Dirty Boys: Bad Boy Rock Star Romance Box Set

by Jade C. Jamison

  The problem was his day-to-day now was all an act. Yeah, he had his own family he had to care for and it wasn’t like his mother had been a part of his everyday life—but she’d been there, as close as a phone call, and he could have rang her up or visited her whenever he so chose.

  That choice had been ripped from him and he was struggling with it. And even though no one had said a word suggesting it, after a few days he felt like they all expected him to get his shit together and act normal.

  But things would never be normal again.

  He was able to fake it, though, and he must have been convincing. He’d held onto hope, believing that the new baby would be able to pull him out of the funk.

  The infant didn’t, and that just added to Brad feeling bad. He couldn’t even get his shit together for a newborn. Val was the best wife he could have asked for, and after coming home with the new little guy, it didn’t take her long to begin to suspect things weren’t quite right. She checked in with him frequently, asking him questions, hugging him, holding him close at night. That she knew he was suffering but thought he was handling it okay was a testament to how good an actor he was. But he already knew that. How many years had he been able to convince everyone around him that he had no feelings for Val before they hooked up?

  Far too many.

  He’d given a performance worthy of an Oscar.

  So here he was again, acting like everything was fine, everything was normal…but it really wasn’t. Val had probably been easy enough to fool before the baby was born simply because she’d been in her own moody roller coaster. This pregnancy had affected her emotions more than her other two, and Val would have been the first to admit it. The kids, too…so long as he went through the motions—reading a nightly story to Hayley, tossing a ball in the backyard with Chris, tucking them both in at night—they’d have no clue. And he preferred it that way. The kids should never have to know or feel what he was going through. It was bad enough that it had shown on his face right after his mom had passed, and he knew it when he’d seen his raw emotion mirrored in Chris’s face. But kids being resilient moved on, living their lives, and their dad’s turmoil was forgotten when it was no longer manifested in his features.

  Several weeks after the baby was born, Brad was still going through the motions. It was Friday afternoon and he knew he had to pull it together. The guys—his best friends and bandmates—were due over for a games night where they’d all hang in the basement, the space Valerie had dubbed her husband’s cave. There would be beer and pizza, maybe some chips and salsa, but it had become a tradition—once a month, the guys would get together without the purpose of creating music. It felt like old times when they did it, and it reminded them that they were brothers, not just coworkers.

  But Brad wasn’t feeling it. He didn’t want to put on his everything’s fine face. He’d taken to mourning in the wee hours before dawn when no one was watching or in the evening when he could act like he was reading a book. Having to pretend with some of the people who knew him best would prove to be exhausting…but it wasn’t something he hadn’t already been doing.

  He’d been trying to work on new songs as the band was due to put out an album soon, but he just couldn’t make it work. That more than anything else was disturbing. Writing had always been his outlet, his therapy, his way of letting go of all the bad shit that had hold of him. If he couldn’t write it out…

  So he’d been trying to writing a song or songs for his mother, just focusing on some aspect about her that made her unique, made him love her. That hadn’t worked so he’d then tried the everyman approach, writing a song for mothers in general and his in specific, honoring them for their role in their children’s lives.

  But nothing helped…and he clung to the hope that time heals all wounds—it was all he had…hope. And if his bandmates were to ask him how the songwriting process was going, he wasn’t sure how he’d answer them.

  So Brad stood at the bathroom counter examining his reflection—the dark hair and brown eyes that never seemed to change—practicing positive facial expressions. It almost worked—and it should, provided that no one looked him in the eye for more than a couple seconds. And, so long as he and the guys watched the TV and drank beer, no one would be the wiser.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  “Daddy?”

  Persistent little Hayley. She didn’t need in the bathroom but the idea that Brad was behind a closed door wouldn’t do. So he opened it and scooped up his little girl in his arms, kissing the top of her head before holding her close. When he felt her tiny hands on his chin, he looked at her. “Daddy? Down.”

  Well, that had been short lived…but he was behaving like her normal father, even tousling her hair before watching her toddle back down the hallway toward the family room.

  He couldn’t understand one thing—why he couldn’t stop feeling sorry for himself. It seemed so selfish, and yet he couldn’t find a way past it. He wasn’t the first guy in history to lose a mom; in fact, in the grand scheme of things, he could be grateful that her illness hadn’t been prolonged.

  It gnawed at him when he realized he couldn’t just hop in the car and drive over the mountains to see her, and the more he thought about it, the more he knew that part of his mourning was exacerbated by the regret he felt at not having made the effort to visit more often. His anger at her passing was fueled by the ridiculous mantra running in the background of his mind, the one that said he should have known she’d pass at some point and he shouldn’t have wasted all that precious time.

  That was stupid, though, and he knew even his mom would have taken issue with his current way of thinking. He’d left his old hometown with his friends and they’d moved to the Denver area to help with their careers, making the eastern slope of Colorado their home. His mother had her own home and career over a hundred miles away—so visiting often was more difficult. It wasn’t like they hadn’t kept in touch by phone.

  “Penny for your thoughts.”

