Archive of Our Own

Track 1 - Joke's on Me (Intro)

Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t this. 

Then again, Bell had done her best not to build up any expectations about all this, so maybe the surprise was natural.

There was some part of Bell that, every step of her journey, had been expecting the other shoe to drop. From checking in for her flight to going through security to settling uncertainly into the business class seat apparently assigned to her, she had been halfway sure that someone would smile politely pitying upon her and say, “Surely you didn’t think that this was real.”

And she’d be able to honestly reply, “No, of course not. Sorry for wasting your time,” and slink back home.

But then the plane had taken off and hadn’t come down until its scheduled destination, and Bell was funneled out into Sea-Tac Airport with the rest of her fellow passengers, her guitar case clutched before her and the nylon backpack that had gotten her through highschool bouncing off her shoulders. Then, at baggage claim, she’d half-heartedly scanned the thin crowd of drivers waiting with their tablets displaying their clients’ names and actually found hers among them. Morris had cheerfully offered to carry her duffel and led her to an overlarge SUV with seriously tinted windows and ushered her into the backseat. 

Barely 20 minutes later, here she was, standing at the service entrance of a giant stadium, one among the crowd of roadies unloading amps and monitors and costume racks and coils and coils of cables.

God, that had to be miles of wiring. All for one show. 

Bell jolted out of her stupor when Morris tapped on the horn, the quick beep putting air between her feet and the pavement. Leaning out of the driver’s window, he grinned like he’d enjoyed giving her a literal jumpscare. Still, he was kind enough to direct her to, “Head on in and look for Pete. I’ll make sure your bag gets back to the hotel.” 

“Thanks,” she remembered to call as he pulled away. He gave her a little wave, and then was gone. 

With nothing else to do, and mounting evidence that this wasn’t the world’s biggest and cruelest prank on the most gullible girl in existence, Bell followed one of the roadies hauling a massive coil of cabling through the open loading bay and into world of the Skye High Tour.

Track 2 - Come Here Often?

Forcing her face into some semblance of a smile to make up for the lack of eye contact as she fumbled out her order pad, Bell rattled off, “Welcome to Gigi’s, what can I get you?” with less cheer than her boss would like to hear. 

Sue her. Not only was the single guy hogging an entire four-top to himself, significantly cutting into her potential tips, but Bell hadn’t exactly settled back into waitress-mode yet. 

Spiritually, Bell was still perched on the single stool the tiny corner stage that graced Gigi’s Bar could accommodate, her guitar in her arms and a microphone trained on her lips. Physically, she was doing what she was actually paid for—the three fifteen minute sets a week she’d bargained out of Georgia constituting unpaid breaks. Waiting tables at Gigi’s had one perk, and it certainly wasn’t the face time with customers. 

Still, she’d been doing this long enough to know how to skate by on minimal effort. If this guy, with his dark suit and his briefcase taking up one of the three empty chairs, wanted to kick up a fuss, she could always turn on the charm. Maybe even get the bartender to be generous with his pours if necessary. Besides, if Bell were a gambling woman, she’d bet he wouldn’t even notice the lacking pleasantries if it meant he got a drink in front of him faster. 

Of course, proving why she didn’t even bother with two-buck scratchers, Mr. Suit had to go and prove her wrong. 

“A moment of your time, if you don’t mind.”

Inwardly, Bell heaved in a deep breath and let it out in a long—creative if not always anatomically feasible—string of cursing punctuated by a blistering rant about the bare minimum service workers were entitled to. Magnanimously, she didn’t also imagine kicking the guy in the shins for good measure, if only because he hadn’t winked or smirked or made a grab for her ass. 

Outwardly, she plastered on her best customer service smile and said, “You can have as long as it takes to place an order, sir.”

He frowned and went digging into the breast pocket of his sport coat in spite of the fact he hardly looked old enough to own, let alone wear, a sport coat. Bell braced herself to refuse whatever cash this overgrown frat boy was about to wave under her nose, maybe tell him he was in a bar and not a strip club, but she needn’t have bothered. 

For the second time of the night, he surprised her.

It was a business card that emerged from his pocket. 

Curiosity getting the better of her, she took it off him and read: 

Peter Hamilton
Managing Director
Artists & Repertoire

All beside a glossy imprint of an LP shattered by jagged cracks. 

Distantly, Bell found herself thinking, That’s the Fissure Records logo . The thought pinged around in the absolute silence of her mind, echoing and growing until it finally hit the right frequency to jar her awake. 

This guy—Peter Hamilton, apparently—worked for Fissure Records A&R. 

And he wanted to talk to her. 

When he took his briefcase from the other chair and gestured towards it, Bell sank down without thinking. 

Not one thought was spared to the other tables she was supposed to be checking on or the orders waiting for her at the bar. She didn’t rue the tips she was losing out on or the chewing out Georgia was sure to treat her to. 

All her focus was on the man in the suit sitting before her. 

“Campbell Blue,” he said, like it wasn’t a little late to be checking to see if he had found the right singer in a city full of them. 

Still, Bell nodded, hands clasped in her lap and trying her best not to vibrate right out of her skin. “Just Bell, actually. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Hamilton.”

He didn’t waste any further time on pleasantries. 

“You’re quite the songwriter, Bell. In fact, I came here today hoping to acquire the rights to one of your songs.”

For as long as she could remember, Bell had harbored one dream. Had nursed one fragile flame in the hurricane glass of her heart. She wanted to make a living singing and playing the music she wrote. And if people happened to like it enough to sell out stages bigger than the bars where she waitressed or get her songs on the radio, then all the better.

Though she’d held onto that dream, that didn’t make Bell naive. She didn’t live with her head fogged up by the smoke of that dream, not with rent to pay and groceries to buy. She knew that if she wanted to make it as a performer, it wasn’t just talent and hard work that would get her there.

Just like she knew that a big executive from a major label wasn’t coming in search of Bell Blue because he’d happened to pick her demo out of the slush pile one day and thought she was the next big hit. 

It might sting that the first actual label exec was only interested in a song she’d written—a song she might not even be willing to release to another artist—but Bell knew that if she played this right, she could leverage this into something more. 

“Only one?” she joked.

Mr. Hamilton didn’t laugh. Instead, tapping a finger against the slightly sticky tabletop—and Bell would not accept fault for that; the tables had been in use here since approximately the 1980s and no amount of elbow grease would scour the decades away—he looked thoughtful.

“You know, I don’t think I recognized a single song in your set. Not even any off your demo. Did you write them all?”

“Of course,” she said. However depleted her bank accounts were, Bell had never overdrawn on her music bank. If she didn’t have a new riff or lyric by the end of any given day, something was probably wrong with her. Last time it had happened, she had woken up with the head cold to end all head colds and barely enough energy to call in sick, let alone compose anything halfway decent. “Most of them will be different by next week, even.”

“Hm.” That finger went right on tapping against the table. 

Bell waited, ignoring Georgia trying to get her attention from behind the bar.

Finally, Mr. Hamilton seemed to come to a decision. “I think I’d like to amend my proposal, Bell. I have a unique opportunity for a songwriter of your talents. A chance to work with one of Fissure’s brightest stars, crafting her next album from scratch.” 

Dumbfounded, Bell could only ask, “Which star?”

For the first time since she’d sat down, Mr. Hamilton actually smiled. 

(In the moment, it was reassuring. Later, Bell would wonder how she didn’t catch the resemblance to a particularly gleeful shark.)

“I trust,” he said, grinning with a few too many teeth, “you’re familiar with Zeni Skye?”

Track 3 - Let Me Tell You the Rules

It felt entirely possible that there wasn’t a person in the world who hadn’t heard of Zeni Skye. 

Bell, of course, knew that it wasn’t. There were people living in the depths of the Amazon, for example, who were completely uncontacted by the outside world. 

But pretty much everyone else had no excuse. 

Even if Zeni weren’t on a record-annihilating world tour at the moment, or three of her singles weren’t charting, or her latest ad campaign for Maybelline hadn’t put her face on every fifth billboard in existence, Zeni Skye would still be a superstar. 

Having made a largely graceful pivot from child actor to teen idol and then the slightly rockier leap to adult popstar, Zeni Skye had been in the public eye for most of her life. Bell remembered watching the cheesy kids show where Zeni had played the precocious little sister, decked out in incomprehensible layers of brightly patterned clothes. She remembered when Zeni graduated to leading her own show, and watching the whole first season by herself because most of her friends had graduated to MTV and the CW and their own Netflix profiles. She remembered Zeni’s first album and the roil of jealousy that had taken hold of her over the fact that this girl, practically her own age, had a record deal and national tour and everything and more that Bell had ever wanted. 

Thank God she’d grown out of that. Mostly.

Picking her way through the organized chaos that was apparently the backstage of a show designed to fill entire stadiums and leave everyone without a ticket seething with jealousy, Bell could acknowledge that she felt a twinge of envy. She’d been fourteen the last time she’d conceived of a career that might see her on a stage as big as this, teenage angst and anxiety taking a big bite out of the desire to be so mainstream. Still, the idea of so many people flocking to a concert with her name on the marquee…

Bell looked around for someone minimally busy, not wanting to get in the way of the roadies who had load in down to an art. She found a woman with a headset whose hands were only busy with a clipboard. 

“Excuse me,” she said, then waited as the woman put a hand to her headset, brow furrowing as she listened to whoever was on the end. After a long moment, she turned her attention to Bell. “I’m looking for Mr. Hamilton.”

The woman was already shaking her head, scanning her clipboard and moving on to the next item on her agenda. Still, she waved Bell deeper into the labyrinth of tour cases, some stacked three or four high. 

Bell tried again with a few other people, working her way behind the backdrop—a massive LED display made up of overlapping screens in a dizzying fractal array as well as the attendant astral accessories being rigged into the stadium’s fly system—before finally being pointed towards the wings at stage left. Dodging out of the way of what had to be the industry’s most efficient road crew, because that hydraulic lift had not been operational just ten minutes ago, Bell finally found the man who’d hired her. 

If he even remembered. 

It took a few attempts to get his attention, which was focused intently on the mostly bare expanse of stage before him. A group of dancers were rehearsing a number on the lowest tier, a broad semicircle with points thrusting out along its arc. 

Oh, like a sun, Bell realized, belated and all too aware of it. To match the clouds and stars hanging from the rafters. Well, who didn't like a theme? 

“Mr. Hamilton,” she tried again. 

Finally, he seemed to hear her. “Bell! It’s good to see you. How was the flight?”

“Long,” she answered honestly. “But I appreciated the seat upgrade. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Of course we did. The label couldn’t have Zeni Skye’s writing partner flying coach.”

“Partner” wasn’t at all what Bell had been imagining while preparing for this. Ghostwriter, maybe. With the way Mr. Hamilton had talked about wanting this next release to feel more organic, singular, Bell had been preparing herself for what she thought was inevitable: Zeni herself being positioned as the mind behind the music. 

With the way her last album had been criticized for the lack of cohesion and vision—unsurprising considering every song had been written and produced by a different team—it just made sense that Fissure would come back with an album they could claim was Zeni’s to the core. 

Not that it actually would be, of course. It had been made very clear from that first night at Gigi’s and in pretty much every conversation since. Zeni Skye had neither the time—not with endorsement deals and painstakingly negotiated public appearances and her active social life—nor the interest required to actually write her own albums. Sure, she might have writing credits on most of her music, but that was just a formality for ad libbing a lick or changing a word or two. 

She’d probably expect to do the same with whatever Bell wrote. Having taken the time to consider this, Bell had concluded that she wouldn’t mind sharing the credit, or even giving it up entirely. Zeni Skye songs were practically guaranteed to chart, and if it meant getting her music on more people’s radars, there were bigger sacrifices Bell could make. 

Nonetheless, she didn’t voice her surprise or confusion. She wasn’t the one footing the bill on this operation, after all. She’d rather muddle along until she got the lay of the land instead of give Mr. Hamilton any cause to second-guess his faith in her. 

“Well, thank you anyway.”

“Of course, of course,” he said. “Now, I’m sure you’d like to know how this is all going to work.”

