by Josephs, Mia
Chasing the Music
Mia Josephs
Dedication:
To my first guitar teacher, my poor brother James, who had to listen to his share of terrible playing, and whose love of music is absolutely contagious.
(He will most likely have something to say about me dedicating a romance book to him, or at the very least, I expect an eyebrow raised in a WHY kind of moment)
COPYRIGHT
September 2014 Next Door Books/Jolene Perry
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
The characters portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover design by Allie Brennan
Photo by Robbiy from Photocase.com
In time:
Chasing the Music, Blurring the Lines, Finding the Dream
(But each book can stand-alone)
PART I
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
- Rolling Stones 1965
One
Griffin dragged his tired body out the back door at work. Listening to screeching violins and the same four guitar chords over and over all afternoon had completely done him in. The metal door clanged behind him, and he fell against the hot brick wall next to his friend, Kent. Griffin reached into his back pocket only to come up empty-handed. Again. “Dammit.”
“What’s up?” Kent asked.
No way he should be surprised about his empty pocket because it was a common occurrence, but still. He scratched a hand through his dark brown hair and leaned against the back of the music store. “Stacy took my cash again.”
Kent flicked his cigarette, looking almost like a human version of the same thing. Shaved head, skinny limbs. “Have you told her yet?”
Griffin shook his head. “We both know it’s not that easy. She’s got me. I’m who she has, and—”
“And it’s not forever.” Kent flicked his cigarette.
No it wasn’t forever. And it was the chance of a lifetime. Touring with a band had been a dream of his since he could remember, but add in with Lita James, one of the hottest women in rock, and he’d said yes before thinking it through. “Yeah, I know.”
“Aren’t you supposed to leave in like, days?” Kent dropped his cigarette to the ground before smashing it with his foot.
“Yep.”
“You’re not responsible for her sanity or happiness or anything. She does have more than you.”
“Her aunt is bat-shit crazy. You know that. Makes my mom look like Mother Theresa.” And over the past couple years; Stacy had practically lived with him and his mom. He could hardly blame her. On top of the magazine hoarding, her aunt fed somewhere between fifteen and fifty homeless cats. It was insane. He also knew that Stacy would take his short absence hard.
“She has friends,” Kent pointed out.
Flaky, most of them, but Griffin kept his mouth shut.
“Still. You’re not backing out are you?”
No. He wasn’t going to back out of the tour, he just… He just had to find a way to tell Stacy he’d be gone for a while.
He needed out. Away. It would be a break without being an official break between them. Griffin started dating Stacy over five years ago—his sophomore year of high school. The fact that he sometimes wished they were still just friends was a phase. It would pass. And a few months of distance felt like the perfect way to do that. There was no doubt he loved her, he just had to find a way to flip that love back to the right kind. It was his problem. And he’d get over it.
He held out his hand and Kent dropped a cigarette into his palm, which he immediately lit.
“Lita James’ new song is out. You hear it?” Kent asked.
Griffin scoffed, taking a long drag. Why had he thought he should quit smoking? He took another long drag in. “I heard the early cut, you douche.”
“Right.” Kent rolled his eyes. “Because you got a friend doing sound. The guy who scored you the gig, right?”
“Yeah.” Only it wasn’t his friend, it was his half brother Ryker. The one who bailed when he was fourteen, and ended up working for one of the hottest rocker chicks since probably Janis Joplin.
Avril Lavigne didn’t hold a candle to Lita’s harsh lyrics, even Alanis’ early stuff and Liz Phair from the nineties didn’t compare. Lita was hardcore and amazing. Started three years ago at sixteen and hadn’t slowed down since.
At that point in time, Griffin could see working at the music store until he took it over. Fairly soon he’d need to make enough to pay his mom’s trailer payments as well as funding his own place. He couldn’t live at home forever.
The guitars he fixed and the ones he custom built were starting to gain traction online, so maybe he’d keep earning some side money there as well. Chasing his dream of playing music disappeared before his senior year of high school while helping his mom who was drowning in bills and crappy jobs.
A three-month break to go on one tour shouldn’t be too much to ask for—even from Stacy.
Griffin’s chest tightened around his lungs. “I’m gonna take off.” He was supposed to drop by the salon where Stacy worked because she’d left her bag there. Again. And needed him to get her beauty school homework.
Kent pulled open the back door of the music store to finish his shift and gave Griffin a half wave.
Griffin sat on the door, and spun around, sliding his long legs into the convertible Impala before falling into the seat. He closed his eyes in a silent prayer that the thing would start. All the graduation speeches they’d gotten a few years ago were total shit. When bills need to be paid, you don’t go to school, and you don’t follow your dreams; you find a way to pay the damn bills. He’d managed to get his dream car and that was something. It was still a POS, but it wouldn’t be forever, and it was his.
He let out a breath when the decrepit vehicle roared to life.
Griffin cranked up the music as he drove home, glad there was at least one decent rock station that the old car’s radio could find. And then left it running when he grabbed Stacy’s bag from the shop.
