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Rock Hard Book One
Kat Mizera
Copyright © 2021 by Kat Mizera
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
* * *
Editing: Tera Cuskaden
Cover Photo: Wander Aguiar
Cover Model: Zach Altman
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
Excerpt from “Pause”
About the Author
Also by Kat Mizera
For all the rockers we’ve loved and lost, but especially
* * *
Robbin Crosby
Ty Westerhoff
Bobby Durango
Mick Zane
1
Tyler
* * *
There was something about a sold-out show at a club that pumped me up. I’d played in arenas and stadiums all over the world, in front of thousands of fans, but the smaller, more intimate venues were the ones that got me going. I loved performing and would tour eleven months of the year if I could. It never got boring, I never got tired of it, and the rock-and-roll lifestyle was all I’d ever known as an adult.
The crowd was restless, surging up to the stage as they waited for us to go on, and I bounced on my toes to warm up.
“You ready?” My drummer, Bash Kelly, came up beside me.
“I’ve been ready. Where the hell is Lexi?” I looked around for our lead singer.
Lexi Rousseau had just come into the small backstage area, and her eyes sought out mine. “Ready?” she called.
“Are they ready for us?” I looked over at our tour manager, Lance Baker.
“Another minute,” Lance said. “There’s an issue with Lexi’s mic.” He moved off, talking to the roadie, who was trying to correct whatever the issue was.
“Hey.” Bash elbowed me. “Check it out.” He made a barely discernible motion with his head, and I turned, curious.
Holy shit.
Ariel freakin’ Fox.
America’s child television star turned teenage wild child supermodel turned adult pop goddess.
She was the ultimate Hollywood screw-up. Sex and drugs and nervous breakdowns all before she turned eighteen. Then there had been an arrest, rehab, and her father had taken over her career. Now she was a huge star who was currently a guest judge on some celebrity dance show.
And she was so fucking beautiful in person she took my breath away.
The tall, willowy blonde had absolutely no emotion on her face. She was staring at nothing while the middle-aged man beside her talked animatedly to the small entourage surrounding them.
“…huge fan of Pretty Harts, so of course she wanted to see the spinoff band.”
I fucking hated that term.
We weren’t a fucking spinoff. We were new and had two original members of Pretty Harts, of which I was one, but everyone else came from somewhere else. Lexi’s background was pop, Ford had his own bluesy-rock band called Malone’s Martyrs that had one huge hit album before falling apart, and Stuart had been part of a metal band called Waking Wonder. Together, we had a unique sound with edgy new songs and an amazing lineup. And calling us a fucking spinoff sucked.
“She’s smokin’, huh?” Bash was checking her out too. “But a hot mess.”
“Yeah.” I was about to turn away when Ariel’s eyes met mine. She didn’t move or even blink, but those crystalline orbs burned into mine. A silent plea for…something? I had to go, but I couldn’t look away, and she didn’t either.
Jesus. It was like being hypnotized. As I stared into her eyes, for those few seconds, there was no one else. It was as if we were the only two people in the world. The club, the stage, her entourage—everything disappeared.
A jab to the ribs snapped me back to the present, and I had to break the gaze.
“We gotta go,” Bash said, his eyes searching mine before glancing over his shoulder at Ariel, who was now looking in the other direction. “What the hell was that?”
“Nothing. What are you talking about?” I held up my fist and bumped it against his. “Let’s do this.”
We ran out on stage, and I grabbed my bass, slinging the strap over my shoulder. I cut my eyes back to the backstage area, and Ariel was standing just off to the side. Which was weird. Only special guests of the band got to stand in the wings during a show, and it had to be agreed on by all of us. Shows were intense and personal. We didn’t want or allow distractions. Even Lexi’s husband, Zaan, wasn’t usually allowed to stand there. We’d agreed on that.
Yet there she was. Ariel Fox was standing a few feet away and fixing me with another soul-piercing stare. It was fucking nuts, and I purposely turned away, tuning in to the roar of the crowd, Ford and Stu’s wailing guitars, and Bash’s backbeat. Lexi was about to hit the beginning notes of the first song, and I had to focus. Normally, I could play our songs with my eyes closed, but tonight it was taking all my concentration to remember which song it even was.
Every time I glanced over to the side, she was there. She was smiling now, though, her head moving in time to the music. And every god damn time our eyes met, something happened.
Fuck.
What the hell was this? I’d met up with, hooked up with, slept with, teased, friend-zoned, and had my share of trysts with the best of them, but this? This was next-level mind-fucking, and I had no idea what to do with it.
