by Ali Parker
Phillip gave me a confident nod. He seemed pleased with the words I’d carefully chosen. At least I had his support.
My parents, on the other hand, were reeling.
My mother blinked furiously at her plate, trying to comprehend what I’d just said. Her lips formed silent words, and she shook her head. Then finally, she looked up at me. She looked older than minutes earlier. “You did this for us?”
“All of us,” I said.
Not just you and Dad. Me and Phillip, too.
My mother frowned. “We are making this work. I know it’s not on the timeline you want, but we’re—”
“Mom,” I said firmly.
She fell silent.
I sighed. “I don’t know how else to have this conversation with you guys without stepping on toes or hurting feelings. Which is not what I want to do. But we’re past the point of lying to each other about all of this, aren’t we? Phillip and I both know full well the last thing we’re doing is ‘making it work.’ Everything is falling apart. And it’s not anyone’s fault. This economy is brutal. And we drew the short straw. And after years of busting our butts to make ends meet, I finally had a chance to go for something big that would—”
“You should have told us,” my father said. His voice was quiet, but it commanded the room, and I closed my mouth. “You shouldn’t have lied. It’s been seven months, Piper. Seven months. We don’t lie in this family. And we don’t make big decisions like this without involving everyone else.”
My stomach twisted. “You and Mom have been making decisions without telling Phillip and me for years. I’m not a child anymore. I saw an opportunity, and I took it. And I’m going to see it through.”
Phillip swallowed on the other side of the table. I heard the gulp clear as day.
My father narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think I can talk to you right now without saying something I’ll regret.” He pressed his hands flat to the table, pushed himself to his feet, and left.
Just like that.
I watched his back as he moved down the hall to the master bedroom, where he turned right and closed the door behind him.
“Mom,” I breathed, searching for something from her, other than anger and disappointment. Confusion would have been fine. Surprise. Anything.
She shook her head. “Piper, I don’t know what to say.”
“Anything. Say anything.”
She was still shaking her head when she stood. “I’m going to check on your father.”
And just like that, she left. My ears rang with finality.
“They’re furious,” I whispered.
Phillip didn’t disagree.
Janie, however, piped up. “I don’t think so. I think they’re rattled. Give them a bit of time, and they’ll come around. You’ll see. Your parents are reasonable people. Right, Phillip?”
Phillip winced. “It was bad, Janie.”
Janie’s hand fell from mine. “How bad?”
“Bad,” he said.
I rested my elbows on the table and pressed my forehead into my palm. “I should have said something sooner. Dad is right. I made this so much worse by keeping it a secret for so long. I knew they wouldn’t understand. I knew they’d take it the wrong way. What the hell is wrong with them?” I let my hand fall from my forehead and looked at my brother.
Phillip shrugged. “Dad is too proud. And Mom is too wrapped up in how Dad is feeling to comprehend how she actually feels about the situation.”
“It’s bullshit,” I said.
“Piper,” my brother cautioned.
“What?”
“It won’t do you any favors to get angry, too.”
“I’m just trying to help. Why can’t they see past the end of their own Goddamn noses to let their own fucking kids help them?”
Phillip sighed. “I don’t know.”
Janie drummed her fingers on the table. “I think we’re done here, Piper. We should go. Your parents need some room to breathe. And so do you. Come on.”
She was right. I needed out of this house, and my parents needed distance from me. Lucky for them, they were going to get it because tomorrow morning I was on my way to LA to stay with Levi Morgan, the next Casanova Bachelor. This was the first time I was looking forward to getting the hell out of New York.
I stood. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
Phillip walked us to the door. I put my shoes on and wondered at how fast my mood had shifted. Just ten minutes ago, I’d been strung out with nerves and desperation, and now, all I felt was anger. Raw, teeth-clenching, I-need-a-fucking-drink anger.
And sadness.
Deep sadness that made me feel smaller than I ever had in my entire life. I’d never lied to my parents. Well, not about anything serious. I’d lied as a teen about staying out late or going to parties, but that had been the full extent of my deceit.
Phillip pulled open the front door for us, and all three of us stepped out onto the porch. He closed the door behind him. “I’ll keep you in the loop, Pipes. You just do your thing, okay? I’m behind you. And Mom and Dad will be too. They just need some time.”
“And if they don’t come around?”
Phillip’s mouth turned down in a frown I hadn’t seen him wear in a long time. He sighed and pulled me in for a hug I didn’t realize I needed. I wrapped my arms around him. He smelled like beer and pine trees.
“I’ll handle Mom and Dad, Pipes. You just worry about your end.”
“Phillip,” I whispered. “What if they don’t forgive me?”
He hugged me tighter and laughed softly. “Then you’ll be a million dollars richer.”
CHAPTER 3
LEVI
Somebody had a vise grip on my shoulder. They were shaking me. Roughly.
“Piss off,” I mumbled, my brain addled with sleep and the lingering buzz of alcohol.
They refused to relent. Their grip tightened, and they shook me more vigorously. My tongue pinched between my teeth, and I bit out a sharp snarl as my eyes fluttered lazily open. Jake was leaning over me. His grip loosened when he saw I was awake, and his brow creased in that permanent concerned frown of his.