With only a few stops left on the Skye High Tour, the label felt that this was a prime opportunity to begin laying the foundations for Zeni’s next album. They wanted a more cohesive narrative, one without the mishmash of composers and producers and lyricists that had led to the last two, few contributing to more than a few songs per record. 

Which was where Bell came in. 

“I’m sure you’re already familiar with Zeni’s sound, but Fissure would like you to use this opportunity—shadowing the tour and staying with Zeni once its wrapped—to get to know her. Use your time together to get a feel for her voice, the things she would want to say. And translate that into a hit record.”

The way he said it, like it was the simplest thing to achieve—like artists hadn’t bled, sweat, and cried chasing that elusive goal since sound was first captured on bits of waxed paper—sent a sinking feeling through Bell’s chest. This was not a man who knew music the way she did. 

Then again, he knew what it took to be successful in music far better than her. 

So, she mustered up a smile and tried to force optimism into her tone. “That’s the goal.”

“Yes, the label is quite confident about this plan. I’m sure you won’t let us down.”

Bell hoped her responding laugh didn’t sound as nervous and jangly as it felt in her throat.

“Well,” she said, trying to find any of the confidence Mr. Hamilton had professed and coming up short, “I guess I should get right to it then. Is there anywhere I should be? I don’t want to get in anyone’s way.” 

“When can I meet her?” she asked. Bell might have music practically falling out of her brain, but she was fairly sure she couldn’t write for Zeni Skye without actually meeting her first. 

“Well, she’s a little busy at the moment,” he said, turning back to the stage. 

It was only then that Bell recognized one of the dancers. There, at the head of the pack, signaling the others to run through the sequence once more, was Zeni Skye herself. 

Dressed just like her backup dancers, oversized workout gear layered over clinging spandex, it would almost be understandable that Bell hadn’t noticed her. If she weren’t one of the most instantly recognizable celebrities in the world. Even with her signature honey blonde hair coiled in a messy topknot, there was no mistaking the warm gold of the wisps fluttering around her face. Just like there was no mistaking the fact that she was the only one actually holding a microphone. 

Bell really needed to get it together. 

She had a few minutes to try and collect herself as the rehearsal wrapped up. On stage, Zeni talked to a few of her dancers while the rest filed off to rest up and prepare for the show tonight. Zeni demonstrated one of the moves they’d been running, frowning when it didn’t seem to flow the way it should. Her feet weren’t hitting the correct rhythm, throwing off the swing of her hips and arms. After a moment of consultation among themselves, the tallest dancer crouched down and resituated Zeni’s feet, bringing them in closer. 

That seemed to do the trick, since Bell watched Zeni’s head tip back and her laugh ring out over the fading sounds of construction. She held up her hands for high fives and shooed her dancers off the stage, traipsing along behind them. 

Heading straight for Bell and Mr. Hamilton. 

“Ah, Zeni,” the label rep said, smiling. “Always a thrill to see you perform, even just a rehearsal.”

At the sound of Mr. Hamilton’s greeting, the joy and effervescence that had lit up Zeni from the inside out dimmed to a mere flicker. Her own grin flattened into something just shy of grim, and her green eyes lost their sparkle. 

“Mr. Hamilton,” she said, sending off her dancers with a flick of her eyes when they slowed, looking concerned. “I didn’t realize the label was sending anyone to the show tonight.”

“Oh, I won’t be staying,” he said. “Have to get back to LA. I just wanted to introduce you to Bell Blue, here. She’s a real talent.”

“So nice to meet you,” Bell enthused, reaching out so she could shake Zeni’s hand. Which was warm and smaller than she would’ve expected. “I’m really looking forward to working with you.”

What had just been a friendly handshake turned wooden. Bell was suddenly beneath Zeni’s notice, every ounce of her attention lasering straight into Hamilton’s soul. 

If he even had one. 

“Working with me, huh?” Zeni mused, extricating herself from Bell’s grip. “I have a new opener for the last week of the tour?”

“No, no,” Hamilton said, looking far too pleased with himself for how distinctly the two women with him were radiating displeasure. “Bell is the songwriter Fissure has hired for you. She’s going to write your next album. 

The long, charged silence as Zeni visibly reined in her infamous temper nearly got to Bell. She found herself wishing that this all had been a hoax, if only so she wouldn’t have to be here in this moment. Fuck exposure and the promise of a big break. She did not enjoy finding herself the pawn in a power struggle she hadn’t even known existed. 

“You said we would discuss songwriters,” Zeni finally bit out. 

He chuckled, and Bell couldn’t blame Zeni for the way her nostrils flared and jaw set at the pure patronization in each huffed laugh. 

“Zeni, we’ve gone back and forth for weeks. If we want your next album ready to launch for Christmas, we can’t keep discussing ad nauseam. The label’s made an executive decision. Bell is writing your album. And I’m sure she’d be more than willing to take whatever notes or little bursts of inspiration you’ve had on board.”

Bell was smart enough not to agree with the man whose head would probably be a pile of smoldering ash if glares worked like death lasers. She kept her mouth shut and tried to will herself into imperceptibility, silently berating herself all the while.

Why had she just assumed that Zeni Skye would be okay with some no-name singer-songwriter out of Nashville writing the follow up to her biggest release to date? Why had she assumed Zeni Skye even knew someone, let alone a no-name singer-songwriter, had been hired to write her album?

Clearly, there was a reason for the whole thing about assumptions. 

Except, evidently, Bell was the only one left feeling like an ass. 

She was beginning to suspect that Peter Hamilton didn’t have enough shame to feel anything approaching embarrassment or awkwardness.

That suspicion flipped into certainty when, hardly bothering to smooth over the disastrous introduction, Mr. Hamilton looked at his watch and claimed he’d better get going if he wanted to make it to LA for his dinner reservation. 

And then just left. Left Bell to the fuming mercies of one furious popstar. 

God, why couldn’t this all have been a prank?

Track 4 - Supernova Paranoia

Bell, sensing blood—it was her own, of course she sensed it—in the water, stayed out of Zeni’s way as much as possible. 

It wasn’t exactly difficult. The woman was in the midst of headlining the last weeks of her international tour. Even if she wanted to dedicate any energy at all to making Bell’s life miserable, Zeni Skye was simply too busy to do it herself. 

It was the only explanation Bell had for why Zeni, who had starred in her fair share of drunk squabbles gone viral and clearly had no fear of confrontation, had not taken the first opportunity  to lay down the law.

Or just get it over with and fire her. 

Bell knew she remained with the tour on sufferance, and she wasn’t about to push her luck. So the highest stakes game of hide and seek it was. 

Which didn’t mean Bell wasn’t hard at work. 

She might not be familiarizing herself with Zeni’s voice, or Zeni herself, as Mr. Hamilton had wanted her to, but she was writing. 

So much. Probably too much. 

Bell couldn’t help herself. Maybe it was the constant dread and anxiety that one of the most famous women in the world was going to suddenly decide to eviscerate her, emotionally and professionally if not physically, but Bell’s brain would not shut up. And rather than let it chug along unsupervised and unproductive, she had shunted all that awful energy to something with an output that wasn’t just rapidly evolving doom spirals. Since Bell had never learned to work off steam through exercise—and didn’t really want to run into any of the tour staff in the hotel gym—scratching out lyrics as fast as they came to her it was.

She’d already run through an entire pen. 

While she spent more than an ideal amount of time holed up in her hotel room—first in Seattle and then San Francisco, having spent the flight on the chartered jet doing her best to blend in with the upholstery—Bell did force herself out at least once a day. The assistant tour manager, an exhausted woman named Emily, had taken pity on her and made sure Bell got both to and from the stadiums and was set up somewhere out of everyone’s way.

Not that Bell always stayed in whatever secondary green room she got stuck in. 

When she could, she tried to observe Zeni, as unobtrusively as possible. She watched dance rehearsals and soundchecks and photo ops tucked within the gaggle of PAs and tech crew. She loitered in the hall when Zeni was having her hair and makeup done, listening in on the easy rapport she had with her stylists. She hid out with the broadcast equipment when Zeni gave interviews with local press, repeating the same sound bites to everyone.

She watched every single show. 

That, more than anything else, began to color in the outline of Zeni Skye that Bell had in her mind. 

Maybe it was projection, but Bell thought there was something that slotted into place every time Zeni stepped onto her stage, that settled and smoothed with every dance break, every note out of her mouth. 

Maybe Zeni Skye really was the performer of the century, able to make every single person in that stadium feel like they knew her, had gotten a glimpse of her soul. 

Maybe Bell was just overthinking things.

Regardless, she wasn’t about to pass up to see the concert of the year, if not the decade. And Bell had front row tickets to ten in a row. 

Well, not exactly front row. 

Mostly, Bell watched from the wings, not too far from where Mr. Hamilton had ambushed Zeni. She tried not to think too hard about that, which wasn’t difficult considering the spectacle unfolding just feet away. 

Every concert began the same. Once the opener had made their exit, the stage went dark. Just the sparkling flashes of the crowd’s phones lit up the entire stadium. Then, ever so gradually, those massive LED displays at the back of the stage began to glow, rosy and warm with dawn’s rising light. The band, still shadowed, began to play. Only when the entire wall was lit did the stage floor open to let a platform, shrouded in gossamer and fog to create a single cloud against a clear sky, float into the air. At the peak of its ascent, the spotlight would spear it, lighting up Zeni, Venus emerged from the sea. 

She’d lift her microphone, quiet hanging for a moment with the collective breath of her entire audience. Bell would swear Zeni lived for that second, that pause where everyone was dangling, waiting for her next move. 

Then, she’d open her mouth and sing. 

What else was there to say? 

Bell, someone who always had a word waiting on the tip of her tongue, wasn’t sure there was anything else. 

The show tore through Zeni’s latest album and peppered in more than few of her past hits in glitzy numbers and dizzying costume changes, the giant light sky behind her shifting from gold to aquamarine to dusty blue all the way through the flaring red of sunset and twilit violet and star-speckled velvet night. Until it was only Zeni left on stage. Bathed in a single, silvery shaft of light, she would climb back onto her cloud, crooning all the while, building up to one last crescendo, a wail and a wall of sound met by the crashing dark of the lights cutting out. When they came up again, Zeni would be gone. 

She’d be back, of course, with whatever encore she’d decided on that day, but it wasn’t the bright, sugary crowd pleaser that stuck with Bell. Instead, after every show, she found the image of that empty cloud imprinted on the back of her eyelids, chasing her into sleep.

Track 5 - Erosion

Of course, the delicate balance Bell and Zeni had struck—which was mostly Zeni going about her business and Bell scurrying to make sure she didn’t make an even worse impression—couldn’t last. 

After an electric four nights in Los Angeles, the stage was struck for the last time. The costumes went into storage, and the staff—dancers and crew and drivers and band and Zeni herself—all went home. 

And Bell went with Zeni. 

That had been another fun Peter Hamilton surprise. 

They’d been summoned to the offices of Fissure Records within an hour of touching down in LA. The car ride over had been excruciating. Zeni stared fixedly out of her too-tinted window, and Bell had felt too awkward to try and break the silence. The only sound in the SUV was Morris’ off-key humming from the driver’s seat. At least someone wasn’t hyper-aware of the tension. 

Even the receptionist at the label had raised an eyebrow as she directed them to the 32nd floor and the boardroom awaiting them there. 

If the car had been excruciating, the elevator was torturous. 

Bell couldn’t help but dart quick looks out of the corner of her eyes at Zeni, who was steely-faced. It was almost hard to recognize the pop princess in the gimlet-eyed woman standing beside her. Zeni Skye clearly hadn’t come to play. Not dressed to kill as she was, in an out-sized chocolate brown blazer over a curve-worshiping cream dress with heels to match.

Even in a heel spiked enough to stab someone without much effort, Bell had a few inches on the popstar, but that was about it. She, having been unaware of an appointment with the label until Emily had diverted her from the convoy heading to the hotel, was entirely less put together. Her curls were simultaneously frizzy and flat, having slept on them a few nights in a row, forming an unflattering halo around her head. Her jeans weren’t too distressed, but she had a feeling that the left knee was going to split any day now; it’d be just her luck to have it happen in a room full of music industry bigwigs. 

