Rocked

by M. L. Young

  Rocked (A Rock Star Romance)

  M.L. Young

  Copyright 2017 by M.L. Young

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances of characters to actual persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. The author, M.L. Young, holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

  No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Want to receive my free Starter Library, including a full romance novel and the first three volumes of my Stipulation serials? Keep reading this book until the end where you can find the special offer!

  WARNING: This book contains darker themes, including drug/alcohol use and addiction. While this is an HEA, no cliffhanger romance, some discretion is advised. This book also contains alternating POVs by chapter.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Free Book Offer

  Review

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Bian ca

  At the edge of the town I grew up in there’s a grassy hill. On top of that hill is a water tower that high schoolers have spray-painted with their graduation year over the decades. Everyone in town calls it a tradition. When I was a kid and things were getting hard, I’d run there, up that hill, sit underneath the water tower, and look out over the twinkling lights of the town. They’d slowly calm me, making me forget for a short time what was waiting for me when I finally ventured back down that hill and went home. Los Angeles doesn’t have a hill like this, or a water tower like this one, and sometimes I feel like there’s nowhere to go when things start getting hard.

  I was twenty-four, about to graduate with my Masters in social work, and I had no clue how I was supposed to feel about it. It’s hard to be successful. I knew that I was going through those awkward stages where I finally left the nest of school and academia to join the adult workforce and earn a paycheck that would hopefully, one day, pay off all the student loans. But that repayment story would be more like David and Goliath, if anything.

  Walking through the front door of my small Hollywood apartment, I tossed my keys in a bamboo dish my roommate and I found on the side of Sunset Boulevard a few months ago. We definitely weren’t above scavenging, considering the god-awful prices of everything around here.

  “You’ll never guess what happened to me today,” Regan, my roommate, said.

  “What?” I asked, falling back onto the sofa and kicking off my shoes.

  “Bianca, no, you really don’t get it,” she said with an overtly excited tone and expression of pure bliss.

  “What?” I asked, hoping she’d won the lottery and we were going to move out of this rat hole and become socialites.

  “I got two, count them, two, tickets to the Heartbreakers concert tomorrow night,” she said, hopping up and down and screaming like a schoolgirl.

  I liked music, I did, but a rock concert, like a proper arena concert, wasn’t something I necessarily wanted to do in Los Angeles. There would be traffic, and screaming girls, and screaming guys, and too much leather—my head was spinning thinking about it.

  “Well, that’s cool, but—”

  “I thought we could go, since, you know, we have no other friends, and it’ll be fun. It’s all paid for, even the food,” she said.

  “Food?” I asked, perking up.

  I wasn’t a binge eater, no, but I was a poor college student not yet working a big-girl job, and free food, no matter how calorically insignificant and unhealthy, could make a girl perk up. The calories might be empty, but my stomach wouldn’t be.

  “I knew that’d get you. How are you so thin?” she asked, laughing.

  “Fine, I’ll go, but I won’t like it—until I get a giant salty pretzel, that is,” I said.

  “Great! I’ll let the people know,” she said, skipping off to her room.

  I put my hands to my face, rubbing my eyes, wondering what I’d just agreed to, but I sucked it up and grabbed my backpack before taking out a book with some assigned reading I had to do. School might be over soon, but until I got that diploma, I’d have to hit the books.

  •••

  “Mm, hello?” I asked, answering my phone after waking up from a reading-induced nap caused by my incredibly boring textbook.

  “Hi, honey, how are you?” my mom asked.

  “Hi Mom, I’m doing well, and you?” I asked, wiping a glob of spit off my cheek with the back of my hand.

  “Oh, I’m doing well, just wanted to call you about that graduation of yours that’s coming up soon,” she said.

  “Mom, it’s not for a few months, I think. Maybe four, I don’t know off the top of my head,” I said.

  “I know, I just wanted to call about tickets and what we need to do about all of that. Has your father asked you about any of it yet?” she asked.

  “No, not yet,” I said.

  “Typical Ben,” she scoffed.

  My parents divorced when I was thirteen or fourteen. That entire time is a blur, and needless to say it didn’t go well. They tried the whole co-parenting thing and being gracious to one another, but we all knew that it wasn’t going to last. My father has his own demons, and my mother was, or is, a bit controlling, but sometimes I wondered if that was a consequence of his demons. Maybe you had to be hard or a little controlling with a man like him. He wasn’t a bad man, he had his good moments, but I guess we all have our dark sides, and his manifested itself quite often.

  “Let’s be nice, I don’t want to talk badly about my father. That’s talk for your friends, not your kid,” I said.

