My Rock #7 (The Rock Star Romance Series - Book #7) (3 page)

I took out my guitar and notebook. I lay down on my
bed and stared at the ceiling. I strummed a few notes on the guitar and wrote
them down, and then I scratched them off again. I started strumming the guitar
again, and as I did, I tried to put words to it. I surprised myself when I
started singing about Elly and me. I guess what was in my head just came out
and before I knew it, I was writing a song about losing someone. It had a good
beat to it so it wasn’t overly depressing, but it talked about having feelings
for someone that you hadn’t intended to care so much about and the chorus said,

Why
did you leave me standing speechless in the rain?

Come
back to me baby, let’s get this thing right,

Come
back to me baby, I want to hold you tonight.

I worked on it until the sound was just right and
then I put it away with the other ones and lay there staring at the ceiling
again, wondering what I’d do on our day off the next day. If Elly wasn’t pissed
off at me, we could hang out: or better yet, spend the day in bed.

CHAPTER
FIVE

ELLY

I woke up with the same knot in my stomach that I’d
gone to bed with the night before. Something was telling me that hanging out
with Cole was not going to be my best idea ever. The whole time I was in a
shower I told thought about cancelling on him. What I really wanted to do was
explore on my own, or hang out with some of the girls. They were going to the
fair that was being held in the town we were
in
. I
hadn’t been to a fair in a really long time. By the time I was dressed, I’d
decided to at least see if Cole wanted to hang out at the fair. I got his text
around ten.

Hey!
Are we still hanging out today?

Sure,
as long as you want to go to the fair.

That’s
cool. Want me to pick you up?

Sure.

I told him where to go and then I grabbed my bag and
walked out to the front of the lot. He said he was staying at a hotel nearby
and would be there in less than ten minutes. After about fifteen minutes, I saw
a red Camaro drive
up
. I
thought
surely that couldn’t be him
; who rents a Camaro anyways? It was Cole,
and it was also obvious that he thought he was as cool as ever. That was one
reason we’d become such good friends back in high school: I’d seen right
through his cool guy façade and told him he was full of shit. For some reason,
he’d appreciated that.

He stopped the car alongside me and the passenger
side window slid down. He grinned at me. I’d almost forgotten how good looking
he was. He was the polar opposite of Tristan. He had blonde hair and he always
kept it cut short and perfectly styled. His parents were well off, so he always
dressed in designer clothes. He was buff, too; even when he was drinking
heavily, he never missed a day at the gym. He had been the football star at our
high school. Back then, he didn’t put anything in his body that wasn’t healthy.
He had green eyes and these really deep dimples on either side of his mouth
that he knew how to use when the moment called for it.

“Hey good-looking; need a lift?” he said.

“Hey, Cole,” I said, opening the door. “As smooth as
ever with the ladies, I see.”

I slid in and he said, “It’s true; I’m a lady
killer,” he said, with another grin. He was really a dork, but a dork with good
self-esteem. “Wow, Elly. You’re looking even finer than I remember you, and
that’s no line.”

I smiled to be polite and said, “Thanks.” I’m sure
he was waiting for a return compliment; he was a little vain like that. I let
the moment pass and then I said, “What are you doing in Colorado?”

“I have a friend whose family owns a cabin up at
Vail. He turned twenty five and had a big party. I was on vacation from work
this week so I came up. I went to the party and then I came down here to stay
in town. I saw your post on Facebook and decided the concert might be fun. My
boys and I went and then they headed back to L. A. this morning. I stuck
around…to see you.”

“Wow, um, thanks. Since I hadn’t heard from you in a
year, I didn’t even know we were that close any more.”

He laughed and said, “I guess we grew apart during
all the shit that happened. I could tell that you needed your space. Those were
bad times, for all of us. I took your lead a few months later and went to rehab
myself. I’ve been clean and sober for nine months now.”

“Good for you,” I told him, sincerely. Maybe there
was hope for us to re-kindle our friendship after all.

“You still on the wagon?”

“Yep, almost a year for me now.”

He nodded, “Good, it’s a better life.”

“Yes it is,” I agreed.

“So where’s this fair at?”

I had it programmed into my GPS so I gave him
directions. It was a small town and that meant a small town fair, which sounded
like a lot of fun to me. I’d read an article about it in one of the local
papers that said they had, “Blended just the right touches of Elvis and
mini-mod tractors along with a fair princess and a queen.” It sounded like just
the place for me to finally have a day without Tristan on my mind.

We found the fairgrounds easily and after finding a
parking spot we made our way inside. As soon as we were through the gates, I
could smell the popcorn and peanuts and deep fried foods from all along the
midway. As much as my stomach would complain later, it was growling right then.

“So, what first?”
Cole asked.

I looked up and saw the Ferris wheel; I pointed at
it and said, “That.”

He laughed and then suddenly turned serious and
said, “Aw come on, you’re kidding, right?”

“Nope, I’m totally serious.”

“I can’t….I mean, I haven’t since….”

I laughed and he realized that I was just kidding.
The first time Cole and I had hung out right after my boyfriend died; we’d gone
to Santa Monica. We went bar-hopping and we were both really drunk. We made the
very stupid decision to get on the Ferris wheel on the pier. Cole puked before
the ride finally stopped and then I had to have the cab pull over three times
so that I could puke on the way home. That night we had collapsed on my bed,
drunk off our asses, and fell into a semi-comatose state. The first time we had
sex was the next night; we were drunk then, too, but that’s a story for another
time.

“Let’s go play some games on the midway,” I told
him.

