It Takes Two To Tango

By: Riley

Summary – Riley confronts Lucy about her trying to drag Kendall down into her scandal. One-shot.

"I know what you're doing."

Lucy Stone looked up from her guitar and her notebook to see Riley Jackson-McGuire standing over her. She slowly sat back against the chair on the PalmWoods deck, closing her notebook. She pushed it aside before looking at the teenage girl standing in front of her again. Her mouth twitched, knowing that this was going to end well or very, very badly.

They weren't friends, not even close, and it was all because of a certain blonde boy band member.

Kendall Knight was one of the few things that could link the two of them together, apart from their style and playing the guitar. Lucy never intended to fall for Kendall in the first place, she wanted to get over her ex-boyfriend, Beau and she wanted to become a rocks star. But Kendall had that sort of charisma about him that was magnetic and she couldn't help but get caught in his trap. She was even pleased to see that he started to reciprocate the feelings for her after they had gotten back from the tour. But it was a bit weird to her, especially since she had seen how close he and Riley, the co-leader of the DarkElements, were. They were best friends, it was obvious to everyone, and they had something going on between them, which was also obvious to everyone.

So she was a bit skeptical when Kendall started to show interest, she didn't want to be known as the girl that would break up a couple. But she had been reassured that it was alright from Camille (though now she knew that there was a lot of miscommunication and things being kept a secret) and after Kendall went to so much trouble to show her Beau's true colors, she couldn't hold her feeling back any longer. Of course her happiness was short lived when Jo just so happened to come back to the PalmWoods and catch her and Kendall kissing for the first time. She had been ecstatic when she was able to kiss him, but then her happiness quickly shot down to fear and anxiety when Jo saw them. Kendall had a choice to make, and he made a choice that she, deep down, saw coming, even though she tried hard to hold onto hope.

He didn't choose her or Jo; he chose her; his best friend and the one person that he couldn't see the rest of his life without in some way. That's what he had told her when he came by her apartment to share his decision. Lucy had said that she was going to leave the PalmWoods if he didn't choose her, to save herself the heartbreak, and while she was glad that Kendall was happy, it still sucked. What hurt worse was the fact that he chose the girl that she was a fan of and who she in a different way, idolized. She didn't obsess or freak when she first met Riley and her siblings, though she was a bit confused why they were a bit distant from her when they first met. Kendall explained that they were wary when it came to making friends, and while they were civil, she still felt the tension when they were around. But she was still a fan of theirs, she enjoyed their music, and she did change her own look to match Riley's a bit, just so she would have a different look for LA. She never thought that she was actually going to bump into them or meet them in general.

So now, anytime the two of them were around each other, things got tense pretty quickly.

"What am I doing?" Lucy asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm just sitting here, trying to write a new song." She motioned around the PalmWoods. "This place gives me inspiration, that's why I came back here." She turned back to Riley, who still stood across from her, her arms crossed over her chest. Lucy pushed some of her hair over her shoulder. "Unless you have a problem with that."

"I don't live here so I can't have a problem with that," Riley replied in her accent. Lucy didn't know her well enough to know what her giveaways of being angry or frustrated her, but speaking in her Australian accent (as opposed to the American one she tended to use when in the US and not at an appearance) and her face turning red were clear signs. So far her face was a light pink, but it seemed to get darker by the second. "I have a problem with the fact that you're trying to ruin Kendall's life with this stupid scandal that you're trying to bring up." She thumped herself in the chest. "Using our relationship…pushing yourself into it and flirting with him, so you can have some new material for your writing."

"Jealous?" Lucy taunted.

"No," Riley said sharply. "Try fucking pissed."

"All I did was write a song," Lucy defended herself. "No one knows who it's about."

"Cut the shit!" Riley's eyes flashed. She removed her hands from her hips stabbing the air with her right index finger pointing directly at Lucy. "You and I both know that the song is about Kendall." She briefly glanced up at the sky before looking down at Lucy again. "Honestly, I could care less who it's about, boofhead, but the fact that you're using it to boost your own career is pathetic."

Lucy's eyebrow quirked as she stood up, putting her guitar aside. She set it down on the pool chair and stood across from Riley. "So trying to make a career is pathetic?"

"Going this way for it? Yeah." Riley nodded.