* * *
As a band, we were in the zone, and by the time we got off-stage, I’d almost forgotten about Ariel. Almost. She was no longer in the wings, and I scanned the area for her as I accepted a towel from my guitar tech.
“Guys, I want to apologize,” Lexi said as we went into the small backstage area. “I invited someone to watch from the wings without discussing it with you, but it was so last-minute, and—”
“Ariel Fox.” I turned to her curiously. “How do you know her?”
“She opened for us when I was on tour with Special Kay.” Lexi had been with a hugely popular pop group before joining us earlier this year. “We got to know each other to the extent her prick of a dad would allow it, and honestly, I feel so bad for her I just kind of blurted out the invitation without thinking.”
“It’s all good.” Bash waved a hand. “But I think Tyler’s in heat.”
She glanced at me. “Don’t get yourself worked up. Her dad doesn’t let anyone near her. I don’t even think she’s allowed to date.”
“She’s not allowed to date? What is she, fourteen?” I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of a grown woman not being allowed to date.
Lexi nodded. “Twenty-five, I think, but since her bipolar diagnosis, her father has a conservatorship that includes pretty much every aspect of her life.”
“I didn’t even notice her,” Stu said, shaking his head. “Didn’t she try to kill herself or something?”
Lexi shrugged. “I never got the whole story because her father wouldn’t leave us alone more than five minutes at a time. He’s a piece of work.”
“I want to meet her,” I said impulsively. “Can you make it happen?”
Lexi gave me a curious smile. “You sure?”
I made a face. “Absolutely. We’re professionals in the same industry, and now I’m so curious I need to meet her and her jerk of a dad, too.”
“Well, it’s your lucky day.” Lance came up to us with a wry grin. “Because Ariel Fox, her father, and Darren freakin’ Randall are all here.”
“Darren Randall is here?” Lexi’s eyes widened.
“As in the head of Urban Whiplash Records?” Ford blinked.
“Well, they’re the ones offering us millions to make a record,” I pointed out. “And as the head of the label, it makes sense he’d want to see us play live.”
“Bloody hell.” Stu took a pull from his bottle of Amstel.
Lexi turned to Lance. “Well, bring them in. We can’t keep the president of our future record label waiting.”
Lexi and Ford looked a little nervous, Stu didn’t seem to be impacted by much of anything, and Bash merely met my gaze. There was a quiet question lurking in his eyes, and I knew what he was thinking. Now that Pretty Harts was done, would our old record company support our new project without the star power of Casey Hart? We’d done the final album required by Pretty Harts’ contract over the summer with guest appearan ces by Stu, Ford, Lexi, as well as our former lead singer, Jayson Keller. It was a whole album of well-known cover songs like “November Rain” and “Paradise By the Dashboard Light,” and it was doing well. The record company had made noises about Nobody’s Fool having a lighter sound than Pretty Harts, though, probably because of Lexi, but they’d offered us a lot of money to do it.
Now the question was whether or not we could come to a compromise because none of us wanted to do pop. We were a hard rock band with touches of metal and blues and had no intention of changing. However, if Darren Randall and Urban Whiplash Records decided to pass, Bash and I were going to have to cover the band financially until we started making money.
I forgot all about any of that the second Ariel walked through the door. I hadn’t been sure what to expect, but those light eyes of hers were burned in my subconscious, and I needed to look at them up close. I was probably a dumbass, but what the hell? Nothing ventured, nothing gained was the saying, and I believed it wholeheartedly. Even if she wasn’t allowed to date. It was fun to just look sometimes. Especially when the person you were looking at was as gorgeous as Ariel Fox.
Jesus, she wasn’t just pretty, but abso-fucking-lutely stunning. How had I never noticed before?
I turned just as she glanced up, and for a fraction of a second, everything stopped again. Our eyes met, and boom! There was no one in the room but us. Then it was gone, and she morphed back into the vacant, expressionless Ariel who kept her eyes averted.
“Lexi! Good to see you.” The big, burly man I assumed was Ariel’s father pumped Lexi’s hand until she winced.
“Hello, Douglas.” She smiled politely before turning to Ariel and reaching out to give her a hug. “How are you? It’s been a long time.”
“Yes, it has.” Ariel’s voice was soft and well-modulated, but without much expression.
“Hello, boys. Lexi.” Darren Randall was watching us with a faint smile on his face.
I’d never liked the powerful bastard, but he’d adored Casey, so she’d been able to run interference and we’d rarely had to interact. Now I was somehow the unofficial leader of the band, and while I would do what I had to do, I didn’t like the position I was in.
