3. Piper
Piper
I’d felt so grown up when Frankie—Archie’s twin—gave me her tickets to Rhys’s concert, which included backstage passes.
I was dying to ask Rhys who coordinated his wardrobe, a topic that was way more interesting to me than his music.
But I made the mistake of asking Archie if he could introduce me to Rhys after the concert.
The two had known each other for years—even before they were on Surf City High together.
I should have known better. Archie assumed I was like every other girl my age who had a major crush on him. I didn’t.
I never even got to ask my question. Before I could, Archie raised his voice and said to the dozen or so people backstage that I thought Rhys would go out with a nerdy kid like me.
I was fourteen years old and completely mortified. I ducked out of the venue and hid next to the dumpsters until Mom came to pick me up after what was supposed to be my first backstage party.
Humiliated, I avoided Archie at any cost after that, and since he wasn’t around much to begin with, it wasn’t hard. But as I grew up, the embarrassment turned to anger.
I’d been a teenager with all the insecurity and longing for acceptance that any girl has at that age. Archie, unlike Frankie, had never been nice to me—he only ever saw me as an annoyance—but he’d never humiliated me like that before.
It seems only fair that, eight years later, I’ve caught Archie in a compromising position.
Karma is currently everything Taylor Swift claims. It’s literally purring in my lap.
Okay, maybe not literally. But karma and I are definitely vibing.
If I were still a kid in awe of, and a little afraid of, Archie, I'd slink away and let him have his dignity. Too bad for him, I'm an adult now, and he's in my house. Or, at least, my mom's house. So, I hold up my phone and press record.
I get another bicep kiss, plenty of singing, and some shouting about being “World Champion!” that I’m pretty sure isn’t part of the lyrics of the song. It’s good stuff. Whether I’ll actually use this against him remains to be seen, but I’m not above blackmail if the need arises.
When Archie stops singing long enough to push his sweaty hair out of his face, I assume the song is over.
And while I’m tempted to get more blackmail footage, I drop my phone into my bag and tuck the frying pan under my arm, so I have both hands free to reward Archie with a loud, slow clap he’ll hopefully hear between songs.
His head whips around so fast he loses his balance. He windmills his arms, tipping forward and back on the bench, trying to regain his balance. Just as he’s about to fall, he gains enough equilibrium to hop to the floor. But not without crashing against the mirror.
I gasp and stop clapping long enough for him to straighten. He doesn’t seem to be hurt. Beyond his massive ego, anyway. I cover my mouth to muffle the laugh that escapes and regret that I stopped my video.
Archie pushes himself away from the mirror, then pulls back his shoulders before facing me. His face runs a gamut of emotions, moving from horror to surprise to humiliation, each a darker shade of red.
In a million years, I couldn’t have predicted this is how a reunion with my stepbrother would play out.
What a delightful surprise.
“P-Piper?” Archie sputters.
“Hello, Archie. ” I push my glasses up my nose, hoping he doesn’t miss the middle finger I use to do it.
"It’s been a while. What are you doing here?" Archie picks up his shirt from off the floor and tugs it over his head, but not before my eyes follow the triangle of golden-red chest hair to his stacked abs.
Which is not my fault. I mean, my brain has been conditioned to tell my eyes to follow the direction of an arrow. Archie might as well have a blinking road sign on his chest that says Detour to Ab Town.
I swallow and force my eyes back to his. “I live here.”
He flinches. “Since when?”
“Since right now.” For a second, his surprised expression tempts me to be nicer. Then my brain replays the scene of my backstage humiliation. I roll my shoulders back and stand firm.
“The better question is, what are you doing here?” I ignore the glare he sends to scare me away. “Sybil said you’d be out by this morning.”
“Out of what?”
“This house.”
He turns away from me, but the mirror catches a flicker of pain in Archie’s expression. But it’s gone so quickly, I wonder if I imagined it. When Archie faces me again, there’s only anger in his eyes.
“Yeah, nah. Think again, sis .” Archie crosses the room toward me so fast, I barely have time to move out of his way before he charges out the door. “Dad said Friday,” he calls over his shoulder.
“That’s today.” I follow him down the hall and into the kitchen, trying to keep up. He knows even better than I do Sybil is Malcolm’s henchwoman. If she’s said a thing is happening, it’s happening.
“I only got back from Fiji yesterday. Dad meant next Friday.” He yanks open the double wide fridge that blends into the surrounding cabinets, and the door blocks my view of him. But I don’t move.
I pull up Sybil’s email that Mom forwarded. When the fridge door closes, Archie faces me, holding one of those expensive electrolyte drinks that should be labeled Bougie-aide.
I hold out the phone to show him the email from Sybil with the house info. “You need to leave. This is Mom’s house now.”
