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“Yeah. I can already tell you that’ll be the first thing Siena will want to change.”

“No shit, that’s awful.”

“The worst.”

Piper rested her head on Bunny’s shoulder as they walked through the back hallway to the back door of the concert hall. They had one more big fan eruption ahead of them, and then they could escape to the club. All Bunny had to do was put on her extroverted face for another ten minutes and then they’d be gone.

She could do this.

She had to.

Because she had nothing but her career to show for her pitiful excuse of a life.

TWO

bea

Bea watched as Jo raced back and forth in the small space they were using as a changing room. There was barely room for their suitcases, let alone room enough for Jo to have this much energy. It wasn’t as though it was their first gig. In fact it wasn’t even their first gig at Julianna’s. The club was small and a little too heteronormative for Bea’s liking, but she’d agreed easily enough with coming back. Last time hadn’t been anything special, but they had walked away with a decent sum for the evening.

But now, watching Jo flatten down her shirt for the fourth time, alarm bells started to sound in Bea’s mind.

“Jo?” Bea asked. Something else was going on. Bea knew her sister like the back of her hand.

Jo didn’t stop her fussing. She didn’t even seem to hear her name repeated.

“Jo?” Bea tried again, a smile stretching over her face. She had no idea what had turned Jo into hyper-Jo before tonight’s performance, but she couldn’t help smiling. That had always been one of Jo’s gifts. She had this electric energy. It didn’t matter what mood people found her in, they couldn’t help butget swept up in that energy. And being her big sister had never made Bea immune to it.

“Jo.” Bea spoke a little louder, the word coming out crisp and sharp. She had to get Jo’s attention because she was going to pour out all that energy into this instead of the show.

Jo had leaned forward at the dresser, rolling back her lips to check her teeth for the tenth time. But her shoulders stiffened, her eyes darting away instantly when they met Bea’s in the mirror, and that was all it took to confirm to Bea that something else had happened. Something Bea didn’t know about yet. But she would find out. She always did.

Quickly going through her options of how to get this information out of Jo, Bea decided a soft, caring approach was going to work the best for tonight. Her stomach flipped. That look on Jo’s face rarely left her in a good mood. Usually it would cause at the least tension and frustration. At its worst, that look had caused the only fights they’d ever had in the business side of their life. The personal? Well, they were Irish twins, and fighting like cats and dogs was part of the rules.

Bea closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She had been looking forward to having some time off over Christmas, but that look. That look warned her that plans of taking it easy and putting her feet up might be on hold before they even began.

“What’s going on, JoJo?” Bea kept her tone as light as possible, but if Jo was really paying attention, she’d hear the underlying worry there.

“Ugh.” Jo turned around, her long blonde locks flying around her head, the snarl she would no doubt one day be famous for lifting the left side of her top lip. “I hate that name.”

Bea burst out laughing because what else was she going to do? She couldn’t exactly tell Jo that she might actually be able to use JoJo as a good marketing name. The words were on the tip of her tongue before she swallowed them back down.

But Bea also knew her sister very well, and the reaction wouldn’t distract Bea for long.

“What’s going on?” Bea asked again, putting her hands to the sides of her body, palms up, as she awaited an answer.

“What do you mean?” Jo’s snarl turned into a sweet wide-eyed look of innocence. A look that the handful of fans they had were already in love with. Jo was the traditional girl-next-door beauty. Her blonde hair glowed under the spotlights, and her delicate features made her look far more innocent than Bea knew she was capable of being. It also helped that she had a natural hourglass figure that she spent very little effort to maintain. She was the stunning one of the two, and Bea was the plump older sister who had a chip on her shoulder and business on her mind.

It always relieved Bea to be the sister so many people skimmed over. She didn’t mind her own slightly darker blonde hair, or the squarer cut to her jaw. It had never bothered her to look in the mirror and see herself looking back, though she had thought about whether or not they should look more alike to sell themselves better. But that could be a conversation for a different day.

“Jo?” Bea narrowed her eyes, her tone steady. She wasn’t going to let Jo get away with avoiding answering her again.

Jo batted her eyelids and shrugged as she stretched the smile wider before turning back to the mirror. Her eyes stayed conspicuously away from Bea’s.

Bea took a deep breath. “Okay.”

There were a few ways she could play this. Jo had been nagging her again about loosening up, about meeting women and maybe even trying that thing called S-E-X. Yes, Jo had specifically spelled it out as though Bea were a former nun and the word still offended her delicate ears.

Which was bullshit. Bea’d had sex before, many times. It just wasn’t something she typically shared the details of with her sister. Because that would be weird.