A Love Song for Liars (Rivals #1) - Piper Lawson Page 0,42

Tyler smiling when his mouth is still swollen from mine.

“Your lilies need mulch,” Brandon says when I close the door after him.

“Where’d the others go?”

“They took off. You were taking too long.” Brandon rubs a hand over his jaw. “Trisha called. She doesn’t think she has more gigs for us. I’m guessing you guys haven’t smoothed things over.”

“Nothing to smooth. We’re done.” I haven’t seen Trisha since the night of the party. “I coulda used the tutoring before exams, but it wasn’t worth the drama.”

I turn to see Brandon circling the bed.

“Damn, this is sweet.” His fingers slide over the strings and frets, admiring the wood, the full sound. “It’s yours?”

“Yeah.”

Brandon’s low whistle is admiring. “One of my brothers bought me a six-foot stuffed lizard for my sixteenth birthday party as a joke. This is way better. What’s the occasion?”

I take it from him, put it back in the case, and close it before following him to the couch and dropping onto the opposite end. “It’s my ‘I’m in over my head and it’s all my fucking fault’ party.”

He frowns. “That some Catholic thing?”

I shoot him a look. “Jax introduced me to a guy who can get me working in New York after graduation.”

“No shit. When are you going?”

My abs clench. “This summer, I guess.”

“You guess,” he echoes.

I rub a hand over my mouth. I swear I can still taste her. “When I came here, it was a short-term deal for my music. I wasn’t planning to make friends. No offense.”

“None taken.” He cocks his head. “I always figured part of why you ran with us was to keep Carly and others from fucking with your girl.”

I swivel on the couch to stare him down. “What are you talking about?”

He smirks. “It’s obvious. Not to all of them, but to me. Only reason Carly can’t see it is she doesn’t want to. She’s got what my dad would call a vested interest. Gotta say, I’m sorry I missed that stunt at rehearsal. Sounds like a bold move.”

I shove off the couch to pace the room, thinking of Kellan’s and Carly’s bewildered faces. “It’ll cost me.”

“No. It’ll cost her.”

I pull up sharply. That thought hadn’t occurred to me.

When Annie showed up at my door, half of me wanted to lock her out of my life and my heart.

The rest of me wanted to press her up against that same door and prove I’m worthy—of her trust, her hope, her damned guitar.

I’m supposed to be in charge, but tonight she turned the tables. She was holding court, and I was on my knees.

“I can’t,” I hear myself say.

“Can’t what?”

“Anything,” I grind out. “I can’t have her. I can’t ignore her. I can’t even look at her without wanting her.”

It’s a dangerous game. Not only because Jax would string me up, but because I’m supposed to be leaving and focusing on my future, scraping together the pieces of the hand I’ve been dealt to try to make a life for myself. Not lose my head by depending on a girl, letting her depend on me.

“Who says you’re supposed to?” Brandon shakes his head. “You want me to say Annie Jamieson doesn’t want something from you? You’re asking the wrong question. What you should be asking is, who’re the people in this world you wanna count on? Because none of us make it through alone.”

14

Jenna’s always early to English. This morning I am too, looking up from her seat, my arms folded.

“I know you took my poem.”

She stops in front of me, avoiding my gaze. “I’m sorry, okay? I need to be on Carly’s good side. I’m not like you. You don’t need her. She knows it.”

I shake my head, but I can’t find it in myself to be angry about the poem because I know what it feels like to want approval. “Carly’s going to turn on you again if you don’t give her enough shit on people.”

“I think I gave her enough,” she says softly.

I move back to my seat, and the room fills.

Brandon strides in, but there’s no sign of Tyler. Where is he?

“Ugh. I’ve been trying to finish the fourth book you sent me since the weekend,” Pen says, dropping her things on her desk right before the bell. “It’s just getting real, where she’s blown off her entire family and set off with this guy around the world even though he’s keeping secrets from her. But debate’s brutal, and I was sequestered all night. And student council…”

Tyler walks in