by E. M. Moore
Contents
Rock On
Also By E. M. Moore
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Facebook Group & Newsletter
About the Author
The Ballers of Rockport High
Spring Hill Blues
Rock On
The Rockstars of Hollywood Hill
E. M. Moore
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by E. M. Moore. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact E. M. Moore at [email protected].
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition October 2019
Cover by 2nd Life Designs
ROCK ON
by E. M. Moore
Rockstars live by their own set of rules…and these guys are no different.
Cruel. Privileged. Sexy.
The summer alone with four rockstars in a beach house sounds like a dream come true.
Wrong.
What I thought was going to be my big break ends up being my own personal nightmare. I’m not learning about music. I’m not making music. I’m a glorified babysitter for one of the hottest bands around.
Worse yet, they despise me.
I’m their servant, not their assistant, and because I need this job, I can’t even fight back…
Until I do.
Trust me, I won’t let anyone take my big dreams away, especially not the four guys who do everything they can to make sure I know my place is not next to them.
ROCK ON is a full-length reverse harem bully romance novel.
Also By E. M. Moore
The Ballers of Rockport High Series
Game On
Foul Line
At the Buzzer
Spring Hill Blue Series
Free Fall
Ravana Clan Vampires Series
Chosen By Darkness
Into the Darkness
Falling For Darkness
Surrender To Darkness
Ravana Clan Legacy Series
A New Genesis
Tracking Fate
Cursed Gift
Veiled History
Fractured Vision
Chosen Destiny
Order of the Akasha Series
Stripped (Prequel)
Summoned By Magic
Tempted By Magic
Ravished By Magic
Indulged By Magic
Enraged By Magic
Her Alien Scouts Series
Kain Encounters
Kain Seduction
Rise of the Morphings Series
Of Blood and Twisted Roots
Safe Haven Academy Series
A Sky So Dark
A Dawn So Quiet
Chronicles of Cas Series
Reawakened
Hidden
Power
Severed
Rogue
The Adams’ Witch Series
Bound In Blood
Cursed In Love
Witchy Librarian Cozy Mystery Series
Wicked Witchcraft
One Wicked Sister
Wicked Cool
Wicked Wiccans
1
Fucking hell. The nerves.
I swipe my hands down my pants and glance toward the glass door again. The posh interior of the record company blew me away the first time I was in here last week. Today isn’t any different. It almost looks futuristic with glass walls secreting everything away even though you can stare through virtually every surface except the floors. It’s minimalistic as well. For instance, in the office I’m currently sitting in, there’s a steel desk in front of me with one singular plant atop it, a silver computer mouse, and a closed, slim laptop.
The exterior walls are also all glass, and they look out over the city. We’re twenty floors up, so at this elevation, it looks like we rule the world, sitting here in our glass castle and looking out over our kingdom. The glass just brings everything from the outside in, too, making me feel like we’re just floating up here—at one with the outside, but simultaneously above it at the same time.
I always thought music ruled the world anyway, so this fits right in with my daydreams.
Can you imagine making an album in here?, the voice inside me asks.
I try to stifle the thought even though the same one plagued me the last time I stepped inside these walls. To me, it seems like people’s dreams are being made all around me. That girl out in the hallway, walking with twice the strides as the tall guy next to her to hand him coffee? Well, she just got hired as a talent manager.
The guy walking by right now, with his hands jammed into a pair of leather pants? He’s definitely someone famous. I don’t recognize him, but that doesn’t mean anything. Maybe he isn’t famous yet. Maybe he’s in an up-and-coming band that’s about to dominate the charts. He probably just walked out of the studio where he finished his first album, laying down the tracks for the best song to hit the music industry in a decade.
Wait, that’s going to be me.
I can’t help the smile that thought brings to my face. In high school, people thought I was a little weird. When I told them I wanted to write songs, they automatically thought I wanted to sing songs. That’s not it. I want to pour my emotion and soul into lyrics. I want a hot artist to then belt those lyrics out like they wrote them themselves. Think Ed Sheeran without the actual singing part. Some people don’t know that he’s actually written songs for a hell of a lot of artists, not just himself. That’s who I want to be. The person behind-the-scenes, making people laugh or cry, but most importantly, making them feel something through a beat.
