Rock Me Hard (The Rock Star's Seduction)

by Thorne, Olivia

  It was actually really good advice. It put a finger on the one thing I’d noticed subconsciously about the songs: Derek sounded like himself… but he also sounded like a couple of other, better-known singers. He didn’t quite sound… unique, if that made any sense.

  Derek continued, “Then he smiles and shakes our hands and says, ‘That was a pleasure, mate. We should do it again sometime.’

  “And I say, ‘When he gets better at feeling the music, and I find my voice, I want you to be in our band.’

  “And he laughs and he says, ‘You do that, both of you, and I will definitely leave this shitty outfit, or whatever outfit I’m in, and I’ll back you.’

  “And then he waves goodbye and walks out into the night strumming his guitar, no amp, just the metallic strings dying away in the night air.”

  I could see it in my mind’s eye – the mystery man walking out into the night, his trench coat swirling the fog behind him.

  “From that moment, I was hooked,” Derek said, his eyes on fire. “I was a man possessed. I’m going to find my voice if it kills me, and Ryan’s going to go deeper and do whatever the fuck he needs to do, and we’re going to get Killian Lee to join the band, and we’re going to be fucking famous.”

  The certainty and the passion with which he said it sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Wow,” Shanna said, entranced.

  “He didn’t mean it,” Ryan said glumly.

  “Yes he did,” Derek said vehemently.

  “He was just being nice.”

  “No he wasn’t. Dude, that guy was too stoned to be telling anything but the truth. Anybody that cool, he’s not going to blow smoke up your ass. I just know it. He’s gonna be in the band.”

  Ryan looked over at me, smiled, and rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

  It was funny – like Ryan was trying to impress me with his worldliness by dissing Derek’s naiveté.

  “Yeah, ‘whatever’ yourself – you just watch, he’s gonna be in the band,” Derek shot back. Then he looked around distractedly. “I’m hungry – you guys hungry? Let’s go upstairs and see what’s in the fridge.”

  28

  The kitchen was lovely – more Real Simple ideas at work, with a couple of pretty flower arrangements and a tiny herb garden in one of those round, space-age terrariums you buy at Bed, Bath & Beyond. There wasn’t too much in the cupboards, so we ate potato chips and carrot sticks with dip as we sat around the island in the middle of the kitchen.

  After a few minutes, I heard whispering behind us. Two little brown-haired girls, about 9 and 12, were poking their heads around the corner, watching us. As soon as they saw me look at them, they burst into giggles and darted out of sight.

  “Hey – who’s that back there?” Derek said loudly.

  More giggling, and then the little girls came tearing around the corner and slid into the kitchen on their socks.

  “Hi Derrrrrrek!” they both shouted at once, and dissolved into giggles again.

  “Hello, ladies!”

  “Out!” Ryan shouted.

  “AWWWWW!” they complained.

  “Come on, man, they can stay,” Derek said good-naturedly.

  Ryan grumbled and ordered them to behave. They both stuck their tongues out at him and proceeded to moon over Derek, hanging on every word he said.

  “Uh-oh, you have competition,” Shanna whispered in my ear.

  I just rolled my eyes at her.

  “This is Kaitlyn and Shanna,” Derek said. “Kaitlyn and Shanna, this is Bob and this is Marley.”

  “THAT’S NOT OUR NAMES!” they shrieked at the same time.

  “Whaaaaa? It’s not?” Derek said, astounded.

  “I’m Mara!” the older one said.

  “And I’m Casey!” the smaller one shouted.

  “Wait – are you sure?” Derek frowned.

  They loved it. Eventually, though, they glanced over at me and Shanna.

  “Are they your girrrrrlfriends?” the nine-year-old asked. I expected her to start singing Derek and Kaitlyn, sittin’ in a tree… K-I-S-S-I-N-G…

  “Not yet,” Derek said, and winked at me – which made my stomach flutter. “But we’re workin’ on it.”

  Shanna looked over at me with a OoooOOOOH look.

  I rolled my eyes again.

