Page 10 of Love is a Lyric
Everyone froze, but as Ben looked at the surrounding faces, only Dax seemed surprised. The rest already knew.
A smile broke out over Ben’s face. “Congratulations.”
“It’s not a good thing, doofus.” She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.
“Why?” Ben looked around at the rockstars surrounding him, wondering how they got here. Five years ago, when Melanie forced them all into this as relative strangers and rivals, they’d never have imagined sitting around sharing secrets they couldn’t tell anyone in their real lives. It was like everything said between them didn’t exist once they stepped outside.
Noah growled as he ripped his eyes from his drummer. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him.”
“Wait.” Drew’s eyes flashed dangerously. “When Noah said you weren’t feeling up to performing last night, I knew it was the pregnancy thing, but he didn’t say who…”
It was like everyone in the room held their collective breaths in anticipation because they knew whatever was coming couldn’t be good.
Jo stood. “No, you guys will kill him.” She walked into the kitchen.
The boys stared at each other before getting up to follow. Melanie hung back with a sigh. They found Jo with her elbows on the counter and her head in her hands. Her back shook, and Noah pulled her into his arms. “You might as well tell them.”
She wiped her face. “It was Blake.”
Blake Coleman.
Despite the efforts he seemed to go through to brand himself as a bad guy, Blake was a big seller. Maybe not as big as some in this room, but his sales numbers gave him protection in the form of Melanie who was supposed to craft his reputation. Ben, Drew, Noah, and Dax had become grudging friends, a sort of brotherhood along with Jo and Mel. But Blake had no interest in joining them.
Every eye in the room fell on Melanie.
Melanie sighed. “There’s nothing I can do. He’s denying it.”
Ben met Drew’s gaze. They might be rivals, but in protecting Jo, they were together. “We’ll take care of it.”
“No, you boys most definitely won’t. Jo can fight her own battles. I don’t want any of your careers ending because you’re in jail.”
“Where is he?” Drew growled. “I can have us on a jet in an hour.”
Melanie ran a tired hand over her face. “Hong Kong.”
“Of course, he is.” Noah snorted. “Don’t worry, Joey girl. We’ll get the yank.”
“Just stop.” The words burst out of Jo. “Y’all are worse than a bunch of dads.”
“We’ll be the dads if we need to.” Drew offered her a smile, as if it was a perfectly normal thing to say.
The others nodded. The corner of Ben’s mouth lifted. “I haven’t changed a diaper since I was like ten and had my baby brother, but a little poo never scared me.”
“Oh my gosh, don’t say poo.” Jo covered her face with her hands. “It makes you sound eighty, and you’re a rockstar for freak’s sake. None of you will be changing any diapers. We aren’t friends. This Rockstars Anonymous stuff doesn’t come with us when we leave these meetings. We’re rivals, meant to war on Twitter and make snide comments when we cross paths on tour. Stop acting like we’re a family.”
The words struck Ben, and he tried not to let them hurt. She wasn’t wrong. They weren’t supposed to know each other outside this group. It wasn’t friends getting together to hang out. Yet, somehow over the years, he’d forgotten that.
The truth was, he wanted them to be a family, to be allies in this world of fame that few people understood.
Jo’s words broke the group apart, and they wandered back into the living room, deflated. As Ben once again took his seat in Drew’s expensive recliner, he erected a wall in his mind. If this group insisted on being separate from real life, he’d keep it that way.
After an hour of talking about things Ben couldn’t even remember, they walked out to their cars. No one knew when the next meeting would be, but that was how they’d always operated.
Drew stopped next to Ben as he opened the driver’s side door of his car. “Is Piper staying in Gulf City for this vacation of yours?”
Ben shrugged. “Of course.”
Drew shook his head. “Do you guys ever give her time off? Isn’t this supposed to be vacation? Let me guess, she’s still making the coffee and answering to Quinn’s every whim.”
Ben’s grip on the door tightened. “How is that any of your business?”
Drew lifted a hand in surrender. “I’m just saying, you might want to realize what it is you have before you lose her.” He winked before turning away. “Tell her to call me.”
Ben hated that guy. He slumped into the car, feeling no better than he had before the meeting. A sudden thought came to him as he started the car. How did Piper have Drew Stone’s phone number?
And had she used it before?
His hands clenched around the steering wheel as he thought of Piper going to work for that guy. She was like a sister to Ben, and no sister of his was going anywhere near Drew.