  “I know, honey, I’m sorry, I just get flustered sometimes. Anyway, Darren and I are very excited to fly out and see you walk across that aisle. Getting your college degree is no easy feat, you know,” she said.

  “Yeah, it’s going to be a blast for sure,” I said, sitting up.

  “Have you found a job yet, you know, post-graduation?” she asked.

  “Not yet, still looking,” I said casually.

  That was a lie. I hadn’t been looking. I knew I should’ve been, and my peers mostly had, but there was a disconnect somewhere in my brain with the whole school ending thing. It didn’t feel real.

  “Well, we’re about to go out to dinner, so I thought I’d just give you a quick call about everything. Please let me know as soon as possible when you know more. We want to make sure to get the tickets right away so we can be positive we can go,” she said.

  “I will, Mom, I promise,” I said.

  “Okay honey, I love you!” she said.

  “I love you too.”

  We hung up. I tossed my phone on the couch and sighed before looking around the somewhat dark room. Regan was long gone at work. Guess I should get started on dinner.

  Chapter Two

  Kai

  “That was great, guys. We’ll break for a few and then get back into it,” our manager, Percy, said.

  I walked offstage, grabbed a bottle of water, and pulled out my phone to check my social media. I had five mil
lion followers on one site alone, and even more fans. Being famous, and being a famous singer, really gets people’s attention. I think it’s because most people have dreamt about being a famous musician at one point or another, and now I was living it. I was living their dream.

  Still, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses, let me tell you. I’d faced my own demons, big ones that would make the devil shit his pants, and I got through them with the help of some amazing people.

  “Ay, look at this chick,” Simon, my drummer, said.

  He showed me his phone. There was a picture of a girl on the screen completely naked and spread full-eagle sent to him through a message on Instagram. “Nice,” I said, nodding.

  “She’s a bit more than nice, Kai. She’s out of this world,” he said, sitting down.

  Groupies were everywhere, and groupies were great—at least that was what my manager told us when we first started to get noticed. Women would throw themselves at us, throw their panties on stage, and suck your dick without you even needing to ask. What warm-blooded man out there today wouldn’t die to be in our position?

  I guess I was only half serious about all of that, though. It was nice, it was, and I loved being able to tour the world and make millions, but there were some pitfalls. I was twenty-eight years old and I’d never been in a long-term relationship, at least not since I was a young teen. I guess that sort of thing just didn’t fall upon a guy like me very often, though. This life wasn’t meant for a relationship, at least a serious one, and that was the price I paid for getting to do what I loved—play music.

  We had a big concert tonight at the Staples Center. LA was always a fun place to play. The people out here were a little bit different and quite alternative, which is always nice when you’re a rock god. “Time to get back on set,” Percy yelled from the booth.

  I picked up my Les Paul, being both the main vocals and guitar, something I worked hard for. Percy told us to sing “Sweet Pus” from the top. Many people didn’t know that song was about an operation our bassist had, and instead they thought it had to do with an STD or something. As long as they kept buying our albums, I didn’t really care what they thought.

  A couple hours and one too many sets later, we were done, completely ready for tonight, the last and biggest show of our tour. We were going to Europe next, though we’d have a long break between North America and there, which I knew I needed.

  I opened a box of takeout chicken parmesan, lounged back, and turned on Netflix before dozing off and resting before tonight. It was going to be a big one.

  Chapter Three

  Bianca

  “Oh come on, wear something a little sexier, will ya?” Regan asked when I showed her what I was planning on wearing to the concert tonight.

  “What’s wrong with it?” I asked, holding it up to myself in front of my mirror.

  “Nothing, if you’re going to see Elvis’s first show, but this is a little bigger than that. We’re going to see the Heartbreakers, and they’re by far the hottest band out there right now, which means you have to dress hot by association.”

  She started rummaging through my closet, scoffing at my selection, before finding something she liked. “Here, go try this on.”

  “What? This is a slutty Halloween costume from like two years ago,” I said.

  “I know, I remember, and you need to bring that slutty little kitten back out tonight. Channel her and be her!” she said, shoving the little black dress against me.

  I shook my head as she left my room, holding it up to myself and looking in the mirror once more. I did look good in it, and I had the Halloween pictures to prove it, but was it me? I guess I wouldn’t go to a concert like this normally, so nothing about tonight was really me. “Whatever,” I mumbled, shaking my head, before going to get ready. Look out, LA, a slutty kitten was prowling the streets once again.

  •••

  A car came around and picked us up. There was a bottle of champagne inside. “Look, girl, all for us,” Regan said, brimming with a smile from ear to ear. I had no idea this was happening.

  “What did you win, exactly?” I asked.

  “A radio contest, like I told you before. Free transportation, tickets, food, everything! I think we have time in a box or something, also floor tickets for after we eat or whenever we want to go down,” she said.

