Beauty in the Breakdown (A Rock Star Romance Novel)

by Natalie Baird

  “Going wrong can feel pretty right, you know,” Jackson said, letting his fingers trail down my bare upper arm. I shivered at his touch, the slightest brush of his skin against mine sent sparks of pleasure searing through my body.

  “See? Right there!” I said, scooting away from him, “This is exactly what I’m talking about. It simply won’t do, Jackson.”

  “What won’t do?” he asked, playing innocent.

  “All of these not-so-subtle advances,” I said, “It’s unprofessional.”

  “Depends on your profession,” Jackson shot back.

  “Rule number one,” I said, holding up a finger, “No unprofessional advances.”

  “Fine,” he pouted.

  “Number two,” I went on, “I’m going to need you to be completely honest with me from here on out. It’s the only way that I’m going to be able to write a quality piece of journalism.”

  “Fine,” he said. “To be perfectly honest, I think that you look smoking hot in that get-up and I would screw you to the back of that car seat if you’d let me.”

  A stab of unbearable, wringing desire ripped through my very core as the words escaped his lips. I could feel the sudden wetness between my legs, the quickening of my heart—my mouth was practically watering for want of him and my face must've been beet red. It was only with the most Herculean effort that I was able to continue.

  “Number three,” I said quietly, “I need you to promise me that if I come with you to Europe, I’m not going to get hurt.”

  “Hurt?” Jackson said, “What do you mean ‘hurt’?”

  “Hurt!” I exclaimed, “Drugged, abducted, molested, you name it. I want to come out completely untouched.”

  “Alexa,” Jackson said, “These are some very difficult rules you’re laying out for me." He smiled, "You're practically setting me up for failure.”

  “Those are my terms,” I said simply, “You can take them or leave them.”

  Jackson looked at me for a long, hard moment. The air between use seemed to come alive as we sat in silence, our bodies poised and ready to come together at any moment. Just when the tension was reaching the point of being utterly overwhelming, Jackson sighed.

  “OK,” he said begrudgingly, “I accept your terms. No advances, total honest, you don’t get hurt. I suppose we can manage to keep it professional.”

  “Thank you,” I said, reaching for the bottle of champagne. “Now let’s start celebrating for real!”

  Jackson shook his head, smiling at me. “You are not going to make it easy for me to follow those rules, Alexa.”

  “That's the thing about rules,” I said, pouring us another round, “They're seldom easy to follow.”

  A sly grin spread across my face. I was pretty pleased with myself at that moment, naively thinking that I now had the upper hand.

  Chapter Three

  “Alexa...Alexa!”

  Through a thick, drunken fog, I slowly rose up from deep sleep. Sunlight faintly began to register beyond my iron-clad eyelids, and the sounds of morning made themselves known to my ears. With enormous effort, I forced my eyes open, though I immediately wished that I hadn’t. A roaring crash of pain assaulted my skull, pounding without mercy. I groaned feebly and rolled away from the voice that was beckoning me back into the world of the living.

  “Alexa, wake up,” the voice repeated—I realized with relief that it was Hadley.

  “Am I dead?” I croaked, refusing to attempt another eye-opening.

  “Not quite,” Hadley said, “Just really, really hung over.”

  “Are we home?” I asked. I would have checked for myself, but I knew that motion of any kind might cause me to puke.

  “We are indeed,” Hadley said. “Don’t you remember coming back?”

  “Not even remotely,” I answered.

  “Do you remember anything about last night?” my best friend pressed, concern distorting her usually carefree voice.

  “Let’s see...” I muttered, racking my brain, “I remember there was champagne. Lots of it. And tequila. And quite possibly a bit of absinthe...”

  “Jesus Christ,” Hadley exclaimed, “No wonder you’re wrecked. I’m going to get you some coffee and an aspirin. You just sit here and try to piece the rest of the night together, OK?”

  “OK,” I said miserably. A tempting aroma suddenly wafted through the air, and even in my poor state I felt my appetite awaken. “What is that?” I asked.

