Lola talked to her own mom who was hesitant about their relationship, but she came around as Lola called her more and more. He knew she missed her mom and couldn’t wait to surprise her with a trip home during their tour break in a couple weeks.
It took him a moment to realize his friends were still staring at him. “Yeah.” He smiled. “Yes, everything is good.” Better than good.
Noah made kissy sounds, and Melanie shut him up with a few harsh words.
Having Lola around made losing Noah and Jo easier. The Madison Square Garden show was their last with the tour. Noah was back home in London, and Jo had retreated to L.A. to hide away as her pregnancy became much more obvious.
Drew wanted to tell her she didn’t have to hide, that it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, but Jo had made up her mind. She refused to let the music world know she was pregnant until the baby arrived.
“How is our replacement?” Noah asked.
Drew shrugged. “He’s good.”
“Good,” Jo scoffed. “He’s country.”
Melanie sighed. “We’ve been over this. Beckett Anderson’s last album wasn’t country. His label made a deal with ours to get him onto your tour. Are you having problems with him?”
Drew shook his head. In truth, the guy was cool. But he missed Noah and Jo.
“Awwww.” Noah pressed a hand to his heart. “Drew misses us, Joey.”
Ben leaned into the camera. “Can Piper join the call?”
Noah made a whipping sound. Ben only shrugged. He was so into his girlfriend Drew used to think it was ridiculous. Now, he got it. He understood what it felt like to think of one person above all else.
Even as he talked to his best friends, his rock star support group, he wished Lola sat beside him, her hand in his.
“Yeah, Ben. I’ll go get Pipes.” He left his Indianapolis hotel room behind and walked down the hall, his tablet clutched in his hands.
Piper’s door stood partially open and multiple voices came from inside. “Knock knock.” He pushed the door farther open. “Piper?”
He found Piper lying on her stomach on her bed next to the most beautiful girl in the world.
Lola looked up at him, a smile on her perfect lips. “Hey.”
His eyes drifted to the magazine they were flipping through and caught sight of his face staring back at him.
Lola shut the magazine and sat up, pushing dark hair over her shoulders.
Drew had forgotten the rest of Rockstars Anonymous was there until Noah started laughing.
“You should see your face, dude. You’re hopeless.”
“Hopelessly in love,” Jo teased.
Drew closed his eyes, wondering why he’d brought the group here. He turned the tablet toward the girls. “Be nice and say hi to Piper and Lola.”
“Hey, Pipes.” Ben’s voice was soft.
Piper reached for the tablet, and Drew let her take it. She put it on her lap as she and Lola hovered over it, talking to the group like they too were a part of it.
He watched his girl light up as she chatted with his friends and realized Noah was wrong.
He wasn’t hopeless.
Because being in love with Lola Ramirez filled him with hope. She lifted her gaze to him, a smile stretching her lips.
He sat on the edge of the bed as Piper continued talking. Picking up the magazine, he flipped to the article about him.
Lola scooted away from Piper and wrapped her arms around Drew from the side, resting her chin on his shoulder. “We were just drooling over our celebrity crushes.”
“Drooling, huh?”
She nodded. “Noah is in there somewhere.”
“I heard that!” Noah yelled. “Drew, how does it feel to know I’m your girl’s celebrity crush?”
Drew pressed a kiss to Lola’s cheek. “As long as I’m her real life crush.”
“I was kidding.” She laughed. “Really, I’m trying to decide which picture of you to tape to my locker at school.” She tried to make herself sound like a high schooler. “Because my boyfriend is just so hot.”
He laughed, reaching up to cup her chin and turn her face to look at him. “You don’t need pictures when you have the real thing.”
She drew him into a kiss, and when she pulled away too quickly, it was okay because they’d have thousands more. He’d make sure of it.
“Aww.” Noah gave them a smarmy smile from where Piper had turned the tablet so the camera faced Drew and Lola. “You two are totes adorbs.”
“If I was in London right now,” Melanie started. “I’d smack you.”
“You say the nicest things, Mel.”
Lola hid her face in Drew’s shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her, holding her close as he stared at the group that had gotten him this far.
He’d once wondered if there was anything more to this life than endless concerts. He hadn’t known if any of it had meaning.
But here, now, he knew it did.
Being a rock star wasn’t about the money or the celebrity. He didn’t care how many people yelled his name as long as the people he cared about always would.
To him, the rock star life meant surrounding himself with the best people he knew.
His family.
Rockstars Anonymous.
Lola.
That was how he knew that when this rock star life ended one day—and it would—he’d be okay.
Continue reading for two bonus chapters or jump straight into book 3, Love is a Harmony!
michellelynnauthor.com/harmony
Bonus Chapter 1
6 months later
Lola
Home.
Lola hadn’t set foot in Gulf City in almost six months, since Drew surprised her with a trip home. She hadn’t seen her mom or walked these familiar streets in too long.
And here she was.
Yet, something felt off. She knew what it was. For so many months, she’d been by Drew’s side every day. They’d spent every moment they could together, but he hadn’t joined her on this trip, saying something about post-tour meetings.