“Tyler.” Darren shook my hand and met my gaze directly. “It sounded good tonight. You might think about the setlist, though.”
I arched my brows. “What’s wrong with the setlist?”
“Far too hard for what we’ve discussed.”
My gut reaction was to tell him to go fuck himself, but I couldn’t do that with millions of dollars on the line, so I took a long pull of the beer Bash had just put in my hand and mentally counted to ten.
“We’re not a pop band,” I said after a moment. “We’re a rock band. I know you want some music that’s a little more commercial, but if you’re looking for Matchbox 20, that’s not us.”
“There’s already a Matchbox 20,” he countered. “I’m looking for something newer and hotter.”
“I’m not sure that can be us.”
“I have millions of dollars that say it can.”
Sonofabitch.
He was waving that money in my face, and even though I didn’t need it, I knew Lexi, Ford, and Stu did. “We’ll have to have a team meeting,” was all I could think to say.
“The reason I brought Ariel here tonight was to show you the star power we could utilize if you do things my way. I was thinking of a duet. She and Lexi would be hot together, both musically and in a video, and her name will legitimize what you’re trying to do.”
“I’m pretty sure my name does that,” I said.
“Not like hers does.”
“Tyler, have you and Ariel ever met?” Lexi interrupted us.
“No.”
“Hang on, let me introduce everyone.” She tugged Ariel forward and turned to Bash, who politely shook her hand, though Ariel mostly kept her eyes averted. She did the same with Stu and Ford, so I was expecting a half-assed response to my greeting. Instead, she hit that damn internal switch, and when she smiled at me, it lit up the whole room.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, letting my hand linger on hers a moment longer than it should have.
“Likewise.” Our eyes met, lightning crashed, and then it was gone. All in an instant.
I was getting emotional whiplash, and we’d barely said five words to each other.
“‘Revved on Remorse’ is one of my all-time favorite songs,” she said quietly. “The melody is so intricate for such a heavy beat, and the lyrics are soul-bending. Truly a special piece of music.”
“Thank you.” I was a little surprised at the praise. I’d written “Revved on Remorse” for Pretty Harts, and while it hadn’t been a big hit, we’d played it live a lot because concert-goers seemed to love it.
“Ariel and I are going to go powder our noses,” Lexi said, linking her arm through Ariel’s. “We can chat about future projects when we get back.”
I watched them go, my eyes never leaving Ariel’s long legs.
“It’s like you’ve never seen a hot woman before,” Ford murmured, following my gaze as I continued to look in the direction they’d gone.
“Not like that one.”
2
Ariel
* * *
I’d learned a long time ago to keep my emotions bottled up as tightly as possible. Any spark of vulnerability inevitably led to punishment—usually mine—and self-preservation had to be my priority. I’d been under my father’s thumb for so long it was now second nature to be as emotionless and apathetic as possible. But once in a while, something got my heart beating a little faster. Most of the time it was music-related, but this time it was a tall, dark-haired bass player with tattoos and leather pants and an abdominal V that made parts of me come alive that I’d thought were permanently atrophied. How had the sex appeal of Tyler Thompson never been on my radar before?
And those blue eyes. Each time I’d looked into them, my heart started to race and my whole body came alive. It was a visceral reaction to his sexuality, but also an emotional one. When he looked at me, it was like we’d known each other before. The questions in his eyes burned with familiarity, though I was sure we’d never met.
“Does he always talk for you like that?” Lexi was asking me as we washed our hands and touched up our makeup.
I sighed. “You know he does.”
“How do you stand it? I would be contemplating all the ways I could murder him in his sleep.”
“I wouldn’t do well in prison,” I replied, opting for a little levity since I thought about that on a regular basis.
She shook her head. “Well, I’ve missed you. We have so much to catch up on.”
“Tell me about the band,” I said.
“Oh, god, it’s been a whirlwind. I left Special Kay, got back together with Zaan, got married, and then formed Nobody’s Fool.”
I laughed. “Definitely sounds like a whirlwind. I read about you marrying Zaan. I’m so happy for you. You’ve loved him for a long time.”
“Marriage is the best,” Lexi said with a grin.
“I wouldn’t know,” I murmured, though I couldn’t help but smile.
“No one in your life?” Lexi asked quietly. “Still?”
I sighed. I didn’t have anyone I would call a best friend, but I trusted Lexi. We probably would have been something like best friends had I been able to let anyone in my life, so it felt like I could talk to her. “My dad’s been trying to get me to go out with Darren Randall for over a year.”
Lexi gaped at me. “Seriously?! He’s…old enough…” She let her voice trail off.