Naturally, she never got to meet a room full of bigwigs. Only one (though Bell was increasingly unwilling to extend him the regard entitled to a bigwig; midwig, maybe) was waiting in the sleek boardroom when they’d arrived. 

“Ah, ladies!” Peter Hamilton enthused, rising upon their entrance. 

Zeni pretended not to see his outstretched arms and took a seat. Bell awkwardly followed suit, and then struggled through the intricacies of the business jargon that ensued. 

Largely because most of Zeni’s responses to Mr. Hamilton’s overtures were, “You’ll have to speak to my manager about that.”

At the very least, it soon became clear that this meeting had been a waste of everyone’s time, Hamilton getting no thrill in coaxing a tantrum out of Zeni, Zeni getting no quarter from Hamilton, and Bell getting only more sure that she was in the middle of a power struggle ready to collapse and take her with it.

Hamilton did lob one last parting shot, however. 

As Zeni and Bell rose to leave, he said, “Make sure to thank Ms. Liu for all her help in preparing for Bell, here. I’m sure readying a guest suite isn’t in her job description, but she was so accommodating.” 

Bell had no idea who Ms. Liu was—though she didn’t miss that she was the only woman who hadn’t gotten the first-name treatment from Hamilton—but Zeni clearly did. 

“A guest suite?”

“Oh, yes,” Mr. Hamilton grinned his shark’s grin. “Bell’s going to be staying with you until the album is written. The label loves the idea. Our PR department’s already working it into the messaging for the album. Nothing better for collaboration like lots of time together. ”

Bell was fairly sure the only familiarity Peter Hamilton had with collaboration was when Satan and the personification of an MBA collaborated to create him. She didn’t say so, however. 

She didn’t say anything until they were back in the car, Zeni’s fuming silence too all-encompassing to penetrate. 

Still, Bell forced herself to offer, “I really don’t have to stay with you.” She had no idea where she would stay, but it was bad enough to be sprung on Zeni as an unwanted songwriter; to be forced on her as an unwanted houseguest was miles too far. 

Zeni’s eyes closed, the sharp line of her lashes settling against the apples of her cheeks for a beat. She blew out a long breath and shook her head. “You should. We’ll hardly even notice each other.” Then, muttered but not quite soft enough to be drowned out by Morris’ oblivious humming: “I’m not giving him any reason to throw this all in my face.”

And so, after that last show in LA, after all the hugs and tears and celebratory shots, Bell had been treated to an awkward hired car ride to Zeni’s Malibu home. 

In spite of the tour that Lucy—Ms. Liu to Peter Hamilton and no one else (“Yeah, I’ve heard all the jokes, so don’t even bother,” she’d rattled off within moments of being introduced)—had given Bell that first morning, she still didn’t quite have a grasp of the layout.

Built right into the cliffside overlooking the ocean, the house was something of an oddity. All white-washed stucco, it would’ve looked more at home in the Mediterranean than perched above the Pacific. Here and there, gestures at modernity had been made: a renovated kitchen all in sleek Scandinavian designs and an infinity pool that had bit out a big swath of an already cramped yard. Bougainvillea climbed the stark walls and served as a canopy for the pergolas and balconies jutting off the back face of the house. 

At least once a day, Bell opened a door expecting to find a bathroom or a closet or her room only to be greeted by a library or a single spiral staircase leading up to the roof (and the most breathtaking views she’d ever seen) or an entirely untouched recording studio. 

It wasn’t exactly a bad problem to have. 

Thank God. She already had enough of those on her plate.

Track 6 - TKO

Seated behind the desk in her home office, a single pane of glass cantilevered over a sphere of gold-veined marble, Zeni flipped through the pages, face impassive. Behind her, spaced on either side of their shelf, like they were waiting for something to take its place at center stage, were her two Grammy Awards. Her gold and platinum records flanked them, and even though Bell was fairly sure Zeni had more than a few Kid’s Choice and MTV Music Video and Billboard Awards to her name, none of them were on display.

Maybe one day Bell would open a door and find whatever room they were all stored in. 

Rousing herself from an imagined doom of being crushed by an avalanche of B- and C-Tier awards, Bell forced herself to return her attention to Zeni. 

Her hostess had not been any friendlier since finishing her tour and getting to return home. Not to Bell at least. 

She was, however, on very good terms with everyone else who popped in and out of the house: Lucy and her trainer and her personal chef and the cousin who had watched the fat black cat (Quentin, who seemed to be the house’s only permanent resident and the only one remotely willing to hang out with Bell) when Zeni was on tour. They were all greeted with enthusiasm and endless chatter by a Zeni who was familiar and not. This was the Zeni Skye that was presented to the world, bubbly and bright and beautiful, but she wasn’t the Zeni Bell saw every day. 

Because Bell continued to be largely ignored. 

Which was fine, really. It gave her more time to write. 

She probably would have had it even if Zeni wasn’t doing her best impression of a woman with a ghost for a roommate. Now that she was in LA for the foreseeable future, her social calendar was jam-packed. From pitch meetings with potential music video directors to charity events to club openings to label functions, Zeni was out of the house more than she was in it. And when she was at home, she spent much of her time sleeping off her social life. 

It meant Bell spent much of her days writing, piecing together lyrics and dreaming up melodies, and her evenings, when it was just her and Quentin in the house, testing out everything she’d come up with. It felt easier to experiment when Zeni was out, though there were plenty of times when Bell played through Zeni’s return home. 

Ten days into her stay, Bell had finally filled the last page in her notebook. 

Few of them were full, complete songs. Some were just lyrics or chord progressions or riffs she’d marked out on sloppy little staves. More were mere snippets, snatches of a bridge or a melody or even ideas for production effects. 

Still, she was proud of them all.

She just had to keep reminding herself of that now that they were in Zeni’s hands. 

Zeni, who could have been a champion poker player if this whole pop superstar thing hadn’t worked out for her. 

Bell stewed, and Zeni flipped another page. 

Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer. “So?” Bell prompted, slipping her hands beneath her thighs to keep from fidgeting.

Zeni finished the page she was on and sat back, her gaze going distant and unfathomable. Maybe she was processing. 

Processing was good. Right?

Any modicum of hope petered out when Zeni shrugged. “They’re not bad.”

“Not bad?”

She nodded, but the agreement was undercut by the addition of “Not great, either.”

There was a dull roaring in Bell’s ears. Almost loud enough to drown out Zeni’s tacked on caveat: “For me, at least.”

Bell, apparently, had used up all her words and was stuck parroting the things she heard. “For you?”

“Well, yeah,” Zeni said, shrugging again. She frowned, as though she was loath to admit, “Clearly, Hamilton was right. You are talented. I get that taking this on was probably just a business decision to you—”

“It wasn’t,” Bell interrupted because she couldn’t help herself. Before Zeni could treat her to more than a bewildered, guarded look, she said, “I mean, when is music ever just business?”

There was a long beat of silence where Zeni demonstrated more curiosity and interest in Bell than had been displayed in all the time they'd known each other cumulatively. And then it was gone, shielded behind an air of indifference once more. 

"Adorable," she drawled, eyes half-lidded and entirely unreadable.

Having never imagined a scenario in which Zeni Skye would call her “adorable” and it would ring completely hollow, Bell was at something of a loss.

“You think I’m talented,” she repeated, skipping back a bit too far. 

Zeni didn’t roll her eyes, but Bell thought it might be a close call. “Yes, okay?”

Bell nodded, and like a bobblehead, didn’t stop. Not even as she asked, eyes locked on the battered notebook she had poured so much of her anxiety and fear and anger from the past few weeks into, “But you don’t like the songs?”

“It’s not—” Zeni huffed and leaned back in. She shut Bell’s notebook with the finality of a prison door slamming. Bell could practically hear the dull clang of it. Still, it was enough to make her look up and lock onto Zeni’s. They were close enough that Bell could make out her wan, hunted expression in the dark of Zeni’s pupils. 

“It’s not that I don’t like them. But while this stuff might fit your,” Zeni paused only to shrug and settle for, “vibe, it’s not going to work for what’s expected from me.”

For a moment, Bell was too stuck on the fact that Zeni had paid enough attention to her to pin down a vibe to hear the rest of her objection. 

“What’s expected from you?”

Zeni’s lips twitched like they wanted to purse, but she wouldn’t allow herself to betray that much of a tell. She waved a hand, the very picture of airy and unbothered if it weren’t for the bitter edge to her words. 

“You know,” she said. “The Zeni Skye experience. Glitter and glamor. Bouncy beats and tongue in cheek lyrics and enough of a dance break for me to shake my ass a few times a show.”

“Is that,” Bell ventured, feeling very much on uneven footing, “not what you want?”

“Who cares what I want?”

Viscerally, Bell was thrown back to her second day with the tour. She was still recovering from witnessing her first Zeni Skye concert, live and in person. When she had tried to smooth things over that morning, Zeni had blown her off, saying, “Listen, I didn’t ask for a songwriter, so don’t bother trying to win me over.”

She had tried calling Mr. Hamilton about three times an hour ever since.

Eventually, either wearing down his assistant or actually catching him between his many meetings, she had gotten a hold of him. 

Fat lot of good it had done her. 

“Bell,” he’d sighed impatiently, “we’ve put a lot of trust into you. And a lot of money. Were we mistaken?”

“No, of course not, but Zeni doesn’t seem to want—”

“What Zeni wants is immaterial,” he said, as close to snapping as she’d ever heard him. He’d seemed so friendly when they’d been negotiating her own contract, and even when he’d ambushed Zeni yesterday, he’d plastered on an aggressive facade of pleasantness. “The label hired you, so why don’t you worry about what the label wants and leave handling Zeni to us?”

“Uh—”

He sighed and switched to a more conciliatory tack. “Of course, we all know what a talent Zeni is on stage. It’ll be a long time before a performer of her caliber comes along again. But just because she’s got a few hits to her name doesn’t mean she can get it in her head that she can really write one. Let alone a whole album. There’s too much riding on her next release to hang it on the whims of a 22-year-old. You’ve seen the way she goes through boyfriends, I’m sure. Can’t stick to one for more than a couple weeks. Some other interest will distract her soon enough.”

Bell still wondered if the year and change she had on Zeni really made that much of a difference. Noncommittally, she just said, “Right.”

“I’m glad. Now, I’ve got a lunch with Scooter Braun, so let’s table this and we’ll chat soon? Okay? Good. Bye now.”

And then the call had ended. And now, Bell was seated across from a thoroughly unimpressed, thoroughly jaded, Zeni Skye.

I do. Bell wanted to say it, knew she even meant it. She doubted, however, that it would mean much. 

Instead, she asked, “Don’t you?”

For a long moment, there was quiet. Zeni’s brow furrowed over impossibly green eyes, and though she was looking right at Bell, her gaze was distant. Eventually, she got up without ever offering an answer. For once, though, when she left, Bell was only 70% certain it was her fault.

Track 7 - Green Flash

By the next week, Bell had killed her third pen and made a good dent in a fresh notebook. 

She’d taken Zeni’s criticism to heart. Most of the stuff from the first notebook had been in her own style. If Zeni Skye was a pop supernova, sparkle and gloss and mouth-puckering candy, then Bell’s music trended infinitely mellower, earthy and honey-warm. 

She’d assumed that since Hamilton had wanted a song off her demo, more of the same would get the job done. There was never much of an illusion that any of her instrumentation or production would see the final cut of the album. It’d be nice, but Fissure was sure to hire some hotshot producer to sufficiently pop-ify her songs.

Bell had accepted it. 

But ever since asking Zeni if she had to just accept the status quo, Bell had been bothered by the growing sense of hypocrisy. 

So she’d dived into research. 

For someone who had grown up with Zeni Skye’s burgeoning fame, watching in real time as she planted herself in the public consciousness and put down roots, Bell was shocked to discover she didn’t actually know that much about her. 