  “Oh,” Hadley said, “Todd’s making pancakes.”

  “Good for Todd,” I said. “Maybe keep this one around for more than a night?”

  “Let’s see how good the pancakes are, first,” Hadley said. I felt her stand up and move away from me, closing my bedroom door as she left.

  I pulled my knees into my chest and hugged them close, trying not to aggravate my headache. I let my mind reel back through the events of the previous evening. What could I remember clearly...Well, there was Jackson, pulling up to my apartment and whisking me away in his town car; a bottle of champagne that we shared in the back seat; three rules that he had agreed to follow. There was the club that we had ended up at, filled with hot young things and pumping house music. I met Jackson’s band mates and entourage, though all their names were escaping me. Jackson had ordered bottle service, and we all took to the dance floor. The faces of the people I had danced with were nothing but a wild blur. I distinctly remembered taking some shots that were, incidentally, set aflame. But what else had happened...

  “Oh god,” I moaned, as the next memory came back to me. At some point in the evening, I had stumbled into a coat room and curled up like a cat on someone’s windbreaker. I wasn’t even hooking up with anyone, I’d just gone in there alone. And that was where Jackson had found me.

  The ride back to my apartment was mostly blacked out, but I remembered very distinctly crawling onto Jackson’s lap, kissing his beautiful neck and face, letting my hands crawl all over his body. I had thrown myself at him in my drunken stupor, propositioned him again and again...but he hadn’t reciprocated. I could remember his cool blue eyes, steely with restraint, as he told me that he didn’t want to hook up with me while I was, "piss-assed drunk".

  “If we do this now,” he’d said, “You’ll never speak to me again.”

  And he was right. The mortification I was feeling at having gotten blasted was nothing compared to how embarrassed I would feel had we hooked up. I was completely ashamed of losing my cool in such sophomoric fashion, but at least we hadn’t actually done anything together, Jackson and I. He followed the rules I had laid out, just as I asked. He hadn’t taken advantage of my irresponsible drunkenness to make a move. I didn’t know whether to be grateful or self-conscious. Had he resisted because he was being honorable, or had I been rendered totally unappealing by my lack of restraint? Was it possible that he no longer found me attractive?

  My door swung open again, and I forced myself to open my eyes. Hadley sat down on the bed beside me and pressed two pills into my hand.

  “Drink up,” she said, offering me a glass of water.

  “Thank you,” I said, throwing back the pills, “You’re a lifesaver.”

  “It’s your Mr. Brent who’s the real hero,” she said with a smile.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You don’t remember?” Hadley said with widening eyes, “Alex, he literally carried you up the five flights of stairs last night and put you to bed!”

  My jaw fell open as I tried to picture the scene. Jackson Brent had tucked me in last night?

  “Did anything...?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

  “Nope,” Hadley said, “Nothing happened. He used your keys and saw himself out.”

  “Holy crap...” I whispered. Who the hell was this guy? One minute he was throwing sexual innuendoes my way like cannon fire, the next he was being a perfect gentleman? Did he feel guilty about bringing me out to get wasted, or was he afraid that I’d back out of the story? Was he just being nice to win my fa
vor, playing the valiant knight to win my approval? I didn’t like being thrust into the damsel in distress mode, that was for sure.

  “I think I need to mull this all over with some pancakes,” I grumbled, pulling myself to sitting.

  “You can’t,” Hadley said, “You have to get ready.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “Brunch,” she answered, “With your family. You invited them in yesterday to tell them the news.”

  “Oh...shit,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Hadley answered, springing up from the bed, “Should be a blast!”

  “Or something like that,” I moaned.

  By some miracle, I managed to dress myself. I was even able to brush a little mascara only my blood-shot eyes and pull my hair back into a passable up-do. My family was lovable, but rather preppy. It wouldn’t do for me to show up looking like gutter trash. It’s not that they were snobs, far from it. But if I stumbled into our brunch date seeming for the world like I’d just been hit by a truck, I’d spend the next four hours calmly explaining that I didn’t need to be psychoanalyzed or medicated. Having a psychologist in the family was not always a blessing.