  He’d wandered into the family room mired in the torture that had become his mind without registering the scene in front of him. Chris was engaged in a videogame and Hayley was standing beside him, watching the animated characters on the screen battle, guided by her big brother. Val sat on the couch nursing the baby in her lap—but she’d managed to see on Brad’s face much of what he’d been trying to hide over the past couple of months.

  But no way was he going to tell her his thoughts. She didn’t need that burden on top of a fussy baby. This new little one—she said he’d been her easiest delivery, but he seemed to be having a hard time adjusting to life on the outside. Why did the worst of it have to happen between the hours of one AM and four, though?

  So he lied. It was easy enough to talk about something he’d already pondered a little, glossing over the big thing in his head. “You good with the guys coming over tonight?”

  “Oh, honey. You guys haven’t done anything over here in two months. You’ve hardly done anything together.” Her beaming face returned to the baby in her lap, and she stroked his head. “Of course, I’m okay with it. It’ll be good for you.”

  Maybe she was right. “You want me to order a pizza for you and the kids, too?”

  “You don’t want me to make something?”

  As much as he’d loved chowing on the appetizers and party food Val would throw at them every time they had a guy’s night at their house, he knew the baby demanded a lot of his wife’s attention—and last night had been particularly tiring. “No. You just rest. Half pepperoni, half cheese sound good?”

  “That’s fine. I’ll make a salad to go with it.”

  “Do you want me to order one?”

  Chris paused the game and turned, saying, “Aw, mom, why do you always make us eat salad with pizza?”

  “Because salad’s good for you.”

  The little boy scrunched up his face. “Why can’t just pizza be good for me?”

  “I’m letting you eat it, aren’t I?” Chris couldn�
�t come up with a good counter argument, so he turned back to the game and his sister’s attention followed him. Val looked up at her husband. “Anything else you want me to do?”

  “No, nothing—and I’ll order a salad, too, so you can just take it easy.”

  Val’s eyes returned to his and she smiled—a reminder of her love, one that Brad needed. He bent over and kissed her on the forehead. “Guess I better go get the cave ready—clean it up a bit.”

  “You think the guys would even notice if you didn’t?”

  Brad grinned, and it actually made him forget the shit in his head for a moment. “Probably not—but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need it.”

  Indeed. He hadn’t stepped foot in there since last fall, and he couldn’t remember exactly when that had been—before the holidays, before his mom’s sudden illness and death, before the baby. When he thought back over the past year, he realized he’d lost a lot of time and then he wondered—does time really heal all wounds or are they always with you?

  Would he ever feel normal again?

  * * *

  “How the hell you holding up, man?” Brad never would have expected his best friend, the guy who felt like his brother, to arrive before the other guys—but Brad also tended to forget that Ethan had been a changed man the last few years. He had a good woman in his life—the right woman for him—and they had a daughter together. Ethan’s outlook on life was completely different nowadays.

  Most importantly, Ethan had given up all the toxic shit he’d relied on for so long—the drugs that had kept him alive had, at the very end, almost been his demise.

  But here he was now, a shadow of his former self—in a positive way. All the good things about Ethan, the things his friends had always loved him for, had remained. The guy was still a little too cocky, but Brad had always seen past that. The two of them had been through the best and worst of times together, had seen the best and worst in each other, and had survived. So for Ethan to somehow sense Brad’s internal struggle—and he knew that from the way Ethan had framed his question—meant more than he could ever express.

  His best friend pulled him into a manly hug, slapping him on the back, letting Brad know he was there to support him. But no way was Brad going to talk about it. He’d already shut that part off; he just had to find a way to live life again. “Doing all right. Trying to get back to normal, you know?”

  Ethan’s smile reached his green eyes. “And what the hell is that exactly?”

  They sat down in the main room of the basement where they did their guy things. If Brad hadn’t built a studio in the backyard, they would have done a lot of practicing down here, too. As it was, they tended to do a little music in the basement anyway, just not the bulk of it. More than that, though, they bonded over all the other things they’d always loved—movies, an occasional football game, food, beer, and conversation. In the past year, Brad had also added a pool table and dart board, even though they hardly ever used them.

  “You still okay with beer, man? Or do I need to get you something else?”

  “Nah, I can have one or two—especially if it’s that fake shit you always serve.”

  “You caught me.” While Brad had never experienced dependency, Ethan wasn’t his only friend who’d struggled. So even though Brad had real beer upstairs tucked in the back of the fridge in the kitchen, the only thing downstairs where he and his friends congregated was of the non-alcoholic variety.

  He opened the mini fridge in the corner of the room and took out two unassuming brown bottles in the room that was more a tribute to music than manliness. When Brad had finally taken Val’s advice to settle into the room, he’d bought posters first and had them framed—not just of some of his favorite bands, old and new, but even one of This is Spinal Tap and other favorite movies. Eventually, he’d purchased so damn many posters that he’d hired a designer to help him out—and she’d wound up running with the idea. But she went further. The room wound up having the feel of a cabin with rustic raw wood accents throughout the room, brown carpet, and furniture with accents of hunter green. The walls were divided by wainscoting, and the top half was decorated with a sort of wallpaper—but instead of wallpaper, the decorator had taken the posters (and purchased more with Brad’s blessings) and made a collage throughout the room, with his original favorites in frames, hanging over the collage. She’d even shellacked posters behind the area where the TV screen hung and the area where the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf hulked, because she told him he might want to rearrange the room now and then.

