by Piper Lawson
“It’s out! It’s out of towels,” she practically shouts, reddening. I don’t bother to hide my amusement.
“Did you want this one?” The way she’s staring, I can’t resist asking. My hands hover on the knot.
“No!” Her gaze snaps to mine as I swallow my first laugh all day.
She goes to the linen closet while I dig out a pair of sweatpants from the dresser.
“The lights were out,” she blurts over her shoulder, the flush lingering on her face. “I didn’t think you’d be here, and I didn’t think you’d be naked.”
“Two-for-two.”
The first time I saw Annie Jamieson three years ago, she was listening to music on her headphones on a bench outside school in Philly. Her eyes were closed, lips curved as if she were on another plane. Lost in a dream.
I didn’t know her name, but I wanted to know what it was like where she was because nothing in my world felt like that.
Over the next few weeks, I learned she loved music and books, both popular and the ones you need CliffsNotes for. I learned she was compassionate, the kind of person whose heart aches for animals in shelter commercials and who always stops to talk and joke with people living on the street even if she’s in a rush.
I also learned she was Jax Jamieson’s daughter.
To this day, it’s the only thing about her I’d change if I could.
“I thought you’d be at Big Leap.” Annie wraps a towel around her body, knots it at her chest.
I think of Jax’s former tour bus, converted to a mobile studio, in the driveway. “I’ve been dismissed.”
“Seriously? My dad thinks you walk on water.”
My attention lingers on her legs a beat too long before I look away. I tug on the sweatpants, leaving them low on my hips.
“No one walks on water except Haley.” Jax’s wife could burn the house down, and he’d just take her face in his hands and ask her who’d pissed her off so he could bring them down. It would be ridiculous if she wasn’t so completely deserving of it.
I turn to see Annie working on a knot in the hair that hangs in wet chunks over her shoulder, ending at her breasts. She lets out a little growl, and against my better judgment, I close the distance between us. “Stop. You’re going to rip your hair.”
Picking guitar? No problem. Girl hair? Not my zone of genius. But I’ll try because my biggest pet peeves are celebrity couple names, people who can’t park without taking up two spaces, and watching Annie Jamieson hurt herself.
I expect her to fight me, but she huffs out a breath and drops her hands.
She was always cute, even back when she was a naïve fourteen and I was a worldly sixteen.
That changed when I wasn’t looking, because now she’s just the awkward side of beautiful. Her amber eyes reveal every thought, her pink lips are full in every variation of smiling and frowning, and the slight shoulders that curve inward when she’s lost in a book or listening to music on headphones make you want to hold her against your side.
Not that she’d stay there. The girl’s a live wire.
“Did you start the poetry assignment?” Annie asks, dragging me back.
Her voice is lower than most of the girls’ at school, with this little lift at the end that makes you do a second take. Like when a girl walks by in a long skirt and you don’t notice the full-length slit up the side until she’s passed you.
“My future is music, not essays. Suffering for your craft is legit, but I’m not gonna suffer for someone else’s.”
She turns that over. “I’m suffering but not getting anywhere. Norelli wants to give Carly the lead.”
Annie’s low admission surprises me.
“Why?”
“Carly gets in my head at rehearsal.”
Annie turns toward me as much as she can given my hold on her. Her gaze lingers on my chest—because it’s at eye level, not because she’s thinking about me naked.
“You’d never be in this position,” she goes on. “Not because Carly wouldn’t sabotage you, but because you’re too good to let it affect you.”
Pleasure unfurls in my gut without permission. Most girls who see me play get dreamy-eyed, but it has nothing to do with my abilities.
At least not with a guitar.
I force myself to focus on my task and not her flushed face. “Why do you want it so badly?”
Shit, this is impossible. I’m like Sisyphus if his boulder were instead a thousand strands of glorious tangled silk.
“Because on that stage, you’re everything.” Her voice is full and wistful, lifting the hairs on my arms. “A magician. A therapist. An artist. You have the privilege of an audience’s attention. They trust you to make them feel, make them believe. Name one place other than the stage where you become a god by falling on your knees.”
The knot’s almost free, but my fingers stop moving.
This. This is why I shouldn’t be a breath away from Annie Jamieson. Because no one moves through the world like her. She’s not afraid of its beauty and its darkness. She sees more, feels more, than anyone I’ve ever met. Spending time with her makes me believe I’ve witnessed something precious.
Precious things are dangerous.
“But I can’t do that unless I can get over this bullshit with Carly.”
I finish untangling her hair and lay it across her shoulder, the ends brushing the top of her towel. “Then be so good they can’t look away.”
“Thanks for the advice… and the hairstyling.” Her chuckle has me drawing a rough breath before she pins me in place with those amber eyes, the softness of her lips. The scratch on her cheek is fading, and I want to trace it but rein in the impulse.
I turn away, crossing to the dresser for a T-shirt because I’ve just realized there are way too few clothed body parts in this room.
“Kellan’s face was turning the color of rotten bananas in rehearsal,” she says as I’m pulling the shirt over my head.
I freeze.
Shit.
