Rock Legend

by Tara Leigh

  A pink plus sign was waiting for me in the little porthole set into the side of the test. Plus. Positive. Pregnant.

  Pregnant.

  Adam knocked on the door. “You okay in there?”

  My head jerked up, and I grabbed for a towel. “Fine. Be right out.”

  I shoved the applicator back into the box, and the box back into the cabinet.

  Adam was already dressed in khakis and a golf shirt, holding a shopping bag. He hoisted the bag up a few inches. “I’ve got the rest of my stuff so I won’t have to bother you again. And I put my spare key on the kitchen table.”

  “Oh.” It hit me then—Adam wasn’t coming back. He was ready to move on with his life. Without me.

  “I’m sorry, Piper. But you were right. I was lying to you, to myself, to everyone. I’m gay, or at least bi, and I deserve to be happy. So do you, just not…”

  I dredged up the ghost of a smile. “Just not with you.”

  He gave a solemn nod. “Take care of yourself, Piper.”

  “I—” My breath caught in the back of my throat and for a moment I thought I was going to be sick again. “I will. You, too.”

  I blinked, and Adam left.

  On the one hand, I was so proud of him for finally deciding to come out of the closet. The pain in his voice when I overheard him talking to Brian…even the memory of it hurt my heart. No one should feel like they need to live a lie. And I wanted Adam to be happy, to love and be loved in return. The kind of love I’d felt with—

  I wrenched my mind away from a path that would only end in another round of tears.

  But on the other hand, I felt betrayed that Adam had used me as his…what? His beard? Was that even a term anymore?

  Not that any of that mattered. Not anymore.

  Because I was pregnant.

  With Adam’s baby. My ex-boyfriend. My gay/bi ex-boyfriend.

  The only scenario worse would have been if Landon was the father.

  Not because Landon would be a bad father or an unsupportive partner, despite what he thought of his own abilities. But because I knew for a fact he’d been on the receiving end of a baby-daddy scam more than once. It only took one glance for him to think I was sleeping with my ex—he would probably assume I was trying to trap him into fatherhood, too.

  Landon. This time I couldn’t force my thoughts away from him. My mind tripped over his name, stuttered on the memory of this morning. The look on his face when he saw Adam in my apartment.

  The situation had been damning, and Landon obviously believed the story his eyes captured.

  But it wasn’t the truth. It was an optical illusion, and he should have adjusted the picture using what he knew in his head and his heart.

  He didn’t do that.

  He didn’t trust me enough to let me explain.

  And if Landon and I didn’t have trust, after everything we’d been through and after what I’d walked in on last night, then we had nothing.

  Nothing worth building a life on, anyway.

  Every time I thought I was getting close to a happily-ever-after, it got snatched away. The promise of it so vivid, so certain.

  Just before it was ripped to shreds, right in front of me. Destroyed. Gone.

  Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes and slid down my cheeks.

  Pregnant. The word was like a heartbeat, steady and insistent. Drowning out everything else.

  I’d let Landon convince me I didn’t have to be perfect anymore. I was his Pippa. I was his.

  But now I was something else.

  Pregnant, pregnant, pregnant.

  I had come three thousand miles to escape the shadow of my parents’ mistake. Three thousand miles just to make the same one myself.

  An unplanned pregnancy.

  An unwanted child.

  Unless…

  Landon

  Every square inch of my body itched, although the worst was my scalp. So bad, I wanted to rip out my hair and peel off the skin. I was sweating, too.

  Except I was fucking freezing.

  For the thousandth time, I glanced at the clock, willing the numbers to move faster.

  After I left Piper yesterday, I’d finished the rest of my pills. Biting down on them one by one, the relief they offered bitter on my tongue.

  But no pill could erase the image that had been permanently seared into my brain. Another guy in Piper’s apartment, wearing only a towel.

  Even worse were the images my mind invented on its own. The two of them together. In bed. On her couch. In her tiny shower. No robe. No towel. Just his hands on her smooth skin. His mouth covering her sweet, sweet lips. Him. Her. Together.

