Hot Mess: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players #1)
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Hot Mess
A Players Rockstar Romance (Players #1)
Jaine Diamond
Contents
Author’s Note
Prologue
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
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
Bonus Epilogue
Books by Jaine Diamond
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About the Author
Copyright © 2019 Jaine Diamond
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, uploaded or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
The publisher and author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks, and word marks mentioned in this book.
Published By DreamWarp Publishing Ltd.
First edition: August 2019
Published in print and electronic formats.
ISBN: 978-1-989273-03-6
V_1
Cover design: DreamWarp Publishing Ltd.
Jaine Diamond Online
www.jainediamond.com
Author’s Note
This book, Hot Mess (Players #1), is the first novel in the Players series—a rockstar romance series about the members of the rock band “the Players,” and the women and men who love them.
This is a spin-off series from the Dirty rockstar romance series. Characters and storylines in this book had their genesis in the Dirty series, and if you want every detail of the crazy-romantic rock ’n’ roll adventure so far, you’ll want to read the Dirty series first.
Hot Mess is Ash’s book, and while you can read it as a standalone, Ash appears in almost all the Dirty books and has POV scenes in more Dirty books than any other character (4 books!). So I do recommend reading them first. Whether you do that or not is of course up to you…
If you are new to my books and would like to check out the Dirty series, I recommend you start with Dirty Like Me (Dirty #1), OR you can start with Dirty Like Us (Dirty #0.5), which you can get free in both ebook AND audiobook form, by signing up to my mailing list.
I write each book as a standalone, so that it can, well, stand on its own… But I do consider the books in the Dirty series and the Players series “interconnected standalones”, meaning you could pick and choose which ones you read, in any order, but you will definitely get the most out of the series, the individual books and the relationships within if you read the books consecutively.
I hope you enjoy Ash’s path to love as much as I enjoyed writing it! And of course, the formation of his hot new band!
With love from beautiful Vancouver (the home of Dirty and the Players!),
Jaine
Prologue
Ash
I’d never believed there was any kind of grand purpose to my life, or to the relationships that came and went from it.
I’d never believed in fate, or karma, or any of that shit.
With all the bullshit I’d been through, why would I?
I definitely wasn’t feeling any kind of manifest destiny that day.
I couldn’t feel much at all.
Then I got off the chairlift at the top of the mountain, the edge of my snowboard caught in the ice and I went down, hard, twisting the shit out of my knee.
It had been three days since I’d broken up with my girlfriend, Summer. Three days since I’d had my heart smashed.
Three days since I’d started partying.
It was a gorgeous, clear morning. Bluebird day; fresh powder, perfect conditions. I’d planned to spend all fucking day on my board, sweating out the alcohol.
Then, you know, start drinking again.
But then I fell getting off the fucking chairlift.
I was barely able to crawl out of the way in time before the guys getting off the chair behind me ended up on top of me. It was two of my bandmates, Pepper and Janner, who pretty much pissed themselves laughing at me. Zero sympathy.
I could’ve boarded circles around either of these guys, hungover or not, but in that moment, they weren’t the ones on their asses in the snow.
At least Johnny, who’d been on my chair with me, gave me a hand up.
It was our first run of the day. The four of us had just dragged our asses out of the hotel, and my day of boarding was already done. Couldn’t put much weight on my knee, couldn’t even coast my ass down the hill. Had to sit down in the snow and wait for help, while Janner sat with me—and laughed at me.
Guess that’s what you get after staying up most of the night, drinking way too much tequila with a bunch of rock stars.
And circus freaks.
And a bachelorette party.
Long story.
The medics had to collect me and give me a ride down the hill on a snowmobile. They took a look at my knee and wrapped it up, told me to go easy on it for a few days. I passed when they asked for photos; I wasn’t in the mood to play rock star. But I signed their skis before I limped on my way.
By the time I got back to the hotel, it was a ghost town. Everyone was on the slopes. So I got changed and did the only thing there was to do: start drinking. I hit up the empty lounge, sat at the bar, ordered a beer and chatted a bit with the bartender.