  Somebody else had a reaction, too: Mara, the tween. She shot me icy daggers I would have expected from somebody twice her age.

  Maybe I did have competition.

  It was pretty funny, though.

  Derek saw her, and immediately leaned over and gave her a noogie. “But YOU will always be my real girlfriends,” he said as he lightly rubbed his knuckle into Mara’s head.

  She shrieked and forgot all about me.

  Derek apparently had all women wrapped around his little finger, even the prepubescent ones.

  “We heard you singing Katy Perry!” they shouted.

  “I was practicing for you,” Derek said seriously.

  “We wanna hear Katy Perry!” they whined.

  “Next time,” Derek promised, laughing.

  “We wanna hear Katy Perrrrryyyy!”

  “You see?” Ryan asked in exasperation. “It’s like a stray dog – you feed it once, you let it hang around, and it never freakin’ leaves.”

  “I’m gonna tell Mom you said a bad word!” the little one shrieked.

  “Freakin’s not a bad word,” Ryan snapped.

  “It’s gettin’ a little too close for comfort,” a Southern-accented voice said behind us.

  A woman walked into the kitchen. She was probably mid-40’s, pretty, blonde, and conservatively dressed in a business suit. She was a lot shorter than Ryan, but she was still pretty tall in her heels – maybe even taller than me.

  “Hello, Derek,” she said, and ruffled his hair as she passed by.

  “Hi, Mrs. Miller,” Derek said affably.

  “Mom!” the little girls shrieked in a chorus.

  She kissed their heads and turned to kiss Ryan’s cheek – but he recoiled visibly.

  “Moooom,” he said, embarrassed, and motioned with his head towards us.

  Ryan’s mother turned and looked at us – first at me, then at Shanna, then at Shanna’s prominently displayed cleavage.

  Mrs. Miller’s demeanor cooled down noticeably after that.

  “Friends of yours?” she asked with a chill in her voice.

  “They’re Derek and Ryan’s girlllfrieeends!” the littlest one cackled, like she’d just gotten them in trouble.

  Maybe she had. Mrs. Miller raised her eyebrows slightly.

  “No we’re not, we just came over to hear them play,” I said nervously, and extended my hand. “I’m Kaitlyn.”

  She took my hand and warmed up a little. “Hello, Kaitlyn.”

  “I’m Shanna,” Shanna said. She waved half-heartedly, put her elbows on the countertop, and crossed her arms in front of her chest. She was no fool.

  “Hello,” Mrs. Miller said a little less warmly, then turned to Ryan. “And will Derek and your friends be staying for dinner?”

  “Uhhhhh… we hadn’t really discussed that,” Ryan said, looking at me.

  “No. We don’t want to impose,” I said.

  “Ah, come on. She feeds me all the time,” Derek said jovially.

  “That’s true,” Mrs. Miller admitted, and gave him a playful scolding look. “And you’re eatin’ me out of house and home.”

  “Noooooo, never,” Derek grinned back.

  She smiled, then turned back to Ryan. “But I was going to fix spaghetti, and I don’t have enough hamburger meat and sauce for everybody.”

  “We’ll get it,” Derek volunteered. “We can go to the store.”

  “No, really,” I said, “that’s too much trouble – ”

  “If y’all go get it, it’s no trouble at all,” Mrs. Miller said.

  “Yaaaaayyyy!” the little girls cheered. “Derek’s gonna stay for dinner!”

  “I guess we’re staying,” Shanna whisp
ered.

  I didn’t roll my eyes this time.

  29

  I drove us to the grocery store. Mrs. Miller had given Ryan some money and a shopping list – the spaghetti ingredients plus a few other things – and he and Shanna got a cart and started down an aisle.

  “Aren’t you coming?” Ryan asked forlornly as Derek and I lagged behind.

  If I didn’t know any better, I would have said he was crushing on me.

  Which was super-awkward.

  “We’ll follow along,” Derek said. “I want to have some time with my future giiirrrlfriennd.”

  “Oh God,” I said as I closed my eyes, as though I was wearily annoyed.

  In reality, his words sent pleasurable shivers down my spine.

