Driving Me Crazy: A Rock Star Rom Com

by Lisa Suzanne

  “Fine,” I mutter. We’ll have the next month to talk about these weird feelings. I guess after all this time, I’m just tired of being the butt of everyone’s jokes. Nobody takes me seriously, and maybe that’s why I’m falling so hard and fast for Amber.

  Because she does.

  I open the gifts from Amber once we’re in the privacy of my bedroom, sitting together on my bed. I have a beer on my nightstand, and she has her signature rum and Diet Coke.

  I like what she got me—a few new vintage band tees and a custom bobblehead of me playing the keyboards. “The other gift is, you know, taking a month off work to travel across the US with you. And I figured we’d have sex, which is always a gift.”

  I laugh. “Thanks. I love it all.” I love you. It’s in my head again. I do love her.

  I’m just not sure why I can’t say it.

  CHAPTER 7: WILL

  I pull her closer to me, breathing in her raspberry shampoo as the entire bridal party sways to some slow remake of “Stand by Me” at Adam and Emily’s wedding reception.

  I’ve never breathed in a girl’s scent before, and what’s worse, I’ve never identified it as a specific fruit.

  But Amber is different.

  Everything about her is different. She’s out of my league. I may be the one raking in the big bucks with the job I sort of fell into haphazardly, but money isn’t everything.

  I’ve never been with a woman like her.

  I’ve never wanted to settle down. I don’t even really know what that means, but when I smell the raspberries in her hair, I don’t want to be with anybody else.

  I don’t even want to look at anybody else.

  And somehow she chose me. Out of all the guys in the world she could be with, she picked me.

  My life has been a series of events that happen to me. I’m more of a passive spectator than an active participant. I float from thing to thing, never really seeing if there’s a bigger picture for me. My bigger picture is playing keyboards for MFB. That’s my purpose in life.

  Only...as we’re coming up on nearly a decade of playing together, I can’t help but think I want something else.

  Something more.

  Don’t get me wrong.

  I love what I do. The keyboard isn’t my passion, per se, but music is. Guitar is.

  And getting to be a part of something as successful as MFB, otherwise known as My Favorite Band, has been my life’s greatest accomplishment. My life’s only accomplishment.

  But when we’re not making new music, when we’re not touring...that’s it.

  It’s just me, my video games, and my left hand.

  The last two months with Amber have shown me what it could be like if it wasn’t just me and the utter insignificance my life has always been when it’s not defined by MFB.

  It has shown me how different things could be for me in the downtime, and maybe I’m just thinking about it because it’s looming ahead in the upcoming months, or maybe it’s because I’m a year from turning thirty and I don’t have much to show for myself apart from a few platinum records and Grammys.

  If someone like Amber is interested in someone like me, it’s my duty to nurture that and see where it can lead.

  Except...

  Am I good enough for someone like her?

  She’s beautiful and smart. So goddamn smart. She’s successful. She helps other people for a living. She bakes cookies and decorates them with funny sayings like “Eat Me” and “Chicks Before Dicks” and “I Give Zero Fucks.” She’s funny and she’s balanced and she’s the best lay I’ve ever had.

  And I’m...me.

  I whine when I don’t get my way and I act like I’m fifteen even though I’m coming up fast on thirty and I’ve been handed everything good that’s happened to me and I’ve never really struggled with anything or had to work for anything.

  I want to be good enough.

  I want to be worthy of her.

  I just don’t know how to prove to her—or to myself—that I am...because I don’t know if I am. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m not.

  “Holy shit,” a woman beside me says, pulling me out of my raspberry dreams. “Is that...Rascal?”

  I glance over and vaguely recognize the woman belonging to the voice.

  “Nobody knew how sexy he was under all that hair,” Amber says with a laugh, and her words have an immediate effect on my dick.

  I glance down at her, and she looks up at me. Maybe it’s only been two months since we first got together and we spent six weeks of that time apart while I was on tour, but I’m pretty sure I could spend forever with her.

  And speaking of two months, it’s been about that long since I cut my hair and people still don’t recognize me—which is actually to my advantage. My curly hair was sort of my defining feature as the world got to know me as the immature assclown of MFB on Rock on the Road, and with my hair cropped short, I’m able to do simple shit like go to the liquor store without people flocking to me for autographs.

  It’s starting to get out now, though—pictures of me in the tabloids with another MFB member’s sister—and people are starting to recognize me.

  “Looking good, man,” another voice says as he saunters up next to the woman, and this voice I recognize.

  It belongs to Mark Ashton, legendary lead singer of Vail and the CEO of our record label, Ashmark. He was the minister of the vow renewal ceremony we all just sat through as we watched Adam declare his love to Emily, and it just made me want to declare a few other things to Amber.

  Later, of course. And probably naked.

  “Thanks,” I say, and I piece together that the vaguely familiar looking woman is his wife, Reese. I should know her well by now. We toured with Vail a few years ago, and she was an integral part of our first season of Rock on the Road, produced, naturally, by her husband.

  But like I said, I don’t really participate in my own life. I don’t notice things or people or places. It all sort of just passes me by, with a few important things leaving their mark until I forget about them.

