┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
CHAPTER FIVE
if you loved me
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛

━━━༻❁༺━━━

"FUCK IT ALL!" Piper snapped, throwing her pick across her room and flinging herself back onto the bed, her guitar resting across her lap. Her fingertips ached, and she fought back tears as she stared at the ceiling.

"Piper, deep breaths, please," Michael's voice was soothing. He sat in her desk chair, his arms draped over his own guitar.

"I know, I know, but I just don't understand how," Piper sat up, her blood pressure still on a steady incline, "fingers don't bend that way! They don't! It's so stupid, why am I even trying?"

"Because you love the guitar, and you're just going to beat yourself up about it later," Michael nudged her leg with his, "you're almost there, you just need to push."

"It's a guitar, not childbirth," Piper rolled her eyes as she pulled a spare pick out of her pocket. The notes were simple, but for some reason, her fingers were intruding on strings they didn't need to touch, and her strum pattern was wrong, sounding like she was scratching the metal.

She wanted to smash the guitar into the ground and set fire to the splinters, but Michael was right. Piper hated that he was, and she certainly wasn't going to tell him. Instead, she dramatically huffed and adjusted her fingers to the note, and before she strummed, Michael reached forward, pushing on her knuckles and pulling on phalanges to get her hand to sit on the guitar correctly.

When he finished, he sat back and gestured for her to strum.

"Down, down, down, up, down, down up," Michael reminded her, a snarky smile on his face as she stuck her tongue out at him, readjusting the pick in her hand before strumming.

The chord that rang out sounded perfect, the strum pattern elevating the sound. She slid her fingers down a fret to transition to the next chord, and it all fell apart.

Piper wanted to scream, she wanted to break her hands for the betrayal that she endured from them. She wanted to slap Mike for chuckling at her frustration. It was easy for him to laugh, he was always good at picking up skills, guitar took him no time to learn, hence why he was trying to help her with it now.

If only he could easily learn how to teach. Piper groaned again as she aggressively strummed the guitar, the chords now warped and loud.

"Let's take a break before you break something," Michael sighed, "besides, I have a song that I want you to take a look at, I feel like it's missing something."

Piper nodded as she pressed the pick between the strings and walked over to her guitar stand, propping it up for the next time she practiced. Michael was pulling the song up on his phone for her to read as he played.

"Wherever You Are?" She asked, "Isn't that a Kesha song?"

"No!" Michael frowned, "Yes, but it's not this. Shut up and listen, the bridge is missing and Luke normally handles that but he's been so burnt out, he has no clue as to how he wants to do it."

Piper giggled as she looked down at the lyrics. Michael had gone through most of the song humming but when he caught Piper's frown, he actually sang it for her.

But then the part for the bridge came around and that's when he started scatting over the breakdown of the chords.

"Wait, wait, wait," Piper straightened up, "I have the perfect bridge for this. I wrote it down like a week ago."

She got up from the bed and walked over to her keyboard, sifting through her sticky notes as she looked for it. She needed to organize them into her song book but the amount of effort that would take wasn't something she could give it right now when she had finals soon. She probably should be studying but Michael and his dropout ways convinced her to have an impromptu guitar lesson.

"Okay, start that bridge part again," Piper said as she sat back down, holding the note. Michael obliged her, "you can say we'll be together, some day, but nothing lasts forever, nothing stays the same..."

"So why can't I stop feeling this way?" Michael sang, his eyes widening as he turned around at her desk and found a pen and a piece of paper.

"There you go," Piper smiled, handing over her note, "a free line."

"You're the best, Piper," Michael smiled as he stuck the songs to his guitar. After taking a glance at her fingertips, he smirked, "go get your guitar."

Piper rolled her eyes and groaned as she got up. He was going to be the death of her.

━━━༻❁༺━━━

PIPER NERVOUSLY ADJUSTED the guitar strap on her shoulder as she looked out at the stage she was about to step onto. Her nerves made her knees start to wobble. People weren't there to see her, she wouldn't even be singing. Oliver is to have the attention while she figures out how this man convinced her to get on stage and play the guitar.

The past week felt like some odd fever dream. She's now convinced herself that Oliver manipulated her into learning the guitar for his songs. The drummer, who introduced herself as Ava at sound check had given her the cue to start her entrance.

