The Boy Next Door
A Standalone Enemies-to-Lovers Romance
Natasha L. Black
Copyright © 2020 by Natasha L. Black
All rights reserved.
The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Introduction
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
Epilogue
Date Your Brother’s Best Friend (Sample)
A Note from the Author
About the Author
Introduction
What in the world did I do deserve this?
The boy next door doesn’t let me sleep.
And not just because he's loud...
Jayson is a rockstar.
He’s as skilled as he is hot.
I never thought I’d be attracted to an alpha jerk like him.
But Jayson is all I ever think about.
I mean, what choice do I have, really?
We're next door neighbors for goodness sake.
He’s always on my mind (and in my ears).
And now…
I’m carrying a piece of him.
I’m carrying his baby.
No, he can’t find out.
And no, I’m not saying a word about it to him.
Jayson and I are poles apart.
Our lives couldn’t be more different.
He should be on the road, leaving me behind.
Leaving my secret behind.
And me?
I should start preparing to mend my heart.
To raise a baby that will forever remind me of him.
1
Jayson
I cracked open a bottle of water and drained half of it while Mark talked about the next song on our setlist. Great guy and great singer, but every once in a while, I just wished he’d just start the damned song already. The adrenaline rushing through my veins made me impatient, and my hands twitched restlessly, itching to pick out the beat that would lead us into our next song.
It was hot in there that night, and the AC wasn’t working hard enough to combat it. Someone had opened the doors to let a little fresh air in, and I knew as we finally launched into the next riff that our music must be echoing out into the night. Occasionally, people would pause to peer inside. Usually, they would then drift in, heads already bobbing to the beat.
That only stoked my excitement further. We hadn’t made it, not yet, but our fan base was growing every day, and they were starting to sing along with our more popular songs.
What a rush to know that we could affect people like that.
We finished the set with a bang, and the applause was deafening. I was grinning ear to ear as I put my sticks lovingly into their bag and stood up. Luke, the bassist, nodded at me, an equally large smile on his face. He clearly felt just as exhilarated as I did.
Mark didn’t look at either of us; he only had eyes for the group of ladies who had stayed near the front, dancing through the whole show. A couple of them had come out to our shows before; others were new. Mark barely had to try to charm them. In the next second, he had his arm around one and was winking at another, while a third pressed a drink into his hand. I shook my head.
Luke came over to me, clearly ignoring Mark’s antics as he always did. “Man, we were on fire tonight!” he said.
I laughed and bumped my fist against his. “Yeah, that solo you pulled was awesome!”
Luke looked critically around. The best part was, even though we had finished our set, people were sticking around. That meant that the venue would be pleased with us. We had brought people in, and we had got them buying drinks.
And a happy venue meant more gigs to come.
Not only that, but we had a pretty big crowd there that night. We were nearly at capacity, by the looks of it.
Which meant that soon, we would be able to start booking larger venues, bringing in an even bigger crowd. I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but it was starting to feel like it was only a matter of time before we started getting the right kind of notice.
Before we made it.
It was an incredible feeling. I’d spent the past few years pouring everything I had into this band. Blood, sweat, tears, and then some. I had poured my heart out into the lyrics; I had practiced drum solos until my hands were raw and my callouses had callouses. Any money that I had, I spent on things for the band, knowing that eventually, if I gave it my all, it would pay off.
We had a shot at making it big. I was surer of it than ever before. Our big break was right around the corner.
My face fell as I saw Carter, our guitarist, over at the bar. He was well on his way toward shitfaced, and as I watched, he took another shot alongside a giggling girl while another girl egged them on. Between him and Mark, I didn’t know who was worse.
I shook my head. While Luke and I seemed to be on the same page about pushing the band forward to that next level, it sometimes felt that Mark and Carter were doing whatever they could to hold us back and make sure that we were stuck playing in garages and dive bars for the rest of our lives.
I couldn’t imagine the band without them. At the same time, I didn’t know how things were going to work out going forward. I knew there was a particular lifestyle that came along with being a rock star, but at the end of the day, it was still a job. It was a serious business. You weren’t going to get very far without putting in the work.
That was what Carter and Mark didn’t seem to understand. We could party later, once we were on top. Once we’d released a hit album, once we’d really broken through. What they were doing now would only damage our reputation. If Mark got himself thrown out of another bar or Carter got in another fistfight for sleeping with the wrong girl, I was going to lose it.
