Imperfect Harmony (House of Archer #1)

by Raine Thomas

  That didn’t mean he invited her on the tour because he thought of her as a ratings-grabber, she assured herself, or that he had deepened their relationship because of the show. If anything, he didn’t mention the show so she could focus on her writing. He was always trying to support her career.

  She refused to believe otherwise.

  Since it wouldn’t have looked good for Dane if she admitted to Blake that he had only told her about the show after Brandon and Suddenly Something found out about it, she had made it seem otherwise. As long as she knew the truth and rationale behind why Dane didn’t mention the show when he invited her on the tour, that was enough for her.

  And if a sliver of fear had worked its way free of the cocoon, that was just fear that the trailer would show her without her hair or makeup done and Aria would never let her live it down, not fear that it would prove Brandon right.

  Looking at Dane would have loosened her hold on the cocoon, so she didn’t. It was crucial that she keep it together. Elijah had told all of them several times that once the show started getting promoted and aired, they all had to remain “in character” when out in public. They couldn’t explain, clarify, or contradict anything that aired because it would undermine the show.

  So if they all wanted viewers to tune into House of Archer and then keep tuning in, there would be no indignant objections, arrogant scoffing, or excited embellishing of whatever the trailer showed. Lily would just watch it through her cocoon as a precaution and then laugh with Dane later about the senselessness of Brandon’s allegations. That was the only outcome she could handle right now.

  Cocoon or not, her heart thumped heavily enough for her to feel her own pulse as she watched the video begin to play. There was more riding on this now than she would have ever believed.

  The video started with the words “Los Angeles” and the date of the tour kick-off party super-imposed over artistically overlapping images of the L.A. cityscape. In the background was the beat of one of The Void’s hit songs, “Welcome to Wonderland.” Lily nodded, thinking the song was perfect for the show’s theme.

  It then moved into a quick montage with clips of each of the main “cast.” Voiceovers from their various interviews ran over the clips.

  First came Dane, shown singing into the mic at their Seattle performance. The image froze with him raising a fist in the air as his voiceover said, “I’m Archer, The Void’s front man. And this is my house.”

  Everyone else’s snippets followed the same format.

  Keith shaking a fan’s hand and posing for a photo, his voiceover saying, “I’m Keith Connors, bass guitarist and backing vocalist for The Void. I’m a man of few words, so I make ‘em count.”

  Xander donning his sunglasses as he exited a vehicle, his voiceover saying, “I’m Xander Phillips, lead and rhythm guitarist for The Void. You can call me Chill.”

  Noelle blowing a bubble with her chewing gum and winking at the camera, her voiceover saying, “I’m Noelle Foxx, drummer for The Void and well-known diva. Watch out, boys.”

  Sage holding his earphones to his head while he stood over his turntables, his voiceover saying, “I’m Sage Strickland, backing vocalist, sample specialist, and special effects artist for The Void. Everything’s better with the right remix.”

  Brandon and Suddenly Something had their video clip and snippet next, but as a group rather than broken up by band member. When the image of them performing froze, their names were superimposed over it to identify them while Brandon’s voiceover said, “We’re Suddenly Something and we’re not going to let anyone steal the show.”

  Another image, this one of a map of the U.S. bearing red dots in strategic cities, popped up next with an attention-getting sound effect and the words, “The Tour” superimposed over it.

  Lily started to relax. She wasn’t even included in the main cast. The producers had done what she figured they would and established that Suddenly Something would drive the conflict on the show. Brandon must not have liked the idea of being the one all of the show’s future fans booed, so he tried to deflect the attention onto Lily. She almost couldn’t blame him for that.

  The trailer cut from the map scene to Dane sitting for one of Elijah’s interviews and saying, “The Under the Bridge Tour is a way for The Void and Suddenly Something to move on from the past and connect with new fans. It’s all about the music. We’ll be checking the drama at the door.”

  It flipped immediately to an interview with Brandon saying, “That’s a load of shit,” with the swear word getting bleeped out.

  Lily vaguely heard the Slant audience laugh as she watched another generic shot pop up with the words, “The best laid plans...” superimposed on it.

  “My friend Lily is along for the tour,” Dane said in the next interview clip.

  And Lily’s stomach plummeted.

  The scene cut to Brandon. “Who is Lily Montgomery? She’s the one who broke up Suddenly Something eight years ago.”

  “Do I think having her on the tour is a good idea?” Keith said in the next clip.

  Before he replied, it switched to a shot of Noelle looking from side to side as though she didn’t know how to diplomatically answer whatever question had been asked of her.

  Then Xander appeared next, shrugging and saying, “‘Good’ is a fast and loose kinda word, don’t you think?” before it flashed back to Keith replying, “It really wasn’t my call.”

  Logically, Lily understood that the soundbites could have been pulled out of context. But watching the sequence that made it appear as though the band—a group of people she considered her true family—didn’t want her there pulled sharply at the edges of her cocoon.

  “All I’m saying,” Brandon said in the next clip, “is that she did her best to break up one band by turning Archer’s head. Who’s to say it won’t happen again?”

