“You’re no fun.” Quinn joined them and retrieved a drink, downing half of it in one gulp. “Ouch, brain freeze.”
Conner reached up to massage her temples, something Ben should have done. But annoyance raced through him. They had a single song for the new album, and all they wanted to do was drink.
He wouldn’t celebrate until the album was finished. “I need to go work on this.” He took the papers with him and went to fetch his guitar as their laughter followed him in.
He froze when he caught sight of Piper leaning into the refrigerator. In holey sweatpants, an oversized t-shirt, and messy hair, she didn’t look like the assistant who’d followed them along on the tour. “You’re alive.”
Her back straightened, and she turned. “Um, yeah. I…”
“Weren’t sick? I guessed. You going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Are you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Ben.” She sighed. “Your fingers are clutching that song way too tightly. Your jaw is clenched like it normally is when something really annoys you. And don’t even get me started on the look in your eyes.”
Every time she did something to show just how much she’d paid attention to him over the years it surprised him. He’d always thought she was Chase’s friend and Quinn was his. Yes, they had a family dynamic since his parents raised her for half her life, but this was more than that. It was like her assistant role and almost-sister role combined to create the person who knew him best.
Not even Quinn could tell when the easy-going Ben Evans was upset.
“It’s this song,” he admitted, running a hand through his hair. “I can’t—”
“I know.” She did. Piper was the only person other than his parents and Chase who knew how much trouble he’d had in school. And his parents thought it had gotten better, but he’d really just gotten better at hiding it. He hadn’t told Quinn because she wouldn’t understand, but Piper… she understood everything.
“Will you…” He lifted the song in question.
For a moment, she looked like she wanted to say no, but that was the thing about Piper. She always thought of others before herself. “I need to clean up then we can go down to the beach.”
“The beach, okay.” Away from Quinn and Conner who’d never look at him the same way if they knew.
He leaned against the island counter fiddling with his guitar strap as he waited. Piper emerged a few minutes later in cut-off shorts over a one-piece blue bathing suit with a towel rolled up under her arm and a beach bag over her shoulder. “Come on.”
They walked out onto the deck where Quinn and Conner sat shoulder to shoulder on the edge of the pool, drinks in hand. Ben barely noticed them as he followed Piper down the stairs to the white sand below.
She picked a spot and unrolled her towel before digging in the bag for sunscreen and slathering it over her skin as she gave him a sheepish smile. “I know, Quinn would tell me I’ll never get tan with this much lotion. Lucky for me, no one cares what the assistant looks like, only the stars.” She laughed as if she’d told a joke.
Ben studied her, wishing she’d tell him about the shadows in her eyes, the strain in her smile. She’d have told Chase if he was there, and Ben always envied their relationship, the kind he’d never had with a friend. They could say anything to each other, and it wouldn’t change how much they cared for one another.
Ben pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the towel. He hadn’t worn his swim trunks, but his shorts would do. He took off running for the water.
“What are you doing?” Piper called.
“What does it look like?” He crashed into the water as the beach sloped down. When the ground beneath his feet dropped away, he dove in. A wave lifted him to the surface, and he gasped for breath, a grin on his face. This was vacation to him, not sitting up at the house drinking.
The sand. The sea.
He glanced back over his shoulder to see Piper diving into the water with a squeal. She broke through the surface and jumped into a wave rolling toward her. The sun shimmered off her dark hair, setting her aglow as she swam toward him.
“We’re supposed to be learning the new song.”
He grinned. “Don’t tell me you haven’t memorized it already. I know you. We can work on it out here.”
Her smile dimmed as she muttered, “Yeah, I’ve memorized it.”
“Quinn really outdid herself this time. It’s not our usual stuff, but I can already see our fans loving it.”
“Let’s just get to work, okay?” She turned away from him to stare across the water.
He didn’t know what he’d said to change her mood so completely, but she was right. He didn’t want to take up more of her time than he’d already asked for. “Should we just start with the first verse?”
She nodded and sucked in a breath. Twisting her wet hair over one shoulder, she faced him once again. “Same way as always?”
He nodded. They’d gotten used to these secret meetings to learn songs by now. Ever since she’d agreed to work for Quinn, she’d helped him. He only wished he could do something to take whatever was bothering her off her mind.
She spoke the lyrics from memory, and he repeated them until they filled his mind with the emotion of the song. Quinn managed to surprise them all with the depth, and he couldn’t wait to put music to it.
Piper didn’t smile while she helped him. She didn’t joke around like they normally did. Her voice held an emotionless quality he didn’t like.
“Hey.” He bumped her shoulder, interrupting the next verse. “Would you tell me if something was truly wrong?”
She bit her lip, and it was her tell, a clear sign whatever words left her mouth next would be a lie. “Of course, Ben.”
The lie made him back away from her, needing a bit of space. He couldn’t help feeling this bubble they’d lived in since Piper quit college to join the band on tour was on the brink of shattering into a million pieces. Whether she stood on stage or not, she was a part of Fate. He just wished she saw that too.
