with was worth losing some of the precious time she’d need for everything Quinn wanted her to do. With a shake of her head, she shoved him the rest of the way out of her room and shut the door, leaning her back against it.

  When her phone dinged with a text, she released a breath and lunged across the bed to grab it.

  Drew: Think you can get away for a meeting?

  Matt gave Piper Drew’s number, but they’d never communicated directly before.

  She hesitated before responding.

  Piper: Why do you want me?

  He could have his pick of assistants. No matter what Matt had told Drew about her, he could surely find a better one. A part of her couldn’t help think this was about taking her from his rival, and she wanted no part in that.

  But the other part of her… the one that wanted to be seen, respected, knew it was time to move on no matter how much that made her heart hurt.

  Drew: Because I know how much you’re worth.

  Drew: Do they?

  That was the million dollar question, wasn’t it? Piper thought back on what Julia said to her. She wasn’t famous, but it didn’t make her any less valuable as a person.

  Piper: Okay. I’ll meet you.

  Drew: I’ll call you when I get back into town later this week. You won’t regret this.

  She got the distinct feeling she very much would regret it. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t the right move. She wasn’t ready to close the door on another opportunity. If she took it, if she truly left Quinn, would anything be the same again?

  Quinn would never forgive her, but maybe that was the point. As much as Piper loved her sister, she had to stop living her life for someone else.

  5

  Ben

  The heat baked into the concrete surrounding the sparkling pool as Ben’s arms sliced through the water. It felt good to move, to sink into the stillness beneath the surface. On tour, when they weren’t performing, they were either sleeping or attending parties and events. There was little time to just be, to remove the rockstar persona.

  He kicked over to the side of the pool facing Quinn. She sat on a deck lounger, hard at work on their newest hit song, lyrics that would make him fall deeper in love with her.

  There were moments thinking about a future with her scared him, and then he remembered their music, the connection of her lyrics with his notes. Apart, they were mere singers. Together, they were stars, magic.

  He smiled as he flicked water her way. She shot him a scowl.

  “Come swim with me.” He lifted his sunglasses so she could see his eyes. “Please.”

  She shook her head. “I need to get this song done.” She shrugged. “You know how it is when the inspiration hits. I can’t stop.” Her phone chimed, and she turned her attention to a text. That, she would stop for.

  He drifted away from the wall as Conner sprinted from the house and cannon balled into the water with a Tarzan-like roar.

  Ben held in a laugh as water splashed Quinn. Moments like this, he could forget that they didn’t have any songs for the new album yet, he didn’t have to think about Jo and what the pregnancy would mean for her.

  There was no Blake Coleman to hunt down.

  For a little while, he let himself just live in the moment with his best friends in the entire world. Fate was lucky. There’d never been band drama, and they’d all known each other since they were young. If he had anything to say about it, they’d be making music for many years to come.

  He wondered how many members of Rockstars Anonymous would still be standing years from now. This business beat people down with drama and constant attention from the media.

  Conner exploded from the water, lunging toward Ben to tackle him and drag him under.

  As they wrestled, Quinn screamed at them to stop, that they’d gotten her wet.

  Neither of them listened to her as they struggled to breathe through their laughter. Two grown, twenty-nine-year-old men trying to drown each other was apparently not okay with their bandmate.

  By the time they stopped, they both gasped for breath and floated on their backs. Quinn left them with a scowl.

  “This house is sweet.” Conner stared at the blue sky. He liked big things, expensive things. Houses. Cars. Fancy clothes. He’d embraced every part of the lifestyle. “Piper hooked us up.”

  Ben smiled at that. “Yeah, she’s the best.”

  “Too bad we’re going to lose her.”

  “You see that too?” Ben had hoped it was only him.

  “Quinn is… a lot to handle. Don’t get me wrong, I like high strung, but Piper doesn’t seem like she does.”

  “Those two have a complicated history.” It started with Quinn leaving for college two months after their parents died. Piper would never hold that against her. Grudges weren’t her thing. But Chase used to call him to tell him how much Piper struggled. Even at ten years old, Chase saw it and knew Ben would too. But Quinn… she moved on with her life as if nothing had happened, as if her little sister wasn’t being raised by people who weren’t their parents.

  “I could woo her.”

  Conner’s words shocked the breath from Ben. “Woo?”

  “Yeah, man. Woo.”

  “I don’t think people say that anymore but explain.”

  “You know how easily women fall in love with me, right?”

  He’d seen the trail of broken hearts Conner left on their tours. “Whatever you say, man.”

  “I’m just thinking we can’t lose Piper. She kind of keeps us all together. I mean, I’d probably forget my drumsticks every time I took the stage if it wasn’t for her.”

  He knew what Conner meant. Piper made sure their careers ran smoothly, and he was glad he wasn’t the only one who saw it.

  Conner went on. “If she develops feelings for me—if I woo her, shall we say—it would make her stay.”