  I had chomped one pill after another. A week’s worth in a day.

  And now they were gone.

  I had an hour to kill until my appointment.

  And the only thing I wanted to kill was myself.

  Not because I wanted to die. But because the itch driving me insane went deeper than my skin. It started in my soul. And no amount of scratching was going to ease the pain.

  Fuck it. Doctors’ offices were staffed by receptionists and nurses. There had to be someone I could charm into getting seen early. I just needed another month’s supply. Another month and a stronger dosage.

  By then the pain would be gone.

  My grip will have returned.

  And I’d be over Piper Hastings.

  I wouldn’t need pills to get through the days and nights anymore.

  I’d be fine.

  More time. A stronger prescription.

  That was all I needed.

  As I gripped the wheel, almost normally with my left and still pathetically loosely with my right, I felt a grin start to break across my face.

  I was Landon Fucking Cox.

  Or at least, I would be. Another month. A little orange bottle filled with lots of little white pills.

  I’d be fucking fine.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Piper

  So, our test confirms the positive result of your home pregnancy test.” Dr. Huang sat on the stool beside me, wearing a white lab coat over her Chanel suit. Beverly Hills doctor chic. “I reviewed your chart, and couldn’t help noticing your prescription for birth control pills. Was there a problem with the medication?”

  “Um, no,” I stammered. “I—I lost them in the middle of my cycle.”

  “Well, that will do it. Sperm can live for up to five days, and unless you use another form of protection, like a condom, it’s quite possible to conceive if you abruptly stop taking your pills.”

  I’d been seeing Dr. Huang for my annual check-up the past few years, and I’d always liked that she was young and pretty, her sleek black hair cut in a sophisticated bob that danced below her ears as she talked. But right now, I didn’t want to be in Beverly Hills. I wanted to be back in Bronxville, with my mom holding my hand.

  I gave a dejected nod. “I didn’t realize that.”

  Dr. Huang would never have gotten herself in this mess, I was sure.

  She hesitated, then asked, “Are you here alone, Piper?”

  “It’s…complicated,” I said, the room quiet except for the rustle of my gown as I shivered in the cold room. “I haven’t decided what I want to do.”

  As I choked out the admission, a part of me rebelled against the idea of…Even in my own mind I couldn’t say the word. I was all for a woman’s right to make choices about her own body. But until today, that right had been hypothetical, abstract. Sitting here, alone, the harsh reality of it was overwhelming.

  Another body growing inside my body. Nothing felt right about this situation.

  Dr. Huang gave an efficient nod as she checked over my chart. “I’d like to start out by confirming the age and health of the fetus and then we’ll go from there, all right?” Without waiting for an answer, she added, “I’m going to send in a radiologist, you just sit tight.”

  At the buzz in my purse, I reached over and pulled out my phone.

  Delaney: Hey,
I hear you’re playing hooky today. Are you really sick or can we meet for lunch?

  Eager for the distraction I tapped out a reply.

  Piper: You’re back in town?

  Delaney: Yes, just a quick trip.

  “Hi, there.”

  I put down my phone as a woman wearing scrubs bounced through the door. “Hi.”

  She beamed as if my barely audible rasp was a cheer. “I’m Neeva, I’ll be performing your sonogram today. Ever had one before?”

  I shook my head and Neeva reached for something that looked like it could have been sold at a sex shop in Ventura. “This early in a pregnancy, we do a transvaginal sonogram.” As I watched, she unwrapped a condom and rolled it over the tip. A ghost of a smile pulled at the corners of my mouth, remembering the time I’d done the same to Landon, and how I’d put it on the wrong way at first.

  “Go ahead and lie back now, feet in the stirrups.” While I got settled, she positioned a cart with a flat screen monitor near my head and sat between my legs. There was the slow slide of something inside me, and I scrunched my nose at the inanimate intrusion. But then the screen flickered to life, and I listened as Neeva cheerfully pointed out parts of my anatomy I’d never seen before.

