by Bryce Oakley
She hadn't gotten all of the details of the release, given that the album wasn't even finished, and it was months away, and that even the mere mention of Pia's name made her blush to such a degree that she had to excuse herself from the room and go outside.
"I'm excited for Collins to have a new target in the morning," Meg whispered with a wink to the group.
"I can hear you," Collins said, her back turned as she fiddled with the computer.
"Can we go eat something?" Domino suggested. "Burgers?"
"Fries!" Billie agreed.
"Grilled cheese," Meg agreed.
"Sounds like the diner down the street, then?" Vero asked. She checked her watch. "11:23pm. We should be fine as far as crowds go."
Vero hadn't meant that they'd have to wait in line for a table. She was talking about paparazzi and fans.
Zoey sometimes got the TMZ-treatment, but going anywhere with one of the biggest pop stars in the country was a dicey move.
"We can go somewhere else, babe," Billie suggested, her hand finding Vero's.
Domino was on her phone. "You'll never believe this. Sabrina just got a regular, weekly segment on Pia Marino's show," she said, bouncing up and down.
Sabrina, Domino's new-ish girlfriend, was a home organizer who had started the promotional rounds for her own personal brand recently. She was Zoey's friend first, but Zoey only rarely rubbed that in.
Zoey could barely even think about that at the moment. She had heard Pia's name again.
Her stomach flipped up and clenched and spun in a very messy pirouette.
"I'm not feeling well, so I'm going to go get some sleep," Zoey said. "You guys have fun, though."
"There's absolutely nothing to be nervous about tomorrow," Billie said, misreading Zoey’s emotions for solely songwriting nerves.
Zoey smiled and nodded. "Yeah, well, I still am a bit," she lied, seeing an out. "I'll see you guys in the morning."
She grabbed her bag and jacket and hurried out of the studio and down the hall, then burst out the front doors of the building.
"Get it the fuck together," Zoey said, trying to give herself a bit of a pep talk. "Get it together."
Maybe it was just nerves for the next day. Maybe she was truly nervous about recording her first personal song with the group. Nevermind that she almost always added lines and changed lyrics in other songs after hearing demos. And nevermind that the song they were recording was about meeting a mysterious person who her soul connected to instantly.
A little dramatic, but even she deserved a bit of poetic license.
Another fear that had been whispering in the back of her mind popped back up. What if someone heard the song and had seen them kiss and leaked that it was about them?
She thought back to the kiss, as she had almost every thirty seconds since it had happened only weeks before.
They had been standing in a dark corner, with no one nearby. People went wild at midnight on New Year's Eve — no one was probably even looking their way.
Right?
She had to believe that, or else she'd never have the courage to record the song.
She was proud of the song. Domino wasn't wrong — it was a gorgeous song. She was excited to record it and release it and show the world that she was more than a pretty face and a keyboard player who stood off to the side of the stage.
Billie and Domino had obviously become the face of The Shrikes, and she was fine with that. After all, they were an Aries and a Leo respectively, so as a Pisces, she never stood a chance of outshining one of them.
But she deserved to shine, too, didn't she?
And 'Midnight' was her chance to do just that.
Chapter Thirty-Six
May
Pia
Pia stared down at the signed contract. Her mother-in-law had finally agreed to come on the show.
On the anniversary of her wife's death. July 10.
She had largely kept that part of her life out of the spotlight, but of course, people talked. They talked about nothing else when it first happened, but it had largely fallen out of public knowledge in the past five or so years.
And now, on the 10th anniversary of Elle's death, she was going to spotlight it herself. On her own terms. With Sheila. Who she hadn’t talked to since… well, nearly 10 years.
Despite the fact that Sheila was the president of the foundation they had started together… But Pia had stepped away in order to let Sheila run the foundation as she saw fit. They had never gotten along, so Pia wasn’t heartbroken about being a silent donor.
She felt light, staring down at the paper.
She hoped it would bring some closure, but also she hoped that telling Elle's story would keep her alive in some way.
The icy claws of grief no longer threatened to rip her heart out whenever she thought of Elle, but she still woke up most nights in a cold sweat, expecting to reach over and find Elle there.
Lifeless beside her.
She shook her head to clear the thought.
Her phone dinged. It was her best friend, Freya.
Freya: Did she sign it?
Pia: Yep. In my hands now.
Freya: Wow, big! You excited?
Pia: Nervous, mostly. Want to grab a glass of wine tonight and you can talk me off the ledge of cancelling it?
Freya: 8pm at Postino’s.
Pia smiled to herself, then texted Mark, her assistant, to let him know to make a reservation.
Kelly, one of her producers, poked her head into Pia's office. "We need to film a few intros, can we get you into makeup in five?"
Pia nodded, yawning. "Can I get like seven more coffees before we do that?"
"How about one?" Kelly said, rolling her eyes. She tapped on her headset. "Coffee cart emergency. The Eagle is tired."
Pia rolled her eyes. "I hate it when you call me that," she said. She hopped out of her chair. "I'm not the president."
