Rock All Night (The Rock Star's Seduction #2)

by Olivia Thorne

He shrugged. “In some ways.”

  This was not computing.

  “But – you love music – ”

  “Ah, you said being a rock star. You said nothing about being a musician.”

  “Isn’t it the same thing?”

  He laughed, a funny little snort. “Hell’s bells, no. The rock star bit is pageantry. The music… that’s real.”

  “What about playing for the crowds?”

  “What about it?”

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “Of course. But I did that back in Hackney.”

  “What?”

  “Neighborhood in London. Where I grew up.”

  I frowned, still not quite understanding.

  He realized that, and smiled. “Meaning that I’ve always been a musician, even when I was that five-year-old who nicked his mum’s paycheck and bought a guitar from the pawnshop. This rock star nonsense, that’s just been the last couple of years.”

  “Oh. So… is there any part of being a rock star that you like?”

  He paused and thought. “I’d say playing with other rock stars… but we were all just musicians when we first got together, weren’t we? The rock star bit just happened along the way.”

  “So you’d be okay just going back to Athens and playing the clubs there, then? Nobody knowing who you are?”

  He shrugged. “I know who I am.”

  Whoa.

  I hadn’t planned on getting this deep at ten-thirty in the morning.

  Killian realized how he sounded, and smiled genially. “As long I’ve got my guitar and my herb, luv, I’m a happy man. But that’s enough about me. I seem to remember the conversation started off about you.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He continued right past my objections. “And what was this fantasy she was so adamant you leave behind?”

  I debated saying anything… and kept quiet for five, six, seven seconds…

  Killian just waited patiently, strumming away quietly at the strings.

  “She says that Derek’s going to cheat on me, and that he can’t be faithful,” I finally blurted out.

  “Oh,” Killian said, and settled back in his chair.

  He even stopped playing his guitar.

  That ‘Oh’ just hung there in the silence like a sword over my head.

  “‘Oh’?” I said incredulously. “That’s all you’ve got to say – ‘oh’?”

  He winced, then started picking at the strings again. “Perhaps I shouldn’t get involved.”

  Now I was getting pissed again.

  “Oh, you’re already involved,” I said, irritated. “You got involved the second you got me to sit down and spill my guts.”

  He sighed. “You seem like a nice bird, Kaitlyn. And I’m quite fond of Derek. Besides being a hell of a front man, he’s a good bloke.”

  “I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

  “But… I’d have to agree with your friend.”

  It was like he’d knocked the air out of me. It took me a few seconds to respond.

  “Agree with her about…?”

  “From all the evidence I’ve ever seen, Derek’s not a one-woman chap. He’s a bit of a… free spirit, you might say. He’s just wired that way. It’s in his nature.” He pronounced it very British: nay-chuh. “And it’s in your nature to…”

  I waited, on the edge of my seat.

  He didn’t finish his thought, but sat there looking like he was thinking hard.

  “It’s my nature to what?” I said, a sliver of aggression in my voice.

  He made a face, like he knew he’d stepped in it, and now he regretted going out for a walk in the first place. “Have you ever heard the story about the scorpion and the frog?”

  “What? No – what’s that got to do with – ”

  “So there was this frog, see, on the riverbank. And he’s just about to swim across the river when this scorpion comes along and says, ‘Hey, mate, can you ferry me across the river on your back?’

  “And the frog says, ‘But you’re a scorpion.’

  “And the scorpion says, ‘So?’

  “And the frog says, ‘You’ll get me halfway out there and sting me, you right bastard.’

  “And the scorpion says, ‘No I won’t – if I sting you, you’ll die out there, and I’ll drown along with you. I’m not gonna sting you ‘cause it’ll be the end of me, too.’

  “The frog thinks about that for a moment and finally says, ‘Alright, then, I guess I’ll take you across.’

  “So they’re halfway across the river when suddenly the frog feels this horrible pain and realizes the scorpion’s gone and stung him. And as he starts to go numb and can’t work his legs anymore, he croaks out, ‘You stupid git! Why’d you sting me? Now we’re both going to die!’

  “And the scorpion says, ‘I’m sorry… I couldn’t help it… it’s in my nature.’”

  It’s in my nay-chuh.

  Killian fell silent, watching me expectantly, with only the plink of his guitar strings filling the air between us.

  “I do know that story, Killian,” I said, fighting to keep calm. “I didn’t know what you were talking about at first, but once you started telling it, I remembered.”

  He brightened the tiniest bit. “Oh, good. So you have heard it.”

  “Yeah. And they always use it to point out how fucking stupid the frog is. Which apparently is me.”

  He got an alarmed look on his face. “What? No – ”

  “So apparently Derek’s a scorpion, and I’m the dumbass sleeping with him, waiting to get stung.”

