My heart pounds in my chest when I place the mic back on the stand. There’s silence, and I swear I’m so dizzy I think I may hit the floor. The thing is, I may not be happy about this little collaboration, but they’re an amazing band. The rock band all others are measured by, and I don’t want them to rip my vocals apart. I may be tough, but that shit will sting.

“Not bad,” Jag says then struts toward the door, yanks it open, and steps out into the hall. “Still don’t want you on our album though.” The door slams shut.

“It was alright,” Rush mumbles, heading toward the door. Pax doesn’t say a word as he trots right after the other two guys.

“That was fucking amazing,” Stone says.

“Thanks.” I glance up, and shit, he’s smiling and it’s sexy as hell. I make the mistake of looking at him really good for the first time. Of course he’s attractive. They all are, but it’s those dark eyes of his that get me. There’s something there, something deep or different. He has this cocky arrogance whirling around him like a storm cloud, but there’s this vulnerability in the way he smiles that’s not at all rock star. Almost like what you see is actually a lie. So there’s this vulnerability mixed with the sleeve of tattoos, the lip ring, the messy dark hair. The leather pants. The swagger. And all I can think about is how I bet he fists a girl’s hair when he kisses her. Oh dear fuck. I’m destined for destruction. I am…

“Hey, don’t pay attention to Jag, he’s a dick,” he says, snapping me out of the sex spell he’s cast on me.

“Yeah, I’m well aware,” I grumble.

Stone takes a step toward me, that grin growing deeper. I take a breath and god, his cologne smells good. All manly and woodsy and spicy. “So,” he says, “where do you live?”

He’s trying to be nice. Fuck, he’s trying to be nice… “Uh,” I grab my guitar case and sidestep my way around him and all his tight leather shit, “in LA.”

“Yeah?” There goes that smile again.

“Yep.” I reach for the door handle.

“Why are you in such a hurry?”

“I’ve got shit to do.” I smile, open the door, and step out into the hallway. The other guys are gathered at the end of the hall ogling some girl. I don’t say a word when I pass by them, just keep my head down and keep going. Just keep going. Just keep going. Like Dory, keep fucking going.

“Hey,” he calls from behind me, “why are you in such a hurry?”

Jesus. He would be persistent, wouldn’t he? I keep walking toward the elevator. “I told you, I have shit to do.” I press my finger over the button again and again.

“You only have to press it once,” he says with this deep, sexy laugh. Oh, fuck him.

“I know.”

I keep staring straight ahead and he tucks a piece of hair behind my ear just before the elevator door opens. I step in. He steps in and presses the button. “So, what shit do you have to do?” he asks.

“Early dinner with a friend.” I glance at him. “It was supposed to be lunch, but since you guys were two hours late…”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry about that.”

“You know, you guys really should be a little more professional.”

He snorts at that remark. The doors slide open. I step out and he’s right beside me. I cut my eyes over at him. He’s got this wicked swagger going on and – “Fuck,” I say when I run into the damn wall.

“Watch it there, Mr. Magoo.”

I grumble under my breath, rubbing at my face. God, I can feel the heat creeping over my cheeks. I pick up my pace and slam my shoulder against the glass door, stepping out into the California heat. I go to turn right.

“So, see you tomorrow?”

I face him and he smiles. “Whatever,” I grumble and head down the sidewalk. Fuck me. This is going to be a disaster. A horrible disaster of epic proportions.

Tires screech, a horn blares, and I glance behind me to see a black Chevelle pulled over by the curb. Stone opens the passenger door and climbs in, and then a pair of pale ass cheeks press right against the windshield. Stone covers his face with his hand before Rush falls into the driver’s seat and speeds off, engine growling like an angry jungle cat. I shake my head, put my guitar in my car, and carry on to the café two blocks down.

By the time I get there, sweat’s trickling over my brow, I make my way through the restaurant and out to the patio, immediately spotting Lauren’s pale skin and red hair amongst all the bleach blonde extensions and fake tans. I weave between the cliché white bistro tables on the patio. She glances up when I pull the chair out across from her, the legs scraping over the concrete. “Hey, babe,” she says.

“Sorry I’m so late.”

“No worries, I’ve just been watching all the hot guys walk past. Whistled at a few.” She smiles. “So, how did it go?”

“Alright.”

“Alright?” she tuts. “Babe, you were just in an eight by ten room with Pandemic Sorrow.”

“And?” I grab my menu and open it.

“Look, thanks to good old Pam,” she rolls her eyes, “I’m used to all the rockers, but, it’s Pandemic Sorrow, babe.”

“Yes, it’s Pandemic Sorrow.”

“Three of the hottest guys in rock.”

“There are four of them,” I say.

“Yeah, but Rex is gross.”

“Rex?”

“The drummer.”

“Oh, yeah, Pax.”

“Anyway, so…alright? It was just alright?”

“Yes, Lauren, sorry to let you down, but I just went in, did a run through of the song a few times, and left.”

“Damn, I was hoping to hear that Rush whipped his peen out and swung it around like an elephant trunk.” She grins and claps her hands. “He’s such a hot fuck.”