Johnny came back to the hotel not long after I did.
I was alone at the bar when he found me. Said he was too hungover to board and ordered himself a drink.
“Shot of bourbon,” he told the bartender. “And one for my wounded friend here.”
I looked at Johnny then. Really looked.
I didn’t know Johnny O’Reilly well. I didn’t know we were friends.
I’d only met him a few times before. We were both rock stars on the rise, both from Vancouver, spent a lot of time in L.A.. Ran in the same circles, hit the same parties.
Two days before, he’d come to my breakup party in L.A., and here we were.
In Alaska.
Alone in some bar.
And he’d sat down pretty damn close to me.
Johnny had that striking combo of a deep tan, bleach-blond hair and blue-green eyes. The tattoo over his shoulder climbed out of his thermal shirt and up one side of his neck—the shirt that clung to his sculpted chest and arms. He had a guitarist’s calloused fingers and clean, square fingernails. Nice hands, white teeth, slow to smile.
And da
rk, serious eyebrows that made it look like he was always thinking, like he cared about something, about you, even when he didn’t.
… And that air of fucking calculated recklessness. The one that told you he was always in control.
Thing was, I kinda had a weakness for guys like Johnny O.
Bad boys.
Not exactly my type, but… tempting.
The shots came and he slid one over to me.
And that was it.
I clinked my shot glass to Johnny’s, and when I looked into his eyes, my fate was sealed.
Granted, I sealed it myself.
Maybe I was still kinda drunk from the night before and just getting drunker, but I knew that I was doing. No one forced that shot down my throat.
If I hadn’t done that first shot with Johnny that day, no fucking doubt, things would’ve gone down differently than they did that night.
But then maybe, just maybe, I never would’ve met her.
Chapter One
Ash
Four years later…
She stood under a dripping, faded awning, lit up by the dull glow of the Chinese grocery store. It was a cold, rainy night. Unexpectedly shitty for mid-May in Vancouver. I definitely wasn’t dressed for the rain. I was soaking wet, water literally pooling in my shoes, because my friends were assholes.
And I was drunk.
I could see her pretty face as I ducked under the awning. As I did, I waved my bodyguard, Haz, off, and he melted into the shadows.
Actually, she was really fucking pretty.
But pretty or not, I was so drunk, I probably would’ve walked on by if I hadn’t recognized her.
She was wearing bright yellow gumboots under a tan-colored raincoat, her long, butterscotch-blonde hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. She was picking through the bouquets of red roses on the outdoor display, her eyebrows pinched together, her lips pushed out in an annoyed pout.
A rose was a rose, right? They all looked the same to me. But she was studying them like the fate of the world depended on which ones she chose.
Then she felt me standing there, maybe, and looked up.
She looked at me.
And the Earth moved under my feet.
Maybe that was the alcohol, but still. Something happened.
Fate. Destiny. Karma… Call it what you want.
She was mine.
I knew it right then.
Angels didn’t exactly sing… but there was definitely some killer bass coming from somewhere, vibrating the pavement. For a moment, I really thought it was my heart.
It wasn’t that I was in love with her or anything. This was a purely sexual vibe, this thing between her and me.
I barely knew her.
But I wanted to know her.
I stared at her, because that’s what you do when the star of your dirtiest fantasies appears out of nowhere.
You fucking stare.
Especially if you’re drunk.
She had the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. And sure, a lot of people have beautiful eyes. But hers were something else. They were this super-soft blue.
Somehow, I didn’t remember that about her… and I’d literally dreamed about this girl.
A lot.
I would’ve thought I’d memorized her face, but memory, especially when you’ve been drinking, is a sketchy fucking thing.
She was also sexier than I remembered, even covered neck-to-toe.
How was that possible?
She was holding a bouquet of roses and a light-blue bakery box, a clear umbrella hooked over one arm and a purse tucked under the other. And all I wanted to do was help her somehow.
“That one,” I said.
“What?” She blinked at me.
And something in her face went wrong. Not sure what happened to that sexy vibe, but it was gone. And fuck if I could interpret the look she was giving me.
I was trashed.
