by L. Philips
“Now, Mr. Pierce, before you are recognized by others,” Theo orders. I ignore him and keep eye contact with Nate.
He shakes his head. “I didn’t recognize you. How did I not recognize you?” he says, more to himself than anything.
I honestly don’t know. I’ve changed a little since the whole fiasco with Xavier and Harry that landed me on the front page. Maybe more facial hair. A few inches taller. A few pounds heavier (muscle, I swear). But even with some changes, I look like my sister, and Tess’s face is everywhere.
“Mr. Pierce. I must insist.”
Theo again. I nod in his direction. “A minute, Theo.”
My bodyguard takes a step back, and Nate’s face gets even frostier.
“You didn’t tell me you were Richard Pierce,” he accuses.
“If I had, would you have danced with me?”
The way he looks at me tells me he wouldn’t cross the street to spit on me if I was on fire, so I have to assume that the answer is no, absolutely not.
That’s new to me. Not the rejection. I’m actually used to people judging me before they know me, deeming me vile or vapid, or an awful cocktail of both. What’s new is that it doesn’t seem to be coming from the usual place of snobbery. This is downright anger. There’s something worse than just plain dislike in his eyes, and that stuns me.
“I have to go,” Nate mumbles, backing away from me slowly before turning and bolting for the door.
Phone still in hand, I have just enough time to snap a picture before he makes it through the door. I do it so quick that it doesn’t hit me until the door slams shut behind him that taking a picture might have been a little creepy. But in my defense, Nate was the most promising guy I’d met in ages, and a souvenir would be nice.
I look down at my phone. The picture is blurry, with bad lighting from the yellowed lamp above the venue door, and I didn’t even get his face. Just his legs, really, and his shoes: the Chuck Taylor high-tops with the Jacket Zippers’ logo hand-drawn all over them.
I slip my phone in my pocket and turn to Theo, who opens his mouth to speak.
I have the horrible feeling it’s to offer sympathy, or pity, and neither of those things would be tolerable, so I cut him off. “I know. Backstage. Now.”
Nate
Would I have danced with him had I known he was Richard Pierce?
I’m through the door and back into the sweltering heat of tightly packed bodies before I can even think about what I’m doing. Running, that’s what I’m doing. Running away from Richard Pierce Jr. and the horrible blood that runs through his veins.
Would I have danced with him had I known he was Richard Pierce?
No. Absolutely not.
I wouldn’t have crossed the street to spit on him if he was on fire, let alone danced with him.
I find Victor, who has managed to get right up to the stage in my absence and is dancing like a one-legged chicken, and scream at him over the music.
“We have to go!”
Victor turns to me, confused and I think a little pissed. “Dude! This is nowhere near over. Jack’s promised a whole acoustic set later.”
A whole acoustic set? Oh my god.
No. Focus, Nate. Get out of here.
“Well, I have to go, with or without you.”
Victor stops his awkward dancing, and his brows knit together. “What happened? Where’s that guy you were with? Did he hurt you?”
“What? No!” I yell. People near us shoot us dirty looks and I flush. “Come on!”
I pull on Victor’s sleeve, but I didn’t have to. He follows me willingly toward the exit. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the side door opening and the big man walking through, followed by Richard Pierce Jr., his thick auburn hair practically sparkling under the stage lights like it has diamonds in it. How is it that even his hair looks expensive?
He heads toward the stage, luckily the opposite way we’re going. I tear through the crowd, yelling out apologies as we elbow our way through until finally, finally, we’re standing on the sidewalk, the theater’s large marquee over our heads.
Victor bends in half, catching his breath. “Nate. What the hell?”
“That was Richard Pierce, Victor.”
“The Richie Pierce? What? I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him. I’m so off my game.” Victor’s eyes get big. “He’s been working out! He was nowhere near that ripped when he was dating Harry Garrett.”
I let that particular observation slide. “I want to go home.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, disappointed.
