The Replacement War: A Rock Star Rom Com

by Lisa Suzanne

  “We’ll be looking at several things this time,” Dax says, “including your ability to write a song, how well you work with a partner under pressure, your teamwork skills, and, of course, your ability to sing back-up vocals or even to take the lead. You’ll be setting your song to a rhythm with your bass, so you’ll each be playing while you’re singing, and we’ll be looking at how well you can multitask while performing. We all realize that you’re competing for the spot of a bassist, so we aren’t necessarily judging you as a vocalist, but we are looking for someone who has a lot of versatility.”

  He pauses, and my heart starts beating a little faster. I feel it thumping in my head as I wait for the next part. He glances at Brody in some sort of silent communication.

  “Blaze, you’ll be paired with John,” Brody says.

  “Decker,” Adam says, and I hold my breath and cross my fingers that he says my name. “You’ll be working with Tyler.”

  Fuck.

  “And Lexi,” Rascal says, “You’ll be working with Gage.”

  I want to look over at her to see her reaction. I want to know if she’s happy about that or angry. I want to know if she feels deflated like I do or if she feels like we’ve got this.

  Because I don’t know how the fuck I’m going to work with her when I saw her sleeping on Tyler’s chest last night.

  Channel it into the song.

  Yeah...easy to think it. Harder to do.

  CHAPTER 35: LEXI

  “Go!” Dax says, and I glance over at Gage warily.

  I have no idea how the heck we’re supposed to work together on this when we both have such strong feelings for one another—regardless of what those feelings actually are.

  I’ll put it all into the song. Maybe it can be a hopeful song about falling in love...or maybe it can be a depressing song about falling for someone only to discover later they’re somebody else entirely.

  He looks as wary as I feel. He hasn’t moved yet, and his jaw works back and forth as he contemplates this new twist.

  My eyes fall there to his jaw. Strong and square, with a little more of a beard than he had over the weekend. I remember what that jaw felt like beneath my fingertips. Warm skin met with the prickly stubble over the strong line while our lips touched.

  A sudden and piercing ache darts through me.

  How did we manage to fall so far away from each other?

  And how are we supposed to write a song together when we can’t even look at each other?

  The MFB men walk into the producers’ office and shut the door behind them. Decker and Tyler move toward the direction of the stairs, and John and Blaze leave next, heading down to the basement.

  That leaves the two of us in the family room.

  I look past him and out toward the beach, wishing the tumultuous waves were calmer today. Instead, they match my thoughts and the feelings warring within me.

  Gage walks toward the piano. “Let’s do this,” he says.

  He takes a seat on the bench, and I follow but don’t get too close. I don’t sit beside him.

  He rests his fingers on the keys. “Can you play?” he asks.

  I nod. “My parents put me in lessons at a young age. You?”

  He lifts a shoulder and plays a few bars from a song I immediately recognize as one of MFB’s. “Self-taught.”

  I can’t tell if he’s bragging or informing, but either way, his talent is impressive.

  “What should we write about?” I ask. We only have four hours, and I don’t want to spend them talking about whether we know how to play the piano.

  He shrugs and lets his fingers walk around the keys a bit. I discern a melody in his sketching, something a little haunting that feels like it’s speaking to my soul. “I was thinking we could come up with a melody first. I usually get an idea for a chorus first then build the rest of the song around that.”

  “That’s similar to my own process.” Of course it is. That’s what happens when someone’s meant for you, isn’t it? Those little practices that are an everyday part of your life somehow just mesh together. Except he’s not meant for me, and he seems to be with Kat now, and this is all wrong. “Play that little sketch you just did again,” I say instead of voicing all those other thoughts.

  He does, but it’s off a few keys. I lean over him and replay the sounds still echoing in my mind, accidentally brushing his fingers with mine in the process. “This is what you played.” Too late, I realize how close I am. I smell that clean, soapy scent that’s so intrinsically him and wish I hadn’t done that.

  He leans back, too, clearly taken aback by my proximity.

  I pull away and straighten back to a stand. “Sorry,” I mutter.

  We’re both quiet for a beat, and then he breaks the awkward silence. “Can we talk before we start?”

  I glance away from him. I feel like either way, this is going to be painful.

  He pats the bench, and I finally sit beside him. He blows out a breath, and then he says, “We both want to win this, right?”

  I nod.

  “Then let’s cast aside whatever feelings we have for each other and focus on why we’re here. We need to work together to win this challenge, or at least not to lose this challenge.”

  He’s right. But I can’t just cast aside my feelings for him. Not when they’re so strong.

  I don’t say that, though. Instead, I say, “Okay.”

  He nods and presses his lips together, and then he plays the sketch again.

  I nod. “That’s it.” He plays it a few more times, and then I run to the kitchen, open a drawer, and grab paper and a pen.

