BENNY
When I first began selling songs, it was because I couldn’t stop writing them.
They piled up in my notebook and battered my brain.
Sometimes, I can sense when one will be a hit, and other times, it takes me by complete surprise to see what listeners like or what doesn’t take off like I expect.
I used to write personal stories, heartfelt breakup ballads, things I was feeling deeply.
In those early years, I had a lot of material to work with. Breaking up with Bree and leaving the music industry did a number on me, and I channeled everything I felt into music. It was my therapy, and it became my new occupation.
Before selling those first songs, I never wrote for anyone but myself.
Bree and I worked on a song together once as teenagers, sharing credit, but that experience didn’t feel like writing.
It was the ultimate collaboration. At the end of it, I could never identify which parts came from her and which came from me.
It was like we had a collective brainpower, and I’ve never had another experience like it.
To be fair, I’ve never tried to write with anyone again.
Collaborating with Jaida was a one-time crap experience and a lot of confusing, tangential emails back and forth.
I’ll never do it again. She had sent me a horrible poem, and I managed to turn it into a song that somewhat resembled a few lines from the original.
Writing a song from someone else’s brainchild is a lot more difficult than producing my own thing.
But after spending the day with Bree yesterday, I went home and wrote…a lot.
She’s my muse. There’s no doubt about it. The woman inspires music within me on a cellular level.
Which is how I ended up spending the night in my music studio, writing until four in the morning and crashing on the too-short sofa.
The sun shines through the narrow slits in my blinds and makes my face warm.
A headache pounds my temples. I sit up, rubbing my eyes clear enough to see that it’s past eleven in the morning.
I can’t remember the last time I slept so late, but I also can’t remember the last time I went to bed only hours before the sun rose.
The doorbell rings as I yawn, stretching my tight muscles. I’d ignore it, but if it’s Bree and she needs something—yeah, I’m answering that door.
It’s not Bree looking at me with wide, baleful eyes. It’s Peter and his golden retriever, Ethan.
Yes, I thought that name was an odd choice for a dog, too.
“What’s up?” I ask, pulling the door open wide and yawning again.
Peter’s blond eyebrows hitch up on his tanned forehead. “I thought we were surfing this morning, but you didn’t pick up. Thought I should check in…you don’t look so hot.”
I swear under my breath. “I forgot.”
“Apparently,” he says, laughing. “What happened to you?”
“Stayed up too late working.” I leave him behind to pull a Red Bull out of my fridge and pop the tab. “I’m too old for this.”
Peter laughs again. I’m on fire this morning.
“How were the waves?” I ask.
“Not great. You didn’t miss much. Kyle had a good run, but mine were all pretty meh.”
“You want something to drink? Water? I can throw a protein shake together pretty fast.”
“Nah, I’m good.” Peter takes a seat at the kitchen island while I take a slug of my energy drink. “I felt weird after the BBQ yesterday, so I was hoping to talk to you this morning.”
Something about his watchful gaze sets off alarm bells in my head. Did he recognize Bree? Want to know if she’s free game? He seemed interested at the beach, and again at the BBQ, and I don’t want him to think I’ll step aside and let something develop between them.
I might be over her, but that doesn’t mean I can watch one of my closest friends fall in love with her. Given the way she’s trying to hide from the world, she doesn’t want to fall in love with anyone right now, either.
It’s not my place to tell Peter he can’t date her.
That’s her decision to make.
But…I could tell him that, couldn’t I? We’re card-carrying members of the bro club. I checked in with him before I dated his sister, which is possibly antiquated, but his friendship is important to me.
I brace myself, ready to not like whatever’s about to come out of his mouth. “What’s up?”
“Anne. The woman staying in Colby’s house. I just—she’s beautiful, man, and that’s with her concussion-glasses on.”
“She is.” My stomach swirls. Maybe I need to eat something, too.
I pull out a bowl and my favorite homemade granola, which makes me think of Bree and her Captain Crunch.
Is that what she ate this morning? And probably will again for lunch?
I don’t know anyone who puts cereal away like she does.
Maybe I should cook something hearty and invite her over—no.
Stop, Ben. It’s not your job to take care of her.