  I made my way out of my bedroom and came upon Hadley and Todd. They were having a little makeshift picnic on the floor of our kitchen—we didn’t have enough room to fit an actual table, or chairs for that matter. Hadley’s comforter was spread out beneath a couple of plates, heaped with fluffy pancakes. Hadley smiled at me as she fed Todd a fork full. In my book, Todd got a seven out of ten for looks, and an eleven out of ten for breakfast game.

  “See you later,” I said as I made my way out. “If you screw in the kitchen, you know where the Lysol is.”

  “Duly noted,” Hadley replied happily.

  I marched down the stairs and out into the late morning. It was another perfect spring morning, but I could tell from the slight swell in the air that summer was approaching fast. I’d be getting out of New York just in time to miss the season’s onset. Jackson’s tour was only a month long, and kicked off in a few short days. His band, Carnal Knowledge (with a name like that no wonder I never bothered to listen to them), was apparently even bigger in Europe than they were in the United States. We would be making long stopovers in London, Amsterdam, Helsinki, and Paris—quite the adventure, especially for someone as untraveled as me.

  The night before, I remembered meeting the other three members of Carnal Knowledge. There was Eddie, the guitarist; Marco, the drummer; and Turbo, the bass player, among other things. I couldn’t remember much about the backup trio, other than that they were pretty much what I would have expected from an alt-rock group. The four of them had been swarmed by clingers and fans the entire night, and never seemed to be without arm candy in the form of fawning groupies.

  According to my research, the four guys had met in Boston, where they’d been studying at the Berklee school of music. Jackson was a British transplant and a musical prodigy. He’d arrived in the states on a classical guitar scholarship. The foursome had eventually formed while they were still undergraduates, sleeping on each other’s couches. And though they’d glommed onto each other right away, Carnal Knowledge was hardly a runaway success. One of the things that made the band so popular was the fact that they had struggled to be heard in the beginning.

  The first long-term gig the guys got together was actually as a backup band of sorts. After they graduated and moved to New York, they’d met up with a singer songwriter named Mary Mason. She took a liking to them, and to Jackson in particular, and starting making music with them. She was already something of a name in the folk rock scene, a smoldering siren of a singer with excellent instrumental skills to boot. They five of them had released an album together, under the name Bloody Mary and the Marionettes, and it was a well-documented fact that Mary and Jackson had been “a thing” at one point.

  The band went south when Jackson tried to take more creative control of their music. He wanted to add his vocals more prominently into the mix, and experiment with some heavier sounds. But Mary was adamant about maintaining their signature style, or rather, her signature style. Her voice couldn’t handle the heavy, screaming lyrics that Jackson cooked up, and he couldn’t stand to be relegated to “oohs” and “ahhs” in the background. The band’s breakup had been explosive, and so turbulent that the guys had actually headed back to London to establish themselves away from Mary entirely.

  And establish themselves they had. After jumping across the pond, the band took a year and retreated into the English countryside to figure out their game plan. No one heard from them the entire time, but rumors started to swirl about the transformation they were making. They had the world’s attention when they emerged from their hiatus with a brand new batch of songs and a completely different image. They called themselves Carnal Knowledge, and their sound was heavy, rich, and far more complex than the average rock band’s. They were practically overnight superstars.

  But though his band was fantastically famous, I still suspected that Jackson Brent, better known as Jax to his fans, had never intended to be a front man. His first passion had been the guitar, but he rarely played during Carnal Knowledge shows. I wondered why Jackson felt the need to put on the rock star act at all. Why was there such disparity between the Jackson who had met me in the bar a couple nights ago and the Jackson that played to sold out arenas? Why wasn’t he content to just be himself all the time?

