Page 92 of The Ex-Best Thing
“Come on. Let’s go.” Zoey stands up.
Olive joins her, but Bree isn’t ready to let it drop. She watches me close out everything and power down the system. I’m not being forthcoming, but not for the reasons she’s probably coming up with. I don’t want her sisters to know about my other job. I can’t have people knowing.
“You do this, don’t you?” Bree asks, looking from the recording studio to my cousin. “You still put music out there. Are you hiding behind a giant marshmallow head or a black and white wig? Those things worked for Marshmello and Sia…for a while. People eventually figure it out. They take the masks off.”
“I don’t sing with a mask,” I tell her, fighting both amusement and exasperation.
“But you do something. You knew how to work all this equipment.” She sweeps her hand over the room. “You’ve got music contacts in a place you’ve only lived for a few years. Your cousin mentioned sending my song to your team for a faster upload. What am I missing here?”
I stand and face her, searching for the right words. The room is so quiet, I can hear someone breathing. Maybe it’s me.
Bree’s growing frustrated.
“I still write songs.”
Her hand rests on her hip. “That doesn’t explain any of the rest of it.”
“Justin is still my agent. He sells them for me. We use a pseudonym, and everyone’s happy.”
She relaxes. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”
How do I inform her that a third of her songs came from me?
Bree shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m glad you’re still involved in music somehow. It explains a lot.”
My throat is dry. “Oh, yeah?”
“I mean, I know it’s summer, and you do something with real estate, but youneverwork.”
We gather up our things and head out to Colby’s Bronco, the only vehicle waiting in the parking lot. “Screamin’ Mimis, anyone?” he asks.
“Ice cream,” I tell them. It’s right down the main road in Sebastopol, though, so I don’t know how good an idea it is.
“We don’t have disguises,” Bree says.
“So a few people snap photos of the Belacourt Babes getting ice cream,” Colby says. “Why would that matter?”
“They already know Bree’s here, I guess,” Zoey concedes, ignoring his use of their nickname.
Olive sighs. “Ice cream sounds good. Let’s go.”
We pile in to the Bronco and Colby pulls out, heading down the winding road toward the center of town. People walk down the street together, the one streetlight on this road stopping us so a couple can cross the road holding hands.
Colby turns on the radio, and Bree’s song is halfway through.
“Hey!” Olive says, reaching over the seat to turn it up. “That’s my sister!”
Bree and Olive sing along, but Zoey doesn’t join in. I want to sink in my seat, thinking about the day I wrote these words. It feels like a lie for the first time,nottelling her I’m the writer.
I look at Colby, and his eyebrows are up. Is he reading my mind?
We reach the end of the song and the radio hosts come on. “That’s ‘Forever for a Day’ by Bree Belacourt. I think it’s her best yet, but?—”
“No way,” his co-host cuts in. “‘Hashtag Medusa’ is my favorite. All those layered references are deep. I still don’t think we know the full story.”
“No one does!”
“What do you think the odds are that there’s a juicy story behind the song?”