After a, frankly, embarrassingly deep trawl through Zeni’s social media—combing through Instagram and TikTok and an unending deluge of YouTube clips of interviews and red carpets and press conferences—Bell was forced to conclude this was not the way. 

Even at her chattiest and most personable, there was no mistaking the distinct veneer of professionalism in those appearances. From her first late night interview at sixteen all the way to the final spot answering questions about the tour, Zeni was almost picture perfect. Sweet and charming and nearly too pretty to be real. There was never a word out of place, not even when she had to make an apology tour for another dustup with paparazzi—though there hadn’t been a breath of that kind of scandal since before her tour. Rueful or radiant, self-effacing or sensational, Zeni’s popstar princess mask never slipped. 

But it was still a mask. 

Maybe it would be enough to write for that girl, the one Zeni clearly worked so hard to portray. 

Bell took to climbing up to the roof with her guitar, where she could strum and mess around without bothering anyone but Quentin who enjoyed sunning on the terracotta tiles. Not much of it was worth writing down, but keeping her hands busy had always helped her think. 

A little too well, to be honest. She could stay up there for hours, sun making its westerly descent into the ocean and turning the world red and gold, not that Bell gave it much notice. When she did remember, music loosing its grip on her for a moment, Bell watched the horizon for the flash of green she’d only ever heard about. In Nashville, the only time the sky turned green was when there was a tornado brewing. Which was to say, rarely, thank God. 

Still, it was always a disappointment when the sun sank into the waves without sending up that strange, green light. 

But mostly, Bell played and composed and scribbled furiously right through the sunset. Often, she could’ve sworn that between one blink and the next, the sky had gone from a hazy, Pacific blue to velvet dark. In Malibu, it was even dark enough to see the stars. 

She hadn’t thought much of continuing to play into the dark, the familiar thrum of guitar strings beneath her fingers unspooling thoughts and sometimes granting a shimmer of clarity. 

Not, at least, until one night, late. The moon rode high in the sky, and the sun was closer to rising than setting. Bell had had the house to herself for hours, Zeni having departed for the album launch party of one of her labelmates in a cloud of perfume and sparkles before Bell had even eaten dinner.

She’d taken up a post right at the edge of the roof, sitting on the balustrade with her guitar cradled in her lap. Her fingers tripped over the strings, coaxing a lilting tune into the air. It wasn’t anything for Zeni, a little too delicate and discordant, but Bell might be able to do something with it later. 

A flicker of movement below, on a balcony wreathed in a raucous profusion of bougainvillea, and there was Zeni Skye. 

Leaning against the balcony railing, there was something about her. There wasn’t an extension or a sequin or a platform heel to be seen. Long hair wet and curling down her back, swathed in an oversized sleep shirt, with no audience (that she knew of).  Dim light chased her out into the dark but only barely grazed her, like it knew she was beyond its grasp. Still, it was enough for Bell to see. 

To see that this Zeni wasn’t at ease, released from performance. 

There was something sad and lonely and fragile about the girl standing on that balcony, and Bell’s heart throbbed with the desire to soothe, to comfort, to offer understanding.

Usually, she did that with music. 

That night, however, her hands failed her. 

The last chord she’d strummed, a melancholy G minor, hung in the air until it was washed away by the sound of the ocean below. By the time she realized she’d stopped playing, Zeni had turned and spotted Bell perched on the roof. Something complex and fleeting twisted across her face, in time with the knot of air caught in Bell’s throat. It only came unlodged when Zeni slipped back inside.

Bell always made sure to head in before dark after that.

Track 8 - Play House

In a 25-room mansion, it was harder to stay out of one popstar’s way than Bell would have thought. It seemed like no matter where she went, Zeni was already there. 

In the morning, where Bell had grown accustomed to eating a quick breakfast with maybe Quentin for company, she now often found Lucy and Zeni running through the schedule for the day. When she’d first stumbled upon them and tried to slip out before they could notice the interruption, Zeni had actually grabbed a mug from the cabinet and poured Bell a cup of coffee. 

It was no olive branch, but it was even better since it had caffeine. 

After that, an uneasy truce progressed to slightly less uneasy peace. On Bell’s part, at least. Zeni seemed completely blithe, like she and her houseguest hadn’t spent weeks playing the world’s most stressful game of hide and don’t seek. 

If they weren’t exactly friends or collaborators, Bell having worked up exactly zero nerve to ask for Zeni’s opinion on the music she was still writing, they were at least very functional housemates. If one housemate actually owned the house and the other had been dumped there by a power-tripping record exec. 

They ate a few meals together every week, the plate Zeni’s chef had always left in the refrigerator for Bell finally being eaten warm and with more talkative company than Quentin. They exchanged stilted, bland bits of conversation interspersed sparingly with actual information about themselves. If one entered a room, the other didn’t immediately get up and leave. 

They even sat on the couch and binged the entirety of the Real Housewives of New Jersey. Zeni actually did a pretty good Teresa. And was polite enough not to comment on Bell’s butchered Caroline. 

“We’re thick as thieves!” she tried again, the Jersey accent rolling around like marbles in her mouth. “That’s it! You can’t tell me I’m not nailing it.”

Pityingly, Zeni patted her hand and reached for the remote again. Just as she hit play and the transitional music blared, she murmured something Bell would swear was, “You’re lucky you’re pretty.”

Thank God they’d turned out the lights to watch the show. Then again, Bell’s cheeks were warm enough maybe they could be seen from space.

Track 9 - Behind Glass

Bell’s comfort in Zeni’s house and with Zeni herself had grown enough that she was no longer surprised when she found Zeni somewhere slightly unexpected. Partially, she reasoned with herself, because it shouldn’t be unexpected to find someone anywhere in her house.

And yet.

This was the first time she’d seen Zeni in the recording studio. 

Bell looked up guiltily from the MIDI pad she’d been experimenting with when the door swung open to reveal Zeni. She ignored Bell’s shifty look and glanced curiously around the room, like she really hadn’t been inside before. She drifted over to the mahogany piano, trilling out a quick scale. 

“Do you play?” Bell asked, both to be polite and because she wanted to know. It wouldn’t be surprising; singers as talented as Zeni often picked up piano, if only through sheer exposure. 

Zeni nodded absently, most of her attention focused on the keys and getting her hands placed. 

Rather than a two-handed scale or a quick, bouncy “Heart and Soul,” Bell was treated to the lilting, sweet dyads of “Clair de Lune.” 

Even though it was midday and the California sun was streaming through the windows, while Zeni played, it was like the world turned silver. 

She didn’t make it through the whole piece, flubbing a chord and smacking the keys with a laugh, bright enough to warm the room back to gold. 

Bell didn’t join in. “That was beautiful.”

“That was a mess,” Zeni corrected, flexing her fingers. “I haven’t practiced in so long.”

“You’ve been pretty busy,” Bell pointed out. 

Zeni shrugged. “What’s the point of having all this if I’m not going to play them?”

“You play all of these?” she said, unable to keep the skepticism out of her tone. Along with the piano, stringed instruments hung from a rack on the wall: guitars and a bass, a ukulele and even a banjo and a mandolin. It would’ve fit right in in Nashville.

If Zeni was offended, she didn’t show it. “Sure.” She shrugged, glancing around and idly taking in the treasure trove of musical instruments arrayed around the room like it wouldn’t pay for a year’s rent back in Nashville. Enough to cut a real demo. “Not often. Haven’t stayed here long enough yet.” 

“Really? This place seems so you.”

Grinning, Zeni confessed, “I bought basically everything in the house. It was how I unwound on tour. Home decor retail therapy. It did make me consider up and disappearing so I could come back a few times, though.” 

Bell’s eyebrows jumped in surprise, and Zeni just shrugged. 

“I was already… less than pleased with the timing of the tour. But what the label wants, the label gets.”

The frustrated set of Zeni’s jaw made Bell’s ache in sympathy. 

Blundering towards something that might ease that tension, Bell gestured to the MIDI pad. “Want to hear what I’ve been working on?”

Nervously, Bell tapped out the rhythm she’d been toying with, layering in the guitar and counter melody she’d recorded and fed into the little machine. It was a triumph that she managed to hum the tune that had been stuck in her head for days. 

Zeni listened, gaze distant and head bobbing to the beat. She even asked Bell to play it again before asking if there were any lyrics to go with it. 

Heart in her throat, Bell handed over her notebook, the cover bent back to reveal the right page. 

It was an eternity as she waited for Zeni to read through every line. 

Finally, with a considering hum, she pronounced, “Closer.” 

Bell didn’t fight deflation, letting her shoulders sink. Zeni was unapologetic, but at least gentle with her impressions.

“You’re still not writing for me . You’re writing for who you think I am.”

“Who I think you are is all that I’ve got.” Bell sighed, eyeing Zeni, who was already looking back, steady and thoughtful. “Not sure if you’ve realized this, but you’re awfully hard to get to know.”

“Have you been talking to my therapist?”

Bell burst into laughter, always a sucker for absurdity, and after a beat, Zeni joined in. Twining together, the warmth went straight to Bell’s head.

“No,” she gasped, clapping her hands to her cheeks to knock some sense into herself. Not because she felt the pressing need to hide how red they’d gotten. “You think she’d be willing to spill the tea?”

“In your dreams, Bell.”

Something about the way Zeni’s mouth curled around her name, her tongue kissing the edge of her teeth, burst every giggle in her chest. Still left her cheeks too warm, though. 

“Right,” she said, somehow managing with a bone-dry mouth. Bell swallowed and blinked, trying to reset herself. “Um.”

Eloquently, Zeni offered, “Yeah.”

Bell really shook herself this time, scrubbing her face for good measure. “All right,” she said once she felt something approaching equilibrium. It was hard to tell with Zeni around. “If I’m going to write music for you , then I think there’s only one option.”

One perfectly sculpted brow lifted. “And what’s that?”

“You’re just going to have to help me. What do you say to making this a real collaboration?”

Bright and beautiful and better than almost anything else Bell had ever seen, Zeni smiled. 

It was all the answer she needed.

Track 10 - Oh No

“Come on,” Zeni wheedled, brushing away her hair from where it had flopped across her face. “Just give it a try!”

“Not a chance,” Bell replied, remaining stubbornly behind the tripod as she had all day. Her notebook was open on her knee, guitar balanced in her lap. A few ideas had been jotted down and she kept coming back to the beginning of something bright and jangly on the strings. She tried again, tweaking the run of triplets into a different cadence.

Zeni tsked but turned back to her own phone, marking through a bit of choreo with the dancer on screen while Bell watched through the screen of her eyelashes.

In the warm first blushes of a creative journey embarked upon as equals, other responsibilities had fallen to the wayside. 

Namely, the full time industry involved in creating Zeni Skye content for her online platforms. The mill was dangerously close to grinding to a halt, as Lucy had tartly informed them at breakfast that morning. 

“I am fielding calls from your management and your label, Zeni!” she exclaimed, draping herself tragically over the kitchen table. Bell only just nabbed her coffee before it was sacrificed to Lucy’s desire for melodrama. “You cannot do this to me.”

“You’re my assistant,” Zeni pointed out, not unreasonably. 

Lucy lifted her head to glare at her boss. “I had to talk to Peter. Twice.”

Both Zeni and Bell winced in sympathy. 

“Yeah, okay. I can film some stuff today, build up the stash again.” 

“Good,” Lucy huffed, though she only seemed truly satisfied when she had snagged the last yuzu-matcha scone out from beneath her employer’s nose. When Zeni gasped indignantly, Lucy took a vicious bite of the pastry, and announced, “Hazard pay.”

Bell was currently wondering if that was something she could get in on because an afternoon spent watching Zeni Skye dance certainly felt hazardous to her health.

It had been a slow build, Zeni starting off with the latest TikTok dance trends, most with moves so easy she could do them in her sleep. Eventually, she was throwing down choreography from professional dancers, hip hop and K-Pop and even a ballet-inspired number, capped off by a floaty double pirouette and a genuine laugh. She’d filmed all around the house, Bell somehow conscripted into running the camera because Lucy “had better things to do.” She was at least gratified to discover Zeni got turned around as she did. She’d disappeared every so often, changing clothes and hair to play into the illusion that her social media content was organic and not scheduled to the hilt. Each time she came back, she’d ask for Bell’s opinion, twisting this way and that to figure out her best angle. 

