Contents
Playlist
Other Books by B. Celeste
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
Epilogue
Bonus Scene
Kyler + Lenny’s Story
Acknowledgments
About the Author
© Copyright 2021 B. Celeste
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover Design: Letitia Hasser, RBA Designs
Editing: KBM Editing
Formatting: Vellum
Shout out to Micalea Smeltzer for letting me steal Daddy Cannon
Playlist
“Bad at Love” – Halsey
“Beautiful Crazy” – Luke Combs
“Body Moves” – DNCE
“Cruel Summer” – Taylor Swift
“Demons” – Imagine Dragons
“Feels Like Tonight” – Daughtry
“Just a Kiss” – Lady A
“Lonely” – Justin Bieber, Benny Blanco
“The Only Exception” – Paramore
“Yours (Wedding Edition)” – Russell Dickerson
Other Books by B. Celeste
The Truth about Heartbreak
The Truth about Tomorrow
The Truth about Us
Underneath the Sycamore Tree
Where the Little Birds Go
Where the Little Birds Are
Into the Clear Water
Color Me Pretty
Tell Me When It’s Over
Dare You to Hate Me
1 Garrick
“Turn that off,” I tell the curly-haired squatter taking up residence on my leather sectional couch as I enter the room. There’s a permanent imprint of his ass on it from all the time he spends watching the flatscreen.
My little brother is watching some bullshit gossip show where my bandmate and best friend Zayne Gray’s face is plastered across the screen. Whatever they’re saying likely isn’t good, and probably bordering the truth knowing the crazy shit Zayne has done. When he still lived in Boston with his family, he’d constantly get into trouble with the cops and luckily was always let go with warnings. The shit he does now is usually ten times worse since he has money and a name for himself.
“It’s getting good though,” Chase says, pointing toward the TV with the remote as my face appears in a side shot with some chick I picked up after a gig a few weeks ago. My open palm is blocking the camera from getting a good picture, but the girl is soaking up the attention with a flirty smile that I’m now realizing isn’t even that pretty. At the time, she was a means to an end—relief for my aching cock, which she took care of the second we got into the car.
I groan and walk over, reaching for the remote to shut it off myself. “Don’t you have better things to do with your time than waste brain cells on shit entertainment, mate?”
“I think you’re confusing us, big bro. I’m not the one who’s done experimental drugs for years. Unlike you, I can’t risk any brain cells.” I can hear his light Australian accent really come through as he wrestles me for the remote. He manages to bolt out of my reach and crank the volume higher.
Chase knows my past struggles with drug use and how hard the recovery process has been over the past couple of years. Two stints in rehab have left me four years sober, a feat I celebrate daily because there were days I sure as hell never thought I’d reach 32. He’s supportive, just like our mother is, but he doesn’t always think before reminding me of my poor decisions that left my mother crying at three a.m. because she thought I was wasting my life with white powder and smoke.
We turn to the screen when some petite blonde with perky tits barely contained in a skintight dress begins talking about the Violet Wonders world tour that ended last week. “Sources have told Hollywood Entertainment that a possible split is in the horizon for the eight-time Grammy winning group Violet Wonders. This news comes just three years after the band got back together following the public fight between frontrunner Garrick Matthews and drummer Zayne Gray. An insider says that the breaking point occurred during the last leg of their world tour that ended last Thursday.”
I scoff at the woman’s brass balls for making such a ridiculous claim. “An insider? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
My brother snorts, the dark eyes that match his chocolate hair bright with amusement over the latest attack on the band. “You mean there’s not trouble in paradise? I haven’t seen Zayne around here lately.”
Images of a bare ass thrusting forward into a random chick flashes in my head that make me internally cringe. “I had the unfortunate pleasure of catching him screwing a random at the welcome home party we had this weekend. Right over the back of the couch you’re sitting on. Made the fucker pay to steam clean it. You’d know that if you left your room instead of brooding over a girl.”
Chase glares at me, the three-day-old scruff across his jaw looking like the shadow I take a razor to every morning. “I’m not brooding over anyone, dickhead.”
Eventually, I’m able to swipe the remote from him and hold it where he can’t snatch it back since I have a handful of inches on him and far more muscle since I work out with my trainer routinely while he chooses to vegetate. He’s lucky he’s got a solid metabolism—he’s always been a lanky kid and that hasn’t changed now that he’s 21 and eating all my food. “If that were true you’d take a shower, clean the room I so graciously gave you when you wanted to get out of Mum’s house for a while, and go outside to get some sunlight. You’re paler than my bare ass, and that rarely sees any sun.”
I’m not surprised to hear him grumble something under his breath before giving me the finger. He hates tough