  Lily realized that her fingers were balled so tightly into her hands that her fingernails were cutting into her flesh. For the life of her, though, she couldn’t force them to un-flex. It was like she was attempting to physically hold onto her cocoon.

  Because it was easy enough to sense what was coming.

  She watched the remaining sequence of clips, shown in quick bursts with dramatic music playing, without a flicker of emotion.

  Her, unsmiling, marching up to the table at Magellan’s and distracting Dane away from the table of women as though she didn’t want him near them.

  Sydney asking her if she had told Dane that Johnathan had asked her to marry him.

  Nikki telling the mother and daughter Void groupies that Lily would never let them near Dane.

  Lily and Dane making out in the back of the SUV.

  Her mother slapping her in the restaurant and calling her a selfish bitch.

  Johnathan on bended knee in front of her in the hotel lobby.

  Her smiling and laughing with Rick Kingston as he leaned closer to talk over the loud concert, the camera panning to Dane on the stage a few feet away and showing him frowning at them.

  Her telling Keith that she wasn’t a good lay, but an incredible one.

  Dane and the band sitting in the guest house, Keith asking Dane what was up his ass and Dane telling everyone to fuck off.

  A scene of overall chaos that Lily realized was the food fight at Great America but that just looked like a heated brawl, ending with the camera panning to the blood from Corey’s fall.

  Interspersed with each clip were the words, “Will. She. Be. The. Fall. Of. The. House. Of. Archer?”

  Lily drew in a painful breath when the music cut off dramatically and she heard her own voice in the trailer saying, “Not every home is happy.”

  That was followed by a clip of Dane standing in front of the main cast, smiling at the camera as he extended his arms and said, “Welcome to House of Archer.”

  The Slant audience whooped and applauded as the trailer ended with the details about where and when the first episode would air. Lily barely heard that. She was too busy trying
to mentally repair the holes in her cocoon so she didn’t completely break down and humiliate herself on national television. The contents of her stomach made a valiant effort to climb back up her throat, but the band of emotion cinched there helped keep them down.

  Brandon had been right after all. She was the means to an end, and that end was show ratings.

  The world would now see Lily Montgomery as a selfish, manipulative, slutty bitch with designs on breaking up The Void. Even if her relationship with Dane was exposed, everyone would question her motives. She dully realized that it wouldn’t be Brandon getting booed by viewers.

  It would be her.

  All she could think was that she had given up her writing dreams for this. No reputable publishers would want to work with her now.

  She had sacrificed everything...including her heart.

  “Doesn’t that look amazing?” Blake asked the audience, getting more cheers and applause. “There’s no way I’m missing that premiere.” She turned to Lily. “Whether you came on the tour for the show or not, Lily, you’re obviously causing quite the stir. Are you and Archer more than just friends?”

  Lily’s head replayed Elijah’s instructions of “stay in character” while her heart wept. Somehow she managed to say, “Guess you’ll have to watch the show and find out.”

  Blake laughed. “And that’s just what we’ll do. Thanks so much to all of you and the House of Archer producers for choosing to premiere the trailer here on Slant. After the break, we’ll be meeting the cast of Magic...”

  Lily got numbly to her feet as the show went to commercials and the production crew raced onto the set to usher everyone off. Since Brandon was standing right beside her as she rose, she happened to catch his gaze. She expected to see self-righteous triumph on his face and was stunned to see a glimmer of sympathy and possibly even regret before he turned away to respond to something Vic said to him.

  The triumph would have been easier to bear.

  She stood alone for a moment, looking blankly around as everyone else followed the boisterous orders issued by the Slant team. She felt the eyes of the audience on her, saw the hands raised to block moving lips as they all whispered about her.

  The set suddenly felt unsteady beneath her feet. It took a moment for her to realize that she was starting to shake.

  As she had done for years when she reached this point, she sought out Dane. All she saw was the back of his head as he and the band were led off the set by a small crowd that included Elijah, two House of Archer camera operators, and several chattering people wearing headsets. She watched his departure with stark incredulity.

  He was leaving her?

  Surely he wasn’t. Surely he was going to reassure her that he hadn’t intended for his reality show to make a mockery of her life and her love for him.

  But he never looked back.

  “This way,” said a tech who took Lily’s elbow and tugged her along after him.

  Lily didn’t register where they were going, only that it wasn’t the same direction Dane had taken. She foolishly kept expecting him to appear at her side, though she couldn’t even begin to imagine what they could say to each other with so many people and cameras around and microphones capturing every word.

  Was there anything he could say that would recover the part of herself that the past ten minutes had just stolen from her?

  The cocoon continued to fray as the tech guided her to the green room where she had eaten lunch with the band. The smell of the food made bile rise in her throat. She choked it down long enough for the tech to remove her microphone. As he reached for the one sitting on a nearby table that she knew was for House of Archer, the cocoon shredded. She stumbled away from him and grabbed her purse off the chair where she had left it.

  “I-I need to use the restroom first,” she stammered.

