A Love Song for Rebels (Rivals Book 2) Read online

  It took everything in me not to drag her out of that hall to somewhere private and demand she tell me what the hell is going on.

  “You ever think about her?” Beck’s voice drags me back.

  “Who?”

  “Meara. She left for LA before the summer. You guys dated.”

  I shrug. “Not really. We were friends. We went out a few times.” She gave me indications of wanting to date, but we both knew the deal—there were more important things than each other.

  When she landed a part in LA, I took her to the airport with Beck and some other friends, hugged her, and went on with my day.

  We’ve texted a few times since just to say hey and see how things are going.

  “So, that’s not why you were brooding all summer.”

  I stare at him, perplexed. “I wasn’t brooding.”

  “You were, but that means it’s not over her. So, it must’ve been about Zeke.”

  Beck stares past me, and I follow his gaze to a big poster by the door advertising the annual fall showcase at Vanier.

  “You want to get Zeke’s attention?” he drawls, grinning. “Close the fall showcase.”

  I’ve been so focused on getting my contract back and getting out of Vanier I haven’t stopped to think about what to do if I stay this semester.

  It’s a big deal. Everyone gets written up in the media, and whoever is selected to close gets a ten-grand honorarium.

  “It’s not the worst idea,” I tell him.

  “I’m full of ‘em today. Really getting into this mentoring thing. My girl’s a peach. And cute.” My spine stiffens as he continues. “I know you said not to go there, but Ty, you met her. She’s fucking adorable. And that voice... I wanna record her saying my name when she comes.”

  I step closer, my chest tightening. “She’s not your girl.” The words are out before I can stop them.

  His grin turns smug. “She came to me needing something today. I gave it to her.”

  “What exactly did you give her?”

  Before Beck can answer, the sound of applause echoes as performers change.

  I glance at the girl taking the stage and freeze an inch from pummeling my roommate.

  Even twenty feet from the stage, Annie’s dark-rimmed eyes seem to reach straight into my soul.

  Her hair’s dark and waving over her shoulders. I stopped dying my hair, and she started.

  She’s wearing high-heeled boots and tight jeans and a shirt—if you can call it a shirt—that pushes up her breasts and stops halfway down her stomach.

  My abs clench hard.

  I can’t decide which part is most responsible for my reaction: the long line of her legs or the soft shadowed dip between her breasts or the slick lips, shiny as if she’s been sucking on them.

  She looks ripe, like fruit you’ve been impatiently waiting to soften, telling yourself it’s not time yet.

  Annie lifts a guitar over her head, and Beck whistles admiringly.

  “What do you know? My manatee talked herself into a slot at Leo’s. I tell you, Ty, this girl might be it for me.”

  “Put your dick back in.” My quick retort surprises both of us.

  The woman on the stage isn’t the girl I fell for two years ago. It should be comforting to know that.

  Instead, it’s disconcerting as hell.

  A body bumps mine, a girl blinking at me with apology and thinly veiled invitation. I barely notice, shoving my hands in my pockets as my gaze locks on the stage.

  Beck’s watching me, though his phone’s trained on the stage. “You want her too.”

  “That’s bullshit.” I shove both hands through my hair, trying to fight the discomfort clawing at my insides.

  “Look at you. You’re a mess.”

  The woman whose hair sways as she bends the strings of the guitar, fingers picking the opening chords of a song, isn’t the girl I fell for.

  Which means Annie’s gone.

  After leaving Dallas, I consoled myself with the fact that she was still intact somewhere, like a dragonfly in amber—the earnest girl with a disarming smile who’d bleed because that’s what we’re meant to do.

  But she’s not, and before I can process the churning in my gut at that realization, the woman on stage starts to sing.

  Annie always had the kind of voice you wanted to listen to all day. This is lower, sultrier. It’s an invitation and a promise, and it wraps around my spine, drags down.

  Annie Jamieson just grabbed my cock in the middle of this bar.