Lucy frowned.

All of her frustrations were starting to get to her at that point. She knew that what she was doing to Kendall was rotten, making him think that she was going to reveal that he was the one that she had written the song about. It would ruin his reputation as the nice guy in the music industry and it would probably make her lose him as a friend. She didn't want that, she wanted things to go back to the way they were, honestly, but…her team at Colossal Records liked the idea; it would be a way to take what Taylor Swift was ding but turn it to a more pop-rock edge. And she was pretty angry that she had gone to LA for her music and ended up falling for and getting dumped by a guy that ended up becoming one of her good friends.

She was hurt and she was going to let her know it.

"So how's that different from you?" Lucy mocked Riley, tilting her head to the side. Riley's upper lip curled as she waited for Lucy to continue. "You use things that your exes did to you that your father did to you and you made music about that-"

Riley held up her hand in front of Lucy's face, effectively cutting her off. "That's different because we didn't do it in a way that was so obvious for everyone to know what we were talking about. We used emotions and ideas and how we felt at the time-"

"So did I-"Lucy broke in.

"-But we didn't do it in a way to make them hurt, we did it in a way so that people could relate to it-"

"-And you think that they couldn't relate to my music-"

"-but we would never do it to purposefully hurt someone else and those around them."

"Why does that matter?!" Lucy threw her hands up into the air in frustration. The conversation was starting to wear her out and she just wanted it to be over. "Why does it matter so much? Haven't you ever been so mad at an ex that you wrote a song to try and smite him?"

"BECAUSE YOU CARE ABOUT HIM, TOO!" Riley shouted back. Her eyes flashed. She got up in Lucy's face. "And I swear to fucking God," she hissed. "If you do anything that would hurt him or any of my other boys, you will fucking live to regret it. You can do whatever you want to me, but not to them! I would never in my life, hurt someone that I care about in any way, shape, or form. But if someone else does it, then that's where I really draw the line."

Lucy was silent for a long time. She studied Riley, realizing that there was more to her that she didn't get to see before. The two barely spent time together when she had first moved into the PalmWoods. It would just be a few words here and there, some looks, but otherwise, they didn't really talk. But still, it was unnerving to see how easily she could be read.

"How did you know?" Lucy asked.

"Know what?" Riley asked in a low voice.

"How did you know that I was…using potential lingering feelings for Kendall to get some new source material?" Lucy watched as Riley's hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly.

"'Cause not many people can see how attractive he really is," Riley said after a moment. It sounded sarcastic, but Lucy could tell that she meant what she had said. Riley rolled her eyes, wanting to downplay the things that she was going to admit. "Yeah, I mean, his nose is huge, he can be creepily obsessive, and his eyebrows-"

"Don't even get me started on those." Lucy laughed. "Did caterpillars die on his face?"

Riley smirked, her eyebrow twitching, before she turned serious again. She was quiet for a long time and Lucy wasn't sure if she was going to respond, then she finally started to speak, shoving her hands into the back pockets of her black jeans. Lucy's lips curled into a half smile when she realized that she was wearing an identical pair.

"Most people focus on the outside and what he looks like." Riley started to rub her arm. "Yeah, I think he's hot, but that's not what made me attracted to him, initially. It was the way he went about things. His passion. His never give up attitude. I usually used to only go for arrogant guys, because I liked a challenge and I liked trying to outwit, outsmart, and out ego someone. And with Kendall, it's the same deal, but different. We can trade banter so easily, though it took him a while to match my snark." She waved a hand, as if it was obvious, causing Lucy to laugh a little. "We connected on an emotional level first, then a mental one, and then a physical one, and that was a welcome change from it being a physical one first, like I was used to. He's sweet, nice, funny, a dork, can make me laugh until I cry, or for no reason at all, and he's always…there.

"The fact that he was willing to challenge me, being the first person to really challenge me is what got me. He was the first person to try, and really, really try to be my friend. Dak didn't have to try so hard to be my friend, because I knew that Ronan has a good judge of character, though I was initially worried about being used. Sure, I made things hard for him, but that's because he didn't earn my respect yet. But he managed to in a more…normal way. With Kendall, he immediately knew that there was something that we were hiding. He immediately started to ask if we were friends and that drove me nuts. And then there were the times I would make fun of him, I'll admit that I was particularly nasty at the beginning, but after a few quick name callings, he wasn't annoyed by it. And that freaked me out. Most people would cower under the way that I tried to push them away, but he kept coming back over and over again and while I didn't fully realize it until later, the fact that he challenged me is what made me attracted to him and it was the same for you.

