Lovely Madness: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 4)

by Jaine Diamond

  “Can’t wait,” she said. “I promise, I’ll make sure you get fed. You and Freddy both.” Then her gaze flicked to her screen. “The studio is calling. The rock star cats must be ready.”

  “Good. Let’s do this.” I sipped my coffee and waited while she got us connected.

  I could see the inside of the studio come up onscreen. Isaac was setting up their computer and the band was in the background, Xander, Matt and Ash sprawled on a couch and Summer curled up in a chair.

  “Good morning, rock stars!” Taylor said.

  “Hey, Taylor,” Ash said. The rest of them said Good morning or waved, as Taylor turned her laptop toward me so they could see me.

  When I was onscreen, we all said our hellos and got the small talk out of the way. I hated small talk. I’d never been good at it, for one thing. How are you? How do you like the studio so far? That kind of thing. They seemed relaxed and generally unfocused, like musicians so often did in the morning. I wasn’t sure why that was, but it was a thing.

  I eventually just cut it off by saying, “I’ve got no agenda for this meeting so if you have questions, just let me know.”

  The band kind of looked at each other and maybe telepathically nominated Ash to speak up.

  “Yeah, we’ve got a question,” Ash said. “Trey Jones sent over this document. It’s like, this list of what Brick House thinks should be on the album. How many songs, what kind of songs. Assuming you got it?”

  “I did.”

  “And? Your thoughts?”

  “I think it has no place in that studio.”

  “Good,” Xander said, “because Ash already tore it up.”

  “Yeah, I don’t blame you,” I said.

  “If he didn’t, I was going to,” Xander said. “But I was sort of sweating having to go back to Trey with that.”

  “You don’t have to go back to Trey with anything,” I told him. “I know he’s a good friend of yours, Xander, but that doesn’t mean he has a different conversation with you than he has with the rest of the band. Frankly, he shouldn’t be having any conversation with you about the album. Brody and I will talk to him.”

  “Pardon me, but what does that all mean, hon?” Summer asked me. “Are you saying you don’t care how many songs we come up with, or what songs we come up with? We have free reign to do whatever we like here?”

  “I care,” I said. “I just don’t have a format that I expect you to adhere to. The way I see it, there are no rules in that room.”

  No one said anything. Summer and Ash just kinda looked at each other.

  “I can repeat that if you want,” I said. “There are no rules in that room.”

  “There are always rules,” Ash said.

  “Yeah… honestly, Cary, I’ve had producers tell me that before,” Matt said. “They’ve never actually meant it.”

  “Or they mean it until the record company comes into the conversation,” Xander said, “and starts complaining about the bass drum being too loud.”

  “Or the song being too long…” Matt said.

  “Or, hey, let’s take out all the guitars and lay in some more electronic shit,” Ash said.

  “Hey, now,” Summer said.

  “You know what I mean,” Ash said.

  “Well, I mean it,” I told them. “You have complete freedom to do whatever you want in that room.”

  “Is that why you’ve literally given us no guidance so far?” Summer challenged.

  Good; I liked that they were willing to challenge me.

  “Yes. It is. I’ve given you a couple of weeks to get used to the feeling of freedom. To get comfortable in there and warm up, get used to being in a room together. No one breathing down your neck, including me. And I’ll talk to Brody. Any further commentary from Trey or anyone else at Brick House about the music needs to go through me. But I’ve got guidance for you, if you’re ready for it.”

  “We’re hungry for it, man,” Matt said.

  “Okay. You guys put together those vortex playlists, and you listened to each other’s. I listened to them too, and now I’ve sent you mine, so have a listen if you want. I listened through the list of your favorite bands that you gave me, their entire discographies, actually. And I’ve listened through your discographies. You’ve all got different influences and overlapping tastes, different but complementary styles, and you’re all incredible writers. Artists. So. Now I want you to forget about everything you’ve thought about so far. Everything you thought this band would be.”

  No one said anything, but Summer smiled.

  “Everything you thought this band might sound like when you came together… forget about it,” I went on. “Forget about your vortex playlists and your influences and the bands you’ve played in before. The music you’ve written before. Forget all of it. I’ll say it again. There are no rules in that room. No limits. I don’t want you to think about genre. Don’t think about the album. Don’t think about if or how the songs will fit together, or where they’ll get played after they’re released. Forget about what you think your fans want to hear. Forget about what you think I want to hear. Forget about what you think Ashley wants to play or Xander wants to play or Matt wants to play or Summer wants to play. Forget about how some new guitarist might or might not fit into the mix. This isn’t the Penny Pushers or Steel Trap or Dirty or DJ Summer, or any of your other previous projects. This isn’t any of you. This is all of you. Forget about what Dirty is doing or what Breakneck is doing or what anyone else is doing out there in the market right now. And forget about Brick House Records. I don’t want you to think about Trey Jones or anything he’s told you. Trey Jones no longer exists to you. Just write. Write without thinking about it. Make music without thinking about it. I want you to write like every song you write could be your best song, because it is your best song. That’s your only job in that room.”