Bell generally tried not to be the lesbian ogling every pretty girl in existence, but weeks of living with Zeni Skye had not dulled the force of her allure.

That is: she was definitely ogling. Respectfully.

Whether Zeni was in joggers and a sports bra or designer dresses, she looked incredible. 

Incredible enough that Bell lost her mind. Just a little. 

Maybe she’d been hypnotized. Lulled by the sway of hips and the swish of long, blonde hair. Why else would she actually step out from behind the camera when Zeni next beckoned? The way she lit up, clapping her hands and bouncing on those ugly, bulky sneakers that cost nearly three months’ rent back in Nashville. 

“Okay, this’ll be just for us, so don’t be nervous,” Zeni assured Bell once she was lined up beside her.

“Too late,” Bell muttered, feeling awkward and gangly and too warm for having tried exactly zero dance moves so far. 

“You’ll be great!”

Twenty minutes later, Zeni’s optimism had proven misguided. 

“How did you do that?” she demanded, reaching down to peel Bell off the poolside concrete. Dusting her off once she was upright once more, she went on, “Your feet weren’t even supposed to move!”

“I am multi-talented,” Bell replied, inspecting her elbow for a scrape. It was a little red, but no blood. She’d take the W. 

“I mean, you are,” Zeni said, frank enough that it sounded like the truth. 

“You don’t have to say that.”

Rolling her eyes, Zeni took hold of Bell’s wrist and towed her out of the sunshine and into the shade of the pool house’s porch, all Mediterranean tile and dark wood. The outdoor shower and wet bar, fully stocked though Bell had never seen Zeni drink more than a few White Claws, ate up most of the foot print. But, tucked up against the  there was a daybed made up in flowing linens. Bell was deposited there while Zeni went to rummage through the bar’s cabinets. 

“Don’t sell yourself short,” she said. Based on the way she refused to make eye contact, sifting through the assortment of junk that had accumulated on the shelves and conveniently screened by the cabinet door, Zeni was serious. “You are talented. You could be huge with the right break.”

“Not as big as you.”

Zeni rose, a first aid kit in her hands. She came and sat next to Bell, picking up the arm with the scraped elbow. “No one’s as big as me.”

It came out rueful and even a little bitter, but Zeni’s hands were nothing but tender as she cleaned the raw skin around Bell’s elbow and covered it with Neosporin and a band-aid. She smoothed over the wings with her thumbs, making sure it was good and stuck. The only thing she didn’t do was kiss it better. 

Bell wasn’t sure it was a relief that she didn’t. 

“Well, if you ever decide to pack it in, you might’ve found your next calling,” she said, desperate to dissipate the overwhelming, one-sided tension. Images of Zeni’s lips brushing against her skin weren’t so easily banished, however.

Zeni snorted, zipping up the first aid kit and gathering up the band-aid wrapper, crinkling it into her palm. “You’re full of shit.”

“See, you’ve got the bedside manner down already.”

Laughing, rolling her eyes, Zeni got to her feet and dragged Bell up with her. Unprotesting, in spite of the insistent little desire to press on, to uncover why Zeni was so uninterested in the topic at hand, Bell went. 

After all, what Zeni Skye wanted, Zeni Skye got.

Track 11 - Clipped Wings Don't Fly

It wasn’t enough that the absurd Malibu mansion that Zeni called home came equipped with a pool, a recording suite, a gym and dance studio—complete with its own sauna and cold plunge—and a truly absurd number of bedrooms.

It had to have its own private beach, too.

Once Bell found out, they spent a lot of time down on the sand. It was a precarious climb down, the rickety wooden stairs creaking ominously with every breeze, but it was worth it. 

It was their own little world. 

Music sounded richer down on the beach, lyrics more meaningful. 

Most of the songs that Zeni ended up approving of were honed down there. Most of the songs she wrote herself, too. 

But it wasn’t all idyllic, creative zen. 

Bell groaned, squinting out into the sun as it made its final descent to the horizon. Would there be green today? “I don’t see why I have to.”

“Because everybody does.”

“Oh, so if everybody jumps off a bridge—”

“Okay, mom.”

Bell sputtered, nearly dropping the almost full glass of pink sangria she’d just poured herself into the sand. “I’m barely three years older than you.”

“That’s practically a decade in this industry.”

It wasn’t, and it was. Three years was not enough time, even in the ever-fickle reckoning of the music industry, to put Bell and her career completely on the shelf. There were plenty of musicians who hit their stride much later in life than 25. On the other hand, Zeni had practically a decade on Bell in experience in the limelight. Though Bell wasn’t going to point that out, not when it would just strengthen her argument. Zeni hardly needed the help. 

Proving it, she didn’t allow herself to be distracted from her original point. “Your online presence is atrocious, Bell.”

“I don’t have an online presence.”

“Exactly! How are your fans supposed to find you without one?”

“I don’t really have fans, Zeni.”

“Again: exactly. Because the only way to hear your music is in person or low res clips on YouTube.”

“There are clips of me on YouTube?” 

“Oh my God,” Zeni groaned, flopping dramatically back on her lounger. She flung an arm over her eyes for good measure. “Tell me the truth. Are you really an 80-year-old stuck in a hot, young body?”

Bell was going to skip right over that. “Who’s putting videos of me on YouTube?”

“Your boss. From the bar.” Zeni waved the information off as inconsequential. “And a good thing, too, or I never would have trusted you weren’t just a plant from Peter to tank my next record! Things would’ve been a lot easier if you had an actual Spotify profile or Instagram.”

The bottom edge of the sun kissed the horizon. Not long now.

“Shouldn’t it just be about the music?” 

Zeni looked at her over the rim of her absurd, Y2K-futurist sunglasses, pitying and disbelieving all at once. At least she didn’t laugh. “You know it’s not.”

Bell stabbed her straw into her drink, half picking apart the chaotic rhythm of ice clinking against sweating glass and metal straw, but there was nothing there. “But shouldn’t it be?”

Stretching out on her lounger, Zeni turned her face up to the sky. “But it isn’t.”

When the sun finally sank into the sea, the sky was only orange and red, not a trace of green in sight.

Track 12 - Anyway

Naturally, Zeni’s campaign to drag Bell’s career into the digital age didn’t stop there. 

“Can you play this?” she demanded one day, thrusting her phone into Bell’s face. 

Bell reared back in order not to get clocked with a thousand dollars of glass and circuitry. She’d been improvising on Zeni’s beautiful grand piano, trying to find a chord progression that didn’t remind her of a million other songs. She hadn’t been getting much of anywhere. Maybe a break was just what she needed.

Taking Zeni’s phone, and scooting over on the piano bench so she could sit, Bell listened to the song it was playing. Her nose scrunched. 

Incredulous, she demanded, “Wonderwall?”

“It’s a classic!”

There was no disputing that, though Bell didn’t see what it had to do with anything. She shrugged and handed Zeni back her phone. “I mean, probably? I’d need to listen to it a few more times to really get it. Why?”

“You should sing it—”

“Oasis isn’t really my—”

“—and I’ll post it to your TikTok.”

Zeni said it fast, like if she got it out of her mouth quick enough, Bell would just go along without thinking too hard about it. 

It almost worked. 

Though that was more because of the winning smile and wide eyes Zeni was treating her too rather than any fast talking. 

Still, Bell wasn’t so far gone that she would blindly agree to every one of Zeni’s schemes. It was how she’d gotten out of all of the parties Zeni had brought up over the past few weeks. 

Eyes narrowed, Bell pointed out, “I don’t have a TikTok.”

“As recently as this morning, that was true.”

“What did you do?”

“Jesus, it’s not like I went through your nudes. I just downloaded an app. And set up an account.”

As Bell patted herself down, rummaging through the pockets of her oversized sweater when her jeans came up empty, she blurted, “I don’t have any nudes.”

“That is what you would fixate on.”

“I’m not fixated! Where’s my phone?” Zeni handed it over without complaint, and Bell immediately started scrolling through her apps until she got to the most recently downloaded. “You actually did it.”

Zeni shrugged, unrepentant. “It’s not my fault you don’t have a passcode on your phone.”

“That’s not an invitation to go through it!”

Head tilting curiously, Zeni was quiet for a moment. “Are you really upset about this? I didn’t post anything. You don’t actually have to use the account.”

Bell took a deep breath. The edges of panic, unreasonable and outsized considering the cause, were reluctant to recede. Her shoulders shuddered and her next breath came in a gasp.  

Early on, when she’d been fresh out of high school and unable to afford the application fees to conservatories, let alone tuition if she’d managed to make it in anywhere, Bell had tried her damnedest to build a following. She’d hungered for recognition, her name in lights, almost as much as music had filled her up. She’d run a YouTube channel with a rigorous posting schedule and a Facebook fan page. It hadn’t gotten her far at all. The gigs she’d played had been for exposure and gas money. She’d gotten steady enough bookings for weddings and funerals and birthday parties, playing covers of the hits and none of her own music. Those, she only played at what seemed like every open mic in Nashville, where she handed out cards with her Bandcamp and NoiseTrade and Patreon profiles, which never resulted in more than a few downloads or subscriptions. Most of her success came from writing songs for other bands and singers, hoping one might make it big and remember her. 

Eventually, she’d stopped trying to keep all the plates spinning. Her channel and profiles were quietly deactivated. She played weddings and funerals and birthday parties, but only when a request came into the business email she’d set up at 18, and that was happening less and less these days. She learned to content herself with sporadic sets at Gigi’s and the fact that there was still joy to be found in writing and performing. 

If she’d kept trying so, so hard, only to be met with more resounding indifference, Bell doubted she’d be able to say that still.

She tried to breathe in again, but the oxygen got caught in her throat. Her eyes were burning and her hands were shaking so much she had to ball them up on the keyboard. She’d thought she was past this, this grief. 

Distantly, she heard her name, but it wasn’t until a soft, warm hand covered her trembling fist that Bell really registered it. 

Blinking, she took in Zeni’s face, soft with concern and so, so close. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, finally managing to swallow.

“Don’t be.” Zeni’s lips twisted in a rueful grin. “Sorry for pushing.”

“Don’t be.”

Most of Zeni’s remorse flashed into exasperation. Bell managed to answer with half a grin. Her fists unfurled, but Zeni’s palm was warm against the back of her hand for a beat longer. She only moved it when Bell flexed her fingers and played a chord. 

E minor 7th to a G. To a D suspended 4th. 

The chords flowed, progressions falling into place automatically, the familiar tune coming to life.

Did she know “Wonderwall?” Please . 

The sound of delight Zeni emitted was only slightly undercut by the playful outrage on her face. 

“You totally know it!”

“Of course.”

“Will you sing it?” When Bell didn’t answer, Zeni offered, “With me?”

“Yeah, okay,” Bell sighed, fighting against the way her lips wanted to turn up. 

Zeni grinned enough for the both of them, bouncing on the seat and jostling up against Bell in her excitement. She even bounced right up, trying to shoo Bell with her. 

“Grab your guitar,” she was saying, “and let’s go out in the yard. The flowers will make a great backdrop. Do you want to change first?”

Bell looked down at her sweater and jeans, which were both more hole than fabric, but in a way that spoke to too many trips through a wash cycle and not trend-consciousness.

“Why? I’m not gonna film this.”

“Yeah, well, I am.”

Bell rolled her eyes. Leave it to Zeni to plow ahead with what she wanted regardless of what Bell thought about it. Still, she got up and let the popstar lead her into the garden. “I’m good.”

Zeni rolled her eyes right back, but she didn’t seem put off by Bell’s disinterest. She seemed rather pleased with herself, in fact. “Suit yourself.”

That afternoon, when Bell’s phone wouldn’t stop buzzing, she reluctantly navigated into TikTok to discover that her account had grown more than a thousand followers, with more coming every time she looked. Even without any posts. All because Zeni had posted a clip of their cover, captioned with “after all, you’re my wonderwall,” a few emojis, and @bellblueofficial. 

