Rockstar Romance: Julian (Contemporary New Adult Bad Boy Rock Star Romance) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 3) by Jade Allen

Fran and let her down carefully onto her feet. She leaned heavily against the wall of the shower and I watched as the water flowed over her trembling body. It was almost enough to make me hard all over again—but I told myself we’d probably spent too long away from the party already. “We should see if everyone’s ready to clear out,” I said, once I was able to catch my breath.
    “Yeah,” Fran agreed, looking dazed and pleased. She grinned. “I could stand to do that a good three or four more times.”
    “On the bus,” I told her. “No chance of breaking an arm slipping on tile there.”
    “Agreed. Let’s get out.”

****
    I woke up in my own bed for the first time in months, feeling as though I’d slept for a hundred years; in reality it had been probably closer to ten hours. The bus had dropped us off the day before, in the afternoon, and I’d watched Mary and Olivia greeting Alex and Nick, beaming like the pleased girlfriends they were, and wondered if Fran felt weird about the situation the way I did.
    It was the first day of our break before going into the studio to work on an EP together; I had laundry to take care of, a kitchen to stock, and—in spite of how rested I felt—sleep to catch up on. There was also the question of a song I’d been working on, and the one that Fran had showed me early on in the tour. We’d never really talked about it since that night, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. It deserved to be recorded.
    I stretched and yawned and thought about walking down to the little Cuban café about a block away from my apartment to get a cafecito and maybe something to eat. Have to get dressed to do that, I thought, kicking the sheets off of my legs. Part of me thought that would be a small sacrifice; the other part of me felt magnetically stuck to my bed.
    My phone rang, and I tumbled over the edge of the bed, groping for it in the gloomy light. I’d plugged it in before I’d passed out the night before, and completely forgot about it. I managed to find it on the bedside table and pull the charging cord out; the screen flashed Fran’s name. “What’s up?” I said as soon as the call connected.
    “We’re on TMZ, that’s what’s up,” Fran said quickly.
    “What? What for?” I crawled back onto the bed and half-buried my face in the pillow, shifting the phone to the ear I hadn’t covered up.
    “Someone snapped a picture of us apparently, leaving the shower together,” Fran explained. “And now it’s on TMZ with some stupid article about us.” I groaned, scrubbing at my face.
    “Fuck.” I took a deep breath. “What’s the verdict from them?”
    “That we either faked hating each other all along or something-something-something fine line between love and hate,” Fran told me bitterly. “It’s pretty bad.”
    “Oh man,” I agreed. I took another deep breath; I was definitely not going to be staying in bed much longer. “What do you want to do about it?”
    “Mostly I wish I could tell them to delete the thing,” Fran admitted. “But obviously we’re ‘out’ now. I’ve been getting calls since eight this morning.”
    “I should check my phone,” I said. “Later. Now…do you want to meet up and talk about this over coffee or something?”
    “What’s there to talk about?” I thought about that.
    “We keep putting off that conversation about what we are,” I pointed out. “There’s no sense in putting it off now that everyone at least knows we’re something.”
    “I guess,” Fran said, and I heard her sigh. “Where do you want to meet?”
    “Enriqueta’s,” I said after thinking about it for a second. “I can be there in like…twenty minutes.”
    “Probably the same for me,” Fran said. “I’m fucking pissed about this, Jules.”
    “You know if we go anywhere together, they’re going to get pictures of us, right? I’m not saying we shouldn’t meet up—I’m just saying to be prepared for it.”
    “Yeah,” Fran said, sighing