A flash of gray catches my attention, and I look up to see Mr. Nolan, the guy I interviewed with the other day, walking down the hallway. My eyes grow three sizes, and I turn toward the desk. I don’t want him to think I was sitting here waiting for him even though he’s twenty minutes late for the appointment we had, and some random secretary sat me in this chair when I got here ten minutes before that. I was early. But for all I know, he was in a room signing the next big artist. Who am I to rush him from that?
I’m no one. Yet.
I hear the glass door rattle and then swish as it pushes open. My heart bangs against my ribs, and I get to my feet.
“Aisley, how are you?” Mr. Nolan asks.
He holds his hand out, and I shake it in my own, thankful that I swiped my hands down my thighs a minute or two before he showed up. Who knows what the state of my palms are right now? “Good, Sir. How are you?”
“A day in the life,” he says, like I’m suppos
ed to know what that means. I want to know what that means, and what he just said sounds like the biggest tease to me. I want to know everything there is to know about his world.
I smile as he takes a seat at the desk. “I was happy to hear from you again,” I say.
He takes a manila folder out of the desk and throws it on top of the closed laptop. The folder just throws the whole look of the room off though. It’s tan in an otherwise black, white, and silver dominated room. It immediately draws my attention, and I see that my name is written in block letters on the top tab.
They have a file about me.
I repeat, they have a fucking file about me.
I breathe in deep, trying to keep my freak out under wraps. I don’t want to sound too interested or too eager, but I also don’t want to be the opposite, right? God, I really wish I didn’t have to make these decisions at twenty years old.
“I enjoyed our conversation the other day,” Mr. Nolan says. “It was refreshing.”
I smile politely, wracking my brain, trying to figure out what I said last time that might get him to like me even more than that this time. It must be good that they’re calling me in for a second interview. I mean, one would think this is the step I want to take. He wouldn’t want to waste his time if he didn’t like me.
He sits back in the black leather chair and steeples his fingers in front of him. “I have to tell you I quite enjoy it when I see someone as young as you knowing what they want. You have drive.” He points one of his fingers at me. “I’ll tell you a secret. You don’t get anywhere in this business without drive and ambition.”
“Yes, Sir,” I say, stomach twisting into a foray of knots. “I have plenty of that.”
He smiles, showing a perfect set of blaringly white teeth. I wonder how many artists he manages to get a set of teeth like that. He must be fucking awesome at his job.
“I have an opportunity for you, Aisley,” he says, suddenly sitting up. He maneuvers the manila folder in front of him and briefly looks through it before shutting it again. “I have a band that could use some help.”
My stomach twists, and I let out a slow breath. This is it. I can do this. Already I see myself sitting in a room with a handful of musicians, bouncing ideas off of one another. I write, they sing, they praise me to the heavens when we’re finished… Yes, I’m well aware I’m delusional, but these daydreams keep me going. Instead of saying all that, I say, “Sounds interesting.”
“Great band,” he says, shaking his head. “Does some really great stuff, but they’re stuck on their second album. Things just aren’t clicking.”
My brain is demanding I ask who he’s talking about, but I don’t form the words. He wants me to work with a band. Honestly, at this point, I would take any damn band. Not that I wouldn’t prefer something in my style, but as he said, I’m driven. I’m eager. I have ambition. “Sophomore slump,” I say, shaking my head a little, commiserating.
“Exactly,” he says, pointing at me again. “I have to admit, it’s frustrating. I’m sure it’s frustrating for them as well, but for the record company, no album, means no promotion, means no sales. You understand?”
I nod. In that file in front of him, I just know they have the songs I sent them when I sent in my resume. There are pages of lyrics and even a flash drive of demos with me playing the guitar and singing. Whatever he saw in there got me right here. “Absolutely, Sir. I understand.”
“Right now, they’re set up in a beach house. We—well, the company itself—thought it would be a good idea to get them together to see what they could come up with. They’ve been there two weeks already.”
“Any progress?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Very little.”
“That’s too bad,” I say. Inside, I squeal. This is going exactly like Heather said. She told me that if I was getting a call for a second interview, it was something good. Like, really good. He’s going to ask me to work with them, I just know it.
