Carter: A Bad Boy Rock Star Romance (Rock Hard Book 3)

  Rock Hard: Book 3

  Carter

  A Bad Boy Rockstar Romance

  Lilian Monroe

  www.lilianmonroe.com

  Twitter: @Lily_Author

  Facebook: @MonroeRomance

  Instagram: @lilianmonroe.author

  Copyright © 2018 Lilian Monroe All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author except for short quotations used for the purpose of reviews.

  Chapter 1 - Veronica

  Is there anything worse than your ex jamming up your phone with calls and texts?

  Probably not.

  At least, that’s how I felt on that sunny Sunday morning, when I woke up to a thousand and one texts and calls from Seth, my ex-boyfriend.

  It didn’t seem like he understood the term ex-boyfriend.

  I knew he’d been out drinking the night before. That was the only time I ever got messages from him. Thank goodness I slept with my phone on silent, or else I wouldn’t be getting any sleep on the weekends.

  My phone rang and I rolled over, throwing my pillow over my head and groaning. I let it go to voicemail and then sighed, finally glancing at it.

  It wasn’t Seth, it was Morgan. My friend—well, my boss now. Morgan had managed to get me and Lacie, our other best friend, onto her new Personal Relations team. How she was able to manage that, I’m not sure. But as of tonight, she’d be managing the image for the biggest rock stars in the country: The Mondays. Lacie was going to be the band’s hair and makeup artist, I’d be the band’s official photographer.

  The only problem was that they were the biggest rock stars in the country for all the wrong reasons. For the past six months or so, they’d been on a huge downward spiral of self-destruction.

  If anyone could set them straight, though, it would be Morgan. She was a superstar at what she did, which is probably why she got this assignment in the first place. Her boss wanted to sabotage her career and watch her fail.

  But I had faith in her.

  A grin spread over my lips as I thought about it. It might be a career-ending assignment, but damn, I would get some awesome photos.

  I picked up my phone and dialed Morgan.

  “Vee,” she said. “Did I wake you up?”

  “No,” I lied, clearing the sleep away from my throat. “I’ve just been avoiding answering my phone this weekend.”

  “Seth annoying you again?”

  “Mm,” I answered as I swung my legs off the edge of the bed. “What’s up?”

  “I just wanted to make sure you were ready for tonight. We’re meeting the band at their rehearsal space.”

  “I can’t believe we have to go to downtown Los Angeles to meet these guys. I thought big-shot bands rehearsed in their mansions in the hills?”

  “They’ve been rehearsing there for years, apparently.”

  “What time are we meeting?”

  “Seven PM.”

  “Alright, send me the address again. I’ll bring Lacie as well.”

  “Thanks, Veronica.”

  She hung up the phone and I sighed. She sounded Stressed with a capital ’S’. I’d known Morgan a long time, and she’d always been focused on her career. But this time, it seemed different. She seemed worried about more than just doing a good job. She really did seem worried that if she didn’t do well, she’d lose her job.

  And with three big, burly wildlings like The Mondays, who could blame her? They’d been on a drug- and alcohol-fueled rampage for months now.

  I texted Lacie.

  Brunch? Pick you up in 30 mins.

  She buzzed back right away with a simple thumbs up. I jumped in the shower and got ready, washing my long mop of brown hair and shaving my legs.

  Hey, you never know.

  I toweled off, thinking of the band we were going to meet. I’d seen picture of them, and I’d always had a bit of a secret celebrity crush on the bassist, Carter. He had this bad-boy look about him that made me tingle in all the right places.

  I threw my hair in a braid and pulled on my favorite pair of jeans before grabbing my things and going to pick up Lacie. She lived a short drive away from me, which was good because we spent almost all our time together.

  She came out of her house with her blonde hair streaming behind her in a golden mane and that effortlessly beautiful look that she had. She jumped in my rusty old Chevy and slammed the door.

  “Hey,” she said, smiling.

  “Hey,” I replied. “Good night last night?”

  She shrugged. “Just stayed home with Mom. Thanks for picking me up, I really appreciate it.”

  “Oh stop it, Lacie,” I said. “If you thank me every time I give you a lift you’re going to wear yourself out.”

  Lacie chewed her lip and nodded. Her mom was sick—brain cancer—and Lacie had had to sell her car to save up for the down payment of this new experimental treatment. She was broke as f**k, and I wished I could help more than just driving her around when she needed it.

  “Well, today is a big day,” I announced, pulling into the street. “We meet our future husbands. Brunch is on me, to celebrate.” And also because I knew she couldn’t afford it.

  Lacie laughed. “Future husbands?”

  “You never know. Shoot for the moon, and all that.”

  “I never understood that expression.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “The ‘shoot for the moon’ expression. ‘Shoot for the moon. Even if you fail, you’ll land among the stars.’”

  “… Yeah?” I asked, glancing at her and grinning. Sometimes I wondered how we’d become such good friends, because half the time it was like we were from different planets.

  “Well,” she said slowly, as if she were explaining it to someone incredibly dense. “The moon is a lot closer than the stars. So if you’re shooting for the moon, you’ll never make it all the way to the stars.”