  “What’s that flickering thing?” I asked, pointing to a part of the screen that looked like a firefly.

  Neeva grinned. “That’s the heart.”

  “The…heart?”

  I swallowed thickly, unable to tear my eyes from the grainy black-and-white image. Neeva’s fingers tapped on the keyboard, and she used a roller mouse to draw lines and circles on various parts of the image. “Would you like to hear the heartbeat?”

  Yes. No. I don’t know. I gurgled a response that could have meant any of the above, along with a hesitant nod. A moment later, the room was filled with a fast swoosh-swoosh-swoosh noise that was simultaneously foreign and achingly familiar. I turned away from the screen, pressing the palms of my hands against my eyes, tears leaking out anyway.

  I barely noticed Neeva removing the probe from my body, or the click of the switch as she turned off the monitor and wheeled the cart to the side of the room. In a soft voice, she said, “Dr. Huang will review the data and be right back.”

  Somewhere, deep inside me, was the beginnings of a baby. I’d listened to its heart beating.

  Instead of joy, all I felt was cold, hard terror. I wasn’t ready to be a mother. And I didn’t want to share a child with Adam. In that moment, I wished so badly for Landon to be the father. Whether or not he’d want any part of a child we created together, at least I would have a piece of the man I loved.

  Maybe, just maybe, he would want our baby.

  And maybe, just maybe, he would want me, too.

  But of course, that was only a pipe dream. Landon and I had used condoms. The baby was Adam’s.

  They say that those who don’t study history are bound to repeat it.

  But that wasn’t true.

  I knew well the history of my own birth. That I was unplanned, an accident. Born to a man who didn’t love the woman carrying me, and by extension, didn’t love me, either.

  What the hell have I done?

  How could I keep this baby? How could I bring a child into the exact same situation I’d wanted to escape for my entire life. How?

  The only sane answer was: I couldn’t. I shouldn’t.

  Dr. Huang came in a few minutes later, and before I could ask her about…the procedure, she sat down in the stool and blinked at me. “There is cause for concern regarding the data.”

  “Concern?”

  “Yes. The heartbeat, specifically. It’s slower than it should be. Were you considering termination?”

  She said it so matter-of-factly that I recoiled, looking down at my lap instead, focusing on a tiny thread that had come lose from the hem of my gown.

  Dr. Huang took the movement as a nod. “I’d like to suggest that you go home and take it easy. At six weeks along, there’s a good chance this situation will resolve itself on its own and you won’t need to make that choice.”

  Landon

  “Ana, was that FedEx?”

  I knew damn well what it was. I’d been staring through the second-floor window, watching the driver bring a small cardboard box to the front door. It had taken all of my restraint not to slide down the banister at the first peal of the bell. But I had to stay cool. No need to act any different than normal. No one else knew what was in that box. No one needed to know.

  One of the first things anyone does once they get famous, if they have half a brain or a decent manager, was to come up with an alias. An alternate identity to use when paying for things you didn’t want traced back. Gossip rags have pages devoted to celebrities walking their dog, going for Starbucks, pumping gas. Stars—they’re just like you!

  Except that we don’t want some guy in the accounting department of Frannie’s Freaky Sex Shop selling a copy of our invoice to TMZ. Or a curious postman opening our order of hemorrhoid cream before we have a chance to wipe it on our own ass.

  My housekeeper spun around as I walked slowly, achingly slowly, down the stairs. If she was curious why I received so much mail for a Luke Cooper, she hadn’t said anything. “Yes. Should I—”

  “Nah,” I said with a deceptively casual smile, pulling the cardboard box from her grasp and heading right back upstairs. “I got it.”

  Two days ago, my doctor had refused to up the strength of my meds, writing a prescription for a measly ten pills, saying I didn’t even need that much. Fuck, yeah I did. I had a plan. One month to get over Piper. One month to get my grip back. One month of pills to help me do both.