  Ben stopped floating and stood so he could look down at his friend. “Let me get this straight. You want to seduce Piper under false pretenses just so she won’t take a different job?”

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that. You’d do it too if you weren’t so in lurve with Quinn’s music.”

  He froze. There was no world in which he’d lure Piper into a false relationship, or any relationship. He loved her because she’d been in his life for so long, but that was where the feelings stopped. Yet, the thought of her falling for Conner of all people had bile rising in his throat. “If you so much as touch her, Conner, all our years of friendship won’t stop me from taking you out to sea and dropping you over the side of a boat.”

  “That’s oddly specific. Tell me again how Piper is a sister to you.”

  Ben couldn’t take anymore cutting looks from Quinn or conniving words from Conner. They were his band, and he loved them, but sometimes he needed space.

  He pulled himself out of the pool and slipped on his sandals before heading toward the stairs that would take him to the beach. “I’m going for a walk.”

  Conner didn’t come after him, and he didn’t know what he’d do if he had. Wooing Piper to convince her to stay? Just the thought of it had his fingers curling into fists.

  Could this day get any worse? Jo was pregnant by the worst possibl
e father. Quinn was in a mood. Conner was… Conner.

  And Piper might be leaving them. He tried to picture the next tour without her and couldn’t see it. She’d only joined them a couple years ago, but the time before that was a blur. Having her with him was like having a bit of his family, a piece of Chase and his parents. She grounded him in the same way Rockstars Anonymous did.

  He stepped out of his sandals when he hit the sand and picked them up before walking further down the white beach. Only a few beachgoers spread their towels in the sand nearby. Surfers dotted the horizon as he gazed down toward the public beach.

  Unlike Quinn and Conner, Ben wasn’t as easily recognizable as a member of Fate. His transformation from normal guy to rockstar was drastic each time he took the stage. It allowed him a bit of anonymity, at least in a town like Gulf City. If he was back in LA, he’d barely be able to go to the supermarket without someone snapping a picture.

  His eyes caught on a lone girl sitting in the shallow water, letting the waves crash over her legs. Her long hair hung in wet ringlets down her back as she lifted her face to the sun. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen so much peace on her face.

  The Piper he knew never stopped moving, accomplishing many tasks at once. She rarely sat still and allowed herself to relax. But sometimes, he wondered if he ever really knew her, the real her at least.

  Piper jerked a look over her shoulder as if she’d sensed him watching her. Her lips parted, but she didn’t say anything. She was so different from her sister that most people didn’t even know they were related. Instead of sunbathing in a small bikini, here she sat directly in the water in shorts and a Columbus Blue Jackets t-shirt.

  “You just going to stare, or are you going to take a seat?” She shifted her gaze to watch the horizon once more.

  Ben lowered himself to the sand as a wave crashed over them both, knocking him onto his back.

  Piper bit her fist to keep from laughing, but he didn’t miss the mirth in her eyes. “You have to steady yourself or you’ll just end up sea turtling.”

  “Sea turtling?” He sat up with a laugh.

  “You know…” She flailed her arms.

  “Yes,” he deadpanned. “That explained it perfectly.”

  Her back shook with laughter for a moment longer before she stilled. “Did Quinn send you out here? Is the washer done? Does she need something else? I can make a store run if she—”

  “Piper, stop.”

  “But it’s my job, and she—”

  “Will survive without you for a few minutes. You know… we won’t all fall apart the minute you’re gone.”

  Her face flushed, and she looked away, not confirming or denying her imminent departure. He’d hoped he was wrong, that Drew was only messing with him.

  “I know what she’s worth.”

  They all did, they just didn’t always treat her like it. Even Conner didn’t want to lose her, and he never cared about anything.

  “Can I say something strange and not have you look at me weirdly?” he asked.

  “Ben, I’ve known you for twenty-one years. I think I’ve seen all the strange you have.”

  “Right, well, if Conner does anything, tell me, okay?”

  “What do you mean by anything?”

  Was she going to make him say it? “If he flirts with you. Just… don’t fall for it. Don’t fall in love with him.”

  Silence stretched between them before a laugh burst out of her. “I’m thinking of the right guy, right? Conner Brooks? Drummer of the world famous band Fate? Best friend to the strange rockstar sitting next to me?”

  “I told you not to look at me weirdly.”

  “Then, maybe you shouldn’t say ridiculous things. In what world would Conner Brooks, infamous playboy, hit on Piper Hayes?”

  It wasn’t that odd, was it? Sure, Piper wasn’t famous and didn’t look the part, but neither did he when he wasn’t on stage. He flipped wet hair out of his face and rubbed his stubbly jaw before dropping his voice. “Just promise me you won’t fall for him.”

  She turned her entire body to face him. The wet shirt clung to her, but she didn’t seem to notice as she put a hand to her heart. “I, Piper Hayes, promise that this is not the life where I fall in love with a rockstar.” Her lips tipped up. “Maybe the next one, but only if next-life Piper has better fashion sense.”