  I tried to contain my laughter. “Well, maybe they mean if you overshoot your aim and miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

  “You’d have to seriously overshoot. Like by multiple orders of magnitude.”

  “I think you’re missing the point, Lacie,” I said, finally breaking down and laughing. “The point is that we’re going to meet our future husbands tonight, in the form of three sexy-as-hell musicians with a bad-boy streak.”

  Lacie grinned. “Right, sorry,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That’s just always bugged me.”

  “You’re a pedantic weirdo, you know that?”

  She looked at me sideways and I laughed.

  “But that’s why I love you.”

  My phone buzzed in the console between us and Lacie looked down.

  “Seth is still bothering you?”

  “Ugh.”

  “Was he calling you last night? Why don’t you just block him?”

  “I tried,” I said. “He got a new number and kept calling me.”

  “That is so weird and stalkerish.”

  “I know.”

  We both fell silent until we got to the brunch restaurant. When we sat down and looked at the menu, Lacie looked at me.

  “Maybe we will marry The Mondays,” she said.

  “Maybe,” I replied, grinning.

  “It would be perfect. It would solve my money issues for my mom’s treatment, and it would solve your Seth problem. He couldn’t compete with a word-famous musician.”

  “That’s true. Maybe I should just go off the pill and let one of them knock me up,” I replied, laughing.

  “Good idea,” Lac
ie replied. “I’ll do the same.”

  We giggled, shaking our heads. It was a nice fantasy, but we both knew it wouldn’t happen. I looked at Lacie and grinned.

  “And plus, Morgan desperately needs to get laid.”

  Lacie laughed.

  “Yeah,” she said. “That too.”

  Chapter 2 - Carter

  Divorce is expensive, apparently.

  Especially when you and your ex don’t get along. I stared at the invoice from my lawyer with my head in my hand. Between these bills and giving away half of everything I had to my ex, it was looking like I wouldn’t have much left. I put the papers down on the smooth marble kitchen island and sighed.

  Maddox, the drummer in our band, appeared in the doorway. He was wearing boxers and a silky, paisley bathroom and the distinctive pallor of a bad hangover.

  “What’s wrong with you?” He grunted, going to the fridge and taking out a beer.

  “No breakfast?”

  “Can’t face food yet,” he replied. He nodded to the papers. “Lawyer?”

  I grunted. We’d been living together ever since we were seventeen, when we left our parents’ houses to move to LA and try to make it big. I’d only moved out to live with Angela, my ex, and Maddox had taken me back in when it all fell apart. Even when we made money, we still stuck together, and Maddox knew everything that went on in my life.

  Including my ongoing divorce.

  “Fucking Angela,” I huffed. “She’s getting way more than she should and she just won’t let go. It’s like she doesn’t just want a divorce, she wants to ruin my life.”

  “Women are cruel,” Maddox said, taking a long sip of beer. He exhaled, sitting down beside me on a bar stool. He looked at the bottle of beer and shook his head.

  “What happened last night?”

  I chuckled. “The usual. At least the house is in one piece. Didn’t bring the party back here, for once.”

  “Did I come home with you?”

  “Yeah. Passed out in the cab.”

  “I still can’t believe you can go out with us and not drink.”

  I grinned. “It’s an acquired skill. And plus, I still drink sometimes, I just don’t party like that anymore.”

  “One beer after rehearsal doesn’t count,” Maddox grinned. He looked over at the kitchen table and grunted. “Wallet, keys, and phone are there. So at least I’ve got that going for me.”

  “You should give up the booze, man,” I said gently, turning back to my papers. “That stuff’ll ruin your life.”

  “What, just because you’re all reformed now, it means I have to stop partying?”

  “I mean, look at what our lives have become. Drinking and fighting and paying for things that we’ve done. My marriage fell apart because I didn’t give up the booze. And now that I have stopped, I’m still paying for everything that I did.”

  “You didn’t even do anything that bad. It’s not like you cheated on her or anything.”

  “I left her at home to go partying day in, day out. That’s why things fell apart.”

  Maddox grunted, downing the rest of his beer. He looked at me as his eyebrows drew together. “You regret getting married?”

  I sighed, staring out through our large windows towards the pool. “I don’t think so,” I sighed. “I was just an idiot before. Might still be one.”

  “You think Angela’ll ever let up and be more reasonable with all this?”

  My heart squeezed. “Probably not.”

  Maddox was quiet for a while, and I sighed.

  “I really need this tour to be successful,” I said quietly. “You’ll be kicking me out soon, if this keeps up. Bank account is getting pretty low.”

  Maddox put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m not kicking you out. This place is paid for, anyways, remember? No mortgage, no problem.”

  I chuckled. “Are you saying you’ll cover property taxes and maintenance on this place if I’m on my ass.”

  “You’re a brother to me, Carter.” He shrugged. “Plus, if things get bad I’ll just get some crooked accountant to do some tax fraud for us or something.”

  I laughed as Maddox cracked another beer and grinned.

  “Nah,” he said. “It’ll work out.”