  But this space that had been a comfort to Brad, full of things that brought him joy, now felt hollow, much like the way he did inside. He looked around, knowing he should have been enjoying himself…but it was all just an act. To deflect anything else Ethan might sense, he handed him the beer and said, “What about you? What’s up?”

  Ethan’s lips turned up on one side as he brought the bottle to his mouth. Then he said, “Actually, I needed to ask you a favor.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  His friend paused, looking down at the lip of the bottle before meeting Brad’s eyes again. “Would you be my best man?”

  It took a few seconds for Ethan’s words to sink in. “What? You’re getting married?”

  “Yeah. ‘Bout time, don’t you think?”

  Brad led Ethan to the chairs closer to the television. “I thought you said you’d never get married again.”

  “Yeah, but it’s been in my mind for a while. I know Jenna says she doesn’t care, but it really hit home with me a few weeks ago. She takes Scarlet to some fancy daycare place when I’m on the road or have something going on. Anyway, they had some Mother’s Day thing going on and parents were invited. I don’t know—some tea or something. And we went.” The way Ethan rolled his eyes told Brad exactly what he’d thought about it—but that he’d gone in spite of his distaste spoke volumes. “Anyway, Jenna had a hell of a time introducing me. It was so damn awkward. I think she went through every description in the book. Boyfriend was fine before the baby was born and I think she’s finally settled on calling me her partner, but…”

  “So you’re just doing it for her?”

  “I’m doing it for her, for Scarlet—and for me. Shit, Brad, you know as well as I do I got lucky twice. No way I’m letting Jenna go—and if putting a ring on her finger makes her happy, I’m doing it.”

  “Congratulations, man. Of course, I’d be proud to be your best man. You set a date?”

  “Nah. I just bought the ring yesterday. Mom’s visiting tomorrow and staying for a few days. She already knows, and she’s going to watch Scarlet while I take Jenna out on a date and formally propose.”

  Brad heard footsteps on the stairs and, within seconds, both Nick and Zane, the other two members of their band, appeared. “Val let us in,” Zane said as his feet hit the floor.

  “All these years and she’s still not afraid of us,” Nick quipped.

  “Our women came along, so the upstairs is full of kids and shit.”

  “I guess we’re the ones who should be afraid.”

  In spite of his inner turmoil, Brad grinned. It was good to have his friends around. “Got that right. Why do you think we’re in the demilitarized zone down here?”

  It was good—no, great—to have the guys there, to banter like they used to, to know that they were all doing well and were happy with their lives. And there was no denying what they had in common as he looked at his friends in the room—varying hair lengths, all longer than the guys in suits working in downtown Denver, tattoos on most of their exposed skin. Brad felt some modicum of comfort from being around his friends, knowing their lives were going well, but—as they settled into playing games—he felt himself once more retreat into that shell of numbness where he’d been living for so long.

  At a pause in the proceedings, though, Nick finally asked, “You doing okay, man?”

  Brad hadn’t expected the question; he’d thought he’d done a good enough job of pre
tending. So, unprepared, he felt his face squint and his lips purse as he tried to figure out how to address his friend’s question.

  Zane didn’t ask; instead, he said, “It’s your mom.”

  Brad let out the breath of air he didn’t realize he’d been holding in. “Yeah.”

  He felt Ethan’s hand patting him on the back. “It’s tough.”

  “Yeah—I just…didn’t know it would be this hard.”

  “It’s your mom. She gave birth to you, man, raised you, was the biggest part of your life for so long. It’s not like you can just shut that off.”

  It was a relief to hear his friend say that.

  Nick asked, “What can we do?”

  “Keep things normal—that helps.”

  “What about practicing, recording? Are you ready for that yet?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t worry about it for now. The music will be there when you’re ready. Take all the time you need.” Brad felt Ethan’s hand squeeze his shoulder in support.

  “Thanks.” He took a drink of the beer in his hand, wishing it was the real thing—but he knew that drowning in alcohol wasn’t the way to get over how he was feeling. He didn’t even know how to explain it to his friends, so he decided to say as much as he could. He looked at the bottle, though, because that would be the only way he could let it all out. “My brother and I need to clean out her house, you know? Go through things, get rid of stuff, decide what we want to keep—and I told him I would, and I keep thinking I’m going to wake up one morning and know it’s time, you know? But I’m not ready, and I have that shit looming overhead. And what an asshole I am. I have a wonderful wife and kids and I just can’t find a way to be happy.”

  “God, man, don’t beat yourself up like that.” Nick shook his head. “Maybe you need a break from everything. And I don’t mean going on tour. Maybe Gracie and I could take the kids for a night and you and Val could spend some time alone together.”

  Brad gave that some thought. Her OB/GYN had given her the no sex for four to six weeks guideline for her recovery from childbirth. They hadn’t made it the full six weeks after the last baby, but they were closing in on it this time because Brad hadn’t thought about it.