  “I’ll know soon enough,” I muttered to myself as I turned onto Second Avenue. The city was absolutely crawling with people that morning. Between the gorgeous weather and the fact that most restaurants were serving brunch with bottomless mimosas, the sidewalks were overflowing with noisy pedestrians. I thanked god for that aspirin Hadley had been wise enough to shove down my throat. It was unlikely that I would have been able to survive brunch, let alone the walk there, without a little chemical support.

  My destination came into sight as I hurried through the East Village. Bobbing and weaving between parties and people, I pulled open the door of my favorite brunch spot, a cozy little French cafe. I scanned the tiny dining room and couldn’t help but smile as I spotted my family. They were huddled around a little cafe table, talking animatedly, as they always did. My parents had come up from New Jersey at my request, and Max had made time in his busy schedule of partying and hanging out with his buddies to join us. Sarah was absent, obviously, as she was busy digging up fossils on the West Coast, or something.

  Bonnie, my mother, was gesticulating pointedly about something or other. She was a woman of unflappable convictions and never hesitated when it came to speaking her mind. The woman’s filter got less and less effective as she got older, to the point where I was sometimes afraid to spend time with her in public, lest she tell some poor soul that they really out to see a doctor about that rash.

  My father, Jeff, was the quieter of the two, and had never yelled at me in his life. He was the kind of dad that got disappointed, rather than upset. And since disappointed is far worse than angry, I did my best to always have his good favor. I’d inherited my mother’s curvy build and my dad’s full head of black hair, my mother’s ski jump nose and my father’s big brown eyes, my mother’s gumption and my father’s stubborn righteousness.

  Max had escaped all such highfalutin characteristics. He was as easygoing as I was uptight, and sometimes I jealous of him because of it. We joked that all the anxious, perfectionist genes had been used up on me and Sarah, so that Max got a free ride. He had a big old mess of brown curls on his head and dimples that you couldn’t stay mad at for long. Max was three years younger than me and a foot taller. He was wiry, rather than built, but he had definitely come to my defense more than once while we were in high school together. He’d been even scrawnier back then, so he mostly just made the creeps he was confronting laugh, but it was still a good diversion strategy, I thought. And even though Max was younger than me, he would sometimes surprise me with the wise advice he was able to dispense.

  “Alex
a!” my mom called from across the space, too loud as usual. “Alexa! We’re over here!”

  “I see that,” I muttered, hurrying toward them, “But thanks.”

  “How are you, sweetheart?” my dad asked, pulling me into a big bear hug.

  “I’m fine, but getting rumpled,” I replied, extracting myself from his embrace. I rather feared that I might puke all over the breakfast table if he squeezed me too tightly.

  “We’re so happy you could make some time for us,” my mom said, not without a tinge of passive aggression.

  “Me too,” I said, ignoring the dig. She meant well, even if she was exasperating sometimes.

  “Good to see you, Sis,” Max said, giving me a quick squeeze and, to my dismay, a noogie.

  “Thanks, buddy,” I said sarcastically.

  We all settled back into our seats, having thoroughly disturbed the very serious-looking old couple at the next table. Our waiter approached with a big smile to take our orders.

  “Four mimosas please,” I said quickly, “And whatever else they want to drink.”

  My family placed their orders and turned to me expectantly. It had been a good few months since I last saw them, I had been so busy with work. I hadn’t even seen Max in a while, even though we lived on the same island.

  “So, what’s new in Alex world?” my dad asked, “The job still treating you well?”

  “Oh, sure,” I said, “It’s the best.”

  “That’s great,” my mom put in. “And how about the apartment? Is Hadley doing OK?”

  I thought about the kitchen floor sexing that was probably occurring in my apartment at that very moment. “Yeah,” I said, “She’s doing fine.”

  “And to what do we owe the pleasure of your company today?” my dad asked. “You’re not pregnant or anything, are you? Or broke? Or addicted to drugs?”

  “Not the last time I checked,” I said.

  “So...?” my mom said, leaning forward expectantly.