  Summer was still smiling.

  Matt looked kinda stunned. Xander looked relieved.

  Ash looked fucking stoked.

  “That all sounds great,” Xander said after a moment. “But we have a deal with Trey.”

  “I’m aware of the deal. And I’m telling you not to worry about it. Me and Brody will deal with Trey.”

  “And when do you come into the writing process?” Matt asked.

  “When you need me to. You’ll know when that is.”

  No one said anything.

  “Are we good? I’ve given you something to think about, and you guys are gonna get writing?”

  “Yeah,” Xander said, looking around at his bandmates. “We’re good.”

  “Good. And anytime you start thinking about any of that shit I just told you to stop thinking about… Just remember, you are who you are and that’s why you’re in that room. No one else can do what you do.”

  “We love you, Cary,” Summer said. Actually, she kinda sang it. I knew she was the one who wanted me to produce this album more than anyone. I was planning not to make her regret that.

  “Let me know when you need me,” I told them. “I’ll be here.”

  “Cool. Thanks,” Ash said. “Feel like I wanna go write some killer shit now.”

  “Good. Talk to you later.”

  I nodded at Taylor and after we said goodbye, she disconnected.

  “Well,” she said, “I think you just inspired the crap out of them. I’ve never seen Ash so speechless.”

  “Yeah, that or I just terrified them.”

  She smiled. “So that’s it? You won’t come into the writing process until later, when they ask you to?”

  “I want to see what they come up with first, without me in the mix. We’ll use that as a starting point and we’ll go from there. But I’ll be writing, too. And after they show me theirs, I’ll show them mine, and we’ll see where it crosses over, if it does. In the end, all that matters is that the very best songs make it onto the album. Whoever wrote them is irrelevant.”

  “You’re very smart, Cary Clarke.”

  I smiled a little, bec
ause it was hard not to eat up anything nice that she said to me. “Probably not as smart as people take me for, Taylor Lawson.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cary

  Afraid of Heights

  After lunch, Taylor worked in the great room again while I worked in the control room with the door open. I could hear her on the phone with someone, chatting. Merritt, maybe. Sounded like they were talking about the Players, but she was laughing a bit.

  Could’ve been Courteney, actually, or maybe Ashley’s wife.

  Fuck, for all I knew she was talking to some delivery guy, and she was just that at ease talking to strangers.

  I liked that. That it was so easy for her to talk to people. Really fucking unlike me that way.

  I liked it that she’d seemed to bond with my sister. That she’d taken herself right down to Little Black Hole to introduce herself to everyone there, and bonded with Merritt, too.

  That she’d made herself at home in my world so quickly. Even here, in my home studio.

  I didn’t even realize it was possible for anyone to do that anymore. The very few people who’d walked through these doors over the last few years had never seemed comfortable here.

  Dean, maybe. But only because he was such a self-interested narcissist that he didn’t really pick up on other people’s social cues. Probably never occurred to him to feel uncomfortable here because whatever was wrong with me had nothing to do with him anyway. Alive’s lead singer had always been marvelously impervious to other people’s problems in a way that I envied.

  Maybe that was why I put up with him.

  Dean Slater just swept in here every once in a while, talked about himself, and went on his way. I didn’t doubt that he cared about me, in his way, or he probably wouldn’t bother, but the interaction probably didn’t do much for either of us.

  And then there was Xander. And my sister. Two people who definitely cared about me, but were never comfortable in here because they knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t happy. It was hard for them to take.

  I got that.

  It would be hard for me to take if I knew either of them was unhappy. Which was one of the reasons I stayed away from them as much as I could. It was a survival mechanism. I had enough of my own problems to try to deal with. I really couldn’t handle other people’s pain.

  And yes, I was well aware of how pathetic that was, that I was too fucking fragile to handle normal human relationships and everything that went with them. That didn’t mean it was something I wanted to chat about, though.

  Just another reason on the long list of reasons to keep to myself.

  Of course, there was Rose. And Liam, though he never really stepped through the front door. People who were paid to enter my world, but only for brief periods of time and a specific function.

  Maybe you could put Nicolette on that list, too, though she’d never come here. I’d never seen her outside of Bliss.

  But unlike Taylor, all those people did their thing and were gone.

  Taylor couldn’t really leave. Because I’d gotten her to move in, control freak that I was. But also, I could tell she wanted to stay.

  I’d probably never fucking understand why.

  I watched her for a while through the window, even as I slipped on headphones to try to concentrate. I was listening through the rough cut of a song that the Players had sent me after our morning talk. Something they’d been working on but weren’t sure I’d like.

  It had potential.

  But I kept getting distracted, watching Taylor working on the couch.

  I kept letting myself get distracted.

  I was impressed by her passion for her job. The hard work she was already putting in. All the little things she did, like making sure I had coffee and food, and even feeding my cat. But she was also several steps ahead of me on most things, facilitating conversations between me and Merritt, me and Brody, me and Trey, before I even knew they needed to happen. Maybe that was because she was actually answering my phone, my emails, and even my texts.