"Oh, speaking of people I wish were president, Oprah's people called and we're rescheduling her appearance. We're shuffling some things around, but it should be fine. She sends her apologies," Kelly said.
Pia blinked, realizing for a moment that she was the host of a talk show that interviewed Oprah.
She had always been afraid of having made it. Of peaking. Of it all being downhill from there.
And now, at 45-years-old, she was thinking that might be true.
Most people she knew would buy a Porsche and get a younger girlfriend. Not a terrible idea.
“Do you think I should buy a Porsche?” Pia asked.
“Please don’t. That’s a slippery slope,” Kelly said.
“A slippery slope to where?”
Her cell dinged.
“Insisting everyone call you P-Dogg,” Kelly said with a sigh.
“I don’t hate that as long as Dogg has two Gs,” Pia joked.
“You should settle for nothing less,” Kelly said, nodding.
The text was from Sabrina, a woman who had guested on the show with an organizing segment. She loved Sabrina's enthusiasm, and her audience loved that Sabrina had silly phrases. On the last segment she had cracked Pia up by dropping a tin full of coffee on the ground and yelling, "Oh, fishsticks!" instead of cursing.
She had officially booked her for recurring segments back in February.
Pia thought she saw a meme of it somewhere.
Sabrina: Did you just cancel The Shrikes performance?
Pia raised an eyebrow, looking up at Kelly as they walked down the hall to makeup.
"Who are you shuffling for Oprah?" Pia asked.
Kelly glanced down at her clipboard. "The Shrikes and Gwenyth."
"Don't move The Shrikes," Pia ordered.
The image of Zoey at the New Year's Eve party popped into her mind, standing near the champagne fountain, her face lit up by the shining lights in the bubbles. She had looked otherworldly in that moment. She grinned to herself at the memory. God, that woman was fucking gorgeous. Her curly hair, her dark skin, the
deep red lipstick she was wearing...
Pia hadn't talked to her since. In fact, she had avoided her at all costs.
Straight women like that always wanted something more than a kiss.
They wanted to experiment. They wanted to be shown how to fuck, how to touch a woman, exactly what to do with their tongues...
Not that doing those things with Zoey wasn’t appealing… but she was straight and Pia was too old to put up that that level of drama anymore. Besides, her best friend Freya would never let her hear the end of it.
"Can I see that?" Pia asked, motioning toward the clipboard.
Kelly handed it to Pia as she sat in the chair. After all, she wasn't the Executive Producer of her own show so that she could have zero power over what happened.
Two dates were highlighted with O's next to them.
"Is this when she can make it?" Pia asked.
Kelly nodded.
"Let's move Hanson and Hugh Jackman instead," she said, then handed Kelly the clipboard back.
Kelly raised a brow. "Okay, P-Dogg" she said simply.
Elizabeth and Mariana stepped in between them with brushes and new shirt choices.
* * *
Pia took one last bow, waving to the audience with both hands as she walked backstage after her morning taping session. Although she had new shows five days each week, she only filmed on two days. It made for long, long hours, but then she and her crew largely had four or five days off a week, and that was worth it to her.
Not that she actually had any days off. What was that saying? Do what you love and you’ll never spend another moment not working ever again.
She walked past her assistant, Mark, who handed back her cell phone and a new clipboard with a pen.
"Just need you to sign off on this new schedule," he said.
Pia checked her phone.
Sabrina: I will take your silence as an apology for moving my girlfriend's band on your schedule.
Pia smirked.
Pia: Mea culpa. Will never happen again.
Sabrina: The silence or moving The Shrikes?
Pia: The latter. No promises on the former. I'm very busy and important.
Sabrina sent back an emoji with a flat smile and a raised eyebrow.
For as sweet and innocent as Sabrina portrayed herself on television, and how fun and kind she was in person, she was truly a businesswoman who got shit done.
Kind of like Pia.
She pocketed her phone and signed the schedule. The Shrikes would be on next week. Something in her stomach did a small flip — the tiniest of flips, more of a casual lean, if she was considering it — at the idea.
She loved The Shrikes. She hadn't been lying to Zoey about that.
On the sixth anniversary of Elle's death, Heart's Content had come out, full of raw emotion and heartache and yet, hope.
She had come a long way in the past four years, and hopefully, so had the band.
She'd get a copy of the album any time this week, and she knew that she'd be putting it on the stereo the second it was in her hands. And by hands, she meant available for download via email. But it was better to picture the record in her hands. She'd have to remember to have Billie and Domino sign a copy of the album for her.
Maybe Zoey if she was lucky.
She touched her lower lip, remembering the kiss.
She wasn't typically the type to steal kisses from near-strangers, but New Year's had always brought out the mischief inside of her. She saw it as a time when she no longer had to worry about anything the past year had brought. A time for firsts and brand new ideas and rejuvenation.
And Zoey had given her all of that with a kiss.
Why ruin it by wanting more?
Still, the lesbian world was a very, very small one, and she half-expected gossip about her kissing Zoey to start circulating soon after the kiss. Yet, it never had.
Pia hadn't told a soul.
Had Zoey?
A secret of their own.