“Get the hell up, Levi.”
Daylight poured through my floor-to-ceiling living room windows, painting the room with a brightness that stabbed at my eyes. I groaned and shielded them with one hand. “What time is it?”
“Late.”
“Noon?”
“Two o’clock.”
I nodded and rubbed at my eyes, willing them to adjust to the light of day. My mouth was dry. As if reading my mind, Jake pushed a glass of cold water into my hands and tugged at my shoulders to force me to sit up.
I shrugged away from him. “Relax, man. I’m up. I’m up.”
Jake ran a hand down his face and then looked around my place like he was searching for someone.
I arched an eyebrow. “What?”
“What did you do last night?”
“I went out.”
“Out? Where?”
“A bar.”
“Which bar?”
I grinned and leaned back on the sofa, draping one arm over the back while lifting the glass of water to my lips. I tipped my head back as I drained the glass and then smacked my lips together when I was done. “Rudy’s place.”
“So you got high?”
“Sure did.”
“What the fuck? You were supposed to be clean when the girl got here. Not have that shit in your system.” Jake shook his head, planted his fists on his hips, and looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. “We need to clean you up before she gets here.”
“Why? You don’t think she’d appreciate me in my natural state?” I gestured down at myself, and that was when I realized I was only wearing boxers. That explained why I was cold. “Huh.”
Jake scowled at his wristwatch. “We’re not going to have enough time. I’m gonna have to call a ride to pick the girl up. Her flight lands in less than two hours, and we need at least that
to make you presentable.”
“Fuck being presentable.”
“This could come back and bite you in the ass, Levi. You need to be smart for thirty fucking days. Can you do that?”
“Easy.”
“Easy, my ass.”
I licked my lips and ached for more water. I didn’t dare ask Jake. He liked puttering around my mansion like he had a list of important things to do. His only important thing to do was take care of me, and unfortunately, it was a job I couldn’t fire him from because I’d never hired him in the first place. Half the time, he crashed in one of my guest rooms, and the other half of the time, he went back to his penthouse—which I’d purchased for him three years ago, for the record—and probably brooded about what a waste of space his big brother had turned into.
He wasn’t wrong.
That was the kicker.
But he didn’t understand what this lifestyle was like and what it could do to a man. Making music I hated and bending over backward to please strangers day after day after day was like carving out my soul with a spoon. And after all these years, I had nothing left to give.
No new ideas. No new music. No new muses.
I was a dried-up musician who couldn’t make music.
It was poetic justice some might say. Those who hated my guts, anyway.
The world still seemed blind to the fact that I’d lost my way, but Jake could see it, and so could I. I denied it fiercely. The last thing I needed was for my brother to come to my rescue with regard to my music. At least that part of me was still mine and mine alone.
For now.
I’d hold on to it as tightly as possible for as long as I could.
But one day, I’d lose it for good. I was sure of it. I had nightmares where I stood in front of a sold-out stadium that was heavy with silence and ready ears, waiting for me to grip the microphone and start my set. In the dream, the words never came. My mouth moved, my throat burned, but no song came out of me, and the crowd waited until they couldn’t anymore. At which point, they boiled over with anger and started hurling tomatoes at me, which, on impact, burst apart and turned into blood.
Maybe it was the drugs.
Maybe it was my fucked-up artist’s brain.
Most likely, it was a combination of both.
Either way, I knew my worst fear was losing my craft, and the only way to contend with that was to get too fucked up to have the sense to be aware of my dying career.
Jake would never understand it.
I watched him pace back and forth in front of my fireplace. He’d pulled out his phone and was arranging for a limo to pick “The Girl” up at the airport. He was bossy, like he always was, and he demanded the nicest car they had and dropped my name.
When he hung up, he cast a tired look at me. “Aren’t you going to shower or something?”
“I still have time.”
“Get up. Let’s go. You have three hours, tops, and then she’s going to be on your doorstep, expecting to see Levi Morgan the Rock Star. Not Levi Morgan the Disappointment.”
I felt my eyebrows creep up my forehead. Usually, Jake didn’t get mean. Usually, he could keep his cool and refrain from getting personal. But today was different. “Ouch.”
He rubbed his temples. “I’m sorry. It’s just… sometimes, you make it impossible to be nice to you.”
I chuckled. “I get that a lot.”
Jake hung his head back and blinked slowly at the ceiling. He took a deep breath, calming the storm crackling and thundering inside him. “What can I do to help you right now? How do we get ready for the girl to get here? How do we make this go right?”
Unable to help myself, I cracked a grin. “You could let me do a bump. I’d be right as rain.”
“No,” Jake said sharply.
I shrugged and rolled to my feet. “You asked.”
“Just go shower and put something decent on. I’ll get something going to eat, and we’ll regroup from there. Okay?”
I wandered around the couch to head for the stairs.
“Okay?” Jake called after me.
I waved my hand over my shoulder at him. “Okay. Okay. Got it. Loud and clear. Don’t make a mess in my fucking kitchen.”