“I have to. I can’t see him again. After what his horrible family did to my father . . . Please, Victor. I can’t even look at him.” I’m not sure if Victor sees the tears that are forming in my eyes, but either way he softens immediately. He wraps an arm around my shoulders and turns us in the direction of the parking garage, where we’d left his old Suburban we affectionately call the Tank.
“Of course. Let’s go home, Nate. I’m sorry. I should have recognized him.”
And Victor, bless him, keeps up with my quick pace, putting as much distance between us and the Pierce heir as we can.
Chapter Three
Cameron
Being called into my father’s office conjures up the same feelings as being summoned to the headmaster’s office of my boarding school. With my father, I also get the extra bonus of wondering just how small and dejected I’ll feel when it’s all over. Dejection on top of Nate’s abrupt rejection last night would make for an awesome day, let me tell you.
I have my own office now; I’ve had it since the day I turned eighteen, as per the gap year agreement. It’s a whole two floors down from Father’s, which of course is the top floor of the building. That means I only have a short elevator ride to mentally prepare for a good old-fashioned ass whooping and to try to slow my heart rate to a normal speed.
The elevator doors open, and I step into Richard Pierce’s world. If Paradise Entertainment is his empire, his office in Paradise Tower is the control center, and his control center is impeccable. The office looks like a Victorian townhouse instead of the sixteenth floor of a Los Angeles high-rise. It’s all dark mahogany and thick carpet and calming neutral paint and curtains, with just a splash of navy blue for color. A secretary is at attention by my father’s desk with a clipboard and a fancy pen, waiting for a signature. His assistant, Parker, is on the other side, scribbling notes as my father speaks to an unfamiliar voice, broadcasted by speakerphone. He doesn’t look at me until the call is over and his employees (mine too, I guess?) have instructions to carry out. Then the door is shut behind me, and Father finally acknowledges my presence.
“Richie.”
He motions for me to sit, so I do, but not across from him at his desk. I opt for a chair close to a window, a leather thing that’s roughly the size of Pittsburgh. If we’re going to have a heavy discussion, I’ll sit where it’s comfortable.
“You were at a club last night. The Crown?”
I knew he’d find out. I didn’t know it would be so soon.
I nod the way he would have, almost undetectably. “I think we should buy it. Quietly. Keep the management on; they’re the ones who find the good bands anyway. Get first pick of the best new acts coming through.”
His eyebrows get lower and closer together the more frustrated he gets, and right now he’s like a unibrowed Muppet, so I talk fast.
“I offered the band a contract. They’re called the Jacket Zippers. Every single one of them is an incredible musician in their own right, but when they play together . . .” I struggle for the words. I don’t find them. I try a different tack. “It’s like they’re a young version of Aerosmith. Or maybe Guns N’ Roses. It’s that kind of sound.”
“Rock.”
“Yes.” I take a deep breath before my next monologue. “I know we usu
ally sign pop artists. Not rock. Not bands. But these guys, with a major label behind them? Stadium shows. Super Bowl halftimes. Headlining Lollapalooza.”
My father looks uninterested. I sigh. “Please trust me on this.”
He gestures, a brief flip of his fingers and an upturned palm, and I know exactly what he’s asking for: proof. I take out my phone, connect it to the Bluetooth speakers in his office, and press play.
Jack’s guitar rips through the room like a raw, unpolished lightning bolt. Then there’s Quincy on drums, laying a beat right down in your blood, like it’s almost tribal. Then there’s the thing that really cements it with the Zippers: their bassist plays like he’s the reason people come to see the show. He plays like he’s the lead guitar. Hell, he plays like the bass is the lead singer. And the lead singer himself . . . well, let’s just say he’s like Lou Reed, only with the range and bluesy stylings of Steven Tyler. It’s a down-home, gritty sound. The kind that makes the band sound retro and new all at once.
It’s incredible.
