Chapter 29
August, Now
I’m in a love bubble so big I can’t see the walls of it.
It moves with us everywhere we go. From St. Louis down to Texas, over to New Orleans, up to Atlanta, then Charlotte. Migrating and protecting us and never threatening to pop.
Liam tells me what he wants. What he’s after.
“You, mostly,” he says around a smirk, one free afternoon when we’re walking on a greenway in Atlanta.
“But I also want to start taking actual vacations, not just settle for passing through places for work. I’m interested in getting into cycling, since I wouldn’t have to move my arms. And I think I could focus on all sorts of home-improvement projects someday. ”
“Where?” I ask.
“Savannah,” he admits quietly. A pause. “Would you…?”
“If you do,” I answer.
His brow lifts at my quick response. “You didn’t even think about that.”
I shrug. “My family’s everywhere. Yours is there. Are things better now?”
Liam’s hand goes to the back of his neck. “Not really. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m not a fan of either of my brothers-in-law. Which is—I mean, they’re the fathers of my nieces and nephews. I struggle with it. But if I visit and say anything against them, I’m the odd man out.”
He sighs. “So, I’ll keep away, because that’s the only way to make it easier on my sisters.
But then my mom will call, asking me when I’m coming home to see the family next, and I’ll think, maybe this time will be different, but it never is.
We’re stuck in this cycle of wanting to be close, but nobody has a solution, and every year, I lose faith that I’m close to—that I’m known by any of them. ”
My dad was the sunshine, Liam once told me. He kept everyone happy, including me.
I stop him on the path and peer into his deep eyes. “That sounds really hard. I’m so sorry.”
His hand comes under my chin. “You think I’m crazy to want to keep trying? To imagine a future where I make a home there?”
“I think you’re a great son, and a wonderful brother.” I wink. “And a fantastic lay.”
He swoops down for a kiss and mumbles, “If you wanted to hook up in the nearest bathroom, all you had to do was ask.”
“Fuck, you’re so good at romance.”
Liam laughs, tugging on my hand to keep us walking. Like he’s commenting on how nice of a day it is, he says, “You want romance? I would take a thousand SLAP tears over a single day apart from you.”
“You can’t just casually say that!” I exclaim. “I wasn’t prepared!”
He rolls his eyes. “This morning you were writing lyrics about how magic must exist because I put you in a thrall.”
Magic must exist, must be
the fist I’m under
Deep into his thrall
I’m happy here, won’t wander
“Fair,” I say. “Is that what it’s like for you?”
He shakes his head. “It’s so much worse, Paige, because your words are so much better.”
Misha, Penny, and the Etta Girls are breathing fire into my melodies.
The more bored they get of regurgitating their old songs every night, the more focused they become on creating something new.
Meanwhile, I’m writing songs with fluffy titles like “Bubble” and slightly more dramatic ones like “your blood, my veins” and even a full sentence title, which has been a random, important bucket list item for a while now: “here’s a song I wrote you from the future. ”
One morning in Charlotte, Liam snatches the guitar away, crawls over me, and says, “Need you, right now.”
“That song wasn’t even about you,” I say, smirking.
I’d been writing from the perspective of Tinker Bell, about her jealousy of Wendy.
A song with a sinister, vindictive edge, just for fun.
Writing that way never occurred to me in school and wasn’t encouraged by my teachers, who, with a few exceptions, played so far into the tortured artist role I think they’d forgotten how to spark joy in the process.
But under the influence of my friends, I’m … playing. Realizing that all music—all art—is made-up. It’s imagined, created by hand, which means it’s as real as a dream, as false as gravity.
“Yeah, I know,” Liam says. “I just—your voice. I would—” He pushes me flat on my back and stares at my throat, his jaw tight.
“All I had for four years were those scant recordings, and now I get to hear you sing all the time, and it’s just—unbelievable, what you sound like to me. I’m fucking addicted to it.”
“Liam,” I say, experimentally.
His eyes darken, a shadow over still water. “Yeah, specifically that. Say it again.”
I do. Our clothes come off quickly, and when he’s inside me, Liam’s sentences turn exalting. And he whispers, “I’m not great with pretty words. But when we do this, the things I say to you are the closest I get to poetry.”
A few days later, it triggers something in my memory from years back: I can’t paint or design or write songs, but I can offer someone a slice of happiness by throwing the ball well for nine innings.
“Do you miss baseball?” I ask him on our drive to Washington, DC.
