I’ve got the phone pressed so hard against my head I’m afraid the radiation is going to turn my brain into a baked potato. My hand is cramping from the clench I’ve got on the little metal and plastic box that is keeping me connected to the biggest dick I’ve ever known in my life—my brother, James. I should clarify that. All of my brothers are dicks, but James is the tallest, and usually the drunkest, and therefore he gets the dubious title of biggest dick.

“Listen to me, Tully,” he slurs, “if you didn’t want Mom to know about that tat then maybe you shouldn’t have gotten it and posted it on your fucking Instagram page.”

“My Instagram page is private for a reason, James. Mom would never have seen it if you hadn’t decided to show. It. To. Her. And you only did it to cause trouble and take the focus off of Jeanette dumping you. You would never do shit like this to Keith or Lou.”

“Yeah, well, Keith and Lou don’t go around getting tattoos of birds on their asses. Don’t you have any shame? What guy is going to want you when you’ve got that shit on your ass? Even your idiot rock and roll pussy guys won’t want to tap that.”

My stomach roils and I feel the sting of tears at the back of my eyes. I know he’s been drinking. I know I shouldn’t listen to the things a drunk says, but it’s tough. My whole life my brothers and father have treated me like a second-class citizen. They’ve spent twenty-two years trying to make me into something and someone I’m not, and even though I know better, I still let them hurt me.

“Fuck you,” I tell James. “And stay away from my social media. Consider yourself unfriended.”

I jab my finger at the screen to end the call and look up to find Joss Jamison, Mike Owens, and Colin Douglas staring at me from across the room. I still can’t get used to spending the majority of every day with the famous rock band, Lush. That I’m actually a member of said band is even more unbelievable. I’ve pretty much been in denial since they first hired me two months ago, and the way things have been going I won’t make it another two months before I get fired, so I really don’t need to believe the fairytale anyway.

Now, faced with their looks of shock at me spewing poison at James, not so quietly on the stage where we’re rehearsing for a summer tour, something inside of me that might once have been called professional pride shrivels up and dies.

“What’s the matter? Never heard a girl tell her brother to fuck off?” It’s a defense mechanism—my antagonistic attitude. I know this, but I don’t always have control over it. In my mind it’s better to be a bitch than to admit that I’m humiliated.

They all look uncomfortable and start clearing their throats. Before they can answer though the door opens behind me and I turn to see Walsh Clark come in carrying the cutest little dark-haired toddler I’ve ever seen.

“Hey, Tully,” he says with a big smile. “Let me introduce you to someone.” He reaches me and stops. The little boy looks up at me with such serious eyes, his chubby cheeks pink and smooth.

“Hey, dude,” I say making sure to soften my voice. The kid lays his head down on his dad’s shoulder, watching me carefully.

“This is Pax,” Walsh says as he rubs the boy’s back. “He’s twenty-two months. Pax, can you say hello to Miss Tully? She’s working with daddy today.”

Pax lifts his head from his dad’s shoulder and says, “Hi, Miss.”

My heart melts. My family may think I’m not a normal girl because I don’t wear frilly shit and cook all day, but I love kids as much as the next chick. In fact, I even want some of my own someday, not that I’d ever admit that to anyone.

“Hi, Pax,” I say stroking his little hand. “You’re about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“He is indeed,” Walsh says, so proud he looks like he’s going to burst.

The door flies open and Walsh’s wife, Tammy, bustles in. She’s about five eight, stacked, and looks like a supermodel. Her reputation is as an uber-bitch that only a guy as nice as Walsh could stand to be married to. But honestly, I feel like she’s just uncomfortable a lot. I get that. But she’s got Walsh, and they’re about as close as any couple I’ve ever seen. Childhood sweethearts who made it work for the long term. She and Pax came here to San Diego with us for our two weeks of rehearsals before the tour starts. Walsh tries to take them with him as much as possible when he’s on tour.

“There you two are,” she admonishes as she rushes over, pointedly ignoring me. “I’ve got to get him to his appointment.” She reaches out her arms and Walsh hands Pax to her after giving him a kiss on the forehead.

“Okay. They doing shots today?” Walsh asks.

“No, just a regular check-up,” Tammy answers, nuzzling Pax’s cheek. He pats hers in return. The sight makes something in me ache. I’m not ready for kids, I have a career to conquer first, but I do envy all that love. It radiates off the three of them, and I crave some of it for myself.

