Bad Boy Romance: Nick (Romantic Suspense Alpha Male Romance) (New Adult Rock Star Contemporary Short Stories) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 2) by Jade Allen Page A

gonna fucking break his ass.” A little smile tugged at Jules’ lips.
For a second I couldn’t help but suspect my band mates; there were only so many
people who could have gotten pictures of Olivia and me together, after all. But
none of them would’ve done something like that.
    “You figure out who it is and we’ll help break their
ass,” Mark told me. I took a deep breath and a sip of my beer.
    “I can see the headline now,” I said, grinning wryly. “Molly
Riot Share Jail Cell After Felony Assault.”

 
    ****
    Olivia avoided me the rest of the day, and I tried to fill
the void that I’d gotten used to spending watching her work, helping her get
the best possible pictures or sound bites from the crew or the rest of the
band. I stayed on the stage even after we’d finished up sound check, playing
meandering little runs on my guitar. It sounded off-pitch, but every time I
checked it against the built-in tuner, it was dead on. This is why you’ve
never gotten close to anything like this, I thought, picking out a mournful
little OK Go tune. It took me a minute to remember the name: “Let it Rain.” I
played the melody fill over and over again and then switched to the rhythm,
murmuring the words to myself under the noise of the amps and speakers. “Cruise
control distressed her/ kinda cursed and kinda blessed her/ engine running on
the fumes…vision blue and blurry/ fallen angels in a flurry/ spinning through
the empty room…”
    The thing that shocked me was that I’d never even considered
the possibility of it ending between Olivia and me. She’d say that I was going
to eventually move on from her, get tired of her—but it had never occurred to
me to think that she might end it. Not really. I’d just thought things would go
the same way that they’d been going; that I’d just keep ending up in her bed or
her in my bed, and then once the tour ended, we’d switch off going to each
other’s apartments, fucking like animals, eating dinner together and getting
wasted and having a good time. Even if I never thought of it being something
serious—something like a committed relationship—I’d figured it would just keep
being the way it was.
    I switched to another OK Go tune almost without thinking.
The low-slung groove suggested itself in my brain, the lyrics flowing through
my head as I played the soulful low melody. I want you, yeah I want you/ I want
you, yeah I want you bad/ So bad I can’t think straight, so bad all my bones
shake/ so bad I can’t breathe… And in the light of morning for twenty-one days
straight, there you are beside me…
    “Nick! You’re going to play the calluses off your fingers,” I
missed the note and hit the wrong chord, startled by the sound of Alex’s voice
shouting over my playing. I sighed and stopped playing altogether, setting the
guitar down on its stand.
    “I was practicing,” I told Alex as I walked past him. “What
else have I got to do? Olivia doesn’t want to be in the same room as me.”
    “You have two choices,” Alex said, following me. “You fight
for her, or you give her up and find someone to take your mind off of her.”
    “She won’t let me fight for her,” I pointed out. “She wants
to be left alone to figure everything out, and that’s going to mean that she’s
going to figure that she should end it and hope that appeases her fucking
editor.”
    “I had Ron put in a call to Record Spin ,” Alex told
me. “He told them that we see no problem with Olivia continuing, and that we
aren’t interested in working with anyone else. He’s going to have to eat the
scandal or it’ll blow up in his face.”
    “But what about her?” I remembered what Olivia had said.
“She’s going to have to try and live it down too. Especially if it gets out in
the press in general, they’re going to treat her like some kind of groupie.”
Alex shrugged.
    “Keep her by your side if you can’t live without her,” he
suggested. “That way if someone