by Fiona Cole
Finally, she slowly shifted to look at me, and if looks could burn, I’d be ash. This was going in the wrong direction. This was supposed to be an easier conversation playing off the laughter from earlier. Instead, we were diving headfirst into dangerous territory and sharp reactions.
“I will nut-punch you, Parker Callahan.”
I met her glare with a challenging one of my own. We couldn’t keep doing this. “Fine. Do what you need to do, but you’ll at least listen before we get out.”
Rolling her eyes, she fell back against the seat and crossed her arms, pouting.
“I didn’t agree to Sonia being at New Year’s Eve. Aspen dropped it on me.”
“It doesn’t matter, Parker.”
“It does because you showed up there for a reason. You showed up to see me.”
“And it was a mistake,” she snapped. “I don’t know what I was thinking because the reality is that a few phone conversations don’t erase the past. It doesn’t change who we are.”
“I don’t want it to be like this.”
“How do you want it, Parker? For me to be your girlfriend?” She said it like it was the most absurd thing she’d ever heard.
“Nova…”
Her sigh carried more exhaustion than anyone should have to bear. “I’m just an old friend—your stepsister—here to work with you.”
“That’s not what I want,” I growled through a clenched jaw.
“I think that’s what it needs to be.” She swallowed before facing me again, and instead of a hollow void from before, wariness shone through. “This life, Parker—being here—it’s hard. You know I never considered being in the public eye, and when I tried…well, you know what happened.”
It haunted me every damn day.
“I have my stipulations about public arrangements for a reason. I don’t want to be out in the open without controlling the narrative, and that’s all you are.”
Her perfect freckles scrunched along her nose when she winced like the thought of remembering that flash of a moment hurt too much. Her eyes slid closed, and when they opened again, they were resolute, but nothing could hide the loss that echoed between us.
“I’m sorry, Parker,” she whispered. “I can’t do more.”
And with that, she got out.
I was too stunned by the loss to stop her.
Why bother?
She was obviously gone long before I had a chance.
I had nothing left to do but enjoy the time we had and soak up every second.
I had to—it would be all I had left of her in the end.
Fourteen
Nova
The bus rumbled along the road, getting pummeled by the downpour outside.
I sat in the booth seat at the table, and Parker across from me. The rest of the guys lounged in the captain’s chairs and couch, their instruments resting on their laps.
It was day three, and we had nothing.
In all fairness, the first day we stayed separate, as much as we could on a tour bus, Ash and Parker played a video game in the back, and I watched TV up front with Brogan and Oren. I allowed myself that first day to get settled—both physically and mentally. I still wasn’t sure I was settled mentally. I’d pull the curtain of my bunk back and jolt a little at finding Parker coming out of the bathroom. So much like it’d been when we were teens.
However, with time, I accepted it.
I was on tour with Parker Callahan. I slept all of two feet from him with barely a curtain between us. Put that down on my list of last things I imagined ever happening.
“Oren, play that beat again,” I asked.
I sat back on the seat, tapping my head on the wall behind me, sliding my eyes closed to listen. The sharp staccato of beats masked the rain. I hummed the possible guitar opening, and Parker picked it up almost instantly, strumming the sound I imagined. Brogan added rhythm, and Ash found the middle between guitars and drums.
It’s good.
Peeking down at the notebook on the table, I found my moment and added the lyrics—at least the two lines we had.
Meeting Parker’s gaze, I sang the first line. Then the second. When I reach the third, nothing came. I waited for Parker to pick up where I left off like we’d done so many times before. When I was stuck, he came in and vice versa. So far, I’d been the only one contributing.
Frustration bubbled up, and I glared with pursed lips. “Are you going to try, or are you just going to be a lump on a log?”
The music screeched to a halt, and Parker’s lip curled into a scowl. “I am trying.”
“Really? Because we’ve been at this for over an hour, and we have two lines that I came up with.”
“Because it’s your job.”
“Well, we can’t all be as good at doing our job as you are, Parker,” I sneered.
His nostrils flared at my double meaning, and he looked on the verge of snapping. Instead of shouting like I half expected, he stared me down while he put his guitar aside and stood up. His chest heaved, and he looked down on me. I tipped my head back, meeting his intimidation with my own frustration.
The muscle in his jaw ticked, and I held my breath, waiting for him to say anything. Instead, he broke the stare first and stomped to the back of the bus, where he slammed the door behind him.
Oren’s whistle brought me back to reality. I’d almost forgotten anyone else was there with us, it’d been so quiet.
“Well, while Parker pouts, I’m going to nap. I’m exhausted from the show last night and slept like shit,” Ash said, making a much less dramatic exit.
All the fight seeped out of me, and I rested my forehead in my hands and my elbows on the table. The two lines on the page mocked me. They weren’t even that good, and I considered lighting them on fire just to release some tension.
Why was this so hard?
I almost laughed at the stupid question. Parker and I had a million issues between us, and it kept us from finding that sync we’d had as teens.