We walked along the midway, going from game to game.
The first one we played was the one where you shoot water into a clown’s mouth
and blow up a balloon. Whoever breaks their balloon first
wins.
I won the first two games and ended up with a two dollar toy for five dollars’
worth of game. Cole won the next three, and by that time I was down ten bucks.

We played the duck hunt shooting game next. Cole
blew me away on that one, and ended up with a pretty good sized stuffed animal.
It was fun, kind of like old times. He wasn’t hitting on me and my mind wasn’t
constantly on Tristan, although it liked to flicker over there every so often. We
played a few more games and won a few more stupid prizes; then, to my surprise,
Cole suggested we go watch the tractor pulls.

“Tractor pulls, really?”

“You forget that I’m a country boy at heart. L.A.
wasn’t my home until I was into my late teens, remember? I grew up out in the
central valley. I love me some tractor pulls.”

“I don’t even know what a tractor pull is,” I told
him.

He laughed and said, “
It’s
exciting stuff. These tractors are modified for power. They have to pull a big
heavy sledge…”

“What’s a sledge?”

“It’s a sled,” he said.

“Then why call it a sledge?”

“Do you want to know about the tractor pulls, or do
you want to argue over grammar?”

I laughed and said, “I’m sorry, please, go on.”

“Okay, so they pull this
sled
across a thirty foot wide track. It’s around three hundred
feet long and the object is to be the tractor that pulls it the farthest.”

“Hmm,” I said.

“Just hmm?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. That sounds absolutely fascinating,”
I lied. I was sarcastic about it so he knew I was lying. It only served to
amuse him further.

We sat through the tractor pulls and, to my
amazement, it was fun. We took bets just between us on who would win. The
winner would keep doubling it; at one point I owed him thirty bucks. I proudly
came back and he ended up owing me twenty before it was over.

We caught an Elvis impersonator show and by that
time we were both starving. “Why don’t we go out and have a real dinner. I’ll
buy,” he said.

“Not a fan of midway food?” I asked him, teasing.

“If you thought I was up-chucking after the Ferris
wheel….”

I laughed, “Okay, enough of the night of many
pukings
. I got it. I feel like my hair smells like the
midway though. If we’re going to have a nice sit down dinner, do you mind if I
go take a quick shower first?”

He shrugged and said, “I got nothing else going on
tonight. I don’t mind.”

He drove me back to the back lot and we found our
way to my bus. I wasn’t really supposed to bring people in with me but security
barely looked at my badge and didn’t say anything to him at all. When we got to
the bus, none of the girls were there. I was a little nervous being alone with
him so close to a bed. When we first became friends in high school, sex never
even came up between us. He would sometimes brag about his conquests but he
never treated me
like
I was someone he’d sleep with.
That was okay with me, because I didn’t see him that way, either. Every girl in
our senior class was jealous of me because I spent so much time with him. I
always thought he was good-looking, but he was just never really my type. After
my boyfriend died and we crossed that line, getting high and fucking was the
bulk of what we did. We’d stopped talking about anything or even thinking about
doing anything fun. It kind of sucked, and when I was sober, it made me sad. We
should have been able to comfort each other like adults, but we let the drugs
and alcohol get in the way. We had fallen into the old rhythm on that day,
though, and it seemed like he at least realized as I did that wasn’t a place we
needed to re-visit.

CHAPTER
SIX

TRISTAN

I hung around the bus lot all day on our day off. I wrote
some more music and then I had lunch and shot the shit with a few of the guys
in the band for a while. They even played some of the new songs I wrote and let
me sing through them. It was good to hear them with the band, that way I knew
what adjustments I needed to make. All in all, it was a pretty good day. I did
run into Tony while I was on my way out of the room the band and I used. It
pissed me off just to look at him.

“Hi Tristan!
How are things going?” he asked, like maybe we were old friends.

“Good,” I said, trying to just brush past the little
fucker and go about my business.

“Hey! I thought maybe we should talk about what
happened with Brooke the other night.” I stopped in my tracks. How the hell did
he know about that?

“What about it?” I said, not committing to anything.

“She was talked to about her behavior and she
promised it wouldn’t happen again. She understands that there will be
consequences if it does.”

I nodded and then I asked, “How did you know about
it?”

“Security had to put it in their report. She
scratched Brad up pretty good. He had to report it. Clint wanted to just
release her from her contract…let her go. But Jake spoke up for her. He’ll only
do that once though, so I don’t think she’ll be acting out like that again.”

I’d heard rumors about Jake and the girls in the
production crew. I wondered if he was fucking he singers, too, and that was why
he’d stuck up for Brooke. I had a feeling if it came down to
me
or her
, I’d be out of there in a flash. It was good to know that she had
the CEO on her side in case she pulled any more crap.

I nodded at Tony again and then walked away. I’d had
a good day until then. I did my best to shake off the irritation he’d stirred
up in me. My mind went back to Elly. I’d thought about it all night and finally
made up my mind to talk to her. It was crazy; it had gone way too far. I didn’t
fuck skanky Brooke and somehow I needed to find a way to prove it to Elly. I
procrastinated all day. I wasn’t ready to admit it yet, but I was scared of
losing her. I had come to depend on her for so many things, and none of them
had anything to do with the fact she’d been basically supporting me for three
months. I’d seriously become immune to other women, I think. In the past, when
one left another was waiting in the wings. Any port in a storm was my personal
motto. All of a sudden, unless it’s Elly’s private port, I didn’t want anything
to do with it.