  Except Amber.

  I’ve always thought she was hot. The problem is that she’s three years younger than me. That’s not so much a problem now, but when we met and I was nineteen, well...that made it actually illegal for me to date her.

  I think back to the first time I met her. Adam’s parents were out of town and he threw a party shortly after Kane and I joined the band started by Adam, Brody, and Dax. Adam informed us that it was his sister’s first time drinking, and we were to look out for her but keep our hands off her. When he pointed out which chick she was in the crowd, my heart sank. She was the one I’d been eyeing all night, and she was only sixteen.

  But I did what he asked me to do. I’d never held back a girl’s hair while she puked in the bushes, but Adam had already secured his spot as a good guy in my book, so when I saw her swaying out on the front porch as she gripped the railing, I did what I had to do to help her.

  The music changes to something slower, and I sway with Amber. She rests her head on my chest, and I breathe in that raspberry again.

  “I can’t wait for our trip,” I say. I’ve been on the road with MFB for so damn long that I forget what it’s like to travel somewhere just because I want to travel there. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got tomorrow until Dax and Kylie’s wedding free. That’s thirty-four days with no responsibilities except pleasuring you.” I’m sure my eyes are dreamy. “We’ll stop at stupid roadside attractions and sleep in whatever motel we come across and eat at shitty hole in the wall diners. Or we could hit museums and historical monuments...whatever we stumble across as we go. Doesn’t that sound awesome?”

  “No,” she says, her face contorting in horror. “That sounds awful.”

  I laugh even if I’m a little stung at her assessment of my dream.

  “For one thing, and you know this, I’m a planner. The idea of traveling without any sort of preparation is a little terrifying to me.” Her eyes turn down. “Besid
es, I can’t just leave tomorrow. I have shifts Monday through Wednesday and I’m already on the schedule for next week.”

  “Then we leave the following Thursday. I’m not picky. We’ll go whenever you can. And we can plan it to whatever extent makes you happy, whether that means literally mapping out every stop ahead of time or planning on the go.” I’m trying to be accommodating even though it’s my dream. But I want her to be a part of it, so I’m willing to bend my own rules a little.

  Her forehead wrinkles as she thinks, and it’s adorable. “Okay,” she finally says. “Let’s at least plan where we’ll stop each day, and the rest can be on the go. Sort of a compromise.”

  I nod. “I like it.”

  “What’s this about a road trip?” Kylie says beside us. Dax isn’t with her, so it sort of seems like this lady who is five months pregnant is randomly swaying on the dance floor between couples when in reality she’s taking the pulse of the party the way any good manager should.

  And since she’s our manager, that means she has the final say on what I can and can’t do with my free time.

  “I have a question for you,” I say to Kylie.

  She glances over at me with a raised brow.

  “I’m free to take the next month and do whatever the hell I want, right?”

  She flattens her lips into a disapproving line. “Within reason. What did you have in mind?”

  “A road trip.”

  She thinks for a minute. “By yourself?”

  I nod toward Amber. “With her. We both just need some time away.”

  She looks between Amber and me, and then she narrows her eyes at me for a minute before she nods. “On two conditions.”

  It’s my turn to raise a brow, a nonverbal cue to ask what her conditions are.

  “Condition number one, we get footage for Rock on the Road. That means we mount a camera in your car, you record at least some footage when you’re out of your car unless you want me to send a cameraman along for the ride, and you wear your mic pack. Amber too.”

  I look at Amber, and she nods. I figured that condition was coming. “Fine. Second condition?”

  “You both sign a contract.”

  My brows draw down. “For what?” I ask.

  “I’ll need to work it into the outline for the show, and once we write it in, we’re not taking it out,” she says. “So the contract will state that you cannot back out of this trip.”

  “We’re not going to back out,” I say. I glance at Amber, and she shakes her head.

  “We won’t back out,” she agrees.

  Kylie nods. “Okay. Then you won’t mind signing a contract agreeing to that.” She looks between us again, and we both nod. “And one final thing, Rascal.”

  I raise both brows again.

  “Don’t mess things up with Amber.”

  Amber laughs, and I roll my eyes. “Yes, mother,” I say, my go-to insult when I’m talking to Kylie.

  She huffs out a laugh, and I know the way she teases me is all out of love.

  CHAPTER 8: AMBER

  I hook my leg over his and settle my head onto his chest as he wraps an arm around me. My bridesmaid dress is flung over a chair in our hotel room, the reception over and our first round of the night in the books.

  Silence falls between us for a beat, and then he asks, “What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Liar. You’re never this quiet.”

  I exhale. “It’s just...all this stuff with us, it’s scary.”

  “I know,” he whispers. “For me, too.”

  “Why’s it scary for you?” I ask.

  “You go first.”

  I don’t say that it’s because the very things that make me laugh now will drive me crazy in the long run. I don’t say that it’s because I feel like I’m falling for him. I don’t say that it’s because I’m terrified that I’m going to get burned again like I did the last time I fell in love. I don’t say that I don’t want this but I’m addicted to it anyway. Instead, I say, “Because I like you. A lot. You?”

