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

again. “I might as well look on point. See you in twenty?”
    “Twenty,” I agreed. I ended the call and turned onto my back to stare at the ceiling of my bedroom. It had gone yellow over the years—the popcorn looked grungy and kind of gross after people had smoked in the room long before I’d ever taken the apartment, and some of the texturized bits had flaked off, but it had a certain homey feeling I liked. I scratched at my face again, thinking I should at least shave, even if I didn’t have the energy or the enthusiasm for a full shower before I went down. Fuck. Ron is going to have a fit, and the label is going to be pissed, too. I closed my eyes and sat up in my bed, throwing my legs over the edge to climb out. It was going to be a shit fest and I knew it.
    But then—why should it be? Obviously me hooking up with Fran had gotten some attention. Wasn’t that what the whole collaboration bullshit had been about? I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth, rubbing at my stubbly cheeks and debating taking the time to shave them. Fuck it—just get it done. You’ve got another fifteen to get dressed and get over there. If a handful of paparazzi were going to snap pictures of me and Fran, I didn’t want to look like a bum who’d just rolled out from under an overpass. I shaved, put on some clean clothes, and found my car keys. I figured we might as well get it over with.

****
    “You put your phone on silent?” I nodded my answer to Fran’s question. We’d made it to Enriqueta’s and grabbed some food before retreating to a shady spot about half a block away where we could smoke and enjoy our meals.
    “I had about thirteen missed calls or texts, apparently,” I told her, twisting my lips into a wry grin. “You?”
    “Still coming in,” Fran told me. She shook her head, putting her purse down to take a sip of coffee.
    “What do you want to do about the situation?” I took a bite of an empanada and chewed on it while I waited for Fran to consider the question.
    “I just want to let it blow over,” she said after a moment. “It can’t be that big of a story, can it?”
    “It’ll be as big or as small as we end up making it,” I said with a shrug. “If we don’t really talk about it they’ll lose interest eventually.”
    “Which I guess brings us around to whether we want to actually…you know…be together.” Fran took another sip of her coffee.
    “Did you not want to be together?” I set my half-eaten empanada aside. “I mean, I won’t exactly take it hard if you decided that you wanted to be single, but I’d like to know.”
    “The thing is…” Fran took a deep breath and put her cup of coffee down. “I don’t want to be single. I want to be with you. I just…” she shrugged. “I don’t want it to be a marketing gimmick, or for people to think that I’m just doing it to get more attention.” I snorted.
    “Well, unfortunately, people are going to think that,” I told her. “Some people, anyway. Nothing you can do about that situation.” I pressed my lips together and considered.
    “Do you think I only hooked up with you for attention?”
    “Of course not,” I said, shaking my head. “If you were going to hook up with someone to promote the band, you’d have gotten with Nick or Alex or someone.” Fran laughed.
    “Okay, that’s a decent point,” she said. “So what do you want to do about…” I shrugged.
    “I want to keep seeing you,” I said, taking a sip of my own coffee. “What you want to call it—that’s just window dressing. I want to keep seeing you, and I want to work on music together.”
    “You do?” Fran raised an eyebrow.
    “That song you showed me before—it’s a good song. It deserves to come out. It deserves to be heard. I want to help make that happen.”
    “You don’t think it’ll just get bashed as a John and Yoko thing?” I rolled my eyes.
    “If anyone was going to get bashed as a Yoko figure, it’d be Mary,” I said,