  On day three of her working for me, the morning after I first fucked her, I’d basically handed her my phone and let her have at it.

  When she started working for me, I’d had over forty-thousand unread emails in my inbox. Taylor had taken on the herculean task of diligently sorting through them for me.

  I don’t even know how you can think straight with the pressure of this number staring you in the face, she’d told me.

  Embarrassingly, there were many dozens of other things that I’d left neglected like that, like weeds growing up in the cracks all over my world. I just dealt with it by pretty much ignoring them, but she was right. They created clutter. Pressure. I knew they were there, gradually pushing through the walls I’d built, until one day they’d crack. It wasn’t a comfortable way to live, but I’d done it for so long that I thought I’d gotten used to it.

  Taylor literally opened the curtains to let the sun into the studio, and she was now metaphorically pulling up the weeds I’d let overtake the place.

  Felt like I could breathe easier in here already.

  It was all very impressive, and I appreciated it. But the most striking thing about her wasn’t her competence or her friendly professionalism or the warm support she offered. It was the way she did it all without judgment.

  She didn’t seem to judge me at all.

  Was that what I found so irresistible about her?

  That she didn’t put pressure on me to change? Or judge me for not being something that I wasn’t?

  She didn’t seem to judge me for being reclusive or private or antisocial, or anything else. Even the sex club thing, which I assumed would be a big ask for most women. She didn’t criticize my behavior or my habits, even in a subtle, non-verbal way. She didn’t even seem to question them, other than to try, carefully and respectfully, to understand.

  Like when she’d gently asked me if I was agoraphobic and tried to talk to me about stage fright.

  But when I didn’t want to talk about it, she took my cues and let it go.

  Obviously, she fucking noticed that I wasn’t a normal guy. She lived out there, in the real world, and when she walked in the door, she saw me. But she didn’t treat me like there was already something wrong with me before she met me. She didn’t act like she’d already made up her mind about me before that day.

  It was like I had a blank slate with her. And it was a little intoxicating.

  I really hadn’t been new to anyone in years.

  People who didn’t even know me already knew me, or thought they knew me, in the most ignorant, judgmental, intrusive ways imaginable. People who’d maybe met me once, twice, they all had an opinion. I’d learned that as I got famous; that everyone had an opinion about the public you, and that seemed to make them think that they knew the private you when they didn’t.

  And for someone they didn’t even know, they became fanatically invested in everything you did—especially your highest highs and your lowest lows.

  They loved it when you were on top, a shining star, so bright they could hardly fathom your brilliance.

  And they loved it when you fell.

  There was no in-between. No one cared about a mediocre musician, a halfway famous person known for ordinary things. Musician dropping off kids at soccer practice just didn’t stop anyone’s scroll.

  Rock star losing his shit at nightclub where ex-wife showed up with another man was somehow irresistible.

  Staggering amounts of success sold.

  Pain sold.

  Godlike. Untouchable. Idolized. Beloved. Superhuman.

  Fallen. Broken. Dead. Dying. Disgraced.

  That was how the world wanted its rock stars. There was no in-between. And everyone wanted to figure out which end of the spectrum they could slot you into.

  A lot of my peers still put me in that first category. Beloved. Untouchable. Out of respect, pity, or a lingering belief in me and my work. Out of respect for the work I still put out
there, even though I was no longer touring, no longer in a band, and regardless of anything that had happened in my personal life.

  Most of the rest of the world saw me as fallen. Broken.

  In hiding.

  I wasn’t onstage. I wasn’t shining like a star. I’d reversed into the shadows, and that meant something was wrong with me.

  Even if everything had been right, they wouldn’t have believed it.

  But maybe that was unfair of me to assume. Because it’s not like everything had ever been right with me, so how would I know?

  Taylor didn’t seem to be looking to put me on a pedestal or to condemn me.

  She didn’t seem to have any preconceived ideas about me. If she did, she shed them when she walked into my house, or she allowed them to fall away as she actually got to know me. She seemed to genuinely want to get to know me. Like she found me interesting, and not just because I was paying her. And not because I was some freak show.

  It made me want to be a better version of myself.

  Or maybe some mediocre version of myself who could offer her a regular sort of life? Dinner dates. Walks on the beach. Pillow talk.

  But all I knew were the extremes.

  If I wasn’t on top of the world, I was deep in the shadows.

  It had always been this way.

  Gabe was the only one who understood me without trying. Who kept me balanced. Who helped me navigate between the highs and the lows and stay afloat.

  I stared at the old, brown leather bracelet on my wrist. Gabe’s bracelet.

  I had a couple of his basses, some of his vinyl records, clothes. All kinds of things that had once belonged to him.

  But the bracelet was the only one I could really stand to look at. I’d worn it until it became a part of me.

  “Hey, you.” Taylor’s soft voice reached me. I realized she’d been knocking on the frame of the open door. She was standing there, looking in at me, while I’d gotten lost in my thoughts. I didn’t even hear the music playing in my ears.