I look at Richard Pierce Sr. He doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink, but something’s changed in his eyes. He’s analyzing, processing, already working the formulas he knows so well. Weighing risks and odds, failure against success, outcome A over outcome B. He’s already planning marketing, producers, album covers, tours.
You see, Paradise Entertainment gets a lot of heat for being so successful, for having so many artists that crank out hits. But here’s what most people don’t take into consideration when they blame us for the current state of music in this country: we are successful because we sign talent. Not promise, not good looks, not marketability, not even charisma or that “certain something.” We sign talent, period. The difference between us and the other successful labels out there is that we take something good or even great and market it correctly. The other guys just package crap so well that it’s mistaken for something good just long enough to make a buck. But if you really look at our roster compared to the other guys, you’ll see the difference.
With another flick of his fingers, Father signals for me to turn it off. “Where are they from? How old are they? Who writes?”
And now my father and I talk. Really talk. We go over terms, negotiate numbers, make plans. We are no longer father and son; I no longer have a feeling that I’m in the principal’s office for a paddling. We are business partners now. We are Men Who Run Things. We are Pierces.
When I leave, the contract for the Zippers is in my hands, courtesy of Father’s awesome secretary. I’m smiling as I head toward the elevator, and it lasts until I hear my father say my name again. It’s barely audible. Father never shouts. Men like him never have to.
“Yes, Father?”
He is reading something on his desk; our moment is over and I’m his son again. His junior. The One Who Still Has a Lot to Learn.
“You don’t need my permission to offer a deal, but it is a matter of courtesy.”
“Yes, Father.”
Chastised, and also incredibly pleased with myself, I get into the elevator.
Nate
“Come on, man. Come to the party.”
“No, Victor.”
“Why are you so uptight?”
I blow out a breath. I’m sitting on the soft-serve counter at the Dairy Barn, uncharacteristically not worried about what kind of syrup might be seeping into the fibers of my jeans. I had the dream again last night, which felt especially sharp after meeting the Pierce heir, and I’ve been in a deep funk since. “I have to practice. I didn’t last night because of the concert, and I didn’t the night before that because I had to work.”
“And you’re going to forget it all if you don’t play tonight?” Victor snorts. “Sure. A couple nights off and suddenly Mr. Prodigy can’t recognize the strings of a guitar from a hole in the ground.”
“I’m not a prodigy,” I say, even though I’ve been called that once or twice by people who would know. “Regardless, I can’t rest on laurels. It’s like the fable about the tortoise and the hare. I’m the hare, Vic. People staying home to practice tonight instead of going to a party will beat me at auditions tomorrow.”
“Dude, you so should have told Pierce that you play.”
“I did.”
“But I mean, that you play like you do, man. You should have told him you were a prodigy.”
“What the hell would a Pierce want with a prodigy?”
The question is a knife through our conversation, slicing it up into fragments of memories and things that we both leave unsaid. A mother with a toddler girl on her hip wanders up to our window and orders a cone for her daughter. Victor handles the whole transaction while I sit, stewing in my syrup-soaked pants.
When the mother is gone, Victor starts up again. “He is seriously good-looking. I mean, even I can see that. I knew Tess was his twin, but I didn’t think boy-girl twins were supposed to look alike.”
“Victor . . .”
“What? I’m just saying. And he was very into you. Even when you weren’t dancing, he was watching you. Like he didn’t even care about the Zippers.”
“He probably didn’t.”
I hop off the counter. If I have to listen to Victor drone on about the freaking Pierce family, I will do it while eating ice cream. Self-medicating is all I have to cling to. I pour chocolate soft serve into a paper cup and drown it in chocolate syrup and gummy bears.
“God, can you imagine what they must have thought when Richard Pierce Jr. walked backstage? I mean, what do you even do?” Victor leans on the counter, studying the rainbow sprinkles in a canister with a dreamy look in his eye, the way I used to look at the pages of the Fender catalog, actually. “I’ll tell you what you do. You shit yourself. That’s for sure.”
