Rock Star Returns: Carlie’s Story
The Trouble with Rock Stars: Jackson’s Story
Rock Revenge: Alex’s Story
Or check out all my rocker romance series.
About me:
CANDY J. STARR USED to be a band manager until she realized that the band she managed was so lacking in charisma that they actually sucked the charisma out of any room they played. “Screw you,” she said, leaving them to wallow in obscurity – totally forgetting that they owed her big bucks for video equipment hire.
Candy has filmed and interviewed some big names in the rock business, and a lot of small ones. She’s seen the dirty little secrets that go on in the back rooms of band venues. She’s seen the ugly side of rock and the very pretty one.
But, of course, everything she writes is fiction.
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Bonus Chapter – The Trouble with Rock Stars
GINA LOVES ME. I KNOW that as a truth. She loves me more than any man deserves to be loved, but especially a broken-down fool of a man like me. That girl should run from me as fast and as far as possible. She should take her pretty blue eyes and turn them on someone else. A man who can make her happy and cherish her. A man who is whole.
I’ve buried my life in this corner of the bar with a glass of whiskey as my only sustenance for so long. I can’t even imagine what she sees in me. I’m not a man to be saved or rescued or helped. I’m on the trash heap and that’s where I’ll stay.
“Teach me how to play guitar,” Drew said, sitting down beside me at the bar.
“No.”
I didn’t even turn to face him. It wasn’t open for discussion. I had no interest in becoming a guitar teacher for anyone let alone a scared little pup like Drew. Teaching Drew guitar would have to be on my top ten list of things I didn’t want to do at any given moment and he’d picked the totally wrong time to ask me. My nerves were stretched as tight as a drum knowing what I had to do. Something terrible, something that will rip me apart, and I was so edgy, I might punch him first.
“Come on, Jackson. I thought you were my friend.”
“Yeah, if you want to stay my friend, you’ll shut up about it.”
Gina’s pretty and full of dreams. She has a quiet charm that many overlook but it’s all the sweeter for being hidden. When she walked into the bar, she didn’t turn heads. She didn’t have men look up from their drinking and wish they were the one she searched for. But that’s because most men are blind. They’d rather the glass that glitters like diamonds than to have to polish the diamond to make it shine.
When Gina’s gaze searched the bar, she always looked for me. Even though I’m always in the same place, just like the beer taps and the posters on the walls and the sign that says “no service area”. She’d see me and her eyes would light up, every time.
After tonight, she won’t search for me anymore. She won’t look in my direction and her eyes sure as hell won’t light up.
The first time she came into the bar, she sat in the corner and didn’t talk to anyone. I think she’d come to see one of the bands playing upstairs but had turned up too early and had to wait around. She’d tried to make herself tiny, invisible, but I’d noticed her. I’d noticed her right off. But I didn’t say or do anything. She was a skittish animal who needed to build trust.
I don’t know what it was about her but knowing she was sitting back there made me sit up a bit straighter and try to clean up my language when I spoke.
I wasn’t sure if she’d come back again after that. But she did. The next time she came in, the bar was quiet. There were no bands on. She ordered a drink and sat in the same corner trying to disappear. But Drew got talking to her and then Carlie. I think Drew sat down at her table and told her his life story.
I hated to admit it but it niggled me to see her paying so much attention to Drew. While they talked, I watched how she responded to him, her face animated. A strand of her hair would fall down and she’d tuck it back behind her ear, then it’d fall again. My hand itched to be the one restraining that errant lock.
Then she smiled and it was like a kick in the guts. It wasn’t even much of a smile, just a tiny curl in the corners of her mouth. A polite smile. But it hit me. Oh Lord, it hit me.
She sat there and listened to Drew’s boring story and, trust me, Drew’s stories are always boring. Her gaze didn’t dart around the room and she didn’t fob him off. She’d sat there and listened.