I’d lost count of the shots we’d put back on our quest to drink Vancouver dry. Dylan and his fucking open wallet.
Mental note: never attempt to drink a large city dry on a Saturday night unless you’ve got a death wish.
A vehicle eased up to the curb behind me, and I cringed as the source of the vibrations under my feet became clear. You couldn’t really ignore a giant Hummer stretch limo, electric purple, thumping music so loud it made the Earth shake—especially when you knew it was about to cockblock you—but I tried.
Dream girl glanced over at it.
When I followed her gaze, willing the limo to keep right on driving, my ex-girlfriend—ex-lover?—popped her head out of the sunroof. Amber always had shit timing.
“Ashley!” She called over to me, wavering and almost falling as the limo parked. “Did you get the lollipops?”
I ignored her, turning back to dream girl. Her gaze lifted from the world’s most obnoxious limo to meet mine again.
Seriously. I’d probably jacked off hundreds of times thinking about this girl. So how the fuck did I forget how insanely pretty her eyes were?
“That one,” I repeated, pointing to one of the bundles of roses. “It’s the best one.”
She glanced at them. “Actually,” she said, softly, “those are the worst ones.”
“They look the best,” I said, really trying not to slur. “They’re the prettiest.” Was it obvious I was wasted?
Yeah, idiot. It’s fucking obvious.
“That’s why they’re the worst,” she informed me. “They’ll be dead tomorrow.” Her gaze drifted over my face, her eyes snagging on my lips. “The prettiest ones are always the worst…”
Huh?
I licked my lip. Couldn’t really help it when she looked at my mouth like that.
Were we still talking about flowers?
My brain was a drunken blank as I stared at her eyes.
She glanced at the Hummer again, just as the door opened and music throbbed out—along with a chorus of assholes, shouting and laughing. The song was that classic masterpiece, “Me So Horny,” because I’d obviously done something truly terrible in a former life and now it was coming back to fuck me over.
Maybe I did believe in karma.
This time when I glanced over my shoulder, a pair of strappy high heels and shapely bare legs appeared as my other ex-girlfriend, Summer, started climbing out of the limo.
Fucking no.
Every instinct I had—even with all the booze in my system—told me that a bunch of obnoxiously drunk hot chicks, even more obnoxiously drunk rock stars, oh, and the hulking bikers, were gonna scare dream girl away.
When I turned back to her again, she was heading into the store with her roses. She paused to look back at me for a split second and say, “I’m not who you think I am.”
Huh, again?
I still couldn’t decipher that look on her face.
Too. Drunk.
Then she disappeared into the store.
My friends piled in around me, seeking shelter under the tiny awning as they lit up. I smelled weed and booze. I saw their faces, kind of, but I couldn’t hear them. I just stood there in the drizzling rain, one-syllabling my way through whatever drunken conversation we were having.
I kept staring at the storefront, waiting for her to re-emerge. Trying to remember what I needed to say to her, and wondering if I could navigate the sidewalk to intercept her without falling on my face.
Because I definitely had to talk to her.
I’d already missed my chance with her once. I wasn’t making that mistake again.
For one thing, lightning didn’t strike three times, or something. Which meant this chance was definitely my last chance.
For a second thing, fucking her, soon, was now top priority. Way higher priority than Amber’s drunken scavenger hunt thing.
Three, where the fuck did she go, and what was taking so long?
And fourth, why was I so damn drunk every time I met her?
I wavered as someone slapped me on the shoulder.
Not good.
I blinked and looked away—into the store, but fuck if I could see anything. The aisles were crammed together and there were piles of crazy shit—dried tentacles?—all over the place.
But she was in there, right? I didn’t just hallucinate the whole thing.
We had a conversation. Sort of.
Roses. She was buying roses.
My best friend, Dylan, was standing on the sidewalk, not far from me. Matt and Janner were next to him, passing a joint back and forth. Janner looked about as lit as I felt. Summer was there in her short shorts and furry jacket, looking cold, laughing about something with Seth, who was sober as shit and probably wondering why he was still here.
The rest of us, besides Con and Haz, who were on security, were wasted.