He let his feet drift up from the ocean floor and floated along the top of a wave as it rolled under him, lifting him toward the sky. With his ears under water, all he heard was the beating of his own heart, the rushing of the blood underneath his skin. Quinn’s lyrics rolled through his mind, latching on to the musical notes he already wanted to assign to the dips and valleys of the song.
He kicked his feet to float in toward shore and trudged up the sand to where they’d left their belongings. His guitar sat on the towel. If he’d left it on a beach in L.A., there’s no way it would still be there when he got back from the water. But there were only a few people down the beach from them. A family waded in the water, two little kids screaming in joy.
Beyond them, an elderly couple held hands as they walked along the shoreline. It was a different kind of life, that was for sure. Ben had trouble imagining living a normal life, one like most of the kids he’d gone to school with who were now getting married and having babies.
He used to envy the slow pace at which they could live, but the older he got, the more he realized it wasn’t slow at all, just different. He sat on the towel and pulled the guitar onto his lap, settling the curve over his thigh.
The strings called to him with their promise of melody. He closed his eyes, bringing Quinn’s lyrics to the forefront of his mind and melding his music to them, crafting the story they’d take the listener on.
Creating music hadn’t always been easy for him. Once upon a time, he’d spent hours and days working on a single song, but that was before Quinn started writing.
Before the desire to fit their music together burned through him.
He hummed the lyrics as he picked the strings of his guitar, adjusting to try different chords.
“Shouldn’t you be writing this down?” Piper’s voice interrupted his trance.
Tapping the side of his head, he smiled up at her. “All good.”
&nb
sp; “Right.” She lowered herself to the sand, not saying the words on both their minds. How was it he could remember his notes so clearly, but anything else needed to be reinforced a thousand times to stick? “I’ve seen you do this a million times and am still surprised you’re this savant.”
“Only when it comes to your sister’s songs.” He hummed the chorus as he adjusted his guitar and made a note in his mind. “How’s this chord to start on?”
She pursed her lips. “It’s not really what I imagined.”
“What you imagined?” He raised a brow behind his glasses. “You just heard it a couple days ago.”
“Well, um, yeah, but Quinn showed it to me before you and Conner.”
That made sense. Quinn was a perfectionist who refused to show him any lyrics before they were finished. It drove him nuts, but the finished product was always worth the wait. He was glad she at least showed them to someone. “Did she tell you what the song was about? It’s kind of sad.” He had a suspicion but didn’t want to assume. Quinn had never shown any sort of grief over their parents’ death. It had almost been cold the way she’d shut down, and then months later she went on with her life as if she’d never had a family at all.
Unlike Piper. He pictured his eighteen-year-old self finding Piper in the days following the funeral. She’d taken to running off, but he and Chase refused to let her drown in her grief alone.
Piper hugged her knees to her chest. “I… no. You know Quinn. She’s not really into sharing.”
An idea came to him, and he tested it out on the guitar, reveling in the way Piper’s eyes lit up. “That’s perfect.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “Keep going. Please.”
He didn’t let himself think as he played a riff, winging it through part of the song and watching Piper’s face for guidance. When she frowned, he changed what he was doing.
But when she smiled… he believed. In the song. In the music. That maybe the world they’d crafted, just the four of them, didn’t have to break after all.
She started to hum but stopped herself with a sheepish look.
“No.” He kept playing. “Go on.”
Piper shook her head. “I’m not a singer, Ben.”
“You can be whatever you want, Pipes.”
“Okay, well, I don’t want to be a singer.”
He laughed and started singing the chorus, rasping through words full of longing and despair. As his voice dropped away, he caught Piper staring at him, an indecipherable expression on her face. “Was that, uh, okay?”
“Perfect.” She choked out the word. “It was perfect.” A tear tracked down her cheek, and he leaned forward to wipe it away but stopped himself. This was Piper, not some fan who’d scream for him to touch her. He couldn’t remember seeing her cry since she was a kid.
She scooted back and wiped her face. “Why do you love her, Ben?”
He jerked back like he’d been slapped. “Piper… random…”
“You’re right. Forget about it.” She got to her feet.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m still not feeling well. I need to lie down.”
He didn’t know what he’d said to make her lie to him again, but there went that lip into her mouth. “Why are you asking this?” He needed to know where her head was at.
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Quinn is… she’s difficult, Ben. You know that as well as I. Yet people love her. You, one of the best guys I know, are hopelessly in love with her. Is it because she’s beautiful?”
“What? No. Piper, where is this coming from? Is it about Drew? Did he do something to you?”
“Drew? No. Why would you…” Her eyes widened. “How the heck do you know I was with him? You know what? Forget I asked my question, and I’ll forget you asked yours.” She turned to lift her beach bag.
“No.” He shoved the guitar aside and scrambled up. “I won’t forget. I can’t. Drew can’t be trusted, Piper. You have to see that from the way he goes from woman to woman. And I hate to break it to you, but none of them are like you.”