  He couldn’t help matching her grin. “What’s wrong with your fashion sense?”

  “It’s too much like yours.” She stood and brushed sand off her butt.

  Ben laughed and joined her. She was right. The two of them were jeans and t-shirts type of people, unlike Quinn and Conner who both always looked like they walked right out of a magazine.

  If Ben didn’t have Quinn dressing him for concerts and a stylist for appearances, there’s no way anyone would take him seriously. Maybe that was why Dax Nelson refused to let anyone see the man behind the music.

  He had the right idea.

  6

  Piper

  What were words?

  The question rolled through Piper’s head as she tapped her pen against her notebook. What were words? Where did they come from? And how did she make them come when they got lost?

  “Ugh.” She groaned and threw herself back against her pillow. After she’d come up from the beach, she took a shower, finished Quinn’s laundry, and sat down to do what they’d come to Gulf City to do.

  Create music for their new album.

  Well, not their album. Piper had no ownership of it despite the secret that only she, Quinn, and possibly now Julie knew.

  Quinn couldn’t write a hit song if her life depended on it.

  That was mean, and Piper didn’t want to have those thoughts. Everyone had different talents. Quinn could hit any note in a song, she could dance across the stage and transfix an audience. She didn’t need to also be a songwriter. Though, she wanted everyone to believe she was.

  Piper wasn’t sure how it all started or why she’d let it continue. The first time she heard one of her songs on YouTube, she’d run to her notebooks—she had many—only to find a missing page. Quinn hadn’t let her hear the song before recording it, and Piper knew instantly why.

  She’d stolen it.

  Piper was fifteen at the time, and Fate exploded in a way none of them saw coming. The song, titled after the band singing it, got them a record deal and proceeded to soar up the charts and turn Fate into an instant success. After that, there was no stopping them—or Quinn when she wanted new songs.

  Piper couldn’t have stopped writing them if she tried. They flowed out of her, demanding space in her head, action in her pen. And Piper enjoyed hearing them, she loved seeing what kind of music Ben put to her words. Credit for her work had never been important to her.

  But as the band gained more and more success, the pressure increased. She’d always wondered if the reason Quinn held on so tightly to her assistant was for the songs, not the sister relationship.

  If Piper left, Quinn would have to find her own way. Maybe that was the one thing holding her back.

  The door burst open, and Piper shoved the notebook under a pillow before she saw that it was Quinn. With a sigh of relief, she pulled it back out.

  “How’s my little sister doing?” Quinn asked.

  Piper gave her a tight smile. “Fine.” What Quinn meant was how are her little songs doing?

  With a smirk, Quinn walked toward the suitcase Piper hadn’t had time to unpack and rifled through it.

  “Hey.” Piper scooted to the edge of the bed as her sister unfolded all her clothes.

  “Just looking for something.”

  “I can see that. Mind telling me what?”

  Quinn pulled out a stack of notebooks—it was an obsession—and flipped through them. Piper knew exactly which one she wanted, the unicorn notebook. It not only sported a pink unicorn on the cover, it held what Piper called her unicorn songs, the ones that she felt so deeply she couldn’t give them to Quinn.
/>   How had Quinn known about it?

  Piper wouldn’t tell her that notebook currently resided between the mattress and the bed frame. The first thing she did when getting to a new place was hide it.

  “Do you have anything new for me?” Quinn dropped the notebooks back into the suitcase.

  Piper sighed. “I’m trying. Having a hard time getting inspired.”

  “Pipes, we’re in a beautiful house on the beach. What more inspiration do you need?”

  A house Piper had spent the day folding laundry in and cooking meals. She’d only escaped for a short time. But she didn’t say any of that to Quinn. She never did. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

  Quinn sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped an arm around Piper. “You know I’m just looking out for you, right? I want you to succeed in everything you do.”

  In her own way, she probably did. But that was the problem. Everything had to be Quinn’s way. Piper glanced at her phone, knowing Drew or Matt were only a call away.

  Quinn’s eyes lit up. “Maybe you just need to get out of here. You can take the rental. Go into town. I don’t mind you taking a break.”

  Break. Piper almost laughed. Quinn considered writing the songs for Fate’s new album Piper’s break—on vacation when she shouldn’t even need permission to rest. “You know what, Quinn. I think I do need a break. Matt’s probably still in town. I’ll see what he’s up to.”

  “Matt? Drew Stone’s assistant?” Her face screwed up in distaste. “Honey, he’s an assistant. Surely you can do better.”

  It was pointless to say Piper too was an assistant, so she scooted from the bed, her notebook clutched in one hand and her phone in the other. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  “Slow down there on that shake or you won’t be able to drive home.”

  Piper closed her eyes. She knew that voice, the kind of joke, and it didn’t belong to Matt. “I thought you were out of town.” She continued to sip her strawberry shake, wishing it had more than ice cream in it. She’d never been a drinker, but if anyone could drive her to it, it was Quinn.