  So I called a sound mixer I knew who kept a well-stocked pharmacy in his recording studio. A few minutes later, I had a step-by-step primer on how to get around the dispensing guidelines of a stingy doctor.

  A few keystrokes on a computer, a charge on my credit card.

  Drugs delivered to my door the very next day.

  Drugs that weren’t in my name.

  I could have gotten them from any of the dealers I knew. Prescription meds were as popular, and easy to obtain, as illegal ones. But I’d been around enough to know dealers got greedy. Capsules could be diluted with bullshit fillers. Pills could be faked, mixed in with real ones. And I wanted the real shit.

  Kicking my bedroom door closed, I pried the tape loose with my thumbs and spread my bounty across my bed.

  Legal prescriptions.

  From a doctor I’d never met.

  No big deal.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out. Shane. Guilt gnawed at my conscious with hungry teeth as I sent it to voicemail and dropped it, face-down, on the mattress. I didn’t know what to say to him. Not right now. Not yet.

  If I could just hold off a little while longer, there wouldn’t be anything to talk about. I’d be back behind my drum kit and my life would go back to normal. Shaking out a few tablets of oxy, I tucked them in the Altoids tin I now used to hold my immediate supply, and safely stowed the rest of my loot in a drawer. It took one month to break a bad habit, right? Made sense, given that most rehab programs were twenty-eight days. Piper was the bad habit I needed to break. Then my life would go back to the way it was. The way it should be. I didn’t need her. The pills would smooth the way, they were just a substitute for the drinks that I couldn’t have until my nerve had healed completely. Once that happened, I wouldn’t need them, either. I’d have my band back. I was going to be fine.

  Piper

  Delaney was sitting on the stoop outside my door when I pulled into my parking space. She sprung up, holding a paper bag. “You look terrible.”

  I grunted. “Thanks.”

  “Sorry.” She didn’t look sorry in the least, gesturing at my leggings and tank—both among the oldest in my entire wardrobe—and grinning. “But it’s reassuring for the rest of us mere mortals that Perfect Piper isn’t always so perfect.”

  Perfect. I’d spent my entire life chasing that unat
tainable ideal. Trying to look perfect. Trying to be perfect. And where had it gotten me? I was a mess. I jabbed my key at the lock, my vision so blurred I couldn’t see a damn thing.

  On my third try, the entire set slipped from my grasp. A sob wrenched from my throat as I slammed a palm against the door in frustration.

  “Hey.” Delaney’s voice was soft, soothing. She bent to retrieve my keys, unlocked my door, and ushered me inside my own home. I headed straight for my couch and fell into it, covering my face with a pillow.

  Which was, of course, a mistake.

  It still smelled like Landon. The man I’d loved and lost. Again.

  Unless…Unless my situation resolves itself on its own.

  A miscarriage.

  My mother used to say bad things happen in threes. Adam. Landon. Now this pregnancy. Or would the third strike be losing this pregnancy?

  If I miscarried, there would be no need to undergo a procedure to scrape the life from my womb. A scalpel to remove my mistake. My firefly.

  Maybe then I could try to fix things with Landon. Explain that what he thought he saw was nowhere near reality.

  Delaney called my name, but all I heard was the swoosh of a heartbeat. The sound filled my ears, pounding against my temples, vibrating through every cell in my body.

  No. No, no, no.

  I didn’t want to be pregnant by anyone.

  But I am. I am.

  Unless…

  Delaney’s fingers curved around my shoulder as she sunk down on the couch beside me, placing the small paper bag she was carrying on the coffee table. She gestured to the bag. “I brought you a muffin and some soup. Are you hungry? Can I get you anything?”

  I wiped at my face with the ends of my tank. I wouldn’t have thought I could eat anything, but I was suddenly ravenous. “What kind?” I sniffled.

  “Corn muffin and chicken noodle.”

  Little alarm signals went up at the idea of poultry, but the muffin sounded like heaven. I pulled it out and began pecking at the crusty browned top. “Thank you.”