Piper rang out her intro chord as she stepped out on stage, the stage light following her as she made her way to her mark. She did a little riff as well, just a bunch of chords that blended well together. People seemed to go a little wild as they heard her, Piper knows that nobody out there knew her, so where did all this craze come from?

She had to assume it was just the hype of the concert setting a buzz in the crowds veins. The heat of the light was already making her sweat when the bassist, Colby, finally heard his cue. Then the pianist, Dakota, came out to her keyboard.

After that, it was Oliver who finally came out.

They had gone into his concert opening song, which seemed to be one of his more popular singles because even through her ear piece she could hear the fans going nuts for it.

The man can sing. Piper found that she was going to need to buy his album so she could do some more research later. This song was more guitar heavy, and soon, her solo was coming up, she was told at sound check that she was allowed to riff whatever she wanted, it just needed to sound like it was supposed to be there.

And she felt like she delivered a sick ass riff that was in the same key as the rest of the song. The bassist had been walking around on stage, and Piper felt that as one of the two band members with the freedom to do so, she should probably have been more engaging. She of course, followed his footsteps.

At some point, Colby and Piper were back to back, the song had gotten to a particularly hard melody but with Colby literally right behind her, it was fine.

The song came to a crazy end, Ava was bashing away at the drums for the outro and then came Pipers final part of the song, the riff that made it so popular. And she somehow managed to nail it.

"Sydney!" Oliver yelled into the mic, "are you ready?!"

The crowd, already wild, had gone feral, she could hear it through her earpiece. Piper smiled as he commanded the stadium, she had seen Luke had started to attempt his way to this level of control, but he was still working on it.

After that, there was no going back. Oliver had been going on about being grateful to be here, and then he was grateful to have fans here at all.

"I want to thank my band, Ava, Colby, Dakota, and my one night only guitarist, Piper!" Oliver turned to them from his mark on the stage, the lights illuminating his features as he sent a devilish grin to Piper. This guy was fucking with her in front of a live studio audience.

Piper clapped as she looked to the others, she wanted to applaud them for putting up with his so far. This guy is a damn handful.

Oliver winked at Piper before turning around. The crowd seemed to go wild over every little thing he did, how had she not listened to his music before last week?

Soon, he finally started into his songs. Piper didn't know what came over her in that moment, she was a whole different girl than the one she's grown up as. On stage, Piper felt like a guitar beast, and she really started finding her own stage presence.

It was a great set, and though her arms were sore and her legs were tired from the jumping, when the final confetti machine made its explosion and glittered down over the crowd, Piper couldn't help but feel pride as Oliver stood and watched, front and center. A piece of confetti slowly fell down in front of her and she snatched it, shoving it into the back pocket of her shorts.

After that, Piper finally made her way off stage into a squealing Gwen's arms. She had cut the audio to the guitar off, not wanting her friend's body to fuck everything up on stage.

"Did you see me out there, I thought i was gonna die but I didn't!" Piper was buzzing as her whole body shook from the exercise and the adrenaline.

"You were amazing out there," Gwen was right there with her, "it's like you were a whole different person up there!"

Piper nodded as she pulled away. She would be helping to clean up the stage and get the guitar equipment she brought from home. It was recommended she bring her own stuff so she was working with equipment she knew.

After 15 minutes, Piper, Gwen, and the rest of the backing band came out to get their stuff, Piper had a pocket full of guitar picks with Oliver's album logo, she tossed them out as she passed by fans who hadn't left yet. A few of them screamed out as she did, doing everything to outstretch their hands and grab one.

Piper smiled to herself as she walked over to her stuff, unplugging amps and grabbing the chords for her guitar. She was all packed up and off stage in no time. It was even faster when Gwen helped her. Now came the struggle of loading it all back up into her mom's car.

All of it was worth it to her now. The rush that went to her head as she remembered the screams she heard when she entered the stage. She had no idea why Gwen wouldn't prefer the stage anymore.

"That was amazing!" Oliver's voice carried through the bumble of the crew members and venue workers starting their cleanup, "you crushed it out there!"

Piper felt her face flush as she beamed at the compliment. Her heart seemed to flutter a bit at the sight of him, sweat be damned. Guilt soon followed that. She furrowed her eyebrows as she looked down.

Oliver was closer now and he seemed to notice that.

"Hey, what's wrong?" He asked, he moved to touch her arm but decided against it, "you did awesome, it's like you've performed for years!"