"You told him the same thing I told them, that their music was 'cute' and not 'rocking' and you saw the challenge in him when he kept coming back to try and prove you wrong, the same way he did to me."

Lucy ran a hand through her hair, stalling for time as she tried to think of a way to explain what she was feeling. Her head was a jumbled mess. But everything that Riley said was true. Kendall was different; he was nice, funny, sweet, and passionate. And he was a challenge. He was different from Beau and that's what she initially got interested in.

Lucy let out a deep breath.

"You know, all I ever really wanted was to be able to make it big as a rock star," Lucy said. "And with the way I was before…as Lucille…" Lucy's upper lip curled at the name. "I knew that it wasn't really me. So, before I came out to LA, I thought long and hard about reinventing myself. But how?" She lightly bopped herself on the forehead. "Then it hit me; why not model myself after someone that was in the same part of the industry that I wanted to be in? You guys; you, your brothers, and sister, are really successful, you're living my dream. You're doing exactly what I wanted to do. Exactly what my parents are, or I guess, were, against. So I thought that I'd try it. Try to model myself after you. That way, I could take the time and figure out who I really wanted to be, to see if I could combine Lucille and Lucy into one person in my own way." She spread her arms. "That's all I wanted. I wanted to have a career. I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

Riley's sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes narrowing. "You know…you make it really hard for me to hate you." She looked away from Lucy and leaned over, grabbing onto Lucy's notebook and picked it up. She opened it and started to flip through a few pages. "Nothing makes me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile than to hear that I can inspire at least one person." She lifted her head and held the notebook out to Lucy. "If you want….we could help you with your songwriting."

Lucy didn't expect to hear that. She expected a punch, more screaming, more fighting. Not being offered to be helped with her songwriting for a new album. Not to be treated civilly after everything. But, it had been a year since everything went down between the two of them and she knew that she herself had changed, and Riley had changed too. Just by looking at her, Lucy could see that she didn't carry herself in a guarded way anymore. Even when she was around the PalmWoods, she could see that Riley looked happier and smiled a lot more than usual. But still, that wasn't what she was expecting.

"But you hated-"

"No, I said that I tried to hate you," Riley corrected her. "There's a difference. I don't ever actually, really, hate anyone, despite what my exterior and my public image shows. Besides…"she scratched the back of her neck. "I was never really mad at you; I was just pissed at Kendall."

"Yeah…" Lucy gave a soft smile. "He talked about you a lot. I was…hesitant to try anything with him, initially, because I could see the way that you two looked at each other. You might not have known it then, but you were in love, I could tell just by the look." She slapped her notebook against her hand before tucking it under her arm. She crossed her arms over her chest, rocking back and forth on her heels. "Are you really going to help me with my songs?"

Riley shrugged. "I'll do anything I could to help a fan," she replied.

Lucy nodded.

"Do you think that we could ever be friends?" Lucy surprised herself by asking the question out loud. She looked over at Riley, waiting for a bark of laughter or a snort or some condescending, sarcastic comment, but she didn't get that. Riley's eyebrows were lowered in an expression of thought, but she could see curiosity in the girl's eyes.

"Let me put it this way," Riley said slowly, mysteriously. "I don't think it's entirely impossible."

THE END

A/N: Some may be wondering, how could Riley end up forgiving Lucy. She didn't forgive her exactly, since she never really had a big problem with Lucy; just with Kendall and was taking out her frustration on the two of them. And she believes that everyone deserves a second chance (though she won't ever forget what the person did) but not a third or fourth, if they show that they're really sorry for what they've done.

While this is part of the timeline, like things we usually do with plots from it, it'll be done differently when we get to fics that are set in season 4 and follow our timeline completely. (For me, specifically, it'll be my upcoming fic It's Been A While).Anyway, I had the idea of showing Riley confront Lucy about everything for a while, but I never really got around to write about it until now.

Whew, I actually got worked up when I wrote this one.

Cheers,

-Riles