  My confusion’s gone, squashed by something more deliberate.

  The fact that she’s here, that she’s changed, that she can still turn me on without even touching me, pisses me off.

  Beck hollers, and I ignore him, cutting through the half-drunk crowd to backstage.

  “Wasn’t sure you were coming.” The woman who runs open mic night looks at her list. “You want in after her?”

  I glance at Annie. “Next one.”

  I stalk to the edge of the stage. At this new angle, I can see Annie swaying with her own music, the spell she's weaving on the faces of the crowd.

  Tightness works through my gut. We’re going to talk about this right the fuck now.

  How she’s here. Why she’s here.

  Why the fact that she’s here is affecting me so goddamn much.

  My gaze lands on the small silver handbag sitting on an unused speaker. It’s familiar, and I reach for it.

  When Annie comes off stage, beaming and sweating from the spotlight, her attention goes to the speaker. “Where’s my—”

  I hold up the bag, and her eyes flash. When she swipes for the bag, it falls between us, the contents spilling out.

  “What are you doing here?” she demands as we both drop to the ground. She reaches for her phone, her face a breath away from mine.

  “Leo’s is my place. I should be asking you the same thing.” I retrieve one of the cards and hold it up in the half light. “It almost looks like you. This you. Whoever she is.”

  I grab her bag and straighten. She rises too, her gaze lingering on the purse in my hands as if I might run away with it.

  “What would your dad say if he could see you like this?” I press.

  Annie’s close enough I see her breasts heaving under her low-cut top. “I don’t care.”

  I’m not even mad at her. I’m mad at me, at the way she affects me still, at the fact that I left her for my dreams but also so the sweet, smart girl I craved like a drug could grow up without my influence.

  But she’s not here. That girl is gone.

  “Besides,” she goes on, “he doesn’t know everything that happens in the world.”

  A single piece in a twisted puzzle clicks into place. “He doesn’t know you’re here.”

  There’s a hint of panic in those eyes, a vulnerability I catalogue, memorize.

  I feel the power shift between us, like I’m suddenly gaining the upper hand.

  “Where does he think you are?” I ask.

  She looks like she wants to deny me, but there’s no point lying. I can find out.

  “Columbia.”

  The next act on stage is playing something down tempo. Now that she’s close, I smell her. She’s memories and dreams, gold and glory, and parts of me that were dead five minutes ago suddenly ache.

  “You shouldn’t be so surprised to see me,” she goes on. “You saw me at auditions. Couldn’t believe I’d actually get in?”

  It’s my turn to be back on my heels. “I thought I imagined you.”

  Her brows pull together. “Why would you do that?”

  I don’t fucking know. Because I wanted you here?

  “Whatever,” she says, realizing I’m not going to answer. “Give my bag back.”

  I open it and tuck the license back in. When I do, my fingers close on the round glass shape on a chain. I lift it high between us. When the glass flashes in the light, my gut twists.

  Hard.

  The pendant is flat, c
ut in the shape of a heart. At first, I think it’s purple glass, but when I look closer, I see it’s two pieces of clear glass edged with dull gold binding the edges together around the dark-purple thing inside it.

  To preserve it.

  I can’t place it, but familiarity and nostalgia wash over me in uninvited waves.

  “What is this?” I demand.

  “A reminder that I’m not the person I was. That’s the last question of yours I’m going to answer because I don’t owe you anything. You walked away from me.”

  The pain and accusation in her voice has my chest tightening, but I remind myself she’s fine. She got over me fast.

  “I know Beck’s my mentor and he’s your roommate,” she goes on, “but we can stay out of each other’s way.”

  The way she looks when she says it, the hint of vulnerability in those dark-rimmed eyes, the waver in those gloss-slicked lips, tells me the earnest, honest girl I knew isn’t gone. Not entirely.

  It makes her ten times harder to ignore.

  I steel myself, unwilling to show what I’m feeling as I drop the pendant into the bag and hold it out.