  I looked at the number at the bottom of the invoice in my hands. It had way too many zeros on the end of it for me to be comfortable thinking that everything would magically work out.

  “We just really need to pull our fucking heads out of our asses and play some music again. This album launch has to be big.”

  “Don’t worry, bro,” Maddox said, taking another sip of beer. He looked as hungover as ever. “It will be. We have that new PR team coming in tonight to watch us rehearse. Apparently they have it all planned out.”

  I scoffed. “Yeah, because PR teams have been really good for us lately.”

  Maddox just shrugged, and walked over to the couch. He collapsed on it, and I knew he’d be there until we left for rehearsal.

  “You do remember how to play the drums, don’t you?” Garrett said to Maddox, his dark eyes even darker. Maddox was entering the shaky part of his hangover, and I could tell he was in bad shape. I leaned my hands on my bass guitar and watched the two of them face off.

  Maddox was sweating buckets, sitting shirtless behind his drum set. Garrett was standing behind the microphone, looking back at Maddox with fire in his eyes.

  All three of us had strong personalities. We’d grown up together, and we’d all been born leaders. We were always able to put it aside for the band, though. For the music. In the rehearsal space, in the studio, on stage—we were equals.

  But right now, it didn’t seem that way. I knew our new PR team would be there any minute, and at this stage we wouldn’t have anything to play for them.

  Our band was a mess. We were falling apart.

  “Let’s just take it from the top,” Garrett grumbled, eyeing both of us. “Then we can go out and get a fucking beer.”

  Maddox grunted, and Garrett turned back to his microphone.

  We sucked. We were out of sync, out of tune, out of everything. By the end of the song, the three of us eyed each other for a long moment.

  “How the fuck are we supposed to go on a world tour if we can’t even play our own fucking music?” Garrett grumbled.

  I grunted. “He’s just fucking hungover, man.”

  Maddox made a noise in agreement.

  Garrett dragged his fingers through his hair and shook his head. I glanced at Maddox and pursed my lips. Maddox shrugged.

  This was bad. It felt like the beginning of the end—like the past sic months might actually catch up to us. The drinking, the partying, the out-of-control mess of it all. The music had taken a back seat.

  The thought of us breaking up choked me up more than my divorce. I couldn’t lose these guys, not after losing my wife and my dog. I just couldn’t.

  Maddox seemed to agree when he smashed his drumsticks against the drums in frustration. He moaned and clutched his head, and I knew he’d had another wave of hangover pass through him.

  He looked up at us, and then stood up.

  “I need a break,” Maddox grumbled, brushing past us to walk out the rehearsal space.

  After he left, Garrett glanced at me and shook his head.

  “What the fuck is going on with him?”

  I sighed. “With all of us, you mean? I don’t know, man, but something has to change.”

  He nodded, glancing at the door where Maddox had left. “Maybe I should talk to him.”

  “Go easy on him, Garrett,” I said. “He’s still all fucked up about the accident.”

  “That was six months ago.”

  “His parents fucking died, man. They died in a freak boating accident. That shit stays with you! Six months is nothing. And you haven’t exactly been an angel in that time, either.”

  Garrett’s eyes blazed, and he finally nodded. “You’re right.”

  He stalked out of the room. I walked over to the c
ouch and sank down into it, sighing and closing my eyes. This was a mess. We needed a new focus, a new thing to bring us back to the music.

  Maybe this PR team would help.

  Even as the thought crossed my head, I knew the chances were slim. But still, when Maddox and Garrett came back in, our rehearsal was a little bit smoother than before. Considering the past few months, that was a win.

  Chapter 3 - Veronica

  “I can’t believe you were able to get us all on the same team,” Lacie breathed, looking at Morgan with wide eyes.

  Morgan grinned. “I’m not sure it’s a good thing. I’m pretty sure Marcus gave me this assignment to watch me fail, just so he could demote me or fire me.”

  I laughed. “I’m not sure I really care. I’ll be able to put this on my resume for the rest of my life!”

  “That makes one of us,” Morgan grinned. “I’ll wait to put this on my resume to see if they actually behave themselves. From what I’ve seen in their file, they’re not exactly PR-friendly.”

  I’d seen the papers—we all had. The Mondays had been on a six-month bender of self-destruction. They’d gone from America’s dream band to tabloid fodder in a matter of weeks. It had been a perfect storm. One of them was getting a divorce, the other one had lost his parents, and the third one was going through a breakup. I couldn’t exactly remember which was which, but right now it didn’t really matter.

  “You’ll be great,” I said, putting my arm around Morgan’s shoulder.

  Lacie nodded, putting her arm around Morgan, too. “Plus, they’re all super hot.”

  She was right. They were the hottest. All three of them just exuded this hyper-masculine aura that made you weak in the knees. It was hard to explain. It wasn’t just the rockstar vibe, or the tattoos, or the totally alpha way that they carried themselves. It was just… hot.

  Morgan grinned, nodding to the abandoned-looking building in front of us. Various bands were rehearsing, giving the whole place an eery vibe. I still couldn’t believe that world-class musicians rehearsed there.