The interest, however superficial, did feel nice. If she did decide to put her account to use, it was nice to think that she wouldn’t just be sending her music out into the void. 

What felt nicer, though, was the proof—just 45 seconds but forever now that it lived on the internet—of this thing she and Zeni had. Sure, there would be an album, her name would live next to Zeni’s in the song credits in perpetuity. But it wasn’t the same as the hour they had spent in the sun, Zeni’s vintage Gibson cradled in Bell’s lap as their voices twined into the autumn air alongside the scent of blooming bougainvillea.

Track 13 - Kiss Don't Burn

Zeni groaned. She hadn’t lifted her head from the table since she slouched downstairs, still in pajamas and her hair a mess. The quick glance Bell had gotten of her face had shown only bare skin. 

“It’s 10 AM,” Bell observed blandly, paging through her notebook for a lyric she’d jotted down the other day that might fit into the melody that had come to her last night. She’d spent hours refining the rhythm and flow of notes on the roof while Zeni had been out partying or networking or both since they tended to go hand in hand for her. The work had been so engrossing, she must have missed Zeni’s arrival—which at least meant she hadn’t dragged the party back to the house, as she had done often in those early days. It was only when Zeni spilled out onto her balcony, hair wrapped in a towel in spite of the way it triggered a lecture from her stylist every time he found out about it, that Bell realized she was no longer alone. 

Without any input from her brain, the tune she’d been playing shifted to something quieter, sweeter. Without realizing she’d made the decision, Bell started to sing. There weren’t any words to go with the music, but she could sense how they were supposed to feel. Warm and gliding, like honey off her tongue. 

Still playing, she’d watched as Zeni’s head cocked, clearly listening. Watched as Zeni folded her arms atop the railing of her balcony and leaned down so she could rest her cheek there.

They’d stayed like that, separate but connected, until Bell’s voice finally gave out and her guitar fell quiet. 

For once, Bell was the first to retreat inside. 

Now, she had no idea how long Zeni had stayed out on her balcony, but judging by the way she seemed so determined to fall back asleep beside her breakfast—a beautiful acai bowl topped with homemade granola and a vibrant array of fresh fruit—it was probably long after Bell had climbed into her own bed and drifted off.

The hangover Zeni was clearly nursing couldn’t be helping.

“Wild night?” Bell tried, sounding a little too dry for the sympathy she was trying to extend.

Zeni grunted, muffled into the crook of her arm. After a second, she lifted just enough that her eyes—a little red-rimmed but remarkably alert for the walking dead impression—were visible. Perfectly serious, she said, “Don’t try to outdrink former child stars, Bell.”

“You’re a former child star.”

“Exactly.” Without further explanation, Zeni crashed into her folded arms again. 

By the time Bell had polished off a slice of quiche—the flaky, all-butter crust a perfect counterpoint to the filling of caramelized shallots and rings of creamy, sweet squash—as well as a thyme and goat cheese scone, Zeni had mostly emerged from her groggy half-slumber. She stole sips of Bell’s coffee as she gradually worked her way upright, though she was considerate enough to grab her own scone, a mouth-wateringly fragrant saffron and mandarin number. 

Once she had licked every last speck of glaze from her lips (not that Bell was transfixed by the pink darts of Zeni’s tongue), she looked mostly human. Tired and far from the sparkling persona she wore on stage, but that was the point. The Zeni Skye who sold out every stadium on her tour and only wore bespoke bodysuits encrusted in Swarovski crystals wasn’t the Zeni Skye who partied into the morning and was swarmed by paparazzi on every sidewalk. 

Neither were the woman who slumped over the kitchen table in smiley face boxers and a graphic tee that had been through the wash so many times that the remaining lettering was indecipherable. 

Starting in on a slice of quiche, Zeni popped a bite into her mouth and pointed her fork at Bell. Bell waited, eyebrows raised as Zeni chewed and eventually swallowed. 

“What was that song you were working on last night?”

“This morning?” she clarified. She had been stuffing her face with Chef Leon’s balsamic chicken and orzo salad and watching Love Island when Zeni had blown out the door for a former co-star’s birthday bash. 

Zeni rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Yeah, this morning.”

“Mostly ‘Knees,’” she said, breaking off a piece of scone. It felt rude to just sit and watch Zeni eat. 

“It didn’t sound like ‘Knees.’” Frowning, Zeni stole another sip of Bell’s coffee. 

“Yeah, the bridge. You know, where the rhythm shifts? I was thinking something like—” Bell demonstrated the cadence she had kept coming back to, a peppering of eighth and sixteenth notes mixed into the gliding melody.

Head bobbing, Zeni mouthed along as she caught onto timing. She gave a nod and went back to her quiche. 

That wasn’t the end of it. 

“Cool. I like it. But that’s not what I was talking about.” When Bell didn’t catch on quickly enough, she said, “You know. When I was out on the balcony.”

“Oh, um.” Bell struggled against the urge to flush and maybe hide. “That wasn’t really anything.”

Skeptical, Zeni raised a brow. “It sounded like something.”

“I was just messing around.”

“Jesus. If that’s you just messing around, there’s no hope for the rest of us.” Abruptly, Zeni stood, gathering up their plates in one hand and draining Bell’s coffee with the other. “You think you can remember it? Let’s try and fit some lyrics in.”

Stunned, Bell said the first thing that popped into her mind. “Really?”

She sounded so shocked that Zeni paused in loading the dishes into the dishwasher. Suspiciously, she eyed Bell. “Yes, really. Why?”

“It just doesn’t seem—” As Bell floundered, she realized she should’ve bailed, but she was probably in too deep by now. Zeni wouldn’t drop it, even if she backpedaled hard enough to reverse the direction of her tone. Sighing, she admitted, “Like your vibe.”

It wasn’t a dig, however much it might sound like one. Most of Zeni’s music to date—hell, most of the music she had written for her—was high-intensity, straightforward pop. As straightforward as modern pop got, anyway. There were R&B vocal stylings and electronic production values on pretty much every track, but her sound never drifted significantly from the mainstream.

Bell, on the other hand, lived pretty firmly in the realm of dreamy folk Americana. Coming up in Nashville, there was no escaping a bit of country twang, though her sound cleaved closer to Joni and Joan than Johnny and June. 

And the melody she’d plucked from her six-string this morning definitely leaned more towards her style than Zeni’s.

“Well, yeah,” Zeni said, shrugging. “When you play it the way you did. I know you love a downtempo, croony number, but sometimes a little bounce can go a long way.”

“A little bounce, huh?”

Rather than explain, Zeni chose to demonstrate. She started to sing.

The little tune Bell had improvised in the dark before sunrise, which had sprung into her mind almost fully formed upon seeing Zeni, sounded completely different out of her mouth. 

Zeni might not have the gravitas and carriage of a grand diva yet. She might not be hailed as a capital-A- artiste with visionary taste. 

But there was never any doubt that the girl could sing . 

Not for the first time, Bell was awed by the fact that it was her music coming straight from multi-platinum vocal cords. 

What had been honey, sweet and earthy and warm, early this morning became pure sunshine from Zeni. Still golden and light, there was a bright, uncontainable joy to the tune now. Even made up of nonsense syllables, it sounded like champagne bubbles and the glimmer of rippling waves. It sounded like the next song of the summer. 

Immediately, ideas came rushing into Bell’s mind. Before she could lose any of them, she was flipping open her notebook, scattering grains of sand and a few fuchsia petals onto the table. She was already seven items deep in a list by the time Zeni sat down again, her gorgeous Gibson in tow.

She leaned in to decipher Bell’s scrawl, and the smell of her shampoo didn’t disrupt the roll Bell was on, but it was a near thing. One slim, manicured finger tapped at the third bullet. 

“Kiss or burn?” she read, a murmur that Bell felt deep in her gut as much as the word “kiss” straight from Zeni Skye’s lips. 

She kept scrawling, though most of it was nonsense. Her voice was high and thin on her responding, “Mmhmm,” so she cleared her throat, like a little rust was the problem. “I was thinking summer. Sun. You know.”

So eloquent. It was a wonder she was paid for her way with words. 

Zeni didn’t tease, though. She just nodded and sat back, fingers settling on the neck of her guitar. “Cool. Let’s start there. What’ve you got?”

The squirmy, fluttering feeling trying to crawl from the depths of Bell’s ribcage didn’t go away as she and Zeni wore away the morning, lyrics and melody flowing between them as much as laughter and companionship, but it was fine. 

By now, she’d gotten used to it, and the slight discomfort—the awkwardness of longing for someone right in front of you was real—was worth getting to hear Zeni’s crystal clear voice bringing her music to life.

Track 14 - (Don't) Give it to Me Straight

The problem wasn’t that Bell didn’t know how she’d gotten to this precise moment in her life. She could trace that journey with something approaching clarity. 

Ever since Zeni had decided to befriend her, this moment had been coming. 

Honestly, Bell was more confused as to how she had managed to put it off for so long. 

To put it simply: Zeni had dragged her out of the house. Not just for groceries or coffee or any of the thousand errands they’d done together in broad daylight. 

No, the sun was long set, and Bell was at a party.

The storm had been brewing on the horizon all week, Zeni casually asking if Bell got bored when she was abandoned in favor of Zeni’s busy nightlife and a stop at some trendy little boutique on the way back from an afternoon boba run. Zeni had picked out a whole armful of dresses—more cutouts and mesh than anything else—and shoved half at Bell before shooing her into one of the changing rooms and claiming another for herself. The resulting fashion show had been ridiculous. Bell felt scrawny and coltish in the high hems and clinging fabric, particularly compared to Zeni’s curves, but that unease faded away the first time Zeni beamed and twirled her around. 

At least the dizzy, giddy feeling she’d been left with could be conveniently blamed on all the spinning. 

Finding one of the dresses she’d tried on—a deep green halter neck number whose trailing ties only winked at providing any coverage to her otherwise exposed back—hanging in her closet that afternoon had simply been the nail in the coffin.

Hanger in hand, she’d gone to find Zeni. Who was still lounging by the pool where Bell had left her and not pulling off nonchalance as much as she thought she was. Dryly, Bell had said, “I know you complain about my wardrobe all the time, but isn’t this taking it a little far?”

“A girl can only take so many peasant blouses and cut-offs.”

Bell hadn’t pointed out that she owned precisely one peasant blouse—that Zeni knew of, at least. She’d simply sighed and ventured, “Should I assume you have a plan for this?”

Zeni’s answering grin had told Bell everything she needed to know. 

Or so she’d believed. 

Having found the one quiet corner of the club Fissure Records had commandeered for the release of one of their veteran artist’s latest albums, Bell was fairly sure that if she had known how much repetitive small talk went on at these things, even over thumping bass, she would have put up more of a fight. 

Halfway through the flute of champagne she’d nabbed the last time a cater waiter had passed by, Bell slumped against the wall and wondered how much an Uber back to Malibu would cost. 

“There you are!”

In spite of herself, Bell’s lips twitched upward. 

“Hey, Zeni.”

“What are you doing back here?” Zeni demanded, nonetheless slipping into Bell’s hiding spot. It wasn’t quite big enough for two people, but Bell wasn’t going to complain. “Why aren’t you talking to the A&R guy I introduced you to? He works for Peter, but he’s surprisingly un-Satan-ish.”

“We chatted,” she protested. Mostly, she’d listened to him complaining about the Nashville hotel the label always put him up at for five minutes before he drifted away. She’d gone on to chat with a few other guests, though the only one who seemed worth the effort was one of the sound engineers she’d caught by the hors d’oeuvres table. Not only had he given her a few tips about self-recording, he’d steered her away from the mini eggrolls, which someone had decided to stuff with cream cheese filled pickles. 

“Sure you did.” Zeni crossed her arms, and Bell was not going to be distracted by the, frankly, incredible things it did to her chest. “You know, I brought you here to connect with all the industry execs that were bound to be swarming the place. Not hide out by coat check.”

“Thought you brought me to be your arm candy,” Bell joked because that was as likely as her actively networking with music industry suits.