I nod. “Then you sign a contract. Then you hand over everything that makes you unique, all your control, all your creativity and ideas, and let them overproduce you and put you in designer clothes and—”
“And they do to you what they did to your dad?”
Angrily, I stuff a spoonful of chocolate and gummy bears into my mouth and say, “Exactly.”
Victor sighs. “Maybe they wouldn’t, though. I mean, what if he’s not like his dad? He’s only a year older than us, Nate. That would have made him ten when . . .”
I look at Victor. “You can say it. When Dad killed himself.”
Victor’s face softens. “Sorry. I’m just never sure if I should. Anyway, what I’m saying is, maybe he’s different. Maybe things have changed. You know?”
I do know. The thing is, it’s more than just what the elder Richard Pierce did. It’s that the incident with him started the whole slide into the miserable and difficult situation I’m in right now. Maybe if Dad and Richard hadn’t disagreed, Dad would still be here. And I wouldn’t be living with Tonya, who is still practically a stranger. She married my dad only a few months before he died. I barely knew her then, and as my interactions with her are generally limited to passing her in the hallway when we’re both home and taking her criticism at the Dairy Barn, I don’t know her any better now.
There are just too many ifs. If Dad hadn’t died, maybe I wouldn’t be so poor. Or alone. Or so unsure about everything. I finish my ice cream in silence and throw the cup into the trash can.
Victor has moved on from this frustrating conversation and is happily making himself an Icy Typhoon. Tonya would be furious if she knew we were eating so much product today.
“He sings,” I mutter.
“Nate,” he says. “Segue, please.”
“Cam. Richard. Cameron. What the hell is his name, anyway? He says he sings.”
“His first name is Richard, but his inner circle calls him by his middle name, Cameron. His mother started calling him that when he was little, because it got confusing to have two Richards around,” Victor recites. Then he sighs dreamily.
I wrinkle my nose at him. “What did you do, memorize People’s latest issue?”
“Yes.”
This time, I sigh. There’s a reason Vic is obsessed. I’ve seen enough pictures of Tess Pierce to know she’s stunning. The whole world has. She insinuates herself into everything: fashion, entertainment, the latest heartthrob’s arms, etc. etc. etc. She is the very definition of a socialite, and her gorgeousness makes everything she puts on look couture. With her insanely popular selfies on Instagram, she’s the best walking advertisement any designer could ask for.
And her brother is just as stunning, I have to admit. The same beautiful tanned skin, the same huge hazel eyes that seem to be swiped from a Precious Moments figurine. But his sculpted cheekbones had some slight stubble that rubbed against my cheek as we danced, and his chest was like a solid-bodied guitar: strong, hard, and yet smooth. And I could imagine what he might sound like singing to me.
Christ, I need to get laid.
“Nate.”
I look up. Victor is glaring at me, clearly waiting on an answer to a question I didn’t hear.
“I asked if you’d hook me up with Tess if you start screwing Cameron.”
“Oh sure, I’ll put in a word,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Be real, Vic. And I promise, there will be no screwing. It was just a dance.”
Victor pours about half of the container of sprinkles on top of his Icy Typhoon. “Not the way he was looking at you, it wasn’t. And not the way you were looking at him.”
“He’s a Pierce.”
“Yes. Terrible thing to be rich and powerful and gorgeous.” Victor pauses to crunch sprinkles. “And you know, connected to people who could make you rich and powerful too. I’m just saying—”
“I know what you’re saying,” I snap. “But I don’t want help. Not from him. Not even if he’s actually the nicest guy on the planet.”
A long moment passes, in which the only sounds inside the Dairy Barn are the sounds of the Mr. Freezy slush machines spinning. I look over at Victor, finally, and he’s not angry that I snapped at him. Instead, he’s looking at me as if he cares deeply about me, which makes me feel like crap.