His glare sends a flicker of unease through me. I’m nine-years-old again, excited to share space with my new big brother, only to be told to get out. The difference this time is that I don’t back down from Archie. And I won’t. Not anymore.
“That’s funny,” he says, with no humor in his tone. “Because the deed says Archibald Forsythe, not Cynthia Forsythe. Definitely not Piper Quinn.” He brushes by me with a smirk and flops onto the big sectional in the family room, every action claiming this house as his own.
I hate the way he’s always treated Mom like an intruder in his life, and I hate that smirk. It’s the match to my dry kindling seconds away from becoming an uncontrollable wildfire. On the brink of a full explosion, my phone buzzes in my hand, and I remember I’ve already got revenge.
“You know what’s even funnier?” I walk around the sectional and stand in front of him.
He cracks open his drink, and a splash of red hits the white sofa, but he doesn’t notice. “No. Tell me. What’s even funnier?”
“The video I just took of you kissing your biceps while singing—if you can call it that, which, I wouldn’t.
But I’m sure every Surf City High fan on TikTok would looooove to see what Archibald Forsythe is up to.
” I call his smirk with one of my own and raise the stakes, toggling to the video and turning it to face him.
With his drink still in his hand, Archie bolts up from the sofa. I jump back as he swipes for my cell and misses. “Give me the phone, Piper.”
“Pack your bags, Archie.” I drop the phone in my purse, then hug it to my chest.
Archie glowers at me but doesn’t go for my phone again. Instead, he takes out his own, tells Siri to call Sybil, then makes a big show of pushing the speaker button obviously so I’ll hear everything. That’s how sure he is that Sybil will tell me to leave.
As hard as I try not to let his certainty faze me, my confidence wavers.
I have no idea what time it is in Brisbane where Sybil is, but she might have sent Mom an update Mom forgot to forward or didn’t see.
I talked to Mom last night before she sailed off this morning while I flew here.
She hadn’t said anything about new plans.
To cover my nervousness, I point in the direction of the red spot on the sofa and the new ones on the rug he added while lunging for me. “Are you going to clean those?”
With his phone ringing loudly, Archie glances from me to the sofa. “The housekeeper will know how to clean it.”
I roll my eyes and turn away from him in search of a dishtowel. Typical Archie. He’s never had to clean his own messes or pay for anything. He breaks something, Malcolm buys a new one for him. The couch and rug are probably worth what I paid for a year of school back East and he doesn’t even care.
While I pull open random kitchen drawers, I furtively take out my phone and check to see if the buzzing a minute ago was a message from Sybil or an update from Mom.
Neither. Only ‘Nightmare Ashley’ asking where she’s supposed to take the garbage.
As I swipe away the text, Sybil’s voice sounds from Archie’s phone.
My heart stops, then starts again when I realize it’s her voicemail.
I face Archie and raise my eyebrows, challenging him to make his next move now that his first one isn’t working out the way he’d hoped.
“Sybil,” Archie says while slowly lowering himself to the sofa and slouching into the cushions. “I need you to call me ASAP. We’ve got a small issue with the beach house.”
I do not appreciate his smugness when he says small. He’s called me that a thousand different ways, a thousand different times: short stuff, silly, little girl, extra baggage.
But I exhale and gather my confidence. Archie is trying to intimidate me, but until he talks to Sybil or his dad, he’s got no proof that he belongs here. Meanwhile, I’ve got Sybil’s email with all the specifics of when and how Mom can take possession of the house. Today . Right now.
And that’s what I’m going to do. Take possession of what’s rightfully mine…er, Mom’s. I don’t have another choice. I’ve got nowhere else to go.
I march around the L-shaped couch and stand in front of Archie. My hands are on my hips before I can stop them. I learned long ago this makes me look bigger, like a puffer fish.
“You need to go.”
Archie swings his legs to the floor and sits up, his green eyes narrowing like a cat ready to pounce on its prey. “I own this house. You’re the one who needs to go.”
I’m relieved he’s still sitting so that I can look down on him instead of the other way around. “Your dad signed it over to my mom as part of the divorce settlement. It’s not your house anymore.” I hold back saying, it’s not like you paid for it in the first place.
Without a word, Archie stands, hovering over me for half a second before walking away. He climbs the stairs, two at a time, and I wonder if I should follow him to make sure he’s going to pack. I opt instead to finish my task and wipe up the red spots on the couch and rug before they set.
While I blot the stains, I think through what my next move will be if Archie doesn’t come back with his bags packed.
There’s a good chance he won’t if what he said is true and he still owns the house.
Maybe Mom got her info wrong about the dates of the transfer.
..but that means Sybil had the wrong info, and I can’t believe that’s true.
Either way, I don't have anywhere else to go, so I'm sticking to what I know. And what I know is that Sybil said the house would be Mom’s today. I have the email and the door code to prove it.
I just hope that’s enough to get rid of Archie.