  I jot down the notes so we don’t lose it.

  “If that’s the chorus, what do you think about this to lead into it?” I play a few notes that would lead perfectly into the bars he created.

  He nods. “Yes. And something like this for the verses.” He messes around, and it’s close.

  “What about this?” I ask, and change up a few things.

  “Or this,” he says, and he takes my changes and makes them even better.

  It’s amazing how quickly this is coming together...and how well we work as a team. Maybe because over the weekend, we were able to glimpse each other’s soul, and that’s where music is written.

  We’re only a half hour in and we already have the music—even though that’s supposed to come after lyrics for this challenge. He plays the whole thing through for me, and it’s beautiful.

  “It’s haunting,” I say, using the first word that sprang to mind earlier when I heard him play what became our chorus.

  “I love it,” he says. He stares down at his hands as they rest on the keys. “Now we just have to figure out the lyrics.”

  “I feel loss in the melody.”

  “So do I,” he says. “The kind of soul-crushing loss that you can’t ever come back from.”

  I nod and jot down some notes. Loss. Soul-crushing. You can’t come back. And then I write it was good while it lasted.

  “So good,” he murmurs, and we both know we’re talking about the same thing.

  “So good,” I agree. My eyes start to sting, but I absolutely refuse to cry in front of him. I keep them on the page, and then I write but it’s over now.

  He clears his throat and stands. “Let’s go outside to turn these phrases into lyrics. I need a change of scenery.”

  Before we go outside, he gets more paper and another pen. We’re both quiet as we grab chairs in the shade. It’s in the eighties, but the breeze coming off the ocean makes the weather perfect in the shade. Dark, puffy clouds are rolling in, and it looks like it could rain.

  Neither of us talk while we both jot down notes for our song...or some song.

  Abandoned

  I write the word and stare at it as I think back to our conversation about his abandonment issues. It’s the root of everything for him, the reason why he runs when it comes to commitment and getting close. It’s what made our arrangement so perfect for him...until we came
face to face again.

  I look out over the water as the melody plays in my head again.

  I want to write a duet. I want to write both parts of a song, but I don’t have the words for Gage.

  Instead, I pour my heart out into my own verses and write all the things I wish I could say to him.

  Chorus (together):

  You’re gone but not forgotten

  It was good while it lasted

  So good, so good, so good

  But it’s over now

  You’ve abandoned me

  I’ve abandoned us

  It’s over now

  Lexi, Verse 1:

  I took in those broad shoulders

  And I wondered how they felt

  It didn’t take long to learn

  They were my favorite place on Earth

  You made me laugh and made me see

  That not everything always has to be

  So serious, so heavy

  And in those few days

  You made me fall all the way

  Lexi, Verse 2:

  You had so many walls up

  Didn’t want me to see inside

  But I saw past the mask you wore

  Saw past all the lies

  I fell for who you are

  Every broken piece

  every fractured shard

  And then I had to leave

  Abandoning you

  Bridge (together):

  (Both) We left something behind

  (Gage) The kind of soul-crushing loss

  You can’t ever come back from

  (Lexi) We know what we lost now

  But we can’t ever go back

  (Gage) Because I’m different now

  (Lexi) And I am too

  (Both) You didn’t just abandon me

  I abandoned you

  I stare at the words in front of me. It’s our entire story from my point of view.

  I don’t have the same kinds of issues he does. I grew up with both my parents adoring me. They were the kind of parents who never missed a thing, from every recital to every game and competition and concert. I’ve had a long-term boyfriend before. I have friendships spanning back to kindergarten.

  But looking at my words...seeing our story played out before my very eyes—it makes me realize something.

  I didn’t abandon him any more than he abandoned me.

  CHAPTER 36: GAGE

  I stare at a blank sheet of paper while she scribbles words furiously. I basically wrote the melody to the chorus, so she can take the lead on lyrics.

  Okay, I realize that’s a shitty attitude, but I don’t know what to write. I don’t want to share any more of what’s in my heart with her because it just fucking hurts too much.

  But I don’t want her having the upper hand in this competition, either.

  It’s all so goddamn confusing.

  After an hour of staring out over the water, I start writing down the story of us to see if it sparks something. I play the chorus back in my head, and then I remember back to the verses we just wrote and I try to come up with words that fill the spaces as the notes she took while we threw out phrases sit at the forefront of my mind.

  You tapped me on the shoulder.

  It’s the only line I come up with.

  You tapped me on the shoulder and...

  I draw a blank.

  I need to see what she’s writing. I need to know if she’s writing about us or something else. I peek over at her paper, and I can just barely make out the word abandoned at the top of the page.

  Abandoned.

  I roll it over in my mind. She’s definitely writing about us.

  “Do you have anything?” I ask.

  She clears her throat and flips the paper over. “No.” She glances up, and she looks a little guilty.