Zeni’s lips, painted a dark, dangerous red, pursed. “Not if you’re hiding back here where I can’t show you off. C’mon.”

Before she knew it, Bell found herself in the middle of the overflowing dance floor. The crowd had parted easily for Zeni but closed back up around them without much fuss. 

“You already know I’m terrible at this,” Bell tried to protest, practically shouting to be heard over the thrum of the bass. 

But Zeni was irresistible. She drew Bell in until they were nearly pressed together, and only partly because of the crush of the crowd. 

“Just follow my lead,” she said, keeping excruciating eye contact as she gave her hips an an exaggerated roll. “Now you.”

Bell tried. She did. But this kind of rhythm was beyond her. Her fingers could tear down the neck of a guitar in all kinds of complex licks, but it was like the coordination in the rest of her body had been sacrificed for that dexterity.

Still, when Zeni laughed at her feeble attempt, it wasn’t cruel. Just warm and fond. 

It ripped right through Bell’s chest, splitting her open in a way she had been fighting for months. 

It was one thing to nurse a harmless crush on an entirely unattainable popstar. It was something else to have gone and fallen a little in love with her. 

“Like this,” Zeni said, laughter still sparkling in her voice. Her hands found Bell’s waist and skimmed down to her hips, an electric slide that had as little to do with stilted school dances as everything else about this moment. 

The thought still made her laugh, enough to relax and stop resisting the push and pull of Zeni’s hands. 

“There you go,” Zeni praised, shuffling a little closer and starting to sway herself. Her palms remained hot and firm on Bell’s hips, like if she removed them, the tentative rhythm they’d picked up would peter out altogether. 

It probably would, but that wasn’t why Bell didn’t want her to let go. 

Unsure of what else to do with them, Bell draped her arms over Zeni’s bare shoulders, brought up to a more comfortable height by the absurd platforms Zeni was wearing. 

Fingers flexed at Bell’s hips, rucking up the slinky fabric of her dress. Bell swallowed hard as Zeni’s touch drifted until it wasn’t cloth beneath her fingertips but the bare skin of Bell’s back. 

For someone whose mind was its own music box, every thought accompanied by its own score, it was strange for nearly the world to go absolutely quiet. The DJ’s music faded along with the din of their fellow party guests. Drinks and ice sloshed silently in every glass. 

All that was left was the throb of Bell heart, thundering away in her ears. 

That and the dart of Zeni’s tongue across an already tempting bottom lip. The scent of sweat and perfume rising intoxicatingly off her skin. The hungry gleam in green, green eyes. 

In the silence of her mind, only one thought reverberated.

Oh . 

Bell bit her lip and internally thrilled at the way Zeni’s eyes snapped straight to the flash of teeth. 

Before she could let that thrill roll into something bold and terrifying and so, so close to her grasp, a voice broke into that sacred quiet. Just like that, the world reached them again. 

“Well, well, who do we have here?” Peter Hamilton crowed, looking a few too many vodka Red Bulls deep. 

Zeni had already shifted to put some distance between them, and Bell had already stopped dancing. 

“Pete,” Zeni drawled, her distaste for Fissure’s head of A&R only barely leashed. “I didn’t realize Clyde invited you to the launch party.”

Based on the way Peter’s mouth twisted, Bell could intuit that Clyde Harper, whose ninth studio album was the reason for this shindig, had not actually invited his label’s A&R manager. The source of the beef was less evident, but that hardly mattered. 

Still sneering, he turned to Bell. If he tried to pile on the charm, it wasn’t obvious. 

“Bell, so good to see you making the most of your time in LA. Especially since it sounds like you’ll be heading back home to Nashville so soon.”

Her eyes cut to Zeni, who was practically glaring at Peter. It was true that they’d written enough for an album. More than enough, honestly. But she hadn’t really thought about what that meant. With all the progress recordings they’d made—from initial voice notes to roughly produced tracks with instrumentation and vocals—and Zeni’s own fingerprints all over every piece of music, it wasn’t like Bell was really necessary to the recording process. Maybe she could sit in on a few studio sessions and see what it was like in the big leagues, but that would be all it was. Observation. 

Luckily, Peter didn’t seem to require a reply. He smiled condescendingly and wandered away, in search of someone else to antagonize. 

“What a dick,” Zeni muttered, though it was loud enough to be heard over all the noise, so she couldn’t have been that quiet. 

“You can say that again.”

“What a dick.”

Bell managed half a grin, and Zeni’s responding expression made up a whole. Her bare shoulder nudged against Bell and remained there, commiseration more than the heady frisson of energy that had overtaken them as they danced. 

“Wanna get out of here?” Bell asked, suddenly exhausted and yearning for the peace of Zeni’s ridiculous house. 

Zeni twined her arm through Bell’s and nodded, her golden head tipping against Bell’s shoulder.

That was exactly how Zeni nodded off in the car on the way back to Malibu, Morris’s off-key humming apparently no barrier to the call of oblivion. 

Given a choice, it wasn’t the way Bell would have chosen to end her night. Before that moment on the dance floor, however, she wouldn’t have dared to dream that her top choice was remotely in the realm of possibility. Before that dance, she would have thought this was the only kind of sleeping she’d ever do with Zeni, and that would have been fine. 

But now…

She was pretty sure she could dream bigger.

Track 15 - What Light

It was one thing, cloaked in darkness and riding a rush of adrenaline and champagne bubbles, to tell herself that Zeni might actually be into her. 

In the cold light of day, however…

For the third time in the last hour, Bell found herself distracted by the tendril of hair escaping from Zeni’s messy bun and trailing down her neck. It was ridiculous to be jealous of hair, but there she was, wishing she could caress the smooth skin of Zeni’s throat.

“Bell.”

She blinked to find Zeni staring at her, exasperated, from her perch on the stone ledge of her balcony. Even framed by trailing bougainvillea, a riotous profusion of pink, there was no softening her annoyance. 

“You with us?” she asked, pointedly tart. 

Bell winced. “Sorry. Just a little distracted.”

Zeni arched one perfectly groomed brow. “Care to share with the class?”

Since there was no reasonable way to confess she’d been wondering what her neck, and other body parts to be honest, would taste like, Bell shrugged. She set aside her guitar since it was clear productivity was well beyond her and because it gave her a little time. But then she was left on the Moroccan pouf, her knees practically jutting into her chin and nothing to occupy her hands. 

And Zeni was still waiting. Watching. 

The sun was sinking low enough that Bell didn’t even have it to squint into. 

She wrinkled her nose and landed on, “I’ve, uh, been posting some stuff on TikTok.”

When she finally looked at Zeni, she was just staring back, expectant. The lack of any other confession had her head tilting, pure skepticism in the angle. 

“That’s it?”

Bell nodded. 

“Ugh!” Zeni’s spine went a little too boneless and she swayed back, only her grip on the balustrade keeping her on the balcony. Bell had popped to her feet, hand closing around one ankle to drag Zeni back in if necessary by the time she rolled back upright, completely oblivious to the heart caught in Bell’s throat. 

“Jesus, Zeni!”

Zeni rolled her eyes, letting her leg drop and conveniently reeling Bell in. She wasn’t reluctant to go, elbows planted on the stone rail and facing out to the sun setting over the Pacific. When had it gotten so late?

“Did you really think I didn’t know that?” she demanded, twisting so she could pin Bell with all the exasperation in her body. “I was your first follower, Bell. Of course I know you’ve been posting on TikTok.”

“Oh.” 

When Bell had started filming herself playing all the music she wrote that couldn’t possibly fit into the arc of Zeni’s album, she hadn’t considered posting it anywhere. It was simply easier to play and sing the snippets of songs that flowed out of her like a leaking tap and record it on camera than try and write it all down. 

But then the algorithm had gotten her. She watched the scores of collaborations between musicians, and added a few of her own, adding harmonies or guitar accompaniment to songs that caught her interest. From there, it hadn’t felt so absurd to also post her original music. 

Slowly, but steadily nonetheless, that burst of followers from Zeni’s initial endorsement had grown.

“Yeah. Oh.” Zeni snorted, shaking her head. Still, she was smiling, so she couldn’t be that annoyed. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask me for a duet, you know.”

Bell frowned. “We sing together all the time.”

“On your video. I could Duet you and once that gets big enough, we drop a video of us together for real. The internet goes nuts.”

She talked about it like it was inevitable. It wasn’t impossible or even unlikely. Lots of Zeni’s videos, some even including Bell in the periphery, went nuts. 

Bell shrugged, unsure of why the prospect didn’t thrill her. 

For long moments, they stayed just like that, Bell’s eyes on the horizon and Zeni’s eyes on Bell. 

Over the distant roar of waves pounding into the Malibu cliffsides, wearing them down since they’d first risen from the sea, Zeni asked, “Was that really what you were thinking?”

Maybe it was the vulnerability in Zeni’s voice, the tender underbelly she so rarely owned up to, or the imminent twilight, ocean dark and sky a burning orange, but “No,” was right there on the tip of Bell’s tongue. She’d drawn breath to give it air. 

But then she saw it. 

Just as the sun succumbed to the waves, a nimbus above the corona, a viridescent glow that lingered for only a moment before winking out. 

The green flash.

Bell’s breath caught and she found herself leaning out over the balustrade, like the extra inches would put the light in her grasp. She swung to Zeni, giddy and wondering, and realized the green was right there. Right in Zeni’s eyes, perplexed but sparkling in the dying light. 

Before she could second guess herself, Bell was surging up, catching Zeni’s cheek in her palm, and sealing their lips in a kiss. 

Zeni made a soft sound, and it wasn’t the overflowing jukebox in Bell’s mind that turned it into a symphony. 

She’d be able to replay that noise in her head until the day she died, but in the moment, it didn’t matter. Not when Zeni’s lips began to move hungrily, eagerly against hers. Not when Zeni’s fingers tangled in her windswept curls. Not when Zeni’s knees parted and Bell could slot so perfectly between them. 

In the moment—and many moments afterward—the music faded out, and Bell hardly even noticed.

Track 16 - Over/Under  

In spite of newfound distractions—and Zeni seemed to find great joy in making herself as distracting as possible—the work continued. If they were different, if Bell didn’t have music spilling from her at every hour of the day or Zeni hadn’t been working for a decade and didn’t know how to stop, maybe it wouldn’t have. Maybe they would have simply fallen into one another, only to surface when something forcibly dragged them back into the real world. 

But that wasn’t who they were. 

The music (and, perhaps more crucially, the label) still called. 

“Zeni Millicent Skye!” 

Like a 5-foot-nothing tornado, Lucy came tearing into the house one morning, brandishing a phone wildly through the air. She didn’t bat an eyelash at finding Zeni and Bell cuddled up on the couch, but did point one trembling finger at Zeni. 

“I know you did not leave me on read all weekend.”

Zeni yawned, and Bell wisely extricated herself lest she be flattened in the brewing violence. Her retreat to her own couch cushion earned a little pout, though Zeni turned her unbothered attention back to Lucy quickly enough. 

“You also know that’s not my middle name.”

Bell didn’t wince, but it was a near thing. Somehow, Lucy’s fury swelled. Her nostrils flared and her jaw clenched. 

“Don’t be cute with me.”

“I’m cute with everybody,” Zeni drawled. “Just ask Bell.”

“Disrespectfully, fuck off.”

Finally, Zeni laughed, and Lucy downgraded from an F5 to about a two, two-and-a-half. Bell maintained her distance; still plenty of destructive force in play. 

Lucy took a seat on Zeni’s free side.

“Zen,” Lucy intoned, grasping her employer/friend’s hands in her own, “I am so happy for you. Really. And not just because the number of ‘Bell’s so cute!!’ texts I’ve received in the past two weeks have drastically decreased.”

Bell’s eyebrows shot up, but neither woman was looking at her. If she believed even a little she could get Zeni flustered, she might bring it up later, but Zeni was remarkably candid about how down bad she was. If anything, it’d just backfire, and Bell would be the one all flushed and shy while Zeni gloated.

(Ask how she knew.) 