  Whatever he saw on her face had the tech staying where he was rather than pursuing her. She hurried into the bathroom and closed and locked the door. She didn’t dare look at her reflection in the mirror, knowing it would destroy even the thin hold she had over her emotions. There would be time enough for that when she was truly alone.

  She walked over to the window she had noticed earlier and wiggled it open. It was a second-story window, but there was a truck trailer parked beneath it where something had just been off-loaded into one of the studio’s bay doors.

  Without pausing to think about it, she yanked off her impractical boots and left them on the floor. She pulled out the tightly rolled ballet flats she kept in her purse and slipped them on, then climbed out the window.

  She supposed her Uncle Ray would consider this a regression, pointing out that she was about to do something that might hurt herself because she was so emotional. But as she lowered herself down and dangled over the truck so she could reduce the impact of the drop, she silently disagreed.

  There was no way to hurt herself when she had already been shattered to pieces.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “What the unholy hell was that pile of shit?” Keith fumed as the band entered a room Elijah had set aside for post-trailer interviews for House of Archer.

  Elijah hurried over to close the door, likely to avoid anyone overhearing what was about to be a heated conversation. “Calm down,” he said, holding his hands up in a mollifying gesture.

  “Fuck that and fuck you,” Keith replied, his tone sharp enough to make Elijah flinch. “I was asked if I thought having Nikki on the tour was a good idea. You made it sound like I was talking about Lily.”

  “Yeah,” Xander added, getting close enough to Elijah to have the producer backing up. “My comment was in response to whether I thought Suddenly Something was any good. What’s the deal with making it seem like I was talking about Lily?”

  Archer processed the conversation through the shocky haze that had seized him during the trailer. He still felt like he was recovering from a cannonball to the gut.

  What had just happened?

  “Where’s Lily?” he asked for the third time since he was approached by Elijah on the set and herded off a few minutes ago.

  “Her mic was in the green room,” Elijah replied. “After she’s miked, they’ll bring her over.”

  Archer’s deep, seething anger finally helped him shake off the haze. The pain that flooded in to take its place almost robbed him of breath.

  “You said she was right behind us when you took us off the set,” he said in a tight voice.

  “I had to get you moving,” Elijah explained, moving further from Keith and Xander, who loomed over him with their arms crossed over their chests. “Geez. She’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  “I have to see her,” Archer said, unaware that he was rubbing the center of his chest to ease the raging agony there. “God. Lily.”

  “Did you see her face?” Noelle asked quietly, more subdued than any of them had ever seen her. “Poor Lily.”

  Of course Archer had seen Lily’s face. By the time the trailer ended, she looked just like she had after her mother slapped her. But he knew the trauma inflicted by the trailer had cut her far deeper than the physical attack.

  Because it had come not from her abusive mother, but from the people she had come to love and trust more than her own family.

  “You all really need to see the bigger picture here,” Elijah reasoned as he registered their expressions. “You’ve known from the beginning that in order for this show to succeed, there has to be conflict. You and Suddenly Something have been playing nice since the tour began. Lily Montgomery has given us the only real conflict to air.”

  “So you just offered her up like a sacrificial lamb?” Sage demanded, ire darkening his normally calm demeanor. “Why didn’t you prepare her?”

  “Reactions have to be genuine to make the show work,” Elijah responded, throwing his hands up as though it should be obvious. “What’s the big deal? Lily said she would do anything to make the show a success. You’re all getting what you wanted.”

 
Lily’s earlier words in the green room came back to Archer in a heart-piercing flash. This is what you’ve been waiting for your entire life.

  But she was wrong. He had only realized it too late.

  Archer stepped closer to the producer. “What I wanted?” he repeated in a low voice. “You think this is what I wanted?”

  “Of course,” Elijah said. “A successful reality show.”

  The producer frowned when Archer didn’t stop advancing. Then his eyes flew wide as Archer grabbed the front of his shirt with both of his fists, dragging him up so their faces were only inches apart.

  “You made my best friend look like a scheming whore, you son of a bitch,” Archer bit out. “You manipulated her loyalty to The Void and set her up.”

  “I manipulated her?” Elijah retorted. “Who’s the one sleeping with her?”

  Archer snapped.

  In one swift move, he shoved Elijah back and punched him in the face. He didn’t even register the pain in his fist as he watched the stunned producer stumble, catch his foot on the interview chair, and collapse to the ground.

  “How’s that for conflict, you piece of shit?” Archer snarled, reaching under his shirt to tear at the battery pack strapped there. “You can take your reality show and shove it up your ass.”

  “You signed a contract,” Elijah sputtered, hauling himself into a sitting position and wiping at the blood dripping from his nose.

  “Talk to my lawyers,” Archer replied, tossing his mic at the producer’s feet. “I quit.”

  He stormed out of the room. Trey, who had been waiting outside in the industrial-looking hallway, shifted into an alert stance. Archer ignored him and glanced around, latching onto the first Slant crew member he saw. Judging by how young she looked, she was probably an intern.

  “Where’s the green room where we had lunch?” he asked her.

  The female’s eyes widened as though she couldn’t believe they were standing face to face. “Uh. Um. This way,” she eventually squeaked.