Captivating (Red Lips & White Lies #4)

1. Lilah

LILAH

Not so patiently waiting for the IDGAF chapter of my life. Anytime now, buddy. Any. Time.

— Lilah’s Secret Thoughts

Pop princess who got rich writing love songs doesn’t know what love is.

Hey everyone, and welcome back to Just the Tip , everyone’s favorite column, where we gather your most beloved celebrities to talk tips and tricks of their trade. How they made it. What they wish they knew then that they know now, and would they do it all again, given the chance.

We recently had a chance to sit down with America’s sweetheart, pop princess Lilah Ryan, and her twin brother and band leader, Noah Ryan, where they discuss love, loss, touring, and everything in between.

Q: Well, Lilah, I feel like I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t start with everyone’s favorite question to ask you.

Lilah looks down at her lap before raising her face and giving us a dazzling smile.

Lilah : Bring it on, Jenny.

Q: You’re known for your love songs as much as for your breakup anthems. But you’re awfully tight-lipped when it comes to your personal life. Your fans are dying to know—are you currently seeing anyone?

Lilah: Not currently, no.

Q: Come on. There’s no one special?

Lilah: Define special.

Lilah’s coy smile is in full effect as she leans back in her chair, legs crossed and hands tucked primly in her lap.

Q: Someone who’s inspired a song or two, maybe?

Lilah: (Laughing) No. Not right now.

Q: Has there ever been? I mean, with songs like “Swear On My Heart,” and “So Pretty When You Lie,” you have to have had a great love, right? The kind that changes everything?

Lilah: I thought maybe there was once. (Pauses for a moment as she chooses her words as carefully as she writes her lyrics.) But I was wrong.

N oah grabs my iPad out of my hands and closes the cover. “What are you reading that shit for, anyway?”

“Because I want to know how they managed to twist our words. You know they always do.” I roll my eyes and look at the stars in the black sky as they fly by. Another night, another highway. At least this one leads home. “It’s not even good writing. Seriously.” With frustration building, I reach for the iPad, but Noah tosses it in his duffle bag, and he wraps an arm around my shoulders.

“Ignore it, Tink. They’re grasping at straws because you didn’t give them what they wanted. We’ll be home in twenty minutes.” He tips his head back against the seat and stretches his long legs in front of him. “Try to relax.”

I lean my head on his shoulder as our phones chime in sync.

That can only mean one thing . . .

I look up at my brother and roll my eyes. “Did you tell her we were coming home today?”

“Nope. But I told Dad, and you know she checks the app.”

“Same thing,” I murmur as I pull my phone from my pocket and open the text chat we have with our parents and our sister and brother.

Mom

Life360 says you’re on your way into Kroydon Hills. Are you coming here?

Dad

Give them a minute to breathe, Natalie. It’s late.

Mom

Brady Ryan... if you like lying in this bed next to me and not on the couch downstairs, you will hush.

Dillan

OMG, Mom. Chill. You’ll see them tomorrow.

Mom

Why is everyone ganging up on me?

Asher

I’m on the side of it’s late, and I’m trying to sleep. If you guys come tonight, try not to wake me up.

Dillan

Sleep? It’s not that late. Has your girlfriend even scurried down Mom’s trellis yet?

Asher

Don’t be a brat, Dillan. She went out the front door. And at least I’m not twenty-two and still living at home.

Dillan

Whatever you say, oopsie baby.

Mom

Dillan... be nice to your brother. His girlfriend doesn’t climb in and out of his window.

Dad

. . .

“Jesus Christ. One of us needs to put them out of their misery before Asher tells Mom he lost his virginity last year and she strokes out before we get home.” Noah tries to take my phone from my hand, but I elbow his ribs and move away.

“Get your own phone.” I never let anyone, not even Noah, text from my phone. The fucker has gotten me in trouble more than once.

Lilah

We’re still fifteen minutes from town. But the car service is dropping us at our own places tonight. I really just want my own bed.

Mom

How can you want your own bed when you’ve never even slept in it, young lady?

Dad

Sweetheart... let her go to her new house. She’s excited. We’ll see them both tomorrow. Right, kids?