“I don’t know—“
“You’re so busted.”
I tug the hem down as I turn back to her. “I’m suspended until the weekend. Sat through a mind-numbing lecture from headmaster.”
She folds her arms over her chest, which makes my gaze drop to the little indentation between her breasts too close to where the towel’s knotted. “But you didn’t tell my dad why.”
I shake my head.
Annie crosses to me with deliberate steps, and I’m too surprised to stop her before she reaches for my hand.
Unlike Jax, she doesn’t make it worse, just inspects the reddened knuckles before sighing. “So, when Kellan hurts me, it deserves punishment, but when you hurt me, it’s fine.”
Her words lift the hairs on my neck and our gazes lock. Adrenaline surges through me.
She wants to do this now.
Fucking good. I’ve been waiting for it for four months.
I step closer until her towel brushes my chest. “If this is about me not answering your messages after you moved to Dallas, I had a ton of shit going on.”
She lifts her chin, unwilling to be intimidated. “Is that when your dad started locking you out?”
Pain has my gut twisting. “Still don’t wanna talk about—“
“Fine.” Her eyes flash. “Then let’s talk about what happened when you came here and everyone at Oakwood fell in love with you.”
Everyone? I want to ask, but she’s already going on.
“I could handle the weird popularity thing. But at Carly’s party, the way we talked and laughed and…” She shakes her head, the expression on her face shifting from anger to longing in a way that has my abs tightening. “I started to think we could be us again, even if you had other friends. Even if we hadn’t talked in months.
“That’s why I made you Rice Krispies squares the next morning like we used to. I came here to talk, but you weren’t alone.”
My heart stops because I’m starting to see where this is going.
Annie goes on, though I wish she wouldn’t. “There was a UT lanyard on the hook by the door, a girl’s boots on the mat.”
“You were jealous?” My voice is hoarse with incredulity because of all the thoughts that’d occurred to me, that wasn’t one of them.
“No.” She shoves angrily at my chest, but I don’t budge. “But I overheard you tell her I was nothing. Nobody.”
Fuck.
“I’ve been called nobody before,” she goes on, her voice oddly hollow, “but I never expected it from you.”
That hollowness must be contagious because it takes up residence in my gut, spreading with every breath.
I knew something had upset her, but she blocked me the next day with her phone. The day after with her heart.
She’d decided our friendship was over, and I let her do it.
It was what I wanted, wasn’t it?
The first thing Jax told me when he offered me this opportunity was to stay away from his daughter.
Now, I want to take it all back.
I want to tell her she’s more something than every other Oakwood student.
I want to protect the heart she wears on her sleeve like a fashion accessory.
“What do you want from me?” There’s desperation in my words. Anything she asks me for right now, I’ll give to her.
Her next breath fills her lungs, my ears. “I want to forget you.”
Five words.
Each one tears a layer off my heart.
It’s her pain, but somehow I’m the one feeling scraped and bloody.
My phone buzzes on the bed, and my stomach drops before I read the text.
I squeeze my eyes shut as I tug on my hair hard enough my scalp hurts. “You gotta go.”
“What?”
A knock comes at the door, and Annie opens it.
Trisha’s surprised face appears, and every curse word I’ve heard and some I haven’t stream through my head at once.
Annie’s body stiffens, and I get why even before Trisha hangs her UT lanyard on the hook by the door.
But before I can speak, Annie’s out the door and across the patio, the hair that was in my fingers moments ago clinging to her back in wet waves.
“What the…? Did you spring a leak?” Trisha frowns at the puddle of water on the floor.
It’s going to be a fucked-up night.
I never used to dream, but since Annie Jamieson spent the night in my bed—since I tugged my favorite T-shirt over her red bathing suit and felt her curl into me as if I was the answer to her problems instead of the cause of them…
I can't stop dreaming of mermaids.
6
“You see the car out front last night?” I ask my dad over coffee Tuesday morning before school.
“Friend of Tyler’s.”
I cut him a look. “And you don’t mind?”
“I mind that he went and screwed his hand.”
Haley comes into the kitchen dressed in jeans, a tank top, and a tidy ponytail, Sophie on her hip.
I find a smile for my half sister until my dad asks, “You see much of Tyler lately?”
I swallow my coffee the wrong way.
It was easier to keep him at a distance before I learned Tyler hit Kellan. Before he untangled my hair as if it was his job.
Oh yeah, and before I walked in on him naked.
Tyler Adams is hot. The well-tailored prep school clothes don’t do him justice.
The boy I grew up with is a man, imposing and beautiful and dangerous. Anyone who’s ever made the mistake of thinking Tyler Adams is all brooding prettiness with nothing to back it up needs to think again.
Would he even fit?
Some part of me is desperate to know the answer, but I’m sure as hell not about to ask him.
I’d gone to the pool house already upset about rehearsal and left even more confused.
It wasn’t seeing all of him that threw me, it was the shock on his face when I told him what I’d heard back in January.
That single expression has me wondering if I’m missing something that would explain why Tyler’s been so secretive all year.
I thought he might’ve been about to open up to me until that girl showed up and every spark of hope in my chest extinguished.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” my dad asks as I jump out of my chair.