“Thank God,” Walsh answers her. “I can’t stand it when they make him cry.”

Tammy laughs, and then gives me the side eye, because, well, she’s Tammy.

“Let’s get to work,” Joss yells from across the room.

Oh hell. My stomach flips again. I hate this.

* * *

I can’t remember the first time I played a piano, but I do remember the first time someone told me I had a knack for it. I was five or six, and I was sitting at the old piano in my parents’ living room. No one in my family played, but we’d inherited it from my mom’s grandmother, so it sat there, an ancient upright, taking up the corner of the room, gathering dust. I’m sure it was out of tune, and it had some of the keys chipped, but it played, and I loved nothing more than to spend my afterschool hours teaching myself songs I’d heard.

That day I was playing Pop Goes the Weasel, with a little variation—kind of a freeform blues riff, kindergarten style—when my grandmother came in and heard me. “Tallulah.” She walked over and sat next to me on the bench. “Where did you learn to play like that?”

“I didn’t learn it, Nana,” I told her. “I teached it to myself.”

Turns out neither my grandmother nor my mother had inherited the music gene from the piano’s original owner, but I had. And Nana decided she wanted to pay for me to have piano lessons. As the youngest of five kids, I didn’t get much attention. Both of my parents worked full-time at my dad’s construction business, and I was left with the older kids to supervise me. Once piano entered the picture though, I got to spend an afternoon every week with someone who thought I was special. It was the thing that saved my childhood.

Now it’s the thing that might destroy my adulthood, because as much as I love Lush the band, Lush the guys just don’t seem to understand how to function with the addition of a keyboardist and back-up singer.

Joss scratches his head and shoots a look at Walsh. “So, Tully. On that lead-in to the chorus, I’m wondering if you can drop the harmonies. I think it’s kind of busy for this song. If you’ll follow the main thread through there, then into the chorus, maybe we can add those harmonies at the bridge.”

The anger bubbles up inside of me and I struggle to breathe deeply like my sister always tells me. I need to be patient, not combative, but it’s tough for me. If you’re going to be heard in my big Irish family you sometimes have to get angry.

“I disagree,” I say, with as much patience as I can muster. “What you call busy is what Dave asked me to do here. He wants that extra embellishment, that complexity. You’re not used to it, but trust me when I say it’s adding a new depth to your sound.”

Mike sighs. Loud and long. Then I hear him muttering something that sounds like, “Don’t mind us, we’re only fucking Grammy winners.”

Now I’m mad and embarrassed—again. I know he’s right. In a sense. I don’t have the kind of elite credentials that Lush does, but I do have the musical chops. I haven’t been recognized for it yet, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s music.

“Well, excuse me,” I snap, spinning to face Mike and gritting my teeth. I keep my voice soft, but my words are like a whip snapping out. “I’m sorry I’m not a famous Grammy-winning rock star. But what I am is the one your own manager put here, with explicit instructions to do shit like those harmonies in the lead-in to the chorus.”

From the corner of my eye I see Joss do that signature hand through his hair move and then roll his head up to the ceiling. He’s like this creature from another world. He’s so physically beautiful it makes you want to shield your eyes, like somehow you’ll go blind from all that glittering perfection.

Mike steps toward me, his guitar hanging across his body as he jabs an index finger in the air in my direction. “Listen up, little girl—” he snarls.

Before I can take a breath, Colin has jumped in between us, the neck of his bass pointed at Mike. Mike is the band asshole, Colin is the defender of the underdog. The four guys are very different, but somehow they make it work. Where I’m supposed to fit in is anyone’s guess though.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Colin admonishes Mike. “Let’s all take a breath here, dudes—and dudettes.” He tosses me a heart-melting smile over his shoulder. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s get Dave on Skype tomorrow morning bright and early. Let him listen to some of these variations, and he can tell us what he’d like. He’s the guy who helped us hone our sound the first time around, no reason he can’t do it again.”

Walsh, Mr. Happy Go Lucky, splashes out a little flourish on his cymbals and yells, “Sold! To the man with the funny-looking guitar.”

Colin flips him off, his eyes still focused on Mike who is an interesting shade of red right now. I smirk at him over Colin’s shoulder and he growls again. I can’t help it, he looks so much like a big angry bear it’s sometimes hard to take him seriously.

