HATING PIPER

  TERRI ANNE BROWNING

  Copyright © Terri Anne Browning/Anna Henson 2022

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Terri Anne Browning, except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976.

  Hating Piper

  Rockers’ Legacy Book 8

  Written by Terri Anne Browning

  All Rights Reserved ©Terri Anne Browning 2022

  Cover Design Sara Eirew Photography

  Edited by Lisa Hollett of Silently Correcting Your Grammar

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Hating Piper is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book can be reproduced in any form by electronic or mechanical means, including storage or retrieval systems, without the express permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  CONTENTS

  Playlist

  Dear Santa

  Jerkface

  A Chance at Redemption

  1. Piper

  2. Cannon

  3. Piper

  4. Piper

  5. Cannon

  6. Piper

  7. Cannon

  8. Piper

  9. Cannon

  10. Piper

  11. Cannon

  12. Piper

  13. Piper

  14. Cannon

  15. Piper

  16. Cannon

  17. Piper

  18. Cannon

  19. Piper

  20. Cannon

  21. Piper

  22. Cannon

  23. Piper

  24. Cannon

  25. Piper

  26. Cannon

  27. Piper

  28. Cannon

  29. Cannon

  Epilogue

  Coming Next

  The Rocker Universe Timeline Reading Order

  Family Tree:

  Family Tree:

  Family Tree:

  PLAYLIST

  “In the Middle” by Bad Wolves

  “Live Like Legends” by Ruelle

  “Wildfire” by Bad Wolves

  “Messy” by Conquer Divide

  “Heroin(e)” by Eva Under Fire

  “Never Gonna Learn” by Asking Alexandria

  “Prayers” by Slaves

  “Bad Man” by Esterly (ft. Austin Jenckes)

  “Don’t Threaten Me with a Good Time” by Panic! At the Disco

  “My Monsters” by New Years Day

  “Lifeline” by Bad Wolves

  “Always Been You” by Jessie Murph

  “abcdefu” by GAYLE (ft. Royal & the Serpent)

  “Blow” by Eva Under Fire (ft. Spencer Charnas of Ice Nine Kills)

  “I Found” by Amber Run

  “Willow” by Rain Paris

  “Footprints” by Rain City Drive

  DEAR SANTA

  Piper

  Piper—Age 5

  Cannon—Age 10

  My favorite Christmas song was playing. The lights on Auntie Emmie’s beautiful tree twinkled to it. It was mesmerizing, and all I wanted to do was stare at it as I twirled around in my pretty new dress. I imagined this was what a princess wore to Christmas parties, the way the red tulle made the skirt all poofy.

  The tiara Mommy had put in my hair before we came over to Auntie Emmie’s house made me feel even more like a princess. Everyone had said I looked beautiful or adorable or “too stinking cute for my own good”—whatever that meant.

  As I danced around, I saw a few presents, but none of them had names on them. Bending, I peeked at them a little closer, trying to see who they were for. Maybe they were just for decoration. Aunt LeeLee wrapped empty boxes with glittery paper and placed them around her house to make everything more festive. I thought it was weird, but Mommy said to each their own.

  I didn’t know what that meant, but Mommy loved Aunt LeeLee, and she probably didn’t want to hurt her feelings because she thought it was weird too.

  Mommy said before we came to the party that someone was getting engaged tonight. She didn’t say who, and I really didn’t care. If I cared, then they would make me be the flower girl. Again. I was a big girl now, and I didn’t want to be a little flower girl. I wanted to see all the presents. Dropping to my hands and knees, I crawled around to the back of the tree. If Asher saw me, he would say I was being nosy. He didn’t understand because he was older than me, and he knew everything.

  Well, I needed to know things too.

  But people thought I was too little to actually explain most things to me. If I wasn’t nosy, I wouldn’t ever learn anything.

  I crawled around the entire tree, but I couldn’t find a single present that had a name on it. Seeing Auntie Emmie nearby, I crawled toward her, trying to avoid the many people walking around the party. If anyone would know who each present belonged to, it was her. Not just because this was her house either.

  Auntie Emmie knew everything.

  Just like Asher.

  When someone called her name, she turned to leave the room. Everyone was leaving, going out onto the patio. I crawled faster, wanting to ask her before she went to watch whoever become engaged, but someone tripped over me.

  “I’m sorry!” I cried, hoping I wouldn’t get in trouble. No one else was in the living room, though. Just me and whomever I’d made fall. “Please don’t be mad. Santa won’t bring me a present if—”

  “Santa?” Cannon Cage spat the name at me as he pushed himself up to a sitting position.

  I bit my lip as I realized I’d made a bigger mistake than I realized. Not only had I tripped the one person I always dreaded seeing—and yet always wanted to see—but I’d made him spill his cup of milk and the plate of desserts he’d been carrying. The milk was in a puddle on the floor between us, but the yummy chocolate cake was all over him. There was icing in his hair, smeared across his face, and smooshed into his shirt.

