Page 65 of Love is a Lyric
“Whoever this is has a death wish.” Piper groaned into the phone as she pried her eyes open.
“Get out of bed, Piper.” Melanie’s tone held a note of warning, an omen of words that were to come.
Piper sat up, rubbing her eyes as she grew used to the light dancing across the room. Last night drained her of every bit of energy, every emotion. After Chase dropped her off, she didn’t even bother with a shower, opting to change into dry clothes and wrap her damp hair into a bun instead.
She hadn’t even waited up for Ben’s Lyft to get back. That would have meant facing him, talking about what happened between them and what couldn’t happen again.
“Are you listening to me?” Melanie was never mean, but her job included wrangling a bunch of ornery rockstars, so there was a steel to her, a coldness she could turn on and off like the flip of a switch.
Piper ran a hand through the hair that had escaped the bun to dry wildly around her shoulders. “I’m here. What’s up? Please, tell me why you’d call at this ungodly hour.” She glanced at the clock wincing when she saw it was ten in the morning. Okay, not so ungodly.
Melanie was quiet for a long moment before her low, measured voice came through again. “You don’t know.” She cursed. “Don’t you have an alert for Ben’s name on Google or something?”
“Why would I have that?” It was so ridiculous it would’ve made her laugh if her mouth wasn’t so dry.
“Because you worked forFate. Didn’t you want to know what was said about them?”
“I never cared.”
Melanie sighed a ‘you’re hopeless, Piper’ kind of sigh. “If you cared, you’d have seen the storm you’ve just created.”
“What do you mean?” Piper slid from the bed and retrieved her laptop from the desk. Opening it, she sat on the corner of the bed and pulled up a browser. “What am I looking for exactly?”
“Try your name.”
Piper froze, her hands hovering over the keyboard. Her name? No. She’d always managed to stick to the background, never becoming more than an unknown girl in photos of the band, hanger on number one as a movie would have called her.
And now? “Mel… why am I searching my own name?” She couldn’t bring herself to type it in, not yet.
“Because you’ve really messed up this time.”
P. I. P. E. R. H. A.Y. E. S. Her pinkie rested on the Return button for a moment before pressing down.
Article after article appeared, along with a row of pictures showing the kiss from last night. They’d learned who she was. She stared at the first link to a blog post on a well-known gossip site. “A nobody or a home wrecker?” They’d found a picture of her and Quinn somehow and the wordsistersstretched across it.
“You with me, Piper?” Melanie’s voice softened.
Piper couldn’t speak, all she could see were those words. Another post changed them to “band wrecker,” claiming to have inside knowledge ofFate’s demise.
“It’s…” She couldn’t get more than the one whispered word out.
“Honey, this is only the beginning.” Melanie was a friend, but her duty to her clients would always come first. “These boys are charming. Lord, I know that more than most. I spend my days keeping myself from being drawn in by their looks and their music. And Ben… he’s a special kind of charmer. I don’t blame you for falling for him, but—”
“I know.” Piper cut her off. “You don’t have to say it, Mel. I know who I am and who he is.”
“Oh, sweetie, this has nothing to do with who you are. I know Ben, and I have no doubt whatever he feels for you is very real. But these rockstars, they will choose their music every time. The world needs to believe in the love story ofFate. Heck, my heart has been a bit broken since finding out it’s not really a love story after all.”
So had Piper’s if she really thought about it. She looked up to Quinn because it seemed she had everything, that she’d lived her life in a way that brought only good things to her. When Piper pulled the curtain back to reveal a woman who was just as flawed and lost as anyone else, it hurt.
Quinn. She closed her eyes. “Has she seen it?” Her sister would never forgive her, and Piper didn’t know if she could live with that.
Melanie paused. “Well, that’s sort of why I’m calling. Right now, I’m standing outside a meeting room. She’s in there waiting for me to bring the phone to her. I don’t know what she’ll say to you, and if you don’t want to talk to her, I won’t force it on you.”
Piper pushed the computer from her lap and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Okay.” She had to do this. It was time. “Put her on.”
There was a rustling before a familiar voice filled the line. “Piper?” Quinn sounded tentative and so unlike herself.
“Hey, Quinny.” Tears built in her eyes at the sound of her sister’s voice. She was Piper’s person no matter what had happened between them, no matter how awful she’d been. Piper didn’t abandon people for their choices, she tried to help them become better.