“Which is not why I invited her to my house for dinner.” He peers at me through clear green eyes, pushing back his golden hair. “I was wing-manning you, but it was poorly executed.”
I set the milk on the counter and look at him. “Wing-manning?”
“The act of being a wing man. It’s real.”
Shaking my head, I put away the milk and sit by him at the island with my cereal and my Red Bull. I guess I can’t worry about Bree’s nutrition when I’m putting this into my body. The fight has left me, and I don’t have the urge to toss Peter in the ocean anymore. “She’s not sticking around.”
Peter shrugs. “Who cares? You weren’t a total wreck when that woman left last summer. What was her name?”
“Shelby.”
“Yeah, Shelby. She was chill. You had a good few weeks, then you moved on. Even with my sister, you didn’t act the way you did yesterday with Anne. After I ran into you on the beach, I kind of figured you guys were already…I don’t know…seeing each other or something.”
Great. I’ve been obvious.
He shakes his head. “You seem so into Anne, but I know you wouldn’t bring her to my birthday without, like, permission.”
“Yeah, probably not.” I rub a hand over my tired, gritty eyes.
“When we left yesterday, I worried you’d think I was trying to slide in there or something.”
He’s right. I totally thought that. Now I feel like a grade-A tool for not immediately thinking better of one of my closest friends.
I didn’t meet Peter on my own. Colby introduced us after I moved to town.
We hit it off quickly, and now I can say he’s someone I can rely on for anything, independent of his longstanding friendship with my cousin. I should have assumed better of him.
He can probably read this on my face, because a grin spreads over his face. “Now you don’t have to whoop me.”
I laugh, then fill my mouth with granola. He came here because he trusts me, so I need to respect him enough to return the sentiment. “Anne isn’t a tourist. Well, she is, but not to me. I’ve known her since we were in high school.”
Peter’s grin falters. “Seriously? Did she come here to see you?”
“She had no idea I’d be here, actually. She came for the beach.” I can’t tell him everything. Those aren’t my details to trust him with. But I can tell him my history with her—my side of our story. “We ran into each other when she arrived, and our friendship picked up like ten years hadn’t passed.”
Peter whistles. “I thought it seemed a little fast for you.”
“It probably was. She only got here four days ago, and we haven’t really spent much time apart. It won’t go anywhere, but it’s been nice catching up with her.”
My doorbell rings, echoing through the house, and I immediately look at my reflection in the microwave, trying to get a gauge on the state of my hair. I’m sure I look as tired as I feel.
“I’ll get it if you want to—”
“Thanks,” I say, jumping from the stool and rushing to my bathroom.
I splash cold water on my face and run a comb through my hair.
It takes a few minutes to pull on something clean.
Peter’s laugh is coming from the kitchen when I leave my room, and I stop short to find him pouring hot water over a tea bag for my grandma.
Disappointment tugs at me, but I immediately squash it down.
“Hi, Grandma.” I circle the island to give her a hug.
Peter exchanges a look with me behind her back, full of questions.
The thing is, Nancy Rhodes doesn’t leave her house much.
Like, rarely ever, if at all. If she needs something, I pick it up for her.
The bunco group comes to her house. Rose takes lunch over twice a week to watch trashy TV and chat about townsfolk, and Colby and I usually eat with her once or twice as well.
Her social health isn’t lacking, but seeing her outside of her house is so rare, it’s usually only for a really good reason.
Even then, she doesn’t stay long. To see her sitting at my table, Peter carrying her a cup of steaming tea, means one of two things: she’s trying some new sort of exposure therapy, or someone has died.
Given the concern in her bright blue eyes, it’s probably the latter.
“Well, I better go,” Peter says, looking between us. “It was good to see you, Nancy. I hope you take me up on that offer.”
“Not on your life, young man,” she says, but she’s smiling.
The door shuts behind Peter.
I carry my breakfast—lunch?—to the table and sit beside her. “Offer?”
“To take me out on his 4x4 sometime. He thinks it’ll make me feel alive.” She shakes her head. “I’m plenty alive. I don’t need to risk my life for that.”
“True.”
“Have you spoken to Bree today?”
A sliver of unease works through me. My brain immediately jumps to every worst-case scenario.