“Every day,” he answers.
When we get to the venue the next morning, I watch him unwaveringly. Wondering if this job, as good as Liam is at it, sparks enough joy in the process.
On the greenway in Atlanta, when I’d asked him what he wanted—he hadn’t mentioned anything related to work. Even though on the first night of the tour, he’d said something about a possible promotion.
Hadn’t he?
I’m still lost in my head when the Etta Girls approach me to ask my permission to perform a few of our cowritten songs tonight, crediting me by name.
“I didn’t even know that was allowed,” I say in awe.
Gretta winces. “I mean. Our manager would certainly not advise it without paperwork filed through the U.S. Copyright Office. But the songs are technically already copyrighted since we made recordings of our new versions. If you trust us—”
“I do,” I say quickly.
“And if you truly want us to put these on our next album—”
“I do. If you do.”
Both the twins nod.
“Then it’s about time you sign with a music publisher who can represent your interests,” Gretta concludes.
“I know you’ve got the one interested dude, but you owe it to yourself to allow for some competition.
This is the best way to expedite that process, especially since we’d need to get studio time booked right after tour. ”
“Paige,” Henrietta adds, her tone gentle but firm. “This is your decision. Talk to Liam about it if you have any doubts and let us know later today.” She grins. “Or tomorrow, or the day after that, or whenever.”
I shoot off to find him, looping through the barrels of another backstage area. Liam’s in a neon vest (which is distractingly hot) helping hang giant drapes behind the stage. When he sees my feverish look, he makes an excuse and pulls me aside.
“What is it?” he asks.
I fill him in on the Etta Girls’ proposal, including the risks.
“You’re positive you want these songs to be their songs?”
I nod. “My melodies, their lyrics. There’s so much of their style in them. It makes perfect sense they’d go on an Etta Girls album. And the songs that Penny and Misha were more interested in took on the ‘Penelope Parker’ sound, so it ended up being a fairly even split.”
Liam’s thumb goes down a lock of my hair. “And none of these songs are the ones you wrote on tour about me?”
When I shake my head, a very intense relief seems to de-wrinkle his features. “No, those songs are just ours,” I whisper.
“You want to say yes,” he guesses.
Shakily, I say, “Yeah, I think I do. Little pushes, right?”
“Right,” he repeats, voice low, lips curving. “Fuck, I’m proud of you for this.”
I beam. “I’m gonna go tell them yes.”
“Okay.” He’s grinning now. “I’m gonna make sure these drapes look fantastic.”
I kiss him quickly before bouncing away, helium under my feet.
The twins rehearse the new songs during sound check. They sound terrific, a new enthusiasm infusing every performance, even while their sound is decidedly jazzy, bedroom folk.
“I’d do the same thing if my music wasn’t so damn produced,” Penny grumbles, looking on with jealousy, her arms crossed. “This is so badass of them.”
“I love your music,” I promise her. “It answers the very important question: what if a Disney Princess sung in alto and loved swear words?”
“What if synth-pop was invented by Elle Woods?” Misha adds.
Penny says, “I’m so excited to record our new stuff. Even if the finished track sounds totally different than it does now.”
“That’s kind of beautiful, though,” I say absently, glancing back at the twins onstage.
Penelope hooks her elbows through mine and Misha’s, sighing long. “You two are far more selfless than I am. I could never cowrite something that I wasn’t at least featured on. I’m way too narcissistic.”
Misha shakes her head. “I’m not that selfless, and neither is my paycheck.” Penny barks a laugh, and Misha grins. “You can keep the fame and all the rest of it, too, Pen.”
“Do you regret it?” I ask Penelope.
She immediately shakes her head. “I have my bad days, like everyone. But this lifestyle is something you have to want. Not casually want, either. You’ve got to want it more than anything else.” She settles her heavy gaze on me. “Like I said: selfish. But at least I own it.”
Onstage, the girls take a water break. The quiet makes us introspective.
“That one song you wrote about Liam your freshman year,” Misha probes. “The one you played us last week?”
“‘I prefer shadows.’”
“How would you feel if that was on someone else’s album?”
“Or any others you wrote about him this summer?” Penelope adds.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “How I’d feel about it, or how he would.”
It isn’t on the list of the three songs he asked me not to give away.
But maybe it’s on my list.
Our relationship is something I want to protect at all costs—which means I don’t want the music more than anything else, like Penelope Parker does. I’d keep those songs between us forever if that’s what Liam asked.