  Cannon was never nice, so I knew this wasn’t going to end well. But the good news was, no matter how mean I had been to him back in the past, Santa had always brought me a gift anyway. I was pretty sure Cannon was on the naughty list.

  “Only babies believe in Santa.” Cannon grabbed a handful of the cake sticking to his shirt. I should have run away as soon as I realized whom I’d made fall, but that weird feeling I always got in my tummy when I saw his dimples had kept me in place. He rubbed his hand across my dress, covering me in cake and icing.

  I gazed down at the fingerprints on my new dress and felt tears sting my eyes. “I’m not a baby. I’m five now.”

  “Santa isn’t real,” he sneered, getting to his feet.

  “Liar!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. My hands balled into fists at my sides, but I reminded myself not to hit him. Last time I had, I’d hurt my hand. Because I’d slugged him in the head. Lyric and Luca had taught me how to punch without hurting my hand the next day, but I promised Mommy and Daddy I wouldn’t hit anyone. Not even stupid Cannon. “Santa is so real!”

  “No, he’s not,” Cannon said with one of those evil smiles. It made my tummy hurt. Every time I saw him smile like that, something bad always happened. But that wasn’t why my tummy hurt. It was those dimples. Why did they have to be so…so… Ugh! “Your parents lied to you. He doesn’t exist.”

  “I saw him!” I argued.

  “Where?” he asked with a mean laugh. “At the mall?”

  “Yeah!”

  “That’s just some guy in a suit with a fake beard.” He bent his knees so his eyes were level with mine. I hated when he did that. It made me feel even smaller than I normally did. I didn’t like having short legs. “Your mom and dad tell you that lie because they don’t like you enough to tell you the truth. They think you’re stupid, which you are.”

  “I. Hate. You!” I screamed and tackled him to the ground. I’d promised Mommy and Daddy, but I didn’t care. It didn’t matter if I never got another present ever again. Cannon was a liar. A big, stupid, mean liar. “I hate you!” I yelled as I hit him again.

  My hand hurt, but that didn’t matter either. Tears spilled down my face, and I could feel snot dripping from the tip of my nose. My heart hurt. He was a liar. He had to be. Santa was real. Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t lie to me. They loved me. They would only ever tell me the truth.

  “Piper!”

  I didn’t stop hitting Cannon even when I heard someone yell my name. My knees were in his stomach, and I pushed my whole weight on him as he struggled beneath me. He might be taller than me, by a lot, but he was just as skinny as Asher.

  “Piper Alexis Bryant!”

  Hearing Mommy’s voice, I lifted my head defiantly, but I couldn’t see her through my tears.

  “Holy crap!” someone, I thought it was Shaw, exclaimed. “Cannon, what did you do to make Piper so mad?”

  “N-nothing,” he whined, turning his head to keep me from hitting him in the eye and nose, but my fists hit him in the cheek and mouth instead when he did that. His bottom lip started to bleed. I hit him again and again and again. “She’s crazy.”

  Suddenly I was picked up, and Daddy turned me around in his arms. His
blue eyes frowned down at me, and I gulped, but I lifted my chin. His lips twitched funnily, like he was trying not to smile, but his eyes were still full of “the look,” the one he always gave Asher and me when we’d done something naughty.

  “Young lady, why did you attack Cannon?” he asked in that stern voice I disliked.

  “H-he…” Fresh tears filled my eyes, and I felt my chin wobble. “He… He said Santa isn’t real.”

  “Jesus Christ,” a voice boomed nearby. “Cannon, get your ass up. I swear to God, boy. I can’t take you anywhere without you causing some kind of trouble.”

  “Cannon.” Aunt Dallas’s voice was full of anger and disappointment. “You promised you would be on your best behavior tonight.”

  “I was being good,” he defended himself. “And then I tripped over that little brat because she was crawling on the floor like a little baby. Look at the mess she made me make!”

  “So you told her—” Aunt Dallas broke off, and through my tears, I saw her press her lips together as her blue eyes drilled down into her son. “I’m so disappointed in you.”

  “Big deal,” he mumbled, but I heard the strain in his voice. It did something weird to my tummy I didn’t like. “I’ll clean up the mess.”

  “The mess isn’t the problem,” his dad snapped. Uncle Axton put his hand on Cannon’s shoulder and squeezed before guiding him toward the kitchen. “Did I raise you to be a heartless little asshole? Huh? Why are you this way with her? God, if I were a different person, I would whoop your ass, son.”

  As Uncle Axton’s voice faded and Cannon started complaining, Daddy asked, “Is that why you attacked Cannon? Because Cannon said Santa isn’t real?”

  “Mostly,” I mumbled, lifting my chin even higher.

  “Whatever her reason, I’m sure he deserved it,” Shaw muttered as she and Violet walked by. “Did you see how badly his nose was bleeding?”

  “Looks like the lessons Ric and Luca gave her paid off,” Violet said with a soft giggle that made me want to smile.