Nights like these never ended at the bar, either. It wasn’t just that after a show, they went out and had some fun, enjoying the perks of our rising stardom. They seemed to think that it was okay to be late to practices the next day, or to show up still drunk, reeking of booze and sex.
We hadn’t written any new material in ages because they couldn’t seem to hold it together for long enough for us to hammer out a chorus, or even to rehearse consistently. Either they were taking advantage of the free drinks that everyone bought them after a show, grinning and charming everyone in the vicinity, or else they were down in the dumps and drowning their sorrows in booze, wondering why we hadn’t made it yet.
It was killing me. If we were going to make it big-time, we were going to have to actually pull it together and work, and I was starting to worry that maybe the two
of them didn’t have it in them.
I shook my head, trying not to dwell on it tonight. I was only going to depress myself when what I really wanted was to revel in the night that we’d had. I started grabbing our equipment, in part to give me something to do with my hands and in part because I didn’t want anyone to spill anything on it or get the bright idea that this was karaoke night and that they were welcome to bash on our gear.
I was just putting the last of the cases in the van when Trixie came up to me, grinning. “Hey, you,” she said. “Have you let anyone buy you a drink yet?”
I shrugged. “Nah,” I said simply. Trixie was one of our most notorious groupies, coming out to nearly every one of our shows and commenting all over our social media. While it was nice to have someone who was apparently so incredibly interested in everything that we did, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was in it for all the wrong reasons. Either she wanted to say that she’d been the one to “discover” us before we were big, or she just wanted to sleep with one or all of us.
I wasn’t sure which it was, but I wasn’t sure that I really cared.
The truth was, she was cute. Without a doubt. She had brown hair that had been cut short in the back, longer in the front, and styled messily. She had a kind of punk edge to her styling, but I’d never seen her in anything that wasn’t form-flattering and sexy at the same time.
She flirted with me after nearly every show, and it would be only too easy to bring her home with me, bang her senseless, and then send her off home. No strings and no expectations. The rock-and-roll lifestyle.
But I wasn’t feeling it tonight. Not that I ever really was. I rarely brought anyone home with me, no matter how many girls showed interest in me, no matter how cute or attractive they were. I was too busy trying to build the band and, I guess, show a good example to Mark and Carter.
Besides, I had a hard time sharing a bed with people; I never seemed to sleep that well. At the same time, I didn’t want to be the asshole who mandated that a girl leave immediately afterward. It just wasn’t worth the hassle to sleep with anyone.
So as Trixie grinned at me, I slowly shook my head. “Not tonight, Trixie. I’m sorry,” I said.
She looked disappointed but resigned. “Yeah, fine,” she said, rolling her eyes. She darted in to kiss me lightly on the cheek, though. “I’ll see you next time,” she said. As she walked away, she turned back to me, walking backward, somehow managing not to trip in her sky-high heels. “By the way, you were amazing tonight.”
I laughed. “Thanks,” I said honestly. She might follow our bands for all the wrong reasons, but at the end of the day, she had been a fan for a while now. Praise from her meant that I really had done a great job that night. That something had been different from last time, that we were getting better.
At least, I liked to think so, anyway.
I headed inside to gather up the rest of my bandmates, or at least say my goodbyes. I had a feeling that yet again, Mark and Carter were going to refuse to come home in the van. Sure enough, I was right. I was seething when I got back in the driver’s seat. Luke slipped silently into the passenger’s side, clearly sensing my mood, or maybe feeling the same way himself.
This was starting to get old. I couldn’t imagine the band as anything other than the four of us, but maybe it was time for a change.
Except that a change could kill the whole band’s momentum. Besides, I knew that part of why we drew the crowds that we did was because our singer and our guitarist were both good-looking and charming. We wouldn’t have the same sex appeal without them.
I didn’t know what to do, and as I lay in my bed a little while later, I couldn’t help but feel restless and dissatisfied, no matter how well the show had gone earlier in the night.
I dragged myself over to my drum set. The one set up in the corner of my disorderly but clean one-bedroom apartment wasn’t quite as tricked out as the one that I used for gigs, but it was good to practice on all the same.
I had been lucky to find this place. It was one side of a duplex unit, but I didn’t have to worry about the noise because my next-door neighbor, Mr. Lake, was almost entirely deaf. He never complained, and I could bang out my frustrations until I was able to relax again.
