Rocker Boy

by Wendy Knight

  Rocker Boy

  by Wendy Knight

  Kindle Edition

  ©2015 WENDY KNIGHT

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  ROCKER BOY

  Copyright © 2015 WENDY KNIGHT

  ISBN: 978-1-942246-59-6

  ISBN 10: 1942246595

  Cover Art by P.S. Cover Design

  Dedicated to Josh

  for being better at songwriting than he is at tennis

  Prologue

  Six years ago

  "LOOK AT THAT HOUSE, LEVI. ISN'T it amazing?" Angela pointed to the mansion barely visible through the wrought iron gates.

  "Yeah." Levi nodded because Angela was excited, and since she was the only person in the world who cared about him, he'd be excited with her.

  "That's JoAnn Lee's house, Levi."

  Levi nodded again. To say Angela loved music would be an understatement. She was obsessed with anything to do with music. They'd only been in this town a week when she discovered that the Queen of Country Music, JoAnn Lee, lived in the same town. He'd bet his life that she'd been here at least once a day since she'd learned that little bit of knowledge.

  "One day, I'm going to be just like her. You'll see." Angela turned to smile at him, and he started to smile back, but he saw the road curve over her shoulder.

  "Angie!" he screamed, pointing, forming incoherent words. Words that he would remember for the rest of his life.

  Because they were the last words he would ever say to her.

  Angela over-corrected the little car and it flew out of control, swerving dangerously all over the road and then shooting out into the canal. Angela screamed, but when they hit the water, she was suddenly silent.

  "Angie!" Levi cried as the car sank below the water level. He jerked his seatbelt off and shook her, sobbing. Something soaked his right temple, and he prayed it was blood. As long as water couldn't get in the car, they were okay, right?

  But she wouldn't wake up.

  He tugged at her seatbelt, finally freeing her, but she only slumped against the driver's side window. Levi sobbed again, seeing the surface move farther and farther away as the car sank.

  It hit the bottom and they lay still, but Angela still wouldn't move. It wasn't until she was almost completely submerged in water that he realized she'd cracked the window open with her head, and water was coming in.

  He screamed, trying to open his door, but it was too heavy with all the water against it. There was no way out.

  "Angie," he sobbed.

  Something heavy landed on the side of the car. All he could see was white, like an angel. Except an angel wouldn't be whacking his window with something huge and sharp.

  The window shattered and water poured in, washing over him, covering Angela. Then two small hands reached through the broken glass, grabbed his shoulder, and jerked him out. He felt the severed window tearing at his back, chest, and arms as his lungs screamed for air.

  And suddenly, he had it. His head broke the surface and he gasped, sucking in lungs-full of air between his sobs. "Lay here. Can you breathe? I'll be right back."

  He was dropped on the bank of the canal.

  Levi finally forced his eyes open to see a girl — about half his size — in a white sundress scramble back into the canal. She disappeared into the car, feet first, crying out when the window cut her, too.

  Levi could hear sirens in the distance. He fought to stay conscious, to get up and go help the angel-girl, but he lost that battle.

  When he woke up, Angie was gone forever.

  Four Years Ago

  "SO I CAN'T HANG out tonight." Jace sighed, adjusting his backpack on his shoulder as they walked home. Levi was sixteen, but he couldn't afford a car to drive to school in. Besides that, Levi would have been the only ninth grader who didn't ride the bus. He was, as always, trying his best to make sure no one knew he was a year older than everybody else. If his mom hadn't been strung out on meth for the first six years of his life, maybe she would have remembered to enroll him in kindergarten on time.

  "Hello?" Jace asked, waving a hand in front of Levi's face.

  "Oh. Yeah, sorry. Why not?"

  Jace sighed. "It's one of my mom's Save Jace projects. She enrolled me in music lessons with some kid from our school. Supposed to be a prodigy or something."

  "There's a music prodigy at our school?"

  Jace nodded. "Eighth grader."

  Angela would have given her right arm to be a music prodigy. Levi himself would give his right arm to even be able to learn music — if only to honor the sister he'd lost.

  "Kid's coming over at five. Wanna come?"

  Levi raised an eyebrow. "Come watch you pretend to learn music so your mom will get off your back?"

  Jace grinned.

  Rolling his eyes heavenward, wishing with everything he had that his mom would do anything, anything at all, to try to make Levi's life better. Finally, he nodded. "Okay."

  Since he would have been going there later anyway, he just followed Jace home like a lost dog. They were neighbors. Their house layout was even the same, but that was where the similarities ended. Jace's yard was, for lack of a manlier word, adorable. Flowers, trees, cut grass. The house was painted, the inside was threadbare, but clean.

  Jace's stepdad was a war vet. He'd come home paralyzed from the waist down and couldn't work. Benefits barely covered his medical expenses, let alone anything else. But he was a good man. He loved Jace like his own, along with Jace's five sisters, and he treated Jace's mom like a queen. It was a happy home.

  Levi's home was not. It had no grass, just weeds. The only thing his mom grew was drugs, in the basement.