"Thank you thank you, sorry it's just," Piper frowned, "I don't know."

Gwen seemed to notice and probably knew what was wrong, but she had to work. Piper knew that a conversation was gonna happen tomorrow, though knowing Gwen, she probably wouldn't wait so long, it's gonna be a bit longer of a car ride tonight.

Piper threw on a bright smile for Oliver. She wrapped her sweaty arms around his sweaty body.

"Thank you for this," Piper smiled, "it was fun."

"You know, you could join the tour still," Oliver raised his eyebrows, "the label won't let me hire you as a permanent guitarist without a little more experience but they've been hounding me to hire an assistant, I've never felt the need for one, but it would be fun to have you along."

"Who's your label?" Piper asked, she was still fairly new to all this even though she was with the boys all the time.

"Capitol Records," Oliver shrugged, "they really harass you to get one."

"What?" Piper frowned again, "sorry, I'm friends with a band that's signed to Capitol and they didn't mention that to me, otherwise I would probably be on the road with them right now."

Oliver frowned now too, probably just as confused.

"Well it's something every band and artist is supposed to do," Oliver affirmed, "I'm sorry, I'm sure they had a good reason."

Piper nodded as she turned to her stuff that was now loaded onto a cart. It would be easier to get it to the car.

"I'll see you around, Oliver."

"So you'll join me?"

"I gotta think about it."

"Hey," Oliver's hand was wrapped around her arm, "I leave in a week from now, let me know soon, if you call me after, you'll have to fly alone."

"o-okay," she hesitated, "thank you again, I'll let you know something soon, I have to make a few phone calls."

Oliver nodded and Piper was making her way to the car, Gwen was still working, giving Piper time to text the boys while she waited.

piper

guys, did capitol records
make you hire
a personal assistant?

penguin boy

Piper, it's late over there
why are you awake?

piper

did Capitol records tell you
to hire a personal assistant
and not tell me?

penguin boy

we're so sorry pipes,
we really wanted to offer
the job for you but your mom
wouldn't let us even ask.

cal

and we didn't want to not be
friends with you at all

piper

don't apologize. I'm going to
have to talk to my mom.
thank you guys for telling me,
but I only found out
after Oliver Colm told me

ash

OLIVER COLM?
PIPER? WHAT?

piper

haha yeah I met him last week at
the pub, he ruined my shirt with my
alcohol and then we started talking
and then I learned all his songs
and played guitar for him
since he fired his guitarist

penguin boy

THATS SO COOL
OH MY GOD

of all the times to
leave sydney, DAMMIT

ash

did anyone record any of it?

piper

Oliver has a YouTube channel
like mine and has been vlogging
his whole tour, so it'll probably be
up next week, which I'm gonna
see if he'll pay me to edit it

penguin boy

oh my god you're friends with
oliver colm

piper

... kinda

penguin boy

oh my god we're finding time to
skype soon we need more details

piper

lol alright, gwens coming
I'll ttyl

cal

good, you two better get to bed soon.

Piper snorted at Calum's text and locked her phone. Gwen climbed into the passenger seat of the car and leveled a stare at her.

"You pulled back on him," Gwen frowned, "why?"

"My mom told the boys to not hire me," Piper stared out the windshield, her hands gripping the wheel, "she somehow made them think she could keep me away from them."

Gwen's face twisted into one of concern.

"Do you want me with you?" She asked.

Piper huffed as she felt her eyes watering. She was sad, sure, but it was anger fueling her veins now. Saying it out loud to Gwen made it sink in just how much her mom fucked her over.

"No, I need a private conversation with her."

"Okay, well, I'm exhausted and you smell, so we should head home."

"Okay."

Piper started the engine. Backing out of the parking spot, she turned on her headlamps and drove off, her mind racing with all the ways she could start in on her mom. She wouldn't be happy, but Piper knew that she was going to have to do this. She's had enough of her mom doing things like this.

━━━༻❁༺━━━

2.7k words

wooo! drama!!!

I'm so excited for you guys to see how this story goes! this book has taken me longer than I wanted it too but thankfully listening to 5sos gives me all the inspiration I need (music videos and their old interviews and live streams help too)

anyways thank you all so much for your support and I hope to see you at the next update!!

comment your predictions and the interactions you hope to see in the future!)

— greta!