“Sorry, guys,” I apologized. “I’ve never worked so closely with a band on writing lyrics. For the most part, I just sell them.”
“Well, we do like to push people past their norm,” Oren said.
“Remember when we made Aspen drink the worm tequila,” Brogan recalled, laughing.
“Gross,” I cringed.
“Add in everything else, and I think we all knew we’d hit some speed bumps.” Oren shrugged before pushing his electric drum table aside. When he looked back up, something in his light blue eyes had me holding my breath.
“You know, I’ve wanted to apologize for a long time,” he started.
“It’s okay, Oren.”
“It’s not. You were part of us, and I don’t know…I guess I never stopped to consider you wouldn’t come with us. And when you turned it down, I got it, but I was too excited to think past myself.”
“We all were.”
A lump worked its way up my throat, and between my frustration with Parker, constantly being on edge, and Oren’s rare sincerity, I almost choked on it.
Somehow, I managed to swallow it down. “Seriously. It’s okay. It’s over.”
“We just never got a chance to apologize, and it kind of weighs on us,” Brogan added.
I had so much bitterness that hid inside me, and it popped out when I least expected it. Before meeting Parker again, I would have said I’d dealt with my past and moved on. Now, I realized it lingered in the dark corners I refused to look into.
So, when Brogan’s words held the slightest tinge of an edge to them, I easily recognized he had his own resentment. Because they hadn’t just left me. I left them too.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
And in typical guy fashion, he shrugged like it was nothing.
“Okay. Good. Got that out of the way,” Oren said, clapping his hands together, back to his goofy self. “Now, you and Parker need to make up, and all will be fabulous. Let them lyrics flow.”
“I think that’s abou
t half of Parker’s issues,” Brogan muttered.
“Oh, yeah,” Oren said, wincing.
“What?” I asked. “What else does he have going on?”
Alarm bells rang, and my mind went rampant with the most improbable issues. Cancer? Dying? Wanted for a crime?
“His mom sent him an invite to his stepbrother’s graduation. She gushed about how proud she was that he’d already been accepted into the top ivy league schools.”
Brogan snorted. “Yeah, and when Parker reminded her he was on tour, she mentioned something about priorities and how his silly band could take a day off for family.”
“Oh, shit,” I drawled out. “When did he get that?”
“Last night, after the show.”
“Fuck,” I breathed, the anger from earlier draining out of me.
We’d struggled yesterday to get started but mostly worked our way through it. Today, it was like pulling teeth, but at least I understood why. Parker’s mom was his Achilles heel. Shoving the paper aside, I pushed up from the booth and headed to the back of the bus.
I turned the knob, half expecting it to be locked. When it gave, I entered cautiously, not sure of my welcome. I popped my head in to find him stretched out on the u-shaped couch, his arm thrown over his eyes. I tapped on the door in case he didn’t hear me, but he still didn’t move. Deciding to take no answer as an okay to come in, I shut the door behind me and sat on the other side of the couch, facing him.
Well, shit. What now? I probably should have come in with a plan and contingencies, like if he laid on the couch and stayed silent, ignoring my presence. My heart dropped at yet another reminder of our reality. I could no longer come to him and get an open smile and easy conversation.
“I didn’t realize your mom was still being a bitch,” I started.
“Fucking Oren and his big mouth.”
“I’m sorry. I know how stupid her words can be.” I infused as much sincerity in my words, making sure any snarky comment waiting to pop out without notice stayed far away. I hated how that woman made him feel small and insignificant, and I’d hoped she’d had to eat her words as he rose to worldwide fame. It pissed me off that she hadn’t.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“It is. It may be why you’re struggling with writer’s block.”
“I’m sure it’s part of it, but being able to understand that doesn’t really change that I can’t think of any words.”
It might not, but I could approach him with a bit more empathy.
We both needed this to work. He needed a kickass album, and I needed the money, and adding our shit on top of his own shit wasn’t helping.
“Listen, Parker,” I started. When I stopped, he finally uncovered his face and pinned me under his ocean blue eyes that looked tired. It took actual effort to not fall to my knees beside him and run my fingers through his hair to soothe him—to comfort him like I always did.
But that wasn’t my place anymore. My place was to do a job.
“If we’re going to make this work, we need to be able to be around each other without bickering, and I know some of it comes from me,” I admitted when he cocked a brow. “But it doesn’t help when you keep bringing it up either. I just…don’t want to talk about it.”
The muscle in his jaw ticked, but he didn’t fight me.
“So, let’s just put it behind us and start fresh tomorrow. No more snarky comments and heavy history. A clean slate.”
He raised a dubious brow, and I knew it was a tall order, but maybe if we both agreed to try, we’d at least have a fighting chance. I desperately needed an opportunity to bury these feelings, and if he kept cornering me to talk every day, I’d never get the chance to ignore them. They could sit in time out until I was done with my job, and then I’d face those demons. Just…not yet.
He looked ready to argue, and I pleaded with my best puppy dog eyes for him to agree.
Finally, with a heavy sigh, he muttered, “Fine.”
“Thank you.”