When he pulled into the driveway, and his car shuddered to a stop, laughter came from the trailer’s front door. Griffin climbed out and took a moment to lean on the over-heated hood of his car to listen for them again.
They were why he was still in Taylorsville, Georgia. Why he hadn’t tried to follow his brother working concerts all over the world. His mom and Stacy needed him. One tour. Three months. You need to tell them.
He double-checked his rolled up sleeves and pulled open the front door to two beaming faces.
“What are my girls up to?” he teased, shaking off the weight of his conversation with Kent.
Stacy bounced toward him, her new highlights casting a bit of an orangey halo around her face. She couldn’t leave her hair alone for more than a month, which was something he’d always thought was sorta cool about her. She planted a kiss on his cheek. “We’re cooking for you, baby.”
He stood behind where his mom sat and gave her a half hug over the chair. “Smells great in here.”
His mom patted his arm and Stacy continued grinning. He knew she was about to do her speed-talk voice of excitement. “We found this great recipe on Pinterest and then we found this hilarious girl named Sierra who writes a blog called Trial by Sierra about all the stuff she tries from Pinterest. She’s awesome, and we did one of the recipes that she said
was so so so good.” Stacy’s round face softened. “And you’ve seemed stressed, so I wanted to help.”
He smiled as he thought about how they’d conspired to make his night better. His life could definitely be worse.
“You’re too good to me.” He flopped in his chair and scanned the disastrous mess in the kitchen. It would be his mess to clean if he didn’t want to eat breakfast around the filth, which he didn’t.
His mom leaned in, sniffed, and immediately frowned.
This was the mothering that would never stop. “Yes.” He sighed. “I quit. Yes, I smoked one with Kent today before I left work.”
Stacy winked at him from the stove. “You’ll lick it, baby. One is no biggie.”
He had to tell her he was leaving. Had to. Soon.
She squatted in front of the oven, accentuating her narrow waist and curvy hips. Griffin let out another breath as he watched the body he knew as well as his own. Yep. His life could definitely be worse.
Two
Lita knew looking at headlines was a bad idea. She knew it, and still she sat onstage with a box of Chinese takeout and chopsticks, scrolling down her phone as she waited for the band to arrive. Two more weeks before they hit the road, and no one was taking it seriously. Her name was on the billboard, not theirs. If they didn’t do their jobs right, it would come back to her, make her look stupid and talentless, not them. She still held her breath sometimes, waiting for someone to see through her façade and call her the fraud she always felt she was.
Twenty was just around the corner, and she couldn’t wait to shed the “teen” that tacked on to her age. It would be one more step to feeling older than she often did.
Digging through her takeout box with her chopsticks, she slid a small bite of chicken into her mouth.
She adjusted her skinny legs underneath her as she recognized the name of the source in the People Magazine article she should not have been reading. Carmen ranting about Lita’s obsessive personality. Saying she didn’t sing her songs live. That her shows were recorded and her personal assistant wrote her lyrics.
What bullshit! Lita always sang live. Always. And Bridget helped with word choice, but Lita did the writing. She’d done both since she was sixteen and her world changed with Under My Skin.
“Dammit,” she muttered as Ryker plucked away on the strings, tuning guitars.
“Problem?” he asked and she shot him a look. Ryker was good at his job, but he definitely used his ‘status’ as one of her lackeys to get girls. Everywhere they went. He was worse than most douche-bag rock stars she knew. But he’d been touring with her crew since she first started three years ago, and she was used to him.
“Your friend Carmen seems to have a big mouth.” She turned her phone toward him knowing he couldn’t see, but that he’d catch the hint.
Ryker snorted. “Carmen is not my friend. That girl is impossible to—”
Lita help up a small hand. “Don’t. You think everyone is impossible.”
“Because I don’t like people.” Ryker laughed. “Anyway, it could be worse. Did you see the headlines over the Kincaid breakup and Christian Meyer in rehab?” Ryker shook his head and stood up, his spiked hair ridiculously gelled. “I can’t believe they kept it quiet his whole first month in. Small miracle.”
“Well, I’m not stupid enough to get involved in a band that’s not my name.” Lita turned off her phone and resisted the urge to drop it on the black stage floor. “Or do anything that would send me to rehab.”
She shoved her chopsticks into her meal and slid it to the side of the stage. Anger and hunger didn’t go together, and she was still pissed at Carmen for spilling out lies. Her manager, Dave, wouldn’t care because in his mind it was all publicity and would make people want to watch the show. She slid her fingers into her shaggy blond hair and shook it out, fanning her bangs over her face and messing up the layers that fell past her shoulders.
Ryker winked like an ass. “Don’t tell your band you’d never have them under anything but Lita James.”
Lita ignored his last comment and picked up her guitar. She had to double check. Ryker had always tuned to perfection, but she couldn’t leave it alone while she waited for the guys to arrive. And it hadn’t been up to her to find someone new to help Ryker, but she also needed someone she could trust. “You sure this brother of yours is up to this?” Lita asked as she went through a few chord progressions. Spot-on tuning. As always.