Whatever that meant.
All Lola knew was that the tour was over, and it was time for real life to resume again, but she wasn’t sure what that looked like anymore.
Did she want to keep dancing? There’d been a few offers for representation if she wanted to look for her next gig. But what would that mean for her and Drew? She’d never had any illusions about their professional arrangement. It was always meant to be temporary, until Leah Baker returned to his side.
An irrational jealousy rolled through her as she forced open the front door of the home that seemed like it never changed.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she knew who it would be. Drew loved her, he really did. But that didn’t change the fact that she was home, and he’d stayed in his big rock star life.
Leaving her suitcase by the front door, she took in the familiar house, feeling as if she’d never left. Everything was right where it belonged. All the small town knickknacks, the framed Spanish poem.
“Mija?”
At the sound of her mom’s voice, Lola closed her eyes for just a moment before turning toward the kitchen doorway where her mom wiped her hands on her apron as a smile slid across her face.
“Mija,” she said again, softer this time.
Lola rushed toward her, pulling the smaller woman into a hug. “Mama, I missed you.” The words came out in Spanish as naturally as any English despite the fact she’d spoken so little of it in months.
Her mom pulled back and cupped Lola’s cheek. “I wasn’t expecting you for a few hours. Come. Come.” She led Lola into the kitchen where familiar scents assaulted her.
Lola’s eyes went to the plate in the center of the counter piled high with more sopaipillas than she’d ever seen before. “Overdo it, Mama?”
“Only for you, Mija.”
Lola took a beautiful piece of fried dough from the plate, not worrying about the honey coating her fingers. When her pho
ne buzzed again, she pulled it free.
She’d been expecting Drew, but instead, Nora’s name flashed across the screen. Answering it with one hand, she wedged the phone between her ear and shoulder. “Hello?” She took a bite.
Her mom put both hands on her hips, and Lola knew exactly what she was thinking. It was bad manners to eat while speaking to someone. Lola swallowed and set her food down, reminding herself it was good to be home.
“Lo,” Nora practically screamed into the phone. “Are you home yet?”
“Just walked in.”
“Oh, good. I’m outside. I’ll come in.” She hung up before Lola got another word in.
The front door burst open, and a second later, Nora sprinted into the kitchen, but she wasn’t alone. Penny and Lizzy trailed after her.
The three girls rushed Lola and pulled her into a group hug as they talked.
“You have to tell us everything,” Penny demanded.
Lola sent Nora a look. When did Penny turn into such a teenager? Nora shrugged. “She’s not wrong. We want to hear all about the tour, not just the snippets I got in phone calls.”
Lola’s mom laughed at their excitement before handing the plate of food to Lola and shooing the girls from her kitchen. They went into Lola’s room, and she stopped on the threshold, letting every bit of the familiar space sink in.
“Wait.” The girls froze.
Lola passed the plate to Nora and took a running start to jump on her bed, landing flat on her back. After almost a year living in hotel rooms, this, right here, was heaven.
“I’m home,” she whispered.
Nora, Penny, and Lizzy took up various seats around the room as they waited for her to give them the entire story of a Drew Stone tour. He was their brother, but she understood, in that moment, the celebrity was just as foreign to them as it had been to her.
So, she told them. Everything. Well, not everything. She left out curling up on his bus driving to a new city in the pounding rain, just the two of them. She didn’t tell them about how he made a point to show her something new in each city.
That the day they were caught making out by the rest of the dancers was the most mortifying day of her life.
And also the start of something great.
Because after that, the dancers and others on tour accepted not just her but them. They even rooted for them—just ask Nolan.
By the end of the tour, she hadn’t wanted it to be over. What started out as an exhausting experience that zapped all her confidence ended up being the best time of her life, the most freeing. She hadn’t doubted herself or Drew.
Each time she stepped on stage, she knew she deserved to be there.
But now… here in Gulf City… it all seemed to fade away as if it had happened to someone else.
Once she finished telling Drew’s sisters everything there was to know about the tour sans romance, she leaned back on her bed with a sigh. “And it’s over.”
Nora climbed up onto the bed and leaned next to her. “Is it?”
“Yeah.” Penny chewed a bite of sopaipilla. “Why can you only be confident on tour?”
They all stopped and turned to look at her. Lola sat up.
Penny shrugged. “It seems that’s what you miss the most. How it made you feel. I don’t see why you can’t feel like that all the time.”
Nora sent her a proud smile. “You’re deep, kiddo.”
“I’m not a kid.” She grinned. “There are fewer years between me and Lo than between Lo and Drew.”
Nora threw a pillow at her.
Penny batted it away. “What? I can’t be the only one who’d say it. He’s dipping into the kiddie pool.”
“Pen!” Nora chastised.
But Lola couldn’t stop laughing. She sat up, trying to catch her breath.
“What’s the kiddie pool?” Lizzy asked, her face earnest.
“Nothing, Liz.” Nora shook her head. “Penny is just being mean.”
“What?” Penny put a hand to her chest. “I’m never mean.”
Lola patted the bed, and both Penny and Lizzy joined her and Nora. She wrapped her arms around both of them. “I love you guys.”