  He’s quiet for a minute, and I almost think he’s fallen asleep even though deep down I know he’d stay awake for more sex.

  When he answers, it’s clear that he paused because he was debating how much to say or how to say it, and when his words tumble out, I realize that he’s putting my exact feelings into words. “Because a couple months ago, I slept with the sister of one of my best friends thinking it was just a casual weekend thing. But it’s not. In two months, I feel more for you than I think I’ve ever felt for anyone.”

  I don’t know what to say in response to that, so I don’t use words.

  Instead, I climb on top of him and gyrate my hips down over his. He groans, and the friction of his steel erection beneath me is glorious as the sounds he makes cause an aching throb between my legs.

  “Why are women so goddamn confusing?” he mutters. He pushes his hips more firmly toward me, and I moan.

  “You’re no better,” I mutter back, grinding down over him again, and he grunts out a laugh.

  “More reasons why this just works.”

  I lean forward and cover his mouth with mine, and there’s no more talking as moans and sighs and need take over. My breasts brush against his chest, the rubbing causing my nipples to harden as the pleasure sends another pulse of need between my legs. He lifts me by my hips and pushes me to the side so he can get up and grab a condom, and when he returns, he slides back under me so I’m on top again.

  I take him in my fist and guide him inside me, and we both moan at the carnal pleasure of his entrance. I take control, moving over the top of him while he grabs my tits and lies back to enjoy.

  I shift my hips over him, and he thrusts upward as we settle into a rhythm of complete gratification. The ache throbs between my legs, building up higher and higher into a crescendo just as my moans get louder and louder as I march on toward release.

  And when it overtakes me, it’s with brutal force.

  I scream out and reach down to rub my clit as I come and come, my entire body pulsing with each contraction of my orgasm. My body squeezes him to me, sending him into his own loud release filled with grunts and growls that are so sexy I know I’ll think of them in times ahead when we’re apart.

  And when we’re both finished, spent from our climaxes as we start to come down from the high and back to reality, we pant beside one another as we try to catch our breath.

  He gets up to toss the condom, and when he returns, he says, “Well that was fun.”

  “For me too.” I giggle.

  And even though we’ve both said this is more than sex, and even though I’m starting to develop feelings for him that are definitely more than like, I can’t help but feel some impending fear that fun is all this will ever amount to.

  I can’t sleep.

  Instead, I keep thinking about my ex, which is weird since I’m lying naked in bed with my cold feet against Will’s calf as he sleeps quietly beside me.

  It’s my ex’s fault that I’m all in my head with Will. It’s my ex’s fault that the fun girl who hooked up with Will in Vegas seems to have left a piece of herself in that Caesar’s Palace hotel room along with Will’s long hair.

  And even though I’m aware of that, I’m hesitant to get involved in something that allows me to be vulnerable again.

  I thought I was ready for a relationship, but maybe I’m not.

  Ian and I were happy, and then we weren’t.

  I thought I was going to marry him. We first met in a required English class in college our junior year, and we started dating in the middle of our senior year after he confessed he’d always had a crush on me.

  We graduated and I started my job in the ER while he went to work in sales for a tech company. Sales is competitive, though, and he very quickly became a workaholic. He started making bank at his job, and that became his only priority. His only goal was to make money by rising to the top.

  We barely saw each other, and
when we did, he only wanted sex.

  We didn’t talk. We didn’t cuddle. We didn’t even hug or kiss anymore. It was just sex. He closed himself off emotionally, and in the end, he chose money over me—something he never valued until he started collecting more and more of it.

  He crushed me. He broke my heart, and it took a long time to get past that.

  In some ways, I’m still not over that even though we broke up over two years ago. I’ve only dated around since Ian. I haven’t looked for anything serious again because I’m terrified of getting hurt all over again.

  I know this is why I’m controlling my relationship with Will. I know making it just sex to me will prevent me from getting hurt in the long run.

  I just never expected for feelings to get involved with the boy they call Rascal.

  His mom still does his laundry, a fact I learned the first night I stayed over at his place and the perfumed scent of fabric softener nearly choked me to death. He’s about as emotionally mature as a twelve-year-old, and he uses stupid humor and insults as his defense mechanism.

  He’s the keyboardist in a very successful band, lazy to a fault with very little ambition beyond what he’s already achieved, while I’m an emergency room nurse who tackles twelve hour shifts three times a week and bakes and decorates cookies to sell at local farmers markets on Saturday mornings.

  Our ambition in life doesn’t exactly line up, and neither does our maturity level.

  And it’s not just that. Will’s job has to come first—there are four other people in his band who depend on it coming first, and there are a bunch of others who work with the band whose careers depend on their success, not to mention the huge fan base the band has made over the last decade.

  So even though we’ve had the talk that this may be more than just sex, at some point I’ll have to make the decision of whether this can really get serious or if I just want to keep it at the basic, lighthearted level of fun we’ve been having.

  In the morning, we head back to the guys’ house where I left my car last night. Kylie’s in the kitchen with a stack of paperwork, and she eyes us both when we walk in the front door. “I’ve got your contracts here,” she says.