“I was working on some things for rehearsal last night.” I grab a piece of bread and drop it in the toaster. I check the clock and, on second thought, take the bread back out. “Uncle Ryan gave me some trade secrets, and I kind of missed doing my calculus homework.”
Dad slings an elbow over the back of his chair. “Rehearsal doesn’t take precedence over homework.”
I pat my father on the cheek. “Tell it to your Grammys, Dad.”
For good measure, I tap Sophie, now in her high chair, on the nose. “Can you say Grammys? Gram-mys.” She gurgles and beams, which is the most positive response I’ve gotten from the universe all week. “Make good choices,” I tell her before turning for the door.
Three hours later in second period, I’m cursing calculus, wishing for the life of me Pen was here.
Jenna leans over. "You stuck? I can help. No one should suffer proofs in silence.”
I glance up at the front of the class. The teacher's gone for a few minutes.
Jenna shows me how to work through the proof, and I try to keep up.
“What do you even need this class for?” she asks.
“Pen and I are going to Columbia together. She wants to do journalism. I’m going to start in liberal arts and niche down later.” I want to do something that helps people, but I can’t decide if it’s through journalism or social science or even psychology.
“I’m going into engineering at Stanford. I need math. You don’t. Are you taking the musical for credit?”
I shake my head. “There’s an evaluation component if I want credit, and I didn’t think I’d have time.”
“If I had the lead in the musical and an extra course, I’d for sure drop calc and get the credit for drama instead.”
I’m still turning that over when the bell rings and she falls into step next to me on my way to my locker.
“I don’t mind suffering for my craft, but I’m not gonna lose sleep suffering for someone else’s.”
I’d never thought seriously about getting credit for the musical, but given that I’m at risk of losing the lead, it’s time for desperate measures.
“I’m sorry about what happened with Kellan.” Jenna’s voice pulls me back. “I was with Carly, so I didn’t see what went down, but I can’t picture you hitting on him and him prying you off.”
“Thanks. Are you and Carly hanging out now?”
She shrugs. “We’re not best friends or anything, but she’s nicer to me than she has been. She’s pissed at you, though. More than usual. Tyler was crazy-fierce Saturday night when he kicked everyone out.”
I’d been so caught up in the fallout with Kellan I hadn’t thought about that.
I hug my books and glance down the row of lockers to see Tyler’s friends at their lockers without him because he’s at home, suspended.
It still means nothing.
But after school, I scan my first-period English notes and leave the copies on the doorstep of the pool house.
“Got your speech?” Haley asks my dad in the back of the limo that night. “Tell me you’re not winging it.”
“I’ve played sold-out shows at Horseshoe. That’s a hundred and five thousand seats. I think I can manage a room full of rich donors.”
She stares him down until he pulls the marked-up sheet of paper from his pocket. “So, you had your agent spend half a day writing that,” she says dryly, “and you won’t use a word. That’s borderline sadistic.”
My dad flashes her a grin. “Come on, Hales. I’m a songwriter. And it’s only sadistic if he’d be at the fundraiser tonight.”
I can’t help smiling.
I
like my stepmom a lot. She’s smart and funny and bold. She runs her own software company with a guy in Philly who’s Tom Hiddleston hot and used to be her professor.
It kills my dad that she won’t leave Carter and go out on her own, which he insists is because Haley could do better solo, not because Carter’s younger than my dad with a panty-dropping smile.
Dad and Haley met back when he was still on tour and she was interning. However it happened, he looks at her like the sun rises and sets out of her ass.
It’s the real fucking deal.
“You look fantastic, Annie,” Haley comments.
“Thanks.”
“Jax?” Haley nudges my dad with her elbow.
He frowns. “It’s not a dress. It’s a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen.”
My jaw drops. “It is not!”
“Could we not afford more fabric?” he asks Haley, who narrows her gaze at him before turning to me.
“Ignore him.”
The black dress Pen and I picked out skims my body, has little spaghetti straps, and ends mid-thigh. It’s sophisticated and fresh, especially with strappy sandals. I left my hair down, taming the waves that tickle the bare skin between my shoulders.
I feel older, grown-up. More confident.
I stare out the window and hum under my breath.
“Is that from the musical?” Haley asks me. “It’s sounding good.”
“Thanks.” I look at my dad, but he’s on his phone. “Don’t forget to line up security for the night of the show.”
Assuming I still have a role, I think, but I’m not about to say that.
He glances up, blinking. “Annie, it’s on the list.”
I shake my head.
When we pull up in front of the venue, my dad grunts, adjusting his tux. “It’s not too late to turn around,” he mutters. “We can grab the bourbon, head home, and fund this entire project ourselves.”
“That’s not the point. The point is to collaborate.” Haley pauses. “If you’ve never heard of it, a collaboration is where you compromise and work as a team—”
“Funny, Hales.”
The charity event is a fundraiser for music education at some gallery in Fort Worth with a bunch of people my dad knows. Sophie’s at home with Uncle Ryan playing babysitter, which I think he secretly loves.