  “Then what have you been writing this whole time?”

  She lifts a shoulder.

  “Let me see,” I say softly.

  She purses her lips. “It’s just...” She trails off, and I give her a second to finish that thought.

  She doesn’t, and I can’t wait any longer. “What?”

  “It’s personal. It’s everything I felt after our weekend together.” She mutters the last part, but I still catch it.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t write about loss, then,” I suggest. “Maybe that hits too close to home.”

  “I like what I have.” When she looks up at me, her eyes are earnest. “I’ve got two verses, a bridge, and a chorus.”

  “Then you have to show me.”

  She sighs. “I know. I want it to be a duet, but I can’t crawl inside your head for your parts. But maybe I can show you the chorus and that’ll spark something for you.”

  I nod, and she hands a sheet of paper over. The top says chorus in big letters, and clearly she’s holding onto her verses for now.

  You’re gone but not forgotten

  It was good while it lasted

  So good, so good, so good

  But it’s over now

  You’ve abandoned me

  I’ve abandoned us

  It’s over now

  I stare at the words, and a strange feeling twists in my gut. It’s over now. It’s so over, in fact, that the chorus mentions those words twice. But even as I read the words, I can hear the melody we wrote behind them, and the words perfectly fit the feel.

  “It’s exactly right,” I finally say. “You want to show me the verses?”

  She shakes her head. “Nine lines, starting around seven syllables and averaging there but ranging from four to ten, with no distinct pattern because we can still bend the melody a bit if we need to. Tell your favorite story of abandonment in two verses and try to tie it back to the chorus.”

  She presses her lips together in a thin smile, and that’s all I need to know exactly what to write.

  You tapped me on the shoulder

  In that hotel lobby bar

  You were so different and so pure

  Intoxicated me with who you are

  Made me want something more

  For once I wanted someone to know

  The one I never show

  I wanted you to see

  The person inside me

  We spent three days together

  Wanting, needing, craving

  I let my walls come down

  You let me see inside you too

  I could have stayed forever

  I never wanted forever before

  Until I met you

  But then you had to leave

  Abandoning me

  I stare at the words as I wonder whether I can really share them with her.

  How do you literally rip off a piece of your soul and put it out there for her to judge?

  Not to mention the MFB guys, the others in the competition, and, eventually, everyone who watches the show.

  It’s frankly terrifying.

  But, then again, every step I’ve taken since the day she tapped me on the shoulder in that hotel lobby bar has been terrifying. What the hell difference does it make at this point if I give her another piece of myself that she can take and crumble into oblivion?

  I pass the sheet over to her.

  She glances up at me before her eyes fall onto my words.

  When she’s done reading, she shuffles the papers around a little. She covers her mouth with her hand, and I can’t tell if it’s to ward off tears or some other reaction she’s not ready to share. She stands, sets all the papers down on the end of the lounge chair I’m sitting in, and walks over to the railing, where she grips on and stares out over the water.

  The paper on the top of the pile is labeled Verses: Lexi in her neat handwriting.

  I scan the page, and then I slow down and read it through again.

  It mirrors my words exactly. It’s her point of view of what happened between us, and I’m about to stand and walk over to her, to take her in my arms and tell her everything I’ve been feeling over the last couple days...

>   And then the paper marked Bridge catches my eye.

  (Both) We left something behind

  (Gage) The kind of soul-crushing loss

  You can’t ever come back from

  (Lexi) We know what we lost now

  But we can’t ever go back

  (Gage) Because I’m different now

  (Lexi) And I am too

  (Both) You didn’t just abandon me

  I abandoned you

  The bridge is supposed to be the part of a song where something changes.

  I stare at the fifth line.

  We can’t ever go back.

  Something did change. We parted, and she left her number, and I found it, and I used it, and I had hope that maybe someday we’d find our way back. Somewhere down the line, when the timing was right, it would just magically all work out.

  But the words she wrote right here tell me a totally different story.

  And that’s what keeps me from going to her, from wrapping my arms around her, from telling her how hopelessly in love with her I really am.

  Because I am.

  But we can’t ever go back.

  CHAPTER 37: GAGE

  My fingers dance along the piano keys as I play the melody we came up with. She stands beside me, voicing the lyrics we wrote—both parts. We have thirty minutes left before we need to turn in our lyrics, and then we can take whatever time we need until tomorrow afternoon to set the bassline. We won’t need much time to complete the task, but we’ve agreed we’ll use it to practice and perfect our work.

  This song came together like magic, and the ones that do that often seem to be the ones that stand the test of time.

  We make a few tweaks here and there to fit the melody, but the sentiment remains the same. She feels just as abandoned as I feel even though it was a mutual decision to leave our weekend right there at the hotel.

  We couldn’t have known that our goodbye was only hours, though. Not weeks, or months, or even forever like we thought it might be.