I look over at Noah and laugh. “Remind me why we let her have Life360, please...”

Noah shrugs and smiles. “It’s not like it’s a new thing. Mom’s always been a little nuts.”

Noah

How about we come for breakfast tomorrow?

Lilah

Brunch. I want to sleep in.

Mom

Fine. But make sure you bring your bodyguard with you. One is waiting for you at your house.

Lilah

Mother!

“What the fuck—” I snap my head to Noah and instantly see red. “You knew.”

It’s not a question because the answer is written all over his guilty face.

“I sure did, and I agreed with them.” He’s completely unapologetic, and I suddenly have the urge to stop the car and walk home. That or maybe junk-punch him. “I know you feel safe here, Lilah, but we still have to be careful. We don’t know who set the fucking bombs. If they hadn’t found them in the security sweep, they could have taken out us and thousands of people. I don’t give a shit if you’re pissed. You’re alive, and you’re going to stay that way. The label expanded your security. Guess you’re going to test out that guest house sooner than you thought.”

“Fine. But they don’t come inside.” I refuse to look at Noah or my phone. I’ve spent the last year working with designers on every last detail for my brand-new house, and the thought of sleeping there tonight has been what’s gotten me through these past few weeks of the tour. It’s supposed to be my refuge. My haven. With ten acres of privacy and walls of windows in nearly every room, every painstaking detail has been thought-out so I can feel as free as possible while maintaining as much privacy as possible.

I absolutely refuse to let anyone ruin the small speck of normalcy I’ve earned.

And I’ve earned it.

I swore after spending two entire years touring, I wasn’t going back out right away. But our label had other plans and strong-armed me into what they called a small six-month tour. The last two months were postponed because of the security breach. We’re going to discuss rescheduling it in a few days. But until then, I’m going home to my own house, and I’m going to live like a happy hermit.

At least that’s what I tell myself until my phone chimes again.

Mom

Fine. I’ll have breakfast ready at ten tomorrow. I know everyone can’t wait to see you guys.

I look at Noah. “Hell no. I’m not ready to see the whole family. Not yet.”

Noah’s eyes soften as he shakes his head. “I get it.”

Lilah

Just us, Mom.

Mom

But honey . . .

Dad

Just us, Tink. I promise.

When Mom was growing up, everyone called her Tinker Bell. But Dad says the minute I was born, that’s what she called me. Her little fairy. Tiny, feisty, and even more blonde than she was. I think she was just happy to give the nickname to someone else.

Lilah

Thanks, Daddy. See you tomorrow.

“ Thanks, Daddy, ” Noah mocks, and I stick my middle finger in the air and close my eyes. “Would now be a bad time to tell you I’m crashing with you for the next few days too?”

“What?” I give in and punch him the way I’ve wanted to for the past ten minutes. Not in the junk, but close enough. “Why? What’s wrong with the condo?”

“Jamie’s crashing there. After they lost their playoff game, he wanted to get the hell out of DC, and we only have one functioning bedroom in the condo right now.” At least he has the good graces to look guilty. I get it, and normally I wouldn’t care. Jamie has crashed with us for years in his off-season. Our cousin is the best defensive tackle in the NFL. He’s also one of my closest friends, but the fucker refuses to buy his own place, and he’s messy as shit.

“Fine. But just you,” I warn him. “I mean it, Noah.”

“I hear ya. Just me . . .”

A n hour later, I’m changed and sitting on my brand-new oversized, overstuffed, pale-blue couch that I absolutely love and may never leave. Noah is strumming his favorite acoustic guitar, Baby , next to me, while I work on the song I’ve had stuck in my head for the past few weeks. I can’t seem to get it on paper no matter how hard I try.

The melody is there, but the lyrics... they’re just not.

Another city. Another lonely night.

Well, that lyric sucks.

I scribble a line through the shitty lyric, trying to figure out exactly when I started to write whiney music. It’s never been my vibe, and I’m not sure why it keeps coming out that way now.

According to my mom, I’ve been writing songs since before I learned to write a sentence. The piano came before that, and the guitar came after. It’s always been my way to process the world. My reprieve. But right now, it’s my biggest stressor because the words aren’t coming like they used to. Nothing sounds right, and with each ugly scratch in my notebook, I worry more and more that I’ve lost it .