“Does that mean you’re going to marry Drew?” Lizzy’s eyes widened as she asked the question.
A pit formed in Lola’s stomach. She missed Drew, even though she’d seen him only the day before. The truth was she’d wanted him by her side when she came back to Gulf City. She’d wanted him to say nothing would change between them, that he would love her whether she decided to come back to Florida permanently or not.
She had no illusions about who she’d fallen in love with. He was a rock star with every bit of the rock star life.
When they weren’t sucked into a tour, was there room for a small town Florida girl in that?
“I don’t know, Liz. I really don’t.” She wanted to marry him someday, to have him with her forever.
When she looked into the future, she saw him there. She wasn’t sure what she’d be doing. Maybe dancing, maybe something else. All that made sense anymore was what she felt for him.
“Asher says you will.” She puffed up her chest.
Asher. There had been a few awkward phone calls after he left New York as they both tried to hold on to the friendship they’d had. But what she thought they’d both realized was maybe it was time for them to change, to stop relying so much on each other.
It was time for them to grow up.
Nora was quiet as she watched Lola.
“What?” Lola met her gaze.
“You really don’t know, do you?” Nora’s brow furrowed.
“Know what?”
“That you are the most important person in my brother’s life.” She didn’t have to guess which brother.
Lola averted her gaze. “Drew…”
“Lola Ramirez,” her mom said from the doorway. “Where is that confident girl from the stage? From the videos Nora showed me?” She walked into the room and looked down at Lola. “The spotlight didn’t make you a different person, Mija. It only illuminated the person you already were. So, no more worry.” She tapped her chest over her heart. “Listen to this.” She pointed to her head. “Not this.”
Lola slid from the bed and pressed a kiss to her mom’s cheek. “You’re right, Mama.” And her heart said she had to talk to Drew.
She walked into the hall for some privacy and dialed Drew’s number. It rang. And rang.
Drew didn’t answer.
Bonus Chapter 2
Drew
Drew wanted to call her back, he really did. He stared at his phone, willing himself not to reach for it.
The problem was if he heard Lola’s voice right now, he’d ruin the surprise.
“Stop it.” Asher kicked Drew’s chair. “She’ll survive not talking to you for one night.”
Drew wanted to be angry with his brother, but he couldn’t when this entire thing had been his idea.
“He’s right, Drew.” Brooke sat in the seat next to him in the empty dance studio. “This is worth it.”
It turned out Brooke was pretty great when she stopped flirting with him. The night he’d confessed his feelings for Lola, Brooke became almost an entirely different person, finally treating him and Lola with the respect they deserved.
And since then, he’d become friends with her.
Which was strange because she’d developed a long distance relationship with his brother of all people. Asher leaned down to kiss her, and Drew wondered if that would ever stop being strange.
But then, it wasn’t even the weirdest thing. No, that would be his brother actually talking to him. It was like the last few years hadn’t happened, and Asher became the kid Drew had known again. They’d once been good brothers, best friends, and Drew felt them getting back to that place.
Lauren, the dance studio’s owner, bustled in, smiling at them as she passed. “You good, Drew? I know it sucks Leah decided to retire from professional dancing.”
A fact he hadn�
��t told Lola yet. “Yeah, but it’ll work out.” There was only one dancer he wanted by his side. He met her gaze. “Plus, tonight will fix everything. We’ve got this.” And they did. With Asher and Brooke’s help, he’d transformed the front room at the studio into something he didn’t recognize. White lights hung across the space but weren’t lit yet. Rose petals were scattered across the wooden floor all the way to the ballet bar. It was beautiful.
“Brooke,” he breathed. “You outdid yourself.”
Brooke smiled, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “I did, didn’t I?”
“My girl is so humble.” Asher sent her a grin.
“Well.” Brooke stood to look more closely at her handiwork. “I couldn’t risk Lola saying no.”
“She won’t say no.” He thought. Really, he wasn’t sure at all. What if she’d returned home to realize she didn’t want to be a part of his crazy life? “Oh man, I shouldn’t have sent her here without me.” He groaned, letting his head drop into his hands.
“Are you sure this was the right place, bro?” Nora walked in, her arms crossed over her chest.
“How is she?” Drew shot to his feet. Nora spent the last night at Lola’s house.
Nora lifted one brow. “Her rock star boyfriend hasn’t contacted her since she left him. How do you think?”
“I need to call her.” Before he could get to his phone, Asher plucked it away. “Ash.”
“No. She’ll be here soon. You’ve made it this far.”
Drew’s parents walked in next with his two youngest sisters. His mom made a beeline for him and pulled him into a hug. “I’m so happy to see you, boy.”
Drew pulled back with a smile. He’d come straight to the studio from the airport. “Missed you.”
She patted his cheek. “Thank you for loving our Lola.”
“Yeah, well, now she’s my Lola too.”
Lola’s mom was the last to arrive. Drew didn’t know her well, but he vowed to change that. She gave him a wordless hug.
Love is a Dance Step (Rockstars Anonymous) Page 25