“Dude. Right?” Colin prompts.

Mike throws his arms up in the air and twirls around toward Walsh. “Fine.”

“Great!” Joss exclaims, falsely cheerful. “I’ll let Dave know right away. Let’s call it for today and pick it back up tomorrow. Ten a.m.”

* * *

My hands are shaking as I work to pack up my keyboard and stand. Joss has told me there’s plenty of security here. I could leave my stuff overnight, but this keyboard is the most valuable thing I have aside from the baby grand I bought used that sits in my apartment, and I can’t risk losing it. The guys all set their stuff down and walk away, so in mere moments I’m here alone. I’m also frustrated, embarrassed, and really considering not coming back tomorrow, no matter how great an opportunity this might seem to be.

“It’s not easy being the new girl,” Colin says from behind me. I turn and find him leaning against the wall at the edge of the stage. When I look at him he pushes off and walks to me. “I was the new kid with these guys once upon a time. I remember what it felt like.”

I shake my head as I fold the keyboard stand and squat to slide it into the case. “I find that hard to believe. Plus, that was before everyone was famous. And old.”

He laughs softly. “I never thought I’d see a day when I was the old guy, but I guess to you thirty does seem old.” He slowly wanders around the stage while he talks. I can tell this is going to take a while, so I leave my keyboard case on the floor and sit on a stool nearby.

“The three of them—” He gestures off-stage where Mike, Joss, and Walsh disappeared. “Grew up together. I didn’t move to Portland until our senior year in high school. So even though I was here for the start of the music, I wasn’t here for the start of the band. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nod, even though I’m not crystal clear on it all yet.

“Lush is a lot more than a group of guys standing on a stage playing music. And it’s more even than that group of guys writing music, or talking music, or selling music. Lush is really just our name for our family. You’re not coming in here and trying to make a spot in a musical group, Tully. You’re coming in and trying to make a spot in a family.”

Now family is something I know about. Mine is big, Irish, and Catholic, and if you don’t make them let you in, they never will.

“So you’re saying I’m like the new boyfriend coming to Sunday dinner and the dad and all the older brothers are looking for reasons to haze you, and the mom is trying to find out if you earn enough to support her daughter, and the dog is busy trying to shove his nose in your crotch under the table?”

Colin chokes a little as he laughs. “I think I’m scared to meet your family.”

“You should be,” I answer honestly, remembering the results of the last time my brothers tore into some other guys in the parking lot of my sister’s pub. Let’s just say that the O’Roark boys, as the neighborhood calls my brothers, came out on the winning end of it all.

He walks over to where I sit and looks at me with his serious puppy dog eyes, his arms crossed in front of his chest. One thing about the Lush guys, there’s not an ugly one in the bunch, even if they are all thirty.

“All I’m trying to say is that this isn’t going to happen overnight. There’s going to be some rough patches, and everyone’s going to have to compromise too.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “I know you’ll make this band better, but you might have to adopt a lighter touch at first…until everyone gets used to the new ideas.”

This is hardly the first time I’ve been told that I come off a little strong. But when you’re five foot two with your shoes on, and you’ve been figuratively and literally held down by three older brothers your whole life, you learn that the only sure way to be heard is to be strong—bold, visible.

“Okay,” I mumble. “I’ll try to tone it down…”

“Hey,” he says, bending his knees to catch my gaze. “I know your ideas are the right direction for us to go. But if you piss everyone off so much that they quit listening to you, then having the world’s best ideas isn’t any use. Am I right?”

I sigh. I roll my eyes. I concede that he has a point and vow that I’ll try to be more diplomatic tomorrow.

“I would never have picked you for the fatherly lecture type,” I tell him as we walk out of the rehearsal building together.

“I wasn’t before I got married. But I’ve got a son now—Sean—and you learn how to parent real fast when one of those little faces is looking up at you every day expecting words of wisdom to fall from your mouth.”

“Huh. I’m not sure my dad got that memo. He just yells. You know, ‘cut your hair’, ‘don’t eat all the salami’, ‘bring me a damn beer’, stuff like that. And usually from the comfort of his lazy boy.”

“Everyone’s words of wisdom sound a little different,” Colin says with a wink.

And some people’s sound like, “get off the damn piano and find a real job.”

Just sayin’.