  “I think we should go,” Mommy muttered to Daddy. “She’s obviously upset, and I guess we need to take her home and have a talk.”

  Daddy’s face turned sad. “I thought we would have a few more years before we had to do this.”

  “Me too,” Mommy whispered, her voice almost as wobbly as my own had been.

  I didn’t like being sad, but I hated it when Mommy and Daddy were. My heart began to ache, and I looked at Daddy with big eyes. “Cannon was lying about Santa, right, Daddy?”

  He shifted me in his arms so he could kiss my forehead. “Let’s walk home, angel face.”

  That was when I knew.

  Cannon hadn’t lied.

  Santa wasn’t real.

  JERKFACE

  Piper

  Piper—Age 9

  Cannon—Age 14

  The snickers coming from the front row were the most irritating sound in the history of, well, sound.

  As I waited for my turn onstage, standing by the curtains for my music teacher to announce me after congratulating the last performer on his piano solo, I dared a glance at the audience, already knowing who I would find there. Mom, Dad, Aunt Emmie and Uncle Nik, Dallas and Axton—they were all in the second row. My brother, Shaw, Violet, Jagger, Cannon, and Mia were seated in front of them in the first row.

  Of the six of them, five of their gazes were on my teacher. The sixth—Cannon’s—was on me. And every time he caught me frowning in his direction, he would snicker again. It wasn’t just annoying—it gave me serious stage fright, something that had never bothered me before.

  In the last several years, I’d performed at dozens of recitals, as well as gone onstage with my mom to do a violin duet at many Christmas concerts. That had been in front of at least ten thousand people, with millions of others watching live at home. And I hadn’t had a single moment of nervousness.

  I knew I was good at playing the violin. I’d been taught by the best—my mom—and then I started studying under some of the most amazing teachers for the past several summers. I wasn’t just good. Everyone said I was a prodigy. That my talents would one day surpass even those of my mother. That seemed impossible, but only time would tell, and I would try my best to make my mom proud.

  My attention was still on Cannon, his evil smirk making his dimples pop. I hated when he flashed those stupid things. It caused my stomach to do that weird flip thing, and I always had to force my eyes to look at something else. But no matter how hard I tried to look away from him, I couldn’t bring myself to shift my gaze from those beautiful—devilish—dimples.

  The crowd clapping after my teacher introduced me was what finally broke my gawking at the jerk in the middle of the front row. Swallowing down my unusual nervousness, I straightened my spine, squared my shoulders, and lifted my chin. As I walked out onto the stage, I gave Cannon a disdainful last glance and then did something I’d never done before.

  I played to show him how good I was. Not to impress my mother or my teacher or even the judges who would award the best performer of the evening with a trophy. I put everything I had into each note, closing my eyes and tuning out everything except the music—and imagined the look I wanted to see on my bully’s face when the song was over.

  When I lowered my bow, I was out of breath, and all the kids in the front row stared up at me with their mouths hanging open. Cannon’s jaw was nearly unhinged, and I started to smirk.

  But then he recovered and snickered again, making me want to swing my violin at his head like a baseball bat.

  My mother jumping to her feet and clapping drew my attention away from my archenemy as the rest of the crowd followed her lead. Everyone—with the exception of Cannon—gave me a standing ovation, and I felt my heart lift with pride.

  I didn’t need stupid Cannon Cage to praise me when the applause was nearly deafening from everyone else. Besides, I’d seen how shocked he’d been before he’d tried to cover it up.

  After the recital, there was a party in the gym of my school. It was nearly the end of summer break, and most people were on vacation. The majority of my extended honorary family wasn’t there because they were away, including my aunt LeeLee and cousin Jordan. But the Armstrongs and Cages were always at every one of my recitals, it seemed.

  With my trophy in hand, I had to take pictures with all the judges, my teachers, and then with my parents for the school’s website and social media pages. Over the past two years, I’d garnered my private elementary school a lot of attention for their music program. They wanted me to be their poster child for it, mostly to tempt other talented musical kids to attend, but I was hoping to be accepted to Juilliard.

  Once all the cameras stopped flashing, Mom and Dad hugged me tightly before urging me to go have fun with the other kids. I didn’t have a lot of friends—none, really—in the summer music program, but at least my family was there. Seeing Shaw and Violet were by the snacks, I left my parents after giving them my trophy for safekeeping.

  Shaw threw her arms around me as soon as I was within reach. “You were amazing!” she squealed. “I’m so proud of you. I can’t believe I know the next Lindsey Stirling.”

  Laughing, I hugged her back before accepting a hug from Violet. Her parents were in Paris for the week because of work for Aunt Harper, but Vi had asked to stay with the Cages instead. Everyone else was on vacation in Mexico, Florida, or Italy, or were at home in Tennessee. But I’d gotten texts from Lyric, Doe and her brothers, Jordan, and Trinity earlier, telling me they knew I was going to be phenomenal at the recital.

  “I got goose bumps during your performance,” Violet gushed. “I wish I’d recorded it for Ric and Luca.”