isPc
isPad
isPhone
Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit 2. Rivers 6%
Library Sign in

2. Rivers

2

RIVERS

I slammed the door behind me and stalked from one end of my hotel room to the other, hands clenched and heart beating a furious tattoo against my ribs.

God, I hated this gig. I hated the people and the cameras and all the fucking reporters all the time. The people expecting me to get out there and play the version of Rivers Shine they knew and thought they loved, just so they could write more articles about how terrible I was and how much I took my life for granted.

I fucking hated them all.

And a whole lot of the time, I hated myself for playing along with it.

Not that I ever changed my behavior in response to that feeling.

I let a smirk creep across my face and made my way to the mini fridge in the room, jerking it open and looking for my favorite drink. Johnny Walker Black Label. Perfect. I yanked it off the shelf, busting right through the tape the hotel had put there to secure it, and unscrewed the cap. Then I paused long enough to eye the can of Coke sitting on the next shelf.

Any civilized person would take a moment and mix a drink. Put some Coke and ice in a glass to gentle the whiskey a bit.

But I’d never been civilized.

I threw the cap to the side and held the bottle to my lips, tipping it back and letting the whiskey burn its way down my throat. The same way I’d been doing since I was fourteen years old.

Then I sent the bottle flying toward the wall and made for the phone. I was going to need a whole lot more than that little sample of Jack to forget the mess of an interview I’d just done. All those pointed questions about the girl I’d been seen with last week. The not-so-subtle insinuation that my reputation might be harming my band’s chances at hitting it big. The even-less-subtle note that Olivia and Connor had done the Writers a favor by taking us on tour, and that they might drop us if I didn’t clean up my act.

Fuck them. Fuck that bitch reporter. I’d been doing this for ten years now—since I was fourteen and pop rock’s brand new Golden Kid—and I knew a thing or two about how the industry worked. The fans wanted excitement and drama. They wanted someone with a great voice who could entertain and scandalize them on the pages of the magazines.

They wanted someone who walked a line they’d never have walked on their own.

The bad boy. The damaged, brooding kid who wore ripped blue jeans and cowboy boots, drank and swore too much, and left them all swooning.

And that was exactly the role I played for them. Every single day, every single hour.

No matter how much it was killing me.

“Room service,” I snapped into the phone.

We’d been in this town for two nights, so I knew they knew my number down there. Hell, they probably already had a bottle of Jack waiting for me. Probably a brand new one, too, as I’d gone through a bottle a night since I got here.

And I was guessing they’d realized that I was going to keep going through it until we got on the road with the first tour the Global Writers had done in three years. God love them.

* * *

I was three drinks in when I got the text from Taylor.

Taylor was, for those who might be wondering, my agent. Taylor James, agent to the stars—or at least one of them, since Olivia Johns had been one of her first clients. I’d signed with her just after Olivia did, and Taylor had made the two of us her pet projects. She’d won Olivia a temp contract with Atomic Records, and then negotiated a bigger and better contract with Avery Dawson’s new label.

And two days later she’d arranged for my band to go on tour with Olivia and Connor Wheating when they went on the road again.

I’d never met Olivia before that day, but she and Connor had quickly welcomed me and my bandmates into the fold, and now that we were in the same town, waiting to head out on the first branch of the tour, we’d been hanging out on a daily basis and starting to build the chemistry that all good tours needed. I’d learned that Olivia was both delicate and fiery, quiet and strong. She looked like an angel but had the determination of a freaking bull, and never passed up the opportunity to remind people that she was stronger than she looked.

She’d sell her own soul to save the people she loved, and I respected the hell out of her for it.

Connor was… a lot more easygoing. I guessed he probably had to be, to put up with Olivia’s fire.

Still, being on tour with Olivia meant Taylor was also on tour with us—she had to look after her investment, after all—and that meant Taylor had eyes on me. And all my antics. She evidently hadn’t missed the girls I’d been bringing back to my room after practice. And if her text was anything to go by, she was well and truly over it.

Rivers, here’s the deal . I’m not going to sugarcoat this. You’re in trouble. Your reputation is a wreck. You look like hell. You’ve got to do something to clean it up. Stop with the girls and the drinking and get your life together—or at least do something so it looks like you’re trying. Olivia and Connor are as wholesome as they come and you…

You’re not.

Fix that.

I pressed my lips together, frustrated beyond belief, and slammed the phone down. So, Noah was right and it wasn’t only the reporters who were noticing that my life was going downhill.

I growled, going back to the conversation I’d been having with myself since yesterday. Taylor had known about my reputation from the start. This wasn’t news. I’d always been this guy, and she’d still signed me. Why was it suddenly a problem? Could it actually be Olivia and Connor’s reputation? I didn’t believe it. If it was, why hadn’t they said something to me themselves?

Probably because they were too fucking nice.

I launched myself up off the bed and started pacing again, trying to get past the alcohol fog in my mind and into the problem. I couldn’t change things at the drop of a hat, and I didn’t even know if I wanted to. I didn’t necessarily like the person I was, but how was I going to suddenly alter that? No one would believe it if I did.

I’d spent too many years being the rebel to suddenly become a good boy.

Besides, I didn’t like good boys.

A chorus of giggles right outside my door shook me out of that thought, and my scowl deepened. Who the hell was that? They didn’t sound like they could be more than teenagers, and if security had let a bunch of teenagers up here to knock on my door and bother me for autographs, I was going to kill someone.

I stalked to the door and jerked it open.

And then caught the girl that fell right into my room.

When she looked up, I caught my breath. Enormous green eyes. Dark red hair, and the most perfectly white skin I’d ever seen, covered with a smattering of freckles. Sunshine was practically bleeding out of her pores, and I had the fleeting thought that she could have been the poster girl for the word ‘wholesome.’ I didn’t know how old she actually was—young, for sure—but one look at her and I’d already forgotten all about being mad at security for letting girls up to my door.

Because she was also the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. All laughter and freckles and flushed cheeks and…

Something so pure that it made my heart squeeze until it hurt.

Chapter List
Display Options
Background
Size
A-