“But,” Lucy was continuing, “if you expect me to run actual interference with fucking Peter—not just telling him you threw away your phone because a spider crawled across it but an actual fucking psyop— A) You have to warn me in advance, and B) I am going to require a six-month vacation as compensation.”

Zeni nodded solemnly. “Fair. How do you feel about Mykonos?”

“Nice try. Maldives. One of those stilt bungalows over the water.”

Zeni hummed. “Hard bargain, but deal.”

They shook on it, leaving Bell more than a little bemused. 

“Sorry, why are we avoiding Peter?”

“Because he’s a creatively bankrupt, overgrown frat boy with a disgustingly inflated superiority complex,” Lucy said while Zeni stuck with the more succinct: “Because he’s tacky and we hate him.”

“Cool.” Bell couldn’t exactly fault either reason. But she still had questions. “Then why is he poking around now? I mean, I haven’t heard from him pretty much since the tour ended.”

Zeni sighed, slumping into the overstuffed cushions. “Probably because he thinks the album’s done and wants me in the studio yesterday so they can start prepping the next tour.”

“He wanted you in the studio yesterday on Friday,” Lucy corrected. “So, that’s like four yesterdays ago.”

“Even better,” Zeni said, utterly flat.

Tentatively, Bell ventured, “You love touring, though. You come alive on stage.”

Zeni allowed her head to loll lazily towards Bell. She was smirking. “Am I not lively enough for you? I can—”

Bell clapped a hand over Zeni’s smart mouth, annoyed to feel herself flushing, which was only made worse when Zeni went and licked her palm. 

“You’re a child.”

“You did call me ‘baby’ a lot last night.”

“Okay,” Lucy said loudly, popping to her feet. “That’s my cue to remind you that the lack of an HR department just makes the term ‘hostile work environment’ a double-edged sword.”

“Sorry, Luce,” Zeni chuckled. Then, more seriously, she asked, “You are okay keeping Peter off our backs for a bit, right?”

Half smiling, Lucy nodded. “I got you, Zen.”

“You’re the best.”

“Duh.”

With such a parting shot, there was nothing left for Lucy to do but make her exit. 

Unfortunately, Bell and Zeni did not slide back into their contented cuddling. 

“So,” she said, turning the past ten minutes over in her mind and snagging on one particular detail. “Why does Peter think the album’s finished?”

“Isn’t it?”

Personally, Bell could spend a decade refining a melody, tweaking lyrics, and still never be satisfied a song was complete. But personally, Bell didn’t have a recording contract with one of the biggest labels in the business. One that wouldn’t have gotten so big if it let its artists indefinitely sit on music until it was perfect. 

Over the past few weeks, even before the launch party and the green sunset, they’d mostly moved on from the conception and writing stage. (Bell, of course, continued to write for herself, though she found so much of what came to her rang with Zeni’s voice.) They’d worked on harmonies and picking patterns and lifting songs from the page and theory into the world and practice. Already, she and Zeni had made acoustic demos of more than twenty songs, each complete with its own set of notes on potential instrumentation and production values. It was more than enough for an album.

“Do you think it is?”

Zeni searched Bell’s face for a long, long moment before nodding. 

Bell smiled in spite of the pang reverberating through her chest at the look in Zeni’s eyes. She leaned forward and brushed her lips against the apple of Zeni’s cheek on her way to her lips. 

“Congratulations,” she murmured. “It’s a record.”

Fondly, arms pulling her close until they were tangled together once more, Zeni just breathed, “Dork.”

Naturally, Bell couldn’t bring herself to mind.

Track 17 - Vainglory  

Bell was still staring at her phone, dark and still in her hands, when Zeni’s footsteps started rattling the wooden staircase. 

Zeni, when she rounded the final corner, didn’t look even slightly winded, though she’d clearly taken the stairs at a jog. More than once, she’d made fun of Bell’s disdain for cardio, asking how she planned to tour and put on shows every night with such garbage stamina.

“Easy,” Bell had replied. “By not going on tour.”

Oh, how the turntables…

Smile lighting up her sun-kissed face, Zeni couldn’t help but tease her some more, even as she sank onto the step beside Bell. “Get tired on the climb? Have to take a breather?”

More than a little numb, she shook her head. “This is where I finally got reception.”

“Ah, right. The call. So, who was it?”

“A friend from Nashville. Uh, Hiro Matsumoto. He’s got this band. I wrote a couple of songs for them.”

Zeni absorbed this information, nodding slowly. “Is that why he called? Wanted to commission another?”

“We talked about it, yeah.” Then, shaking herself, Bell corrected, “But no, that wasn’t why he called.”

She trailed off long enough that Zeni had to give her another nudge. “Bell. Why’d he call?”

“Right. Right. His band. Plum Wine? They’ve apparently been blowing up online. One of the songs I wrote—” Bell broke off, still not quite able to believe it. She’d noticed that the song had been used in a ton of videos, and it had always been a thrill to hear it play. She hadn’t realized that it had gone any further, or that it even could. “Um, anyway. They got funding for a tour, a real one.”

“Better than the fake ones.”

Bell didn’t laugh. She just looked at Zeni with wide, helpless eyes. “They want me to go with them. Open for them. For three months.” 

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. It was absurd. Someone wanted Bell Blue on tour?

Impossible.

Once she got over her laughing fit, had wiped the tears away from her eyes, Bell looked at Zeni, who didn’t seem to find this as objectively hilarious as it was. 

“Zen?”

“You should go.”

Bell’s amusement nosedived straight into the ground. Uncomprehendingly, she repeated, “I should go?”

Zeni wouldn’t look at her, stared down at the worn wood beneath her feet, but she nodded. 

There were a lot of ways to take that. The path Bell took was, perhaps, the least convenient. 

Voice small, throbbing like a wound, she asked, “You want me to go?”

Zeni’s head whipped up, blonde hair flying. She stared fiercely into Bell’s eyes. “It’s not about me. This is an incredible opportunity. I just— I don’t think you can afford to pass it up.”

“Of course I can,” Bell protested. “The label already gave me an advance for the album, and royalties—”

“Not literally, Bell. I mean—” She scrubbed her hands over her face before switching tacks. “You know how you said I love to tour? That I come alive when I perform? You’re the same.”

Bell was shaking her head even though she’d always known this to be true. She just didn’t want it to be a reason for Zeni to push her away. 

“You are,” Zeni insisted. “All that music you write? It’s just begging for you to sing it. To share it with the world.”

“I do. I write, you sing.”

“We write. We sing. But you can do it for yourself, too. If you would just let yourself be somebody.”

For the first time, anger bloomed past the bewilderment. She shoved to her feet and put some distance between them. Like she could sense what was coming and wanted to take it on the chin, Zeni rose, too, but let Bell have her space. 

“Oh, so I’m not good enough for you if I’m just a nobody.”

“That’s not what I said,” Zeni returned, words measured but tone flinty.

“But it’s true, isn’t it? That’s why Peter hired me. A dig at you, having to work with some no-name songwriter.”

“Who gives a shit what Peter thinks? He sucks.”

Bell groaned. “He sucks so much.”

“So much.”

They stared at each other for a long beat before dissolving into helpless giggles. Once the moment of levity had faded, though, the heaviness was still there, tuned sadder now. They might agree that Peter Hamilton was a douche of the highest order, but they remained split on the other thing. 

Bell couldn’t imagine giving this up. She’d already abandoned the dream of stardom, whatever the little jolts of envy she’d experienced witnessing Zeni’s life up close and personal might imply. Writing music and occasionally posting it online was enough if it meant getting to keep Zeni, too.

Desperate to prove it, Bell crossed the sun-warm terra cotta tile in just two strides. She cradled Zeni’s perfect face in her hands and kissed her like it was the last time. Right into her mouth, once they were both clinging to one another and panting for air, she begged, “Don’t make me go.”

Zeni was shaking her head, pulling away just enough that she could burrow into Bell’s shoulder. “I’m not,” she said, muffled and more than a little watery. “But I still think you should.”

As heavy as the admission hung in the air, clouding everything even after they had let go and headed silently back into the house, it hung even heavier in Bell’s heart.

Track 18 - Quitters Never  

Just four days later, three days before Zeni’s first official recording session for the album, Bell was gone.

Track 18 - Unscripted (Outro)

Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, Bell let her fingers dance over her guitar strings. It was an easy pattern. Down-down-up. Up-down-up. C to G to A minor to F. 

The extended intro gave her a moment to collect herself, which was always necessary by this point in the show.

Zeni, of course, had been right. At the start of the tour, even after a couple of weeks of rehearsal, Bell’s stamina had been absolutely pitiful. 

By now, at least, she wasn’t in danger of passing out halfway through her set, though she was always exhausted by the end. 

This really was different from those fifteen-minute sessions at Gigi’s. 

For one, Gigi’s never could have hosted a crowd like these. 

Even if most of the audience wasn’t here to see her, were more interested in Plum Wine and the song that had taken over everyone’s For You Page, Bell couldn’t deny it felt good to play in front of people who wanted music rather than a cheap burger and cheaper beer. 

She sidled up to the mic, guitar a reassuring weight across her shoulders. 

“I’ve got one last song for you,” she said, still strumming. “It’s not mine, but maybe you’ve heard it.” 

A step back and a breath and her fingers flew into a new rhythm over the strings. 

It sounded different on her beat up six-string than it did in synth and piano on the radio, but it sounded just like her memory. Only the uneven percussion of ocean waves and a voice to fill in the harmony were missing. 

Except—

Bell fumbled the next chord as a voice joined hers, but she picked it up again. The muscle memory built from six weeks of playing it nightly (the first six weeks of tour having spent refusing to touch anything that threatened to rub that tender, aching spot within her ribs too raw) was too automatic for shock to fully disrupt. 

It hardly mattered. The roar of the crowd drowned out the flub as they greeted music royalty to the stage. 

Hoarse with shock, Bell leaned into the mic and rasped, “Ladies and gentlemen, Zeni Skye!”

Zeni’s grin flashed out over the audience, but the smile it bloomed into was all for Bell. 

“Why don’t we take this from the top?” she asked, sauntering right up to Bell and promptly forgetting she had her own microphone. Her cheek practically brushed against Bell’s, a cloud of her perfume enveloping them. 

“I’m game if you are,” Bell replied, too aware of the audience eating up this moment, hanging onto every word. 

For once, however, Zeni wasn’t. Her eyes were verdant and sparkling, taking in only Bell. She turned away from the audience, putting her lips right up to Bell’s ear.

“For you, always.” 

Bell didn’t kiss her right then, but it was a close thing. She ached to busy her lips with Zeni’s rather than lyrics they’d written together on that little, tide-washed beach below Zeni’s perfect haven of a home. But the music was already flowing, and it was natural as anything come in right on time, their voices twining deliciously, sweetly in harmony.

It remained a close thing, for all Bell went right on not kissing Zeni, until they were safely offstage, swathed in the shadows of the wings. 

Even then, she hesitated. 

Busy as Bell had been—criss crossing the country in a tour bus, singing her heart out, gaining a real following, and always, always committing to paper the tunes that populated her head—Zeni had been busier. 

Not recording and releasing and promoting an album, as Bell had thought she would. 

Instead, she’d gone through a very public breakup with Fissure Records. A breakup that included an exorbitant fee to rescue her music from their control. Including an as-yet-unreleased album. Only one song from the project had dropped so far, charting practically instantly and driving speculators wild about the direction of Zeni’s musical future.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, wondering and more than a little awed.

“Like I was going to miss out on your first tour.”

“So you showed up for the last song of the last show?”

“Better late than never,” Zeni quipped. “Actually, I have a business proposal for you.”

Bell’s eyebrow rose, not quite as sharp as Zeni’s, but a solid effort nonetheless. “Just business?”

“Well, when is music ever just business?”

A grin spread across Bell’s lips without missing a beat, widening as Zeni’s mouth curved to match. 

Just to make sure they really matched up, Bell leaned in and slotted them together. They fit together just as perfectly as they had three months ago. Maybe even better. 

And if that was the case, Bell just knew she couldn't wait to see where they’d go from here.