Page 1 of No More Love Songs

CHAPTER ONE

SKYLAR

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“What is this?!” Janelledemands, waiving a hot pink jump drive in my face just as I’m about to take a bite of the world’s greatest veggie burger. I briefly consider holding off on my lunch another second to answer her but decide against it when I realize questions will only snowball from here and my food will be cold by the time she stops talking.

So, I take my bite.

I chew it leisurely before I swallow.

And then, I answer.

“It’s my new song.” Obviously. “Didn’t you listen to it?”

She plops herself down onto the sofa across from me in a particularly dramatic fashion, more than is normal even by Janelle’s standards for flair. “Of course, I listened to it. Why do you think I’m causing such a scene? To add a show to the lunch you brought? No! I listened to it. And now I need answers!”

I made the mistake of taking another bite while she was talking. Kind of expected her to rant on for longer than she did. Now I’m left trying to choke down my food and respond at the same time. “Did you not like it?”

“Like isn’t the issue,” she explains, sitting up straighter, face getting tighter. “It’s more that I didn’t understand it.”

I roll my eyes sideways at Grayson, my producer, who has remained annoyingly silent since Janelle came bursting into her office, jump drive nearly flying from her flailing hands. “What part didn’t you understand? Grayson got it, and he’s a dude.”

“The part where it wasn’t a love song, I guess,” she says, eyes bugging out at me. “Please save me somehow, keep me from falling, escaping the now?” She waves the jump drive yet again, this time with less flair and more frustration. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

I shrug. “Play it for the label as a preview for the coming album?”

She shakes her head, lowering herself a little deeper into the cushions behind her with each shake back and forth until she’s nearly folded into them. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Janelle, you’re top boss bitch of the industry. Of course, you can do that.” I smirk, my attention turning back on my lunch as I add, “Plus, I’m your boss bitch and I’m telling you to.”

“I could have when Barry was alive. But if I go to the label with this now, if I play it for Chase, we’ll both go from boss bitch to fired bitch, and I don’t think either of us wants that,” she huffs, leaning forward ever so slightly to examine the open boxes of take-out laid out on the coffee table. When Grayson and I agree to a lunch meeting, we don’t mess around. “Is anyone going to finish those falafels?”

“Knock yourself out.” Grayson reaches forward to push the box closer to her. “Maybe a little food in your belly will curb your hanger-anger.”

“That’s not what this is.” Bold claim from someone shoving an entire falafel into her mouth as she’s saying it. She takes half a second to gulp it down before she starts in on me again. “Sky, you are the queen of love songs. Your entire career has been built on the epic romances you belt out one note at a time. And now, out of nowhere, you want to sing about some self-discovery shit? What the hell is going on?”

“Did you even chew?”

“Did you even listen?”

“More than you chewed,” I mutter, placing half of my burger back in its box. I’m starting to lose my appetite. “I’ll tell you what the hell is going on.” I pause. The sentence I’m about to say deserves to be delivered as a standalone statement, not some run-on response to her question. “I’m done with love songs.”

She stares at me dumbfounded, third falafel stuck in midair halfway between the box and her open mouth, which went from welcoming her food to gaping at me. “What does that even mean?”

“See, I told you it wasn’t as self-explanatory as you thought,” Grayson says, picking the cucumbers out of his wrap and dropping them into the takeout box beside my half-eaten burger. He hates cucumbers. I love them. Fifteen years of working together day in and day out has left us with very little personal space and no boundaries to speak of. The fact he married my brother only supports what I’m saying.

“It is self-explanatory. You two are just overthinking it, insisting there’s more to the words than what they are. It’s a simple sentence. It’s complete. And very straightforward in its meaning.”

“You can’t be done with love songs,” she insists. “You love love songs.”

“I do. Or I did.” I close the box on my burger. I’m definitely done with it. “Now I think I hate them.”

“What are you talking about?” Janelle’s confusion only seems to grow the longer this conversation goes on.

“Janelle.” I sigh. “I’m thirty-nine years old. You and I, we’ve been doing this how long now? Seventeen years? In that entire time, how often have you seen me in love?”

She frowns. “You’ve been in love.” She hardly sounds convincing. “Andrew. You were in love with him.”

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