  "So what'll we do until your prodigy person gets here?" Levi asked, dropping his backpack on Jace's floor. He was amazingly nervous. A prodigy? Those things actually existed? And if he was so great at music that he could teach it while in junior high… how arrogant and judgmental would he be?

  If Levi didn't want to learn to play music more than he wanted to breathe, he would leave.

  Unfortunately, he did want to learn music more than he wanted to breathe. So he stayed.

  Jace's mom made them do homework. At the kitchen table. While she made cookies. In an apron. She was a nurse and worked nights, but Levi had never seen her sleep during the day. He wondered if she actually ever did sleep.

  And then there was a knock on the door.

  Levi felt his blood pressure spike and he looked, wide-eyed, at Jace. But Jace was confident. His mom wasn't addicted to drugs. He wasn't a year behind in school. He had people who loved him.

  "Thank you so much for coming. I hope this will be enough space. I can move furniture—" Jace's mom was talking too fast, as nervous as Levi.

  "No, this is fine. Guitars don't take up much room."

  The voice.

  It wasn't a boy at all.

  It was a girl.

  He and Jace both leaped to their feet and fought over each other on their race to the living room. Levi got there first, but froze, unable to go around the corner. Jace did not freeze, went around the corner, and then reached back and jerked Levi around with him.

  And time stopped.

  The world stopped.

  Everything just… stopped.

  His angel stood in Jace's living room.

 
Long, silky brown hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and she'd grown several inches, but it was his angel. The one brave enough to go in after his sister after she'd saved his life.

  He could tell, by the widening of her dark brown eyes, that she recognized him, too.

  "Hi," Levi said. Because that was clearly the most intelligent thing he could have said.

  She smiled.

  Levi had seen many, many girl smiles before. He was sixteen. He wasn't a virgin. Hadn't been for quite a while. Girls liked him, and he liked girls. But he had never seen a smile that could melt the polar ice caps like hers could.

  "I'm Harli. With an 'i'. Ready to get started?" She held out a guitar. "I only brought one extra. You'll have to take turns."

  "I—I'm not taking lessons. I just—I just came to watch."

  She frowned, her full lips pouting just a bit. "Don't you want to learn?"

  "Yeah, but I—I can't af—"

  "Then you'll have to take turns." The smile was back, melting him completely.

  Unfortunately, she melted Jace, too.

  "YOU'VE BEEN WITH HER at school, haven't you?" Jace yelled, pushing Levi backward, off his driveway and into the road.

  "Well yeah, Jace! We're friends. We hang out sometimes." And I'm in love with her.

  "She's not for you, Levi. She's not yours," Jace hissed, his finger in Levi's face.

  "Why? Because you can afford music lessons and I can't? That makes her yours?"

  "Because you're not good enough for her! Your mom—"

  Levi punched him. Jace went sprawling across his lawn. The neighbor kids playing football in the street dropped their ball and came running, chanting, "Fight, fight, fight, fight!"

  Levi had never seen Jace so angry. Couldn't remember a time they'd ever fought. But now all he could see was Jace's smug face, finally admitting that he was better than Levi could ever hope to be.

  Jace struggled to his feet and swung at Levi, but Levi had been in a lot more fights than Jace, and he moved easily out of the way and pushed Jace back onto the grass. "Go home, Jace. You can't win this one."

  Jace ran at him, bellowing. He hit Levi and drove him back, to the middle of the road. Levi grabbed him, twisted, caught him in a headlock. "Knock it off, Jace, before you get yourself hurt."

  "Levi! Let him go!" Harli marched up the road, hands clenched into fists, her boots stomping angrily on the asphalt.

  Levi immediately dropped Jace and backed away, running a hand over his face.

  "What's going on?" she growled. Harli was tall for an eighth grader, but still shorter than both boys. Apparently, she didn't realize that.

  "He's mad because I was with you at lunch today," Levi said, feeling distinctly like a little tattle-tale.

  "We have an agreement, Levi." Jace jerked his shirt back into place, hand pressed against his eye where Levi had punched him.

  "What the heck are you two talking about? What agreement?"

  "Which one of us is it, Harli? Huh? Just pick one already and be done with it!" Jace yelled, dropping his hand and yelling in her face.

  Levi had never seen Harli flinch from anything, but she did now, falling back several steps and jerking her face away from him. "Stop it," she said quietly.

  It was more powerful than when she'd yelled.

  Jace sucked in his chin and looked, confused, at Levi. Levi shook his head. I have no idea what that was about.

  "You were friends before me. You will be friends when I'm gone. I will not, I repeat, will not come between you. Lessons are canceled today and until which point you can behave like civilized men and not spoiled little brats." She turned on her heel and stalked away.

  Three years ago.

  LEVI WAS CERTAIN HE'D never been so nervous in all his life. He paced up and down the hallway of the school he'd left six months ago.

  Leaving junior high for high school might have been the hardest thing he'd ever done.

  The hardest thing he'd ever done… except keep his hands off his angel for the entire last year.

  She turned the corner, tucking her flute into its case, her ballet flats squeaking against the green and white linoleum. She raised her head, caught sight of him, and paused. "Levi?"

  "Harli. I—I have something—I wanted to talk to you. If that's okay."