Ryker kneeled on the stage floor, checking the plug-ins. “My brother needs to be saved from his childhood girlfriend, so that was my first motivation, but he builds his own guitars. From scratch. He can fix anything. So, yeah. He can handle this.”
“Are we gonna have another Ryker?” Lita rolled her eyes, but smiled because everyone teased Ryker for being a bit of an egotistical prick, and he was, but not a bad guy.
Ryker stood and dusted off his designer jeans. “My brother is wholly good and decent. Nothing like me.” And he winked again.
“Stop with the winking, Ryker. It makes you look like an ass, and I’m your boss.” She frowned, knowing he’d never take her seriously, because he didn’t take anything seriously.
“You’re far too small to be a scary boss.” Ryker puckered his lips and blew her a fake kiss. If he hadn’t been so good at his job, and she hadn’t known him since the beginning of her career, she’d never let him get away with being so damn infuriating. There was no point in arguing with him when he was in a mood like this. She’d kick him down a notch later.
Lita’s manager stepped onto the stage, followed by the drummer, and then the bass player. In her mind Ryker ceased to exist. “Thanks for showing up,” she snapped as she slid her guitar strap over her shoulder. Less than two weeks, and the set still felt like a mess.
She wasn’t there to make friends with the guys who were hired to play with her. She was there to make sure that she was good enough so that the articles like the one Carmen was involved with wouldn’t kill her career. Lita had no intention of being a three album “wonder.” She was in music for the long haul.
An hour after rehearsal, Lita sat alone on the stage. It was the only time and place she could actually think. She plucked the strings on the red electric guitar, unplugged, and the melody that had filled her mind night after night played out on the strings. It was something she’d never use. Too soft. She’d built a small empire on her brutally honest lyrics and badassery. Night Comes Softly wasn’t ever going to fit into her set. Also, it reminded her of home. Too personal. She’d spent too much time shedding small town Georgia to keep playing around with the smoother songs that had started to press in her mind.
Her fingers were raw, and her calluses felt like they were weakening instead of getting stronger. Not good before a tour. She laid her head on the edge of the thin guitar, missing the muggy heat. Missing the old Martin acoustic guitar she grew up learning on, but loving her mother’s guitar.
“You okay?” Bridget stepped on to the side of the stage. “I got you Chipotle.”
Lita sat up. Bridget was in ridiculously expensive jeans, flats, and a jacket. Always. “Thanks. What do we have next?”
“Your fake boyfriend, Chandler, has left you two messages. You have ten five-minute interviews with radio stations. I’ll sit in with you and make sure you have the DJs names and states and all that. Cool?” She held the burrito between them and paused. That was way too heavy to eat before interviews.
The interviews were torture. Horrid torture. She had to show attitude, but not so much they’d think she was a bitch… And she always had to do a quick plug sentence for their radio station. Only one thing would make it bearable. “Iced coffee?”
“What kind of a PA do you think I am?” Bridge smirked. “But no one can live on coffee. You need to eat.”
Lita took the coffee from her other hand. “I love you. Seriously.”
“And that’s exactly why I put up with your shit.”
Lita looked over the schedule Bridget held out on he
r iPad and sighed. “If only Chandler were actually boyfriend material.” Though, he was a maybe-possibility…
Bridget leaned back on her hands, her light brown hair resting on her shoulders. “You’re too busy for a boyfriend.”
“I’ve been too busy for a boyfriend since I turned seventeen.” And her and her high school boyfriend had split because she was gone all the time. Lita leaned toward her high school friend to whisper. “What nearly twenty-year-old has only had sex once? And not even good sex?”
“You write about it like you know what you’re talking about.” Bridget bumped her shoulder with Lita’s. “And for real. You’re about to go on tour. You do not have time for a boyfriend.”
“I’m always about to go on tour.” Lita sighed.
They walked for the back door together. “Would you change it?” Bridget asked.
“Where I’m at?” Lita thought about her platinum albums, Grammys, and wardrobe. The clothes… Worth it for that alone. “Nope. I wouldn’t change it.”
“Well, then. Let’s head out. Big day today. And tomorrow And the next day. And the day after that. And the one after that...” Bridget pushed open the back door. “But I promise the tour schedule is pretty tame compared to what you’ve done in the past.”
Lita drank a long sip of her iced coffee and strutted toward the car in her four-inch heeled boots. Only a few more hours of chaos and she might be able to find some time to sleep.
Lita paced the room in heels while she grasped her phone. She’d have loved to flop in bed, but walking helped her keep up the energy she needed to maintain her image while being asked all the same questions about her new music and the tour and her mom...
“So, we’ve been hearing rumors about you and a certain actor,” the DJ said in a lowered, suggestive voice.
“What actor would that be?” she cooed back as her jaw clenched. This topic was supposed to be off-limits.