At least, she was judging by Juliet’s comment about not being happy with her sister when she’d arrived.
“I am.” Juliet’s tone wasnotjoking. “But sooner rather than later, you’re going to be over being mad at them.”
And Juliet was absolutely correct about that. Darcy could already feel that negative knot of emotions sitting heavily in the pit of her stomach loosening. Anger, really, hadn’t even been close to the top of her list.
“Emerson is gifted at playing music. I’ve seen it. Blythe is an incredible performer. I’ve seen it. I know that they both have strengths. And I know how strongly you feel that they made you better.” Juliet’s dark eyes searched hers, holding and not lettinggo. She reached out, tucking Darcy’s hair back behind her ear, then tracing lightly down her neck. “But, honey,youare the real deal.”
Hearing Juliet sound socertain, and knowing that Juliet wouldn’t lie to her, made Darcy’s breath catch. When Blythe and Emerson had broken the news, Darcy had felt the inherent confidence she had in her abilities shake in a way she’d never felt before. If Blythe and Emerson didn’t believe in her, inthem…
“There is absolutely no doubt that a solo career is well within your grasp, if that’s what you want to do. I promise you, Darcy, I bet my life on that fact. If/when you contact Copper Canyon, they are going to jump at the option to sign your next album. Whether it’s you alone or with a group, they’re going to want it.”
Juliet’s conviction worked through Darcy in the best way possible. Because, somewhere along the line, she’d really come to trust Juliet. In a way she couldn’t quite put into words.
Even so, she blew out a deep, shaky breath. “It’s just… I reallylikebeing a part of the group? I don’t – I don’t know,” she repeated, shaking her head.
Maybe it was just that she hadn’t seriously ever thought about being on her own. Not since they’d formed We, The Romantics when she’d been seventeen. Before then, she’d had daydreams of what she’d do after high school. Like perhaps she’d go to Nashville and try to make something of herself.
But she’d never made any real plans.
And once she’d shifted into thinking about herself in terms of her, Blythe, and Emerson as a unit… that had been it. She’d never gone back to thinking about herself as a solo act.
“Well, I’ll be here with you while you figure things out,” Juliet asserted. Then she cast a glance around Darcy’s small bedroom, tilting her head back and forth. “Ideally, perhaps, nothere, in this exact apartment. Darcy, I thought you said the people in Pineford generally actednormallyaround celebrities. The staresand the outbreak of whispers when I walked in downstairs were not any facsimile of normal.”
She snorted, loving the way Juliet wrinkled her nose. “Um, no. I said they were normal about me, Blythe, and Emerson. Because to them, we aren’t ‘real’ celebrities; they’ve known us their whole lives. I’ve served them pizza and beer.You?”
Darcy shook her head, softness rolling through her as she gazed at Juliet.
Her dark hair was tossed in a ponytail, and she had on very minimal makeup – even less than Juliet typically wore when going out of the house for a casual outing, she only realized in this moment. Like she’d left her home in a rush – and she was wearing a white linen top with tailored, beige pants.
Yes, she looked “casual” as far as Juliet’s outfits went. But there was a quiet, clearly deliberate elegance in her simplicity. And she still looked absolutelygorgeous. A showstopper. Even after having laid with Darcy for a few hours, looking a little rumpled.
“You are the definition of the real deal,” she echoed Juliet’s words back to her.
Juliet’s smile was so bright in the dimmed lighting provided only by the lamp on her bedside table.
Darcy simply stared back at her for a few beats. “And I don’t…” She had to break off, nerves streaking through her, before she admitted, “I don’t want to be in Pineford.”
God, that felt like a weight off of her shoulders to say aloud.
It really hadn’t been a possibility in her mind, before. We, The Romantics were a group, a team. And she knew Blythe and Emerson didn’t want to have a home base outside of Pineford, so it had stood to reason that neither would she.
Juliet seemed to perk up. “Really? You don’t?”
“Really. I don’t hate it here. But I don’t feel the samelovefor it that Blythe and Emerson do.” She brought her hands down totake one of Juliet’s in her own. Instead of twirling one of her own rings around her finger, she did it to Juliet’s, as she confessed, “The most at-home I’ve felt in the last year is when I’m with you.”
And that was the root of everything. Even Juliet’s house felt so… right. Large but not like Shelby’sinsanelysized mansion. Warm and homey. She had a little nature oasis in her backyard, and her music studio.
“Tell me again.” Juliet’s tone sounded like the same one she used when she was demanding something, but laced through her words was a softness. Arequest, rather than a demand. As though she couldn’t quite bring herself to get as firm and unyielding as she usually could.
“Tell you…?” She trailed off, confused.
“That…” Juliet swallowed, visibly thickly. “That you love me.”
“Was a part of the reason you showed up on my doorstep to make me tell you I love you again?” The corners of her lips ticked into a needling smile.
God, that wassoJuliet, and it – irrationally, insanely – made her love her even more.
“No. One of the reasons I showed up on your doorstep is because I have to tell you that I love you, too. But I need to hearyousay it again.”