  “Shit,” I said under my breath.

  The traffic was horrible and the Staples Center was packed full with cars in every which way like some kind of zombie apocalypse scene. We drove up to the arena, the lights outside blinding, and the driver pulled around back to the loading area. “Welcome, ladies,” a woman with a clipboard said after opening our door.

  “Nice to meet you,” Regan said.

  “My name is Lexi, and I’ll be your coordinator tonight. Here are your badges—please wear them at all times and never take them off. They serve as your tickets and they’ll get you almost anywhere in the building—including the box and the floor if you want to go down. Now, follow me, please,” she said, whisking us off.

  The corridor was large and made of cement, painted white, with posters of previous acts in frames lining the walls. It seemed to go on forever, and I felt myself getting a little sick while I tried to read every single one as we walked past. “Okay, if you’d just come with me, we’ll hit the box,” Lexi said.

  An elevator took us to a secluded section of the arena where waiters in black vests walked around with champagne flutes on black trays. There were dozens of people here, rich-looking people, important-looking people, and then us, who really just looked like the hired help. What a disappointment we must’ve been in comparison to millionaires and billionaires.

  “Ok, ladies, feel free to walk around, eat, mingle, and enjoy the show from up here,” she said, extending her hand towards the glass wall showing people filing into the arena below. “If at any time you decide you want to go down, just let a guard over there know and they will usher you down to your seats. Have fun!”

  There was a buffet being served, but it wasn’t your dirty hometown selection that might or might not give you food poisoning. Men in white uniforms with chef hats greeted us with a smile, explained the dishes, and made sure we had something that catered to our individual palates. “Is this how the one percent lives?” Regan whispered as I giggled and tried to contain myself.

  “Oh my god,” I said, biting into a braised beef slider that literally melted in my mouth. I’m not even sure I ever chewed.

  “Try this,” she said, giving me a forkful of her pizza macaroni and cheese dish.

  We looked at each other, started laughing, and Regan even stomped her feet a little in excitement. A couple people looked at us, probably wondering why us lower folk were here, but we didn’t care, we were living the life.

  “Don’t eat too much, we have to go down there at some point. I don’t want us to have be rolled down,” Regan said.

  “I don’t know, this is all just so great. I might not have to eat for a couple days if I take advantage now. Maybe I’ll get so fat tonight this dress will rip,” I said.

  “No, you can’t! I don’t want to go down alone,” she said.

  “But, food,” I said, pointing at the table with glistening eyes.

  “And you wouldn’t get to eat that food if it weren’t for me winning the tickets,” she said. Checkmate.

  “Fine, I’ll go down, but I won’t be happy about it,” I said.

  Thirty minutes later the lights dimmed and an announcer came on over the speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve all been waiting for is here. Playing for you on the last stop of their North American tour, I give you the men, the myths, the legends, the Heartbreakers!” he yelled to the screams of thousands of women below.

  The band came up from under the stage, standing still like mannequins as smoke drifted around them. There were four of them, all dressed in black. The lights came down, shining on them, before the drummer smacked his sticks together and they started playin
g.

  Most of the people in the box moved closer to the glass, getting a glimpse of the start of the show, while a few stayed back and talked amongst themselves. Maybe they only came for the social aspect and didn’t care about the band, or maybe they were just waiting until the show got better, but it freed up a small sliver of a spot for Regan and me near the side.

  “Bianca, I can’t, I can’t even see,” Regan said, bobbing up and down to try to get a view.

  “I know, it’s too crowded,” I said, doing the same.

  “Can we just go down?” she asked.

  “I was going to get more,” I said, looking at those beautiful chefs and their magic make-me-happy food.

  “We’ll come back up, I promise,” she said, looking at me with puppy-dog eyes.

  “Fine, we can go down,” I said, being the best friend ever and putting her above my stomach.

  We showed the man our badges and told him we wanted to go down. He nodded and another man took his place. He was a towering hunk of a man, bald, maybe six-five, in a black suit. We went down in an elevator, with him staying close to us the entire time, before we finally made it out onto the floor and the amps close by rattled my brain around in my skull. Maybe that’s why it’s called rock music, because it rocks your brain around.

  “Let him know if you ever want to come back up,” he yelled, pointing at a man off to the side. We nodded, he left, and there we were, in a small gated section with a couple other VIPs.

  The place was sensory overload, my chest pounding and the vibrations causing goose bumps all over my arms, but looking over and seeing Regan singing and dancing was worth the discomfort, since I knew that she really wanted to be here and couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do it alone. I soon got into it too, swaying a little, singing, or mumbling, most likely the wrong lyrics, but still enjoying myself.