As I made my way up the stairs, my brother’s frustrated muttering reached my ears. I ignored it and moved down the hall to my bedroom, where I closed and locked the door behind me, went to the mini-fridge beside my dresser, and poured myself a three-quarter glass full of vodka. It wasn’t my liquor of choice, but it was all I had in the fridge. Apparently, I’d blown through the rest of my supply last night.
I brought the drink into the bathroom with me, unable to stop myself from taking a sip as I nudged the door closed with my hip. One sip turned into three, which turned into a large mouthful as I turned the shower on.
I stripped out of my boxers and finished the drink under the hot water of the shower.
And just like that, I was well on my way to feeling human again.
After my shower, I stood in front of my bathroom mirror and considered shaving. I had a good three or four days of growth along my jaw and neck. I scratched at it, concluded Jake would give me shit if I left it, and shaved. My hand was steadier than I expected. Then I put product in my near-black hair and combed it over to one side. It was trimmed short on the sides and longer on top, with a fresh-carved line down one side.
When I was satisfied that I looked as far from a spiraling musician as possible, I went into the bedroom and changed into a pair of blue jeans and a black T-shirt. I threw on a leather jacket over top, poured myself another drink, and finished it off before I left the room to meet Jake downstairs.
I found him at the stove in the kitchen and cleared my throat.
He turned, looked me over, and nodded approvingly. “Better.”
I slid onto a stool at the kitchen island. “I’m glad you’re satisfied. What are you making?” For the first time in days, I was aware of the fact that I was hungry. Genuinely hungry.
Jake winced and stepped aside, revealing two nearly done grilled cheese sandwiches sizzling on a cast iron pan. “Grilled cheese. I panicked. You know I’m terrible in the kitchen.”
“You and me both.”
Jake poured us each a glass of water and put the grilled cheese sandwiches on plates. He handed me mine before joining me at the counter. We both bit into the sandwiches, and I was surprised by how good it was. “Not bad.”
“I’m glad you’re satisfied,” he teased, using my own words against me.
Sometimes, Jake wasn’t a complete and total ass. Sometimes, he was the brother I’d had before my music career blew up and everything shifted.
Then he frowned and sniffed at the air. “Did you have a drink?”
“No.”
“You’re lying. I can smell it on you.”
“So what?” I asked, shoving a massive bite of grilled cheese into my mouth.
Jake shook his head and his shoulders slumped. “You have to get your shit together, man.”
“So you keep saying. But my shit is together. It’s just not arranged how you think it should be. Get off my back.” All I wanted was some peace and quiet. And maybe a bump. Then I’d be fit as a fiddle.
“What are you smiling about?”
I hadn’t realized I was smiling. I tried to wipe it away and failed. “I was just thinking how if only I had a bump, I’d be all good and you never would have smelled the booze on my breath. You’d be none the wiser, I’d be happy, and we could have avoided this entirely. And people say drugs have no positive qualities.”
Jake blinked incredulously at me. “You need rehab, Levi. Seriously. If Mom could see you now—”
“Don’t,” I growled.
Jake glared at his plate, and I glared at him. I was done with him using our dead mother as a tool to guilt me into changing my ways. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t.
He wasn’t walking around with a hole in his chest that sucked the life out of him all fucking day long. An
d if he was, I was sure he’d be doing the same thing as me, trying to do whatever he could to fill it. To stopper it. To silence the echo of its all-consuming hollowness with whatever it took, drugs, booze, women, music.
“Sorry,” Jake muttered.
CHAPTER 4
PIPER
The back of the limo that picked me up from the airport smelled like luxury. I didn’t know how to describe it, but I was sure that was the smell. Like “new car” on steroids.
The white leather seats were smooth as hell, and somehow, my bare thighs didn’t stick to them.
I shifted around, feeling a little unsettled in the back all by myself. This limo could seat twelve, and it felt massive with all the empty seats, which faded from shades of pink, to purple, to blue under the ceiling of fiber optic lights made to look like the night sky.
Music poured through the speakers, and a couple of songs were Levi’s from the radio. I tapped my foot along to them, but I didn’t know the words. While I listened, I scoured the variety of snack and drink options.
There was champagne, vodka, tequila, and rum. A healthy selection. There were chips, chocolate bars, peanuts, beef jerky, and small boxes of cereal, as well as several different kinds of soda.
I almost reached for the vodka. A drink would calm my nerves.
Somehow, this process still got to me. The first day with a new man was nerve-wracking as hell. The stakes were the highest, and each and every time, I felt like I was walking in blind.
I’d met Levi back in December and again at the group party a few months ago. Both times, I’d been struck with the same impression that Levi was a bad boy with a sexy smolder, wicked smirk, and the promise of a hot body beneath his clothes. But he was broody. And dark. And a little unapproachable. I’d found him kind of intimidating, which was probably normal since he was super famous.
I tried to focus my mind on other things.
But that was a fool’s errand, too, because my thoughts went straight to dinner with my folks last night, where I’d told them all about the Casanova Club.