She’s left Bodega Bay. She’s been found by the paps.
Pictures of us together have surfaced and there’s no hiding anymore for either of us.
Whatever it is, it’s big enough that Grandma left her house to come find me.
“No,” is all I say, my throat dry.
Grandma eyes me for a beat, her thin eyebrows lifting fractionally. She glances at my hands. “You should get your phone.”
“What’s going on?” I ask, rising to search for my phone. Where is it? Probably the music room.
“I tried calling first, you know.”
“Be right back.” I find my phone on the sofa beside a crumpled blanket, the home screen littered with messages—most of them from Grandma—and sprinkled with missed calls and voicemails.
One text from Justin says, Rethinking that collab request now? Don’t want you to be out of a job, man.
None of these ease the stress tightening my body. I can’t decide if I want the bad news directly from my grandma, or if it’ll be better coming from the internet. Grandma makes the decision for me. She comes into the music room and lowers herself onto the sofa.
“I expected better from her.” She shakes her head. “It’s low, honey. She went too far.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Her new single. You haven’t heard?”
Do I want to? I’m shocked the big deal situation Grandma is panicking over has nothing to do with leaked photos or someone finding out Bree’s hiding next door. It has nothing to do with me, either, which would totally make front page news.
When I shake my head, she tsks and pulls out her phone. Leaning away from it, she navigates to her music app, the letters extra large on her screen. “This one. The internet is calling it a heartless diss track. Meaning she—”
“I know the term.” My body goes cold. I’m wishing I hadn’t pounded that Red Bull. It’s souring in my stomach.
Grandma lifts both hands in the air like she’s under arrest. “You kids have new meanings for old words every week.”
“The song came out today?” I ask.
“This morning. It’s everywhere. People are taking sides on the internet.”
“You need to stay off social media. It’s toxic.”
She ignores this, of course. Facebook is her playground. Without that connection to the world, she wouldn’t know half the things she knows.
She also wouldn’t send me half as many reels that are obviously AI. But they entertain her.
With a tap of her nail, a song plays. It’s catchy. The melody and vibe are something I’d expect from a Bree Belacourt song. Her voice cuts through the quiet room and wraps around my heart. Bottle that sound, and I could get drunk off it.
Not love drunk. Obviously. Just appreciation-drunk.
It’s totally different.
“I like it,” I say.
“Keep listening,” Grandma says ominously.
The lyrics cut through, and something uneasy settles low in my gut. I think I hear a name…I lean in closer. No, no name, but it’s obvious who she’s singing about. This is a song about Bree’s celebrity nemesis. I listen closer, tucking my chin. “Did she just say ‘Judas in heels’?”
“Yep,” Grandma says, nodding and pressing her lips together.
I take the phone and hold it closer, scrubbing back to the beginning and paying closer attention to the lyrics. The title is “Hashtag Medusa” and, while it’s extremely catchy, it’s just…mean. There isn’t another word for it.
I scroll to the song credits at the bottom and find the writer: Bree Belacourt. No other names are listed. One person gets credit for this atrocity, and she’s spent the last seventy-two hours making me smile.
Well, that’s both disappointing and surprising. The feud between the women has been public for the last few years, but it really escalated recently.
“Is this why she’s hiding?” Grandma asks.
“She hasn’t talked to me about it.”
She shakes her head and takes the phone back after I listen to it a second time. “It’s not her typical anthem of girl power and positive femininity.”
“Nope,” I agree. It’s the opposite.
This isn’t the Bree I know—it’s vindictive and hurtful.
I’m not only surprised Bree is capable of producing, singing, and releasing this, I’m shocked her team and label are willing to stand behind it.
There has to be an explanation, a reason she would sing a song that so blatantly calls out another artist, something that overtly tears down another person.
I can’t reconcile these lyrics with the woman who spent her Christmas last year visiting children in the pediatric wings of various New York hospitals.
Or the woman who went on a hunger strike when we were teens because her dad wouldn’t allow her to donate some of her modeling earnings to a women’s shelter in LA after seeing how badly they needed funds.
She’s always been privileged, but her heart has been equally soft.
There must be a reason for this song.
And I’m going to find out what it is.