“Like me?” Her eyes blazed as she turned. “Right. Thanks for the reminder Quinn gives me every day that I’m not good enough for someone like Drew Stone.”
“No,” he yelled. “Drew isn’t good enough for you.”
Her chest heaved as she stared at him. “Drew and I weren’t on a date.”
“Then…” He shook his head. There was only one other reason she’d have met with him. “Does Quinn know?”
“Know what?”
“Don’t play dumb. You’re the smartest woman I know.” Piper Hayes was considering a new job, one that had nothing to do with Fate or the band members she’d spent the last few years with.
“I can’t…” She clutched her stomach. “I can’t talk about this with you. Not you, Ben.”
“Why not me?”
“Because you’re the only member of this band who ever made me feel like my contributions mattered, like I had a place here. And the thought of leaving you…”
“Then don’t. Stay with us. We can’t function without you.”
8
Piper
Stay with us.
It was that simple for him, wasn’t it?
Piper held back the tears trying to break free as she locked eyes with Ben, seeing pain swirling in his depths. Pain caused by her. She’d never imagined anyone would care what she did. Quinn would get angry, but only because Piper’s absence meant losing the songs she wrote.
Conner wouldn’t even notice until he went to get a coffee no one had brought him. Once they had a new assistant, nothing would change for him.
But Ben… he didn’t care about the coffee or the schedules someone else would have to arrange. For the first time since joining Fate, Piper knew she was wanted, valued.
And yet, she still had to go. “I can’t stay,” she whispered. “I can’t work for Quinn any longer. It’s time for me to move on.”
“From us.”
She nodded. As much as it hurt to think, Fate wasn’t her band, her future.
“And Drew has offered you a job?”
“A good one. I think…” She sucked in a breath. “I think it’s a good opportunity for me.”
“I want you to have every opportunity. You know that, right? Even if it’s not with Fate. I’m your family too, Piper, not only Chase.”
“I know.” She smiled. She’d always known.
He shielded his eyes as he scanned the surrounding beach. “I should have brought my sunglasses.”
Piper zipped open her bag and pulled out said sunglasses with a shrug. She took Ben’s glasses from his face and snapped them into the holder before dropping it into her bag.
“Do you ever get tired of it?” Ben slid the sunglasses into place. “Living your life in anticipation of other people’s needs.”
She looked away. “It’s—"
“If you finish that with your job, I’m going to scream.” He pointed to the towel, gesturing for her to sit.
She opted for the sand instead and dug her feet beneath the surface. “After my parents died, I became entirely dependent on people who weren’t my family.”
“They—”
“I know your parents loved having me, but it never lessened the guilt I felt. I didn’t have anything to offer them. After the funeral expenses, the remaining life insurance money went to pay for Quinn’s college, so I started doing everything in my power to be helpful. I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I’m a burden.”
“You could never be a burden.”
“Saying that doesn’t really make someone stop feeling like one. I know I didn’t choose to be a ten-year-old orphan and that none of it was my fault, but I guess I saw it as my duty to make it better for everyone around me.”
He ran a hand down the strings of his guitar, plucking a few in the absent way he had. He always had to be making music, even when he was younger and their families got together.
; “You asked me why I love her.”
Piper covered her face with her hands. “I sort of hoped you’d forgotten about that.”
“I’m not blind—as some people claim. I see how Quinn goes through her life, how she treats you. You have no idea how sorry I am for that. I don’t blame you for leaving us. But… it’s really hard to explain. Her music, her words they call to me, pulling the music from me effortlessly. From the day I heard the first song she wrote, I haven’t been able to help but think it’s fate tying us together.”
“Fate.” Her wide eyes found his. “Because of the lyrics… do you really believe that?”
“I used to think I was crazy, that I couldn’t feel this way for songs, especially when the girl writing them can be difficult. But I can’t help think my music was supposed to find hers.”
His words wrapped around her heart, squeezing until she couldn’t breathe. Fate. His music. Her lyrics.
What would he do if he knew the words didn’t belong to Quinn? That they never had?
It was too much. Ben, the boy who’d been like an older brother, the man who became a friend was in love with her sister because of Piper’s words. “Is that why you named the band Fate?”
He gave her a boyish smile. “I know, I’m kind of cheesy.”
“No… it fits. You and Quinn… fate.” Her breaths lodged in her throat as an entire world opened up before her, one filled with the version of Ben Evans she’d never seen before. For years, she’d only seen him and Quinn as a duo, not separate entities.
And that couldn’t change, she wouldn’t let it.
She had to keep her secret, Quinn’s secret.
Because if she didn’t, everything would tumble to the ground, and she knew she’d be the one left behind, the one with a broken heart.
Quinn got everything she wanted, and Piper made it happen. That pattern wasn’t going to change.
“We should go back to the house.”
He nodded, a blush still on his cheeks from his admission. Or maybe it was just a sun burn. She’d never know because she looked away and gathered their belongings. It took everything she had to keep walking, to not turn around and reveal the secrets she’d been keeping for six years.
Love is a Lyric (Rockstars Anonymous) Page 6