He dribbles his hands over the metal desk. “Rumors are sprouting up everywhere. They’re breaking up. They can’t hack it. The bad boys of rock and roll are losing their edge.”
I frown as he repeats the headlines to me, then mimic his own facial expressions.
Bad boys of rock and roll? I wonder who that could be. While he stares at me, I picture different bands in my head and see if I can’t figure out who it is. I’ve pretty much memorized every single artist that Big City Records handles. There are more than a few rock bands. In fact, they started out as a rock only label, but have only grown bigger since then.
“We thought the change of scenery and forcing them together would not only help them get going, but also send a little message to them that they need to get going.”
I dig my nails into my skin. These kinds of bands piss me off. They’ve gotten what they want. They’re freaking signed to a record deal. They’re on their sophomore album. Why can’t they get their shit together and lay it down already? This is what people dream of doing, and they’re sitting here wasting their opportunity. Mr. Nolan hasn’t said it in so many words, but it sounds like this band is in a lot of trouble with them. If they’re not careful…
He gives me another smile. “Here’s where you come in, Aisley.”
I lean forward in my chair, like the closer I am to him, the quicker I’ll hear the words out of his mouth. Maybe they’ll start calling me “the band whisperer”, here to reenergize albums and put a new spin on old tactics.
Hey, a girl can dream, right?
“We thought it would be a good idea to send someone in to help them. And we want that someone to be you.”
A smile peels my lips apart. “I would be honored, Sir. What kind—?”
“You’ll have to move into the beach house.”
My jaw drops. A songwriting job? And a beach house? Holy shit. This is the life, isn’t it? I can already see myself sitting out on a back deck overlooking the waves with a cocktail in one hand and my pen in the other.
“Of course, Sir.”
“You’ll be kept on until the album is done, but if we like what you do, there’s a possibility of hiring you on a more permanent basis.”
I’m sitting still, trying to appear calm in front of Nolan, but my insides feel like they’re bouncing off one another. Nothing is in place. My heart’s trying to escape. My breath is sawing in and out. My legs are jumping. It’s chaos inside here. Absolute freaking chaos.
He turns the folder around and pushes it across the desk. “Have a look,” he says.
My fingers tremble as I open the out-of-place manila folder, but I hide it from him by bringing the file folder to me and opening it on my lap. I blink to try to make sense out of all the words on the paper in front of me. My thoughts are bouncing here, there, and everywhere, and it’s making it almost impossible to focus on the typed words.
My first fucking record company job!
“As you can see,” Mr. Nolan continues as my eyes finally adjust to read the words on the page. “You’ll be assisting them with everything they need. You won’t have set hours, per se, but we’re hoping you’ll be flexible and that they’ll be respectful of your time as well.”
My gaze narrows. I’m listening and trying to read at the same time. I read the same sentence over and over again. Duties: First point of contact, dealing with correspondence and phone calls; organizing meetings and appointments; typing, preparing reports and filing; reminding artists of important dates, schedules, and deadlines; miscellaneous tasks to support the artists, which may include personal and maintenance tasks.
My stomach drops. I double-check the front of the folder to make sure he’s handed me the right one, and sure enough, there’s my name in big, black letters just like I thought. I glance up to meet his eyes. I wait for him to finish the sentence he’s in the middle of saying even though I don’t catch any of it. “To be clear, Mr. Nolan, you want me to be the band’s assistant?”
That isn’t songwriting extraordinaire at all.
“Yes, get them coffee, make sure they’re fed and happy. We at Big City want to make sure the guys have everything they need in order to put out the best album possible, and we need someone as trustworthy and driven as you to do it.”
Get them coffee? Is he fucking serious? I’m a gopher. That’s all this is. I close my eyes as my heart sinks with what feels like the cruelest rejection. This isn’t the break I thought it was. It’s nothing. It’s a knife to the heart, actually.
It sucks when you want something so bad but think there’s no way on this earth you’ll ever get it. The dream seems too out of reach. Too difficult. I’m just a girl from a small town. It’s almost a miracle I’m even in this posh building right now. Why did I even let myself think that this could be it? My eyes burn, but I swallow back the hurt and stare at Mr. Nolan.