There were no lyrics now, and in my head the words were already forming to match her song. It was just how my brain worked, a gift that I’d had long before I ever received any formal training in music. My half-sister was the same, and despite us only knowing each other for the past five years, it turned out that we had more than music in common.
It was odd to me that Billie and Michelle had never met, considering how close I was to my sister now. I wasn’t sure they even knew about each other since I never spoke of Billie if I could help it.
“Billie,” Rhett called as he dropped down on the log beside her. “You compose like a fucking wet dream. Why didn’t you tell me you were a musical genius?”
Her eyes flew open, and she looked relieved to see him beside her. Her face softened, the pink tinting her cheeks when she was happy. Billie was beautiful, but more than just her heart-shaped face, full pink lips, and large hazel eyes. It was the warmth she exuded when she gave you all her focus. Billie had this way of drawing people in, wrapping herself around them, and making them feel like the sun rose and set in her expressions.
She snared you like a black widow, and then just as you were getting cozy in her embrace, she struck and killed you.
It would be foolish in the extreme to fall into her trap once more, and yet I found myself crossing around the fire to drop down right across from her. Right where I would be forced to stare at her all evening. “Sorry, I wanted to have some dinner going by the time you got back,” she said softly, letting the guitar fall against her legs. “I don’t think the fire is large enough to call attention to us.”
It wasn’t, but we probably shouldn’t let it burn too long.
Rhett must have agreed. “Let’s just finish heating the beans, and then we can use some of that bread I got to mop it up.”
Here we were, the picture of domestication, and I knew for a fact that if we weren’t out of here in the next few days, I was in real fucking trouble.
Not of falling in love with Billie.
But in falling out of hate with her.
An emotion I couldn’t afford to lose, not if I wanted to make it through the rest of this week… and the rest of my life.
thirty-two
BILLIE
Domestic bliss was a crock of shit. It actually required all parties to act like sane, mature adults, and that was something severely lacking in our little campout threesome. Shit, notthreesome. Threeway. Nope, not that either.Throuple?Fucking hell. My brain needed some bleach so I could stop thinking about fucking Jace and Rhett together at the same time.
Trouble was, it was far from the first threesome Jace and I had been participants in. So my mind had plenty of reference points to weave into my vivid daydreams.
The guys had returned from their little bro-bonding moment in the forest seeming determined to play nice. Which was great and lasted all of an hour while we ate the beans and bread for dinner, then Rhett insisted on cleaning the dishes in the little stream we’d passed on our horses this morning.
Which, again, was great. Except that left Jace and I alone in uncomfortable silence.
“So… I guess you kept up playing the guitar, huh?” he asked, nodding to the old instrument now propped against the side of the trailer.
I frowned, confused. “No, I didn’t. Not since…” Not since I broke up with Angelo, who’d been the original Bellerose lead guitarist. My heart couldn’t take the memories of Jace teaching me and Angelo finessing my style. “Just… no.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Uh… it didn’t sound rusty. You were pretty good.” The suspicion was so clear in his voice it snapped my temper.
“Oh, so now I’m lying about playing guitar? What the shit, Jace, why would I even do that?”
He shrugged. “Beats me, you’re the one claiming you haven’t kept up on lessons, but you obviously have. That sure as shit didn’t sound like you hadn’t played in nearly nine years, Billie.”
Outraged at the stupidity of the argument, I pushed to my feet. “Ever heard of riding a bike, Jace? It’s called muscle memory. JesusChrist, do you have to start a fight about literally everything? I was going to give you that song for this album you’re all woefully behind schedule on, but now I think, hmm, maybe…get fucked.”
His jaw dropped, but he made a quick recovery as his expression shifted into irritation. “I wouldn’t have wanted it anyway. It sucked, and I never could have made lyrics that fit with Bellerose’s aesthetic.”
“Bullshit,” I snapped back. “Do I need to remind you that IamBellerose? Why the fuck did you feel the need to steal my damn name in the first place, Jace? You signed to Big Noise underSnake Soup.”
He scowled back at me. “I think we both knowBellerosesounds a hell of a lot sexier thanSnake Soup.”
I couldn’t deny that; his original band name was one they’d come up with as twelve-year-olds. It was awful. But that didn’t mean he’d had to stealmy damn name. “You did it to piss me off, and you know it. You wanted to send a giantfuck youevery time you appeared on a billboard or poster or side of a fucking bus. It’s pathetic and childish and you need to stop thinking so fucking highly of yourself. You barely even crossed my mind over the years.”
With that, I stormed inside the trailer and slammed the little door before he could see the lies all over my face. How I even had the audacity to spew such rubbish was beyond me, but… fuck it. Jace’s ego needed a pin stabbed through it.
Shoving my hands into my hair, I let out a silent scream. He made me want to break something, but I wasn’t a fucking cavewoman. I could control my violent impulses a touch better than that.