“So, what now? How do we make this work?”
“We’re in Raleigh tomorrow, but you don’t have a show until the next day, right?”
“Yeah, I think so. It all starts to blur together.” He laughed, but exhaustion kept it from sounding anything but tired.
“Good. I have ideas.”
Fifteen
Parker
When Nova said she had ideas, a museum was the very last place I expected.
She had me grab a hat and aviators when we left but passed me a pair of thick rim glasses and an oddly bushy stick-on mustache once we got there. Frankly, I didn’t know how anyone would even notice me when she stood beside me. All eyes would be on her with her effortless style. Those billowy pants and denim jacket looked unsuspecting until she turned, and you got the full effect of her fitted cropped tank top. Maybe two inches of skin showed, but I couldn’t focus on anything other than how much I wanted to figure out if she was as soft as I remembered.
“So, how is this supposed to help?” I asked, looking up at the white panels of the building.
“It’s an art museum,” she responded, like it answered all my questions. When I still gave her a blank look, she explained. “Art inspires art.”
“I mean, I’ll give it a try.” My hope waned a little. When she said she’d had plans, I imagined something more than looking at paintings.
“So, part of our problem is that we can’t quite find our sync. So, we’re going to play a game. We’re going to observe the art, but while we’re looking on, we’re going to come up with our own story for it. One of us will start, and we’ll have to alternate back and forth until we come up with something fabulous and absurd.”
“Oooookay.”
“Trust me.” She turned to pay the lady, and I ducked my head low, but apparently, the mustache worked because the attendant didn’t blink twice.
Thankfully, we came earlier in the day, ignoring Aspen’s disapproval over the phone when Nova informed her of her plan. Add in it was a weekday, and other than maybe a few school field trips, it was pretty slow. Thank goodness.
“So, I take it you don’t do many museums in your spare time?” she asked while we wove our way around the statues on pedestals.
I scoffed at the words, spare time. “Not that I have much, but a museum isn’t the top of my list.”
“You never did like art museums.”
“The only paintings I truly enjoyed were yours.”
“Ours,” she corrected.
“Yeah, ours.” I smiled at her profile, warmth spreading through my chest when she mentioned how it had been our art. Even though my contribution had been merely a dot. “But we do actually hit up a few museums when we can. I like the natural history ones because of all the dinosaur bones.”
“Like a little kid.”
“Hey, they’re pretty cool.”
“What else did you do?”
Her question was innocent enough, but it halted the growing heat with a cold bucket of reality. We didn’t know each other anymore. We missed out on so much.
“We went on a lot of hikes. I think I’ve hiked almost all of Southern California.”
“Is that where you live?”
“Sometimes. I have a house there I share with Ash.”
“And the tiny mansion in New York.”
“Yeah, that one, too. Also, the one—”
“Seriously,” she cut me off with a shocked cry.
I laughed at her dropped jaw. “I’m kidding. I just wanted to see your reaction.”
She shoved me but smiled. “What else did you do?”
“We went to a lot of concerts. That was us studying our art. From Lady Gaga and Katy Perry to Foo Fighters to Luke Bryan.”
“Wow, you don’t like country.”
“I do not,” I confirmed. “But he was entertaining. We learned a lot of stage presence at those concerts.”
“That’s awesome.”
“It was. We have a lifetime of stories, which is
cool. But things get busy, and concerts are harder to get to. Hobbies are harder to keep up with. It’s great, but you have to adapt.”
“Do you love it?”
I took a deep breath, thinking over it all. “Yeah, I do. Everything has downsides, and any job will have hard days. But I still love it.”
“Good.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Well, you’re basically crushing the Instagram game, writing music for huge bands, and I’m assuming you do art, based on your pictures online. Or are you just painting and burning them?”
“You know, Picasso painted over some of his own paintings. Maybe I just do that?”
“Do you?” he asked, brows raised.
“Nah. But it’d be a cool find if I became famous later.”
“So, what do you do with all that art?”
“I sell some of it. Just not consistently enough to count on it as income.”
“Ahhh, the life of an artist.”
“’Tis glamorous,” she laughed. “I’m working on it, though. I kind of just started a bunch of hobbies. Hiking was a great way to escape and just have it be quiet, and I saw such amazing views that I wanted to capture forever. So, I picked up photography and started posting them. I didn’t expect it to be what it is.”
“Yeah, a million followers is a hell of a platform.”
“And apparently, I lived under a rock, not quite realizing I could monetize it until Rae lost her shit on me.”
“So, what’s the plan?” I asked. Nova always made her way outside of the box in her own style. She always had a quiet power about her that emanated success. She just never shouted about it.
“I recently hired someone much smarter than me to help me make this into something long-term. Hence the tour. Apparently, brands want a face with the promotions. A few big sponsors recently pulled out on me.”
“So, they want you to start showing your face?”
“Pretty much. And I guess I just haven’t because …” I watched her struggle over the words like she wasn’t quite sure herself. “I guess I never pictured it being that way, and I’m too stuck in my own idea of how it should be.”