She closed the door to her office and sank onto her couch. Her stomach growled. She'd need to eat lunch, then go back out for the early afternoon taping.
If it was something that definitely didn't matter, kissing an almost-stranger, then why was she still thinking about it?
She shook her head, texting Kelly about lunch.
Nope, she would no longer think about Zoey. Like she had been for the past five months. She'd absolutely stop. She didn't think of Zoey constantly, but she'd start being mindful not to drift to thinking of the way her lips has tasted sweet, like the champagne, and how warm and soft and desperate her body had been, pressed into hers.
Until next week, when she had to face her again.
Maybe she’d have Freya talk her off the ledge of entertaining the idea of trying to seduce Zoey McCarren, too…
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Zoey
The green room where they sat was spacious, with multiple couches, a large television accompanied by video game consoles, a gigantic air hockey table, and most importantly, a gigantic snack table.
Zoey hadn't done many television promos — had the Shrikes done them at all for Heart's Content? It was so many years ago, she couldn't remember anymore.
Domino and Sabrina were playing air hockey with enough gusto for the puck to fly across the room — it had, twice — and Billie and Vero were snuggled up on a couch watching something on Vero's phone.
Meg was curled up next to her, asleep inside of an oversized hoodie.
Micah, their manager, was on the phone in the corner, fixing her lipstick in a mirror.
Promotional tours were exhausting. Shows often had way earlier start times than she was used to, and they never got to pause. At least this first stop was in LA, so they didn't have to fly to NYC quite yet. They'd be there soon for both the Sirius XM and Spotify appearances and shows in June.
Zoey tapped her foot nervously on the floor. She stood, pacing around the snack table, taking the occasional pretzel to keep it from looking like she was a ball of frantic energy.
In truth, no one in the band had noticed that Zoey couldn't sit still. They had noticed that in their private rehearsals for the show, Zoey was totally off.
It wasn't even like they were singing ‘Midnight’. They were singing one of Domino and Billie's co-writes, ‘Kaleidoscope’, which was also the name of the new album.
Zoey picked up a small bundle of grapes, then set them down. She grabbed a La Croix sitting in an ice bucket, but put it back.
"You doing okay?" Micah asked, appearing suddenly beside her.
Zoey jumped, startled by woman's stealthy moves. "Yeah, totally fine," she said automatically.
"You seem nervous. What's up?" Micah continued.
"Just kept getting that bridge wrong in rehearsal. Feeling a little nervous about it," Zoey lied.
In truth, even though it had been five months since she had seen Pia or spoken to her, she was still looking forward to seeing her.
She didn't understand the bundle of nerves in her stomach that dominated the early months of the year.
It wasn't like she had feelings for Pia or anything. She had even desperately gone on one date with a very nice man who had proclaimed that he didn’t like pho as they were sitting down to eat pho.
What kind of monster didn’t like pho?
Maybe she was projecting the nerves from creating a new album onto a safer problem.
She was not a lesbian; she would never date Pia Marino.
So, then, it wasn't as though it posed any real risk to her life to have a tiny bit of a crush, right?
"Hmm," Micah said simply, grabbing a cupcake off of the table. "Need some sugar?"
Zoey shook her head. She envisioned all of the dresses she'd have to fit into for upcoming promotional photo shoots. Not only that, she needed to look calm and collected when seeing Pia again for the first time.
She returned to her seat beside Meg, who was happily snoring away. Meg's pink hair peeked out from the e
dge of the hood of her jacket.
"You'll be fine," Billie said.
Zoey hadn't even realized she had overheard the conversation. "Uh, thanks," she said, trying to keep her head clear.
The last thing she needed was to psych herself out unnecessarily.
She went through the details of the day's appearance in her mind, as she always did before a big event.
They were going to perform ‘Kaleidoscope’. Then, they were going to have a brief interview.
Pia was really giving them a ton of airtime, and she was grateful.
She knew that both Sabrina and Vero had connections to Pia, but it felt almost personal, the way that they were getting the star treatment without exactly being the Jonas Brothers or Lady Gaga.
Still, hadn't Pia said that The Shrikes were her favorite band?
Or was she just flirting with Zoey in order to steal a kiss?
A knock sounded on the door, and Zoey glanced up to see which producer was going to pop in. They had met three just that morning.
Instead, she was shocked to see that it was Pia. The woman looked radiant, even though it was only around 7am. She was wearing a blue blazer and jeans that skimmed her slim hips. She looked simultaneously like the boss and a brunch date.
Zoey mentally cursed at the fact that she hadn't even been to hair and makeup yet.
Wait, why did that matter?
She pushed aside the thought.
Seeing Pia now brought back a wave of attraction and awe and intrigue.
"I just wanted to come by and say hello," Pia said, stepping into the room.
Zoey reached and shook Meg awake.
Meg made a confused noise, wiping at drool on her chin.
Micah stepped up first. "We wanted to thank you so much for having us. We're all huge fans, and it means a lot for you to welcome us so warmly," she said diplomatically.
"We're so excited to debut the first single here," Billie said, standing next to Micah.