I roll my eyes. “You’ve got issues, you do know this?”

She shrugs. “I just like peen.”

“Uh-huh.”

A throat clears beside me and I glance up at the gangly little waiter with his acne riddled face. “Can I…” his voice cracks and he clears his throat again. “Can I take your order?”

“Mimosa,” Lauren says, “and a salad. No tomato. No cheese. No onions. No dressing.”

He glances at her. “So…just the lettuce?”

“Yes, and a mimosa.” She grins and winks, and he looks at me.

“I just want a water and an order of cheese sticks.” I hand my menu to him and he nods before spinning around, nearly knocking over a waitress standing behind him.

“Water?” Lauren says and shakes her head. “You’re just full of disappointments today, ma’am. No peen show. No alcohol. You’re going downhill fast, babe. Fast. How was Jag?”

“He’s a dick.”

“Standard.”

“Stone?”

I hesitate for a second and she snickers. “That’s my girl, going for the hard, silent tortured one.”

“No, I’m not going for anyone.” I drag my hand down my face. I just want to change the subject. “So, what are we doing this weekend?” I ask.

“Dunno, party?”

“Do you do anything else?”

“Aside from working and having sex, not really.” She grins. “You should invite Pandemic Sorrow out.”

“Lauren, no.”

“I just want to bang one of them.”

“No.”

“C’mon, a little dirty one nighter never hurt anyone.”

I cock a brow. “No, I’m sure all the cases of the clap and herpes came from a toilet seat.”

She snarls her lip. “Just had to ruin my good time, didn’t you?” The waiter sets our drinks on the table and she immediately tips hers back. She glances behind me and rolls her eyes. “Speaking of a walking STD,” she nods behind me, and I turn in my seat, groaning the second my gaze lands on Voss Henson in his leather pants.

“Oh, fuck my life,” I groan.

“He’s wearing a scarf. In LA. In the summer,” Lauren shakes her head. “Why did you ever date him?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time, I mean…” My eyes trail over the bulge in his tight pants. “It was a year ago…”

“He’s an asshole.”

He was an asshole, but he had me fooled. He was all swoony and dark and tormented and held open doors. A chivalrous dick at his finest.

“I mean, the first inclination that it was time to get the fuck out should have been when he called you his lobster.”

Closing my eyes, I sigh. “I just thought he was a little on the dorky side.”

“A crustacean, Phoenix, a bottom-feeding crustacean. They are the roach of the sea. He basically called you his roach.” She places her hands beside her head and sticks two fingers out wiggling them around like antennae. “And then, he cheated on you with all those girls. All those girls, I mean, Jesus, the groupies and the models and his stepmom.”

“Okay. Enough!” I glare at her.

“And…” she tips her mimosa back again. “We’ve been spotted.”

I stare straight ahead at her, because I don’t want to make eye contact with him. A nervous sweat pricks its way over my neck. I watch as she smirks and flips him a bird, waving it around like a pageant queen.

I swat at her hand, my eyes bugging out of my head. “Lauren, stop. You’re just gonna make him come over here.”

“Yeah, yeah. Fine.” She lifts her drink again and gulps before tapping the stem of the champagne flute to get the last of the drink into her mouth. “Fine.”

Voss struts over to a table right in front of me, locking eyes when he takes a seat. He doesn’t acknowledge me accept for the smirk he shoots in my direction when some waif sits down next to him. He leans over and kisses her. I feel sorry for her. I really do because that boy will never be anything but heartbreak, but in an industry like this, what else is there really? My mom went through more men than I care to count, and the relationship her and Henry have is nothing but a load of shit. They’re both screwing people left and right.

“Don’t do that,” Lauren says.

“What?”

“Don’t reminisce. It’s the worst thing to do and before you know it, you’ll have had two bottles of Rose’ and be spread eagle on the back of some stranger’s truck with all four inches of his disease-riddled-dick crammed up inside you.”

“Wow, you’re a delight today.”

“I’m a delight every day.”

The waiter comes back with Lauren’s lettuce and she orders another drink. “Now, about this party…” she grabs her phone and scrolls. “Dear old Papa Jimmy’s having one tomorrow, right?”

“I know.” I grab my water and gulp half of it down. “But I’d rather stay at home.”

“Of course you would, if it weren’t for me you’d be a recluse.” And she’s right. I’m not a people person. “So,” she says, “back to the Pandemic Sorrow boys… Rush is a perv, Rex—”

“Pax.”

“Yes, Pax is gross. Jag’s a dick. That leaves,” she cuts her gaze over at me. “What about Stone?” She grins.

“He’s fine.”

“And there it is, ladies and gentlemen.”

Yep, there it is. Stone Steele is not a perv, not gross, not a dick. Just a sexy rocker that wears eyeliner better than Elizabeth Taylor. A sexy rock star that I am in no way going to have anything to do with outside of that song. Simply because I know better. Because, if I did not know better, I would absolutely be trying to cozy up to him.

But I know better. I so, so, so, so know better.

We step out onto the sidewalk and Lauren nudges me. “You’re totally going to fuck him.”

All I can do is groan and pray that for once Lauren is wrong.