  Not good.

  Shanna just laughed, hooked her arm through Ryan’s, and led him down the pasta aisle.

  “You don’t mind staying for dinner?” Derek asked. “I mean, you didn’t have to study?”

  “Well, I do have to study, but… no, dinner’s fine. I just didn’t want to put Ryan’s mom out.”

  “She’s not put out by anything but Shanna’s boobs.”

  I burst out laughing. “You noticed?”

  “What, her boobs, or Mrs. Miller’s reaction?”

  “Which were you looking at?”

  “Well, you couldn’t miss either.”

  I laughed again, though I was stung a little by what might have been jealousy. “Yeah, I think maybe Ryan ought to get a t-shirt for her.”

  “That’s a good idea. If you thought Ryan’s mom was pissed earlier, wait till his dad starts sneaking glances at dinner.”

  “Ewwwww,” I said, disgusted. Images of a pervy, leering old man flashed through my brain.

  “Aaah, he’s not a bad guy. It’s just… they’re hard not to notice when they’re on display like that.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I admitted, then elbowed him in the ribs. “Does that mean you’re checking them out?”

  “Like I said, when they’re in your face like that… besides, they’re the only ones I’m seeing lately. I’ve noticed you don’t dress too… shall we say, provocatively.”

  “You want me to start?”

  “HELL yeah.”

  “Then I’m definitely not,” I teased.

  “Dammit… I knew I shouldn’t have said anything…” he said in mock frustration.

  We walked along in silence for a few seconds.

  I was the one who broke it. “By the way, I think it’s really cool how you’re so nice to Ryan’s little sisters.”

  “They’re great, aren’t they?” he asked with real affection.

  “Yeah – and they’re totally in puppy love with you.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, that was one of the reasons the Millers kicked me out.”

  Wait – hang on a minute –

  “What?” I asked.

  “Ryan’s parents were a little… you know, protective. I totally agreed with them. They’re like little sisters to me, of course – I never had any brothers or sisters, so I think they’re awesome – but, yeah, Mara’s 13 in a couple of months, and I’m not exactly the kind of dude that parents of a teenage girl want around.”

  “No, no, back up – you lived with them?”

  “Yeah, for a couple of weeks after Trevor – my step-dad – kicked me out,” he said. Immediately his tone changed, and I could hear this loathing in his voice.

  “What happened?”

  “Well… I dropped out of high school, for one.”

  My stomach twisted.

  So he was a high school dropout.

  Greeeeaaaat.

  He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “Probably not what you wanted to hear.”

  “No, I… whatever,” I shrugged, trying not to be judgmental.

  “We used to live in Los Angeles. That’s where I grew up. My mom and dad split up when I was ten, and Mom remarried when I was thirteen. To Trevor.” His voice went icy again. “Then, the summer before my senior year, Trevor got transferred here, to Athens. He makes a lot more than my mom, so… they didn’t give me a choice.”

  “That sucks… your senior year…”

  “Yeah,” he said grimly. “What sucks even more is when you’re planning to start a band in LA. Someday you’re going to play the Whiskey a Go Go, where the Doors started… and then you find out you’re moving to Buttfuck Egypt.”

  I laughed – I couldn’t help it. “Athens is hardly Buttfuck Egypt.”

  “It is when you’re living in LA.”

  “Athens is where REM and the B-52’s began,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, my mom kept pointing that out. Over and over and over. I fought to stay with my dad in California, but by then he had a pretty bad drug habit. He was kind of going downhill fast,” Derek said, his voice getting softer and more serious. “So my mom convinced my dad to tell me it was for my own good.”

  He shook his head, smiling sardonically.

  “He even told me it was better to start a band here because in LA, the competition was too cutthroat. He said here I could actually get noticed. My mom probably just gave him a couple of hundred dollars for his next fix, is all.”

  I felt so bad for him… I could hear the pain and betrayal in his voice…

  I reached out and squeezed his fingers softly.

  He looked over in surprise – and then smiled sweetly and squeezed my fingers back.