That thing that makes my songs special.

That magic that filters through my words.

Like I’ve lost a piece of myself.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

What the — I drop my pen as the booming knock filters in from the front of the house and scares the hell out of me. My eyes fly to Noah’s as he strums his guitar like the big bad wolf doesn’t sound like he’s trying to knock down our door.

“Open up before your bodyguard finds out who the badder guy really is, Tink.”

What the fuck? There are so many things wrong with that sentence.

“Maddox?” I ask, surprised, and Noah nods, still strumming his guitar. Well, at least until the banging starts again.

“Hold your fucking horses, Madman.”

“What happened to just us?” Sarcasm drips from my words while his long legs eat up the room as I follow behind. “Did you give him the gate code?”

My brother shakes his head, and I brace for Maddox Beneventi when the door swings open, but my breath gets caught in my throat because Maddox isn’t alone.

“Jamie,” I smile and throw my arms around him in a giant hug that has me lifted off the floor.

He rests me back on the black-and-white checkered tile and rests his chin on my head. “Missed you, Tink.”

“I thought we were all getting together this weekend?” I ask as Maddox Beneventi, Maverick Beneventi, and the man who still haunts my dreams, Killian St. James, shuffle into my home, already talking animatedly about something with my brother.

Maverick tosses a wicked smile Jamie’s way. “Yeah well, Rosie is spending the night at my parents’ house this weekend. Some of us still have football games to play.”

“Damn, man,” Jamie growls. “Don’t be a dick about it.”

Jamie’s team might be out of the playoffs, but Maverick plays for my Uncle Declan, and the Philadelphia Kings only have to win one more game to get to the Superbowl this year.

“Facts are facts, man. We’ve got a game Sunday. I can’t catch up this weekend.”

“How is my favorite rose?” I ask, as I kiss Mav’s cheek.

His smile is huge. “She’s good and she can’t wait to see you, Aunt Tink.”

We follow Noah into my kitchen where he tosses the guys each a bottle of beer from the freshly stocked fridge, and these giant men all spread out. “Tonight’s my night off, so... what are we going to do with it?”

I drag my eyes over the enormous men. The quiet one so much bigger than the others, but then again, Killian always was. Bigger. Better looking. Wilder. He’s got more ink peeking out from under his shirt than he used to, but it looks good on him. Maybe a little too good.

Asshole.

Even in high school, he towered over me, but back then, I liked it. Easily six foot five to my five foot two. Only now, his muscles stretch the fabric of his shirt, easily twice the size they used to be. His messy blond hair, a little too long, and those eyes... bright green, like a black cat’s.

I may have written a song or two about him in high school, but that was before... and maybe after. He doesn’t need to know that though. No one does. “You guys should go out. Have fun. You don’t need me to do that.” I look down at my bare legs and the white cotton boxers with red hearts that barely cover my ass, along with the bright red fuzzy socks I’m rocking, and want to die. Of course, this is how I see Killian for the first freaking time in ages. Grrr... I’m going to kill Noah. “I really don’t feel like dealing with the paparazzi tonight.”

Without any argument, Maddox drops down onto one of the kitchen chairs and pulls out his phone. “What kind of food are you in the mood for?” he asks no one in particular but smirks my way.

Jamie’s arm goes back to my shoulders. “I bet you’ve got some hot little assistant who could get us something to eat, don’t ya, Tink?”

“Guys... you should go out. I swear I won’t be upset.” Lies . As much as I wanted to be alone, now that they’re here, I don’t want them to leave. At least not all of them. “Just because I’m no fun doesn’t mean you should be.”

I glance at Noah, searching for what... I’m not sure.

Help, maybe. Backup is probably more like it.

But Noah yanks his phone from his pocket with a flourish. “Her name is Tasha, and she’s smokin’ hot.”

“Off-limits is what he meant to say,” I add, looking directly at Maddox. “She’s not here for your entertainment.”

The fucker laughs at me. “We’ll see about that, Tink.”

Noah’s fingers fly across his phone as we all watch, and I cringe.

Pretty sure my quiet night just got long and loud.