Except that tonight, I was just getting started when I suddenly noticed a banging at my front door. I frowned, sticks stilling in the middle of the beat for a new song that I had been hoping to work on for a couple of weeks now.
I slowly stood up, wondering who could be there at that hour. Maybe one of my bandmates?
I pulled open the door to find a stranger standing there, though, dressed in a green silk robe and glasses, her arms crossed over her ample chest and an angry expression on her face. Her red hair escaped out of the bun that she had tried to pull it into, and it was a furious electricity that animated her.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” she snapped.
I glanced at my watch, belatedly realizing that I wasn’t wearing it.
I shrugged. “Late, I guess.”
The woman narrowed her eyes at me. “Late, I guess,” she mimicked, clearly not impressed. “It’s after midnight, and I need to work tomorrow, so stop banging on your damn drums!”
I blinked at her. As pissed as she clearly was, I couldn’t help but notice how cute she was too. I felt a stirring of interest in my groin. It would be so easy for me to pull her inside, to open her robe, to suck kisses along her skin…
Except I didn’t even know who she was or what she was doing there on my doorstep. Besides, she had interrupted my drum practice, and the only way that I was going to make it with the band was if I kept practicing hard like I had been. I couldn’t deal with interruptions like this. No matter how cute they were.
“I don’t know who you think you are, but you can’t just come over here and demand that I quit playing,” I said, jutting out my lower lip.
She stared at me incredulously. “What, would you rather me call the police?” she asked finally. “I thought I was doing the nice thing by giving you a warning before I did that, but I can call them now if you’d like. I was just trying to be neighborly.” She spat out the word like she thought I was being anything but.
“Neighborly?” I asked blankly. What the hell was she talking about? I had never seen her before. I frowned, trying to figure out what to say next. Finally, I found my voice.
“Who are you?”
2
Leah
I wasn’t sure that I had ever been this pissed before. Apartment-living situations always had their drawbacks, but after viewing a string of terrible places there in Los Angeles, I had thought that I had finally found the perfect place. It was a one-bedroom, so I didn’t have to worry about roommates who were unclean, unfriendly, or otherwise unfortunate people to share a place with.
I had been skeptical about the proximity to my neighbor from the very start. The duplexes on this street were relatively well spaced out, enough so that my neighbors on the one side didn’t bother me. But what about the person on the other side of the walls from me?
The landlord had sworn up and down that he had never received any complaints from his previous tenant about the person living next door. Well, that tenant must have been a fan of loud banging all night long, because that was all that I had heard for the last half hour now, and it was driving me crazy.
I mean, seriously, what kind of person living in such close proximity to his neighbors like this thought that it was okay to make so much noise at all hours of the night? Some asshole wannabe rock star, apparently. Welcome to LA.
And now he was acting like he had done nothing wrong.
“I have to work tomorrow,” I said, emphasizing the word “work” as though maybe he hadn’t heard it before. I hadn’t moved to LA for a new job just to be kept up all night the day before I started said job. I didn’t want to start things off on the wrong foot with my new neighbor, but seriously, what did he want me to do? I had tried putting in earplugs, and I had tr
ied covering my head with my pillow, but nothing had worked. It was after midnight now. Enough was enough.
That said, I had to admit that my new neighbor was more than I had bargained for. I didn’t know what I had expected—I guess just some older, washed-up rock star with no life. Maybe some guy who was so drugged up or wasted that he didn’t even know what time it was.
He seemed sober, though. Moreover, he was hot, a lot hotter than I could have expected. He had jet-black hair that was just a bit sweaty, just enough that it stood up in spikes as though he had run a hand back through it while he was on his way to answer the door. He had piercing blue eyes, and when he folded his arms across his chest, no doubt in response to my own posture, I couldn’t help but notice the tattoos that spiraled along his skin.
He was wearing a T-shirt and sweats, but I could only imagine from the breadth of his shoulders that he must be in good shape. I suppose a drummer would have to be, I thought.
Not that I was giving him any passes for keeping me up all night.
“I’m trying to work right now,” he said, arching an eyebrow at me, a challenge on his face. “Anyway, I pay to live here. Mr. Lake doesn’t care if I make noise, so I hardly see how it’s any of your concern.”
I threw my hands in the air. “It’s my concern because I pay to live here too!” I snapped. “And who the hell is Mr. Lake?”
The Boy Next Door: A Standalone Enemies-to-Lovers Romance Page 1