  She came closer, smiling. "Of course it's okay. Kinda sucks here with you gone."

  She was fifteen. He was almost seventeen. He knew that nearly every guy in her grade and his wanted her. What would ever make her choose him over all of them?

  But he had to try. Because her telling him no couldn't possibly hurt as much as not knowing at all.

  "Walk with me?"

  She tucked her hair behind her ear and handed him her bag. He took it, noting absently that she was wearing long sleeves and it was still eighty degrees outside. But his frazzled mind couldn't comprehend details. Not until he said what he'd come to say. "Look. I know we have this agreement. You—you can't come between me and Jace. And I'm grateful for that, I really am," Because otherwise, you'd never have picked me over him. "But—but Jace has a girlfriend now…"

  She pushed open the door, keeping one arm securely tucked around her ribs. He didn't say anything until they were on the lane behind the school, wandering toward the cemetery. She went there a lot, to play the flute for Angela.

  The only sound was their feet crunching against the gravel, like the whole world held its breath with him. She finally stopped and grabbed his hand, pulling him to a stop with her. "Levi," she said softly.

  "Jace has a girlfriend, Harli. And I—I can't stop thinking about you. I—I think I'm—I think I'm in love with you, Harli."

  He'd expected horror or revulsion or pity. Her eyes filled with tears and her hand, still holding his, started to shake. She peeked up at him through her dark hair, and she smiled.

  "I think I might be in love with you, too."

  Levi swept her up into his arms, pulling her tight against him, vowing that he would never let go. His angel was finally his angel.

  "You don't know how long I've waited to say that. How long I've been—" he ran out of words, and all he could do was stare at her, her perfect heart-shaped face, her soft lips. But then the sparkle died in her eyes and she took his hands. "Levi… we can't—we can't be together."

  Levi felt like someone had just stolen his sun and the world was all darkness and fear. "What?" he gasped. "But you said—"

  "I know. I know." She sighed, dropping her head into her hands. "Boys are bad, Levi." Her words were muffled through her fingers.

  Levi frowned, "What?"

  She peeked at him, and even as she was tearing his heart into teeny tiny pieces, all he could think was that she was adorable. "My grandmother's husband left her with a one-year-old. When she was nineteen."

  "Then that guy was bad. That doesn't make us all evil."

  "My mom has no idea who my father is."

  Harli had never, ever talked about her family. He knew she lived in JoAnn Lee's house, so he had assumed they were related, but that was the extent of his knowledge.

  "That also does not make us all bad." In fact, he was more inclined to think that was her mother's problem as much as her father's.

  "My mother and my grandmother, they both had babies very young. Both raised those babies alone. I—I can't have a boyfriend until I'm twenty years old. I promised myself that when I was six."

  He raised an eyebrow. "Six?"

  Harli nodded grimly.

  "Six seems like a very young age to be making life decisions, Harli."

  She pursed her lips.

  "So… you love me. You know I love you. I suspect you've known for quite some time."

  The barest hint of a smile played around her lips.

  "But we can't be together."

  She shook her head.

  "What if… what if we're just friends who don't date anyone else, and occasionally you let me kiss you?"

  Her smile widened. "You're always finding a way around the
rules."

  He shrugged. "If that's what it takes, then so be it. I will agree to be your friend who does not date anyone else."

  Chapter One

  Present Time

  "HEY HARLI, WHEN YOU GONNA DUMP that lame-ass boyfriend of yours and go out with a real man?"

  Harli sighed, brushed her long honey-brown hair out of her face, and slung the mop into its bucket. "Brandon, you're an idiot."

  Brandon, the round, somewhat pale cowboy from Texas, stood up and sauntered over. Harli resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I just think you'd like to experience what a real man can do."

  Harli tipped her head to the side, considering him. He barely looked her in the eye. She was 5'10" and at least an inch taller than he was — and that was in flats. Today? She had on four inch heels. "I see two problems with your statement. One, as everyone knows and always has known, I do not have a boyfriend." He opened his mouth to speak, but she raised her finger, shushing him. "I'm not done. Problem two: I have yet to see anything more 'real man' than Levi, and I certainly don't see anything here."

  Instead of being insulted, Brandon laughed. "You don't see anything here because he up and left you three months ago."

  Yeah. That one hurt.

  But Harli was a master at hiding pain. It was the only way she survived. Let them know they hurt you, and they'll eat you alive.

  She pouted, batting her eyelashes. "Brandon, are you jealous because Levi's new song went #1 on the Billboard Top 100 in its first week out? Or is it that he has that big ol' tattoo and your mama won't let you get one yet?" She patted his cheek, grabbed her mop and bucket, and walked away.

  "Yeah well—it's a good thing he's not your boyfriend. 'Cause he's all over those groupies at every concert. Doesn't even try to hide it!"

  Harli gritted her teeth and raised her chin.

  So what if Levi ripped her heart to shreds? That's what boys do. She'd been expecting it.

  Harli deposited her cleaning supplies in the janitorial closet, locked it up, dropped the key off at the office, and went to the locker room to change into her school clothes before class started. She glanced briefly at her phone — there were fourteen missed calls and just as many text messages.