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about the couple soon became a global teen obsession. A lot of the rumors weren’t true, but what was an undisputed fact was that Peter met Sandy during a dark phase. He was three seasons into his TV show and had released two sugar-sweet pop albums. Even though he’d sold 3.2 million records, practically unheard of in the era of pirated downloads and iTunes, Peter was frustrated that his label wouldn’t let him make the record he wanted to make: a real album—songs that dealt with love, loss, regret, dreams, secrets, heartbreak.
    The low point came when the label forced him to change the opening line of his first single, “Be with You Again.” The line he and his songwriting team had written originally was “I’ve got this tingling feeling deep inside,” but the label made him change it to, “I’ve got this feeling that you could be mine.”
    â€œDad, what’s so offensive about that line?” Peter fumed. “I mean, is it tingle? You gotta be kidding me! Grampa’s leg tingles when he falls asleep in the recliner! It is totally outrageous. I’ve done nothing but play by their rules ever since we came to L.A. I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
    â€œSon, I hear ya, but . . .”
    â€œOr is it the deep inside part? I mean, are they sickos? For real. They honestly think I’m writing porn or something?”
    If it weren’t for an iron-clad contract with Retro that essentially gave them total creative control, if it weren’t for his dad reminding him how “lucky” he was just to have a recording contract at all, if it weren’t for his fans pining for his new album, Peter would have quit right then and there. This was before he learned how to breathe through stressful situations.
    Retro promised Peter that his next record, scheduled to drop after the end of his current tour (and just after his seventeenth birthday), would be creatively all his. They promised they wouldn’t censor any mentions of sex—indirect or otherwise, that they would allow him to explore his artistry in a way that would appeal to an older audience. But the label insisted he’d have to tour his current album. Or, as the label president bluntly described it to Peter’s dad when they hand-shook onthe deal, “Market the piss out of it.”
    Fine. Peter decided he could live with that. Though it wasn’t exactly inspiring language.
    But he still wasn’t psyched that he had to promote his current record, which featured twelve songs, five of which he just plain didn’t like and was forced to record. In fact, if Peter ever refused to record a song they wanted, his lawyers told him they could sue him for breach of contract. “That’s show business, son,” his dad told him. “You do your business, and they show you the money.”
    Peter appreciated everything his father did for him, despite his knack for Donald Trump–isms and for his “the-end-justifies-the-means” attitude. His dad’s heart may have been in the right place, but it just so happened to be in the same place as his wallet.
    Sandy wasn’t offering much of a sympathetic ear. Whenever Peter offered the smallest complaint, she was always quick to remind him, “Shine—don’t whine.” Peter figured she got most of her rhyming one-liners from self-help books, but he’d never asked. He just knew that for a seventeen-year-old girl who dropped out of high school last year to join the G Girls, she sure had an impressive arsenal of motivational words at her disposal.
    Before heading out on tour, Peter and Sandy walked their first red carpet together at a friend’s movie premiere. Until then, the couple had only been photographed by paparazzi—shots of them leaving restaurants, walking at the mall, walkingalong the surf in front of his house in Manhattan Beach. But they had not yet “posed” at an official