  My heart pounded in my chest… but I pulled my fingers away, afraid of what I was feeling.

  He let me go, and started talking again. “My mom said if I came here, I could start a band and she’d be behind it a hundred percent. So I gave in. But when I got here, I was a total little shit about it. I admit it. I mean, I was going out every night and getting drunk, getting into all sorts of trouble… Trevor was pissing me off, screaming at me all the time, and I was just like, ‘Fuck you, man. You think you can control me? Watch this.’

  “Anyway, the only good part about moving here was meeting Ryan. We clicked the first day in gym class because he had on a Stones t-shirt. He was this big, funny nerd – what do you think of him, by the way? I didn’t ask you.” Derek looked wary as he said it.

  “He’s sweet. He’s a really nice guy.”

  Apparently I passed the test, because the shadow on Derek’s face passed and he beamed. “He is – he’s great. Anyway, he took me home and we jammed in his basement the first week of school, and his family just kind of adopted me. When I dropped out of school and Trevor finally kicked my ass out, I crashed at Ryan’s for a couple of weeks, but it made his mom uncomfortable that I was just hanging out all day, not going to school, not doing anything. And Mara started acting… weird. It was a little inappropriate.”

  I liked Derek even more when he said that. He genuinely agreed that a 12-year-old girl should not be living in a house with a non-relative like him, no matter how upstanding he was in his conduct with her.

  “So anyway, Ryan broke the news to me. He was all apologetic and embarrassed – it was pretty funny. He said my parents would let me stay until I found a job and a place, and I would always be welcome back to practice and have dinner, but I had to move, and soon. Like I said, I didn’t blame them at all. I went out the next day and found a job at the 40 Watt cleaning up and shit, and I moved out a week later.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “The grossest, grimiest, most fucked-up house you can imagine. You are never, ever seeing it. Seriously, I’m basically living on a futon I found at an attic sale for fifteen bucks. My roommates are a drag queen, a repo man, and this guy named Dale who delivers pizza when he’s not stoned out of his mind. And sometimes when he is.”

  “Sounds charming,” I laughed.

  “Now you know why I – ”

  He caught himself and clammed up.

  “…why you sleep around so much?” I finished for him, eyebrows raised mockingly.

  He winced. “Let’s not talk about that.”

  Yeah, not real
ly a topic of conversation I wanted to dwell on.

  “Good,” I said.

  30

  We’d been trailing Ryan and Shanna for about three aisles when we turned the corner and found ourselves in the kids toys area. There was one of those six-foot-tall containers, a big rectangular wire structure, full of brightly-colored rubber balls.

  Derek went over and grabbed a pink, swirly-colored one. He served it volleyball-style to me –

  And I just let it hit the ground and bounce twice before I grabbed it.

  “Come onnnnn,” Derek complained, like If you were cool you would do it.

  “No,” I whispered, and looked around in alarm. “We’re going to get in trouble.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “You just know I’d kick your ass in grocery store volleyball, that’s all.”

  “I don’t think so. I was on my high school team.”

  “Yeah, right.” He started imitating a chicken. “Baawwk - bok - bok - bok!”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fine.” I picked up the ball. “Ready, punk?”

  “Ready, Ms. High School Volleyball Queen.”

  I hit it to him. He hit it back – and then I jumped up and spiked it at his feet.

  “Booyah, bee-yotch,” I said, throwing up my arms in victory.

  “Hey, no fair, no spiking!” he laughed.

  “‘No fairrrr, no spiking,’” I mocked him in a girly voice, then shook my head in mock disgust. “You’re such a wimp.”

  “Oh yeah?” he asked as he picked the ball up, an undercurrent of aggression beneath the humor.

  “Yeah,” I taunted him.

  “Where’s the line?”

  I pointed at the beginning of the toy section, where the cereal boxes ended.

  “And where’s the net?”

  “Top shelf.”

  “Okay. Get ready, bee-yotch,” he grinned.

  “Bring it.”

  I couldn’t believe how much fun I was having.

  We volleyed back and forth, him laughing, me giggling, hitting the swirly pink ball through the air.