  “He likes you,” I mutter grudgingly as our hands meet on the fabric.

  “Beck?” Her brows lift. “I like him, too.”

  But her gaze drops down my body before flicking back up. “Don’t worry about me. I’m sure your girlfriend is more than enough to keep you occupied.”

  “My what?”

  Doubt has her licking her lips. “The girl who was climbing you in that practice room.”

  Knowing it bothered her has adrenaline surging through me. I should correct her assumption, tell her Meara wasn’t my girlfriend then and isn’t now.

  But for some fucked-up reason, I need to remind her what went down between us might be over but it happened. More than that, it mattered.

  I step closer, inhale her scent as I brush her hair back behind her ear. To her credit, she doesn’t back away.

  She’s all grown up? Fine. I’ll treat her like it.

  “You want me to pretend I don’t know you?” I murmur against her ear. “That I never kissed that mouth? Never slept in your bed?”

  Never made you laugh. Never stared at you in utter awe for how beautiful you were, the way you saw the world.

  I force those thoughts away because they’re stirring up feelings I can’t stand.

  “Never watched those eyes get big when you imagined me fucking you, when you practically begged me to do it?”

  The little shiver that overtakes her has me wanting to drop my lips to her jaw, see if it’s as soft as I remember.

  Applause in the distance tells me the previous performer has wrapped up, and someone shouts at me to take the stage, but I can’t move.

  She pulls back first, tucking her bag under her arm and sucking in a breath. “That’s exactly what I expect. This is my fresh start. No one’s going to mess it up. Not even you, Tyler.”

  As she disappears down the stairs, I don’t feel anything like vindicated.

  The only thing I can think is that I’d give everything I have to hear her say my name again.

  5

  “You were great at Leo’s last night.”

  I look up from my notebook the next afternoon at the Vanier library to see a slender blond guy from class leaning over my chair.

  “Jake,” he volunteers. “We survived acting intensive together with Talbot.”

  “Right.” I smile back.

  I don’t remember seeing him at Leo’s, but most of the night I was distracted—by my need to prove myself and by the one guy who could ruin my chances of doing that.

  “Homework?” Jake nods to my notebook.

  “No, actually. Just writing.”

  I used to force my brain to work in logic and answers and solutions. Getting good grades meant everything needed to fit into a cogent argument.

  Now, I think in feelings. Emotions.

  I don’t know if it’s an evolution or a devolution.

  When I feel something, I drop it onto a page. The words flow out of me, contained by the paper. It keeps them from burning me alive, breaking me from the inside.

  “Thanks for the compliment about last night,” I say. “It’s easy to get lost here there are so many good people.”

  “I know, right? Did you see that guy, Tyler something? He was the best of the night by far.”

  I smile tightly. “He was pretty good.”

  I saw him. He waited for me backstage only to strip me bare with his hard gaze and his harder words. Then I watched him perform, reminding me he’s not only the most capable musician but magnetic enough you’d give your soul for another minute in his presence.

  And you practically volunteered that you aren’t supposed to be here.

  Chalk it up to being caught off guard. Again.

  It’s not enough to be in a new place trying to make my way—the one guy from my past has to be holding my secret over my head.

  Next time, I’ll be ready.

  But what the hell was he saying about me getting over him? Did he mean Beck? Is he jealous?

  Impossible.

  “Are you trying out for the fall showcase?” Jake’s words have me blinking.

  “I heard only upper years get in.”

  “Doesn’t mean you can’t try out.” His brows wiggle under his hair. “I’m there. Figured you would be, too—you seem like the go-getter type. Auditions are in two weeks, so you better work something up.”

  He takes off, and I stare after him.

  Then I type a message on my phone.

  There’s a response five minutes later.

  Beck: Meet me in P69.

  It takes me ten minutes to figure out P refers to the practice rooms, not parking, but there’s no 69.

  It takes me another five minutes to find the closed door with a small window and P69 carved into the door.

  I knock on the door, and it opens an inch. Inside, Beck’s sitting in a desk chair, feet propped on a shelf.

  “What is this place?” I ask. “It looks like a supply closet.”

  “Practice rooms are hard to come by. Sometimes you gotta grab whatever you can find.”

  He pulls the door open, and I wedge myself inside.

  “What’re you working on?” I look at his computer and the book in front of him.

  “King Lear. And my vlog.” He nods at his computer. “New episode every week.”

  I glance as his profile, my brows lifting. “That’s a lot of subscribers.”

  “Half wanna watch me strip. Half are actually interested in what I have to say.” He cocks his head. “But you wanted to hear about the showcase. It’s the BFD. You want to get noticed in this city, that’s how you do it. The biggest casting agents, producers, directors—everyone comes. You see the EGOT wall downstairs?”

  I think of the portraits in the main hall. “Hasn’t everybody?”

  “All of ‘em not only played the showcase but closed it. And I happen to know who’s gonna close this year.” He grins.

  Electricity hums through my body. “You mean your roommate.”

  Beck shrugs. “The guy’s a beast with a guitar. Everyone thinks it’s going to be his year.”

  “What do you think?” I ask.

  He shifts back in his chair, braces one foot on the table he’s rigged up as a desk. “I might be more Shaw and Shakespeare than Stryker or the Stones, but even I can tell that dude’s gonna burn up a stage. And my roomie needs a break. Be patient. You’ll have your shot next year.”

  “It’s supposed to be an open competition, Beck. Are you afraid I’ll take it from him?”

  He smirks, appreciation flashing in his eyes. “I’m not worried about you beating him head to head. I’m worried about you messing with his head.” Surprise slams into me as he continues. “I saw you at Leo’s. You were good. Thing is, it wasn’t nearly as interesting as watching my roommate watch you.”

  I fold my arms across my chest. “I don’t know what that mea
ns.”

  “Doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is Ty’s been through some shit and if anyone deserves a break, it’s him.”

  Surprise washes over me. “Why? What happened to him?”

  “Not my place to say. But he’s good people, Manatee. The best people.”

  An ache forms low in my gut. “Here. At least let me move this box. You’ll have more room.”

  He shifts over an inch, and I manage to pry a box of nails off the floor and stick them onto a shelf. When I look up, Beck’s watching me.

  “You think working your ass off in a supply closet isn’t glamorous,” he guesses. “But it is, because here’s the secret.”

  He crooks a finger, and I humor him, leaning in.

  “They all wanna be us. We’re the rebels, Manatee. The jerks at Harvard on track to their corner offices or lining up for eighteen-hour-a-day internships on Wall Street—in thirty years, they’ll look up from their fake wood desks to the fake gold clock on the fake stone mantle and think, ‘What if?’”

  The words are still ringing in my head when I leave.

  My phone buzzes on my way back through the halls, heading for the stairwell that afternoon. I answer, dread filling my stomach.

  “Hey. What’s up?”

  Dad says, “There you are. I was starting to think I’d have to get on a plane to talk to you.” I feel the blood drain from my face before he continues. “How are your classes?”

  “Good.” I tell him about sociology and English, which I can be truthful about. “I’m still waiting on one that I have tomorrow.” My intensive professor, whom I haven’t had the chance to meet, is supposed to see me then.

  I reach for the stairwell door, both to avoid the traffic in the elevators and because the reception’s probably better.

  “I know you were disappointed when I said you couldn’t go to performing arts school.” His gruff voice has my stomach twisting with guilt. “But I wanted to say… you’re the first one in our family to get a real college degree. And Columbia’s nothing to shit on.”

  Lying to my dad sucks, but I have to do it for a while.

  After all the music classes I took, I deserve to be here. Dad telling me he’d pay for any degree except performing arts was bullshit. He even said he’d pay for me to travel for a year if that’s what I wanted.