  “No, no, no,” Killian said hastily. “No, you’ve got it all wrong – ”

  “Really? You mean, it’s not a parable about how idiotic it is to get involved with somebody who’s just going to hurt you, even when you know it ahead of time?”

  “The point is, the scorpion’s not bad,” Killian explained. “It acts according to its nature. It’s neither good nor bad. It’s just a scorpion.”

  “People generally agree that scorpions are bad, Killian.”

  “Only because they get stung when they mishandle them. But people like grasshoppers, don’t they?”

  “…what?”

  “People like grasshoppers, don’t they?” he repeated, then added, “More than scorpions, anyway.”

  “…uh… yeah, I guess – ”

  “But grasshoppers are far more destructive than scorpions. Scorpions eat other bugs, but grasshoppers swarm in and eat all the crops, yes? Biblical plagues and whatnot. Whole multitudes starving to death. But people are always like, ‘Oh, nice little grasshopper,’ and ‘Nasty, horrid scorpion – ’”

  I sat there wondering when he was going to get to his point.

  And then I remembered that I was talking to a guy who was stoned 24/7.

  “What the fuck does this have to do with anything?” I snapped.

  “Just follow me for a moment.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Fine.”

  “The scorpion isn’t bad, in and of itself. It’s just a scorpion.”

  “Okay.”

  “So when it stings the frog, it’s not malicious. It’s just being a scorpion.”

  “SO?! The frog still DIES!”

  “Everything dies. Dying is a natural part of life.”

  This really was like a 3AM conversation in a college dorm room with a stoned pothead – except I wasn’t high, so it was basically just annoying.

  “But it didn’t have to die!”

  “But, you see, perhaps the frog is acting according to its nature, too.”

  “What, being stupid?”

  “No, being kind. That doesn’t make the frog smart or stupid. It’s just acting according to its nature, as well.”

  “So the scorpion’s not bad, it’s just a scorpion, and the frog’s not dumb, it’s just nice, but put them together and they’re both going to die out in the middle of the river. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  Killian paused and looked confused. />
  “Alright,” he mumbled, “perhaps that wasn’t the best story to use to illustrate the situation.”

  “You think?”

  “Derek’s not a bad bloke, Kaitlyn,” he said softly. “But if he does something that hurts you, try to remember that it wasn’t meant maliciously. It’s… just his nature.”

  Just his nay-chuh.

  “Can I give you a piece of advice, Killian?” I asked as I stood up.

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t use that story to comfort any other women. Ever. Especially when they’re pissed off.”

  “…right,” he said apologetically.

  I walked over to the door. The irritation I was feeling had temporarily overridden my nausea.

  Maybe it was time to get started on that bender.

  Bloody Mary? Mimosa? Straight-up champagne?

  “Kaitlyn?” came Killian’s hesitant voice.

  I stopped with my hand on the doorknob and turned back. “Yes?”

  “Sorry about bollocksing that up.”

  He looked really apologetic. Downright pathetic, even.

  “…that’s alright,” I grumbled.

  “I guess cocking things up is in my nature.”

  My nay-chuh.

  He said it so pitifully, so seriously – and the story had been such an ill-conceived attempt to convey wisdom or condolences or whatever the fuck he had been trying to impart – that there was no way the words could support the grave earnestness behind them.

  It was just… ridiculous.

  Or maybe I’d gotten a contact high by sitting next to him for ten minutes.

  Either way, I started giggling.

  He looked surprised – and then he smiled, as though realizing he might have somehow miraculously snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

  “Bye, Killian,” I said, shaking my head, and walked out of the room.

  “Toodles,” he called after me.

  The last thing I heard before the door closed was the whisper of his guitar strings.

  81

  Killian’s little parable made me paranoid. I tried to put it out of my mind, but it tended to creep back in every time something less-than-perfect happened.

  And a lot of less-than-perfect things began to happen.

  You hear musicians talk about the Road, about the toll the Road takes. Back in 1973, Bob Seger wrote a song about it, “Turn The Page,” where his life as a rock star takes on this dark, relentless grind.

  I’d never really understood that. I just figured musicians were talking about the driving and the traveling, like that scene in Walk The Line where a young June Carter and Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis are all in the same car late at night, and Jerry Lee kind of goes off the religious deep end.

  But I thought that the driving and the boredom were all musicians were talking about when they mentioned the Road.

  Then I found out by going through it.

  It was the constant repetition of waking up in a strange room… hanging out, not really doing much… going to play a show… partying… waking up the next morning… getting on a bus… and doing it all over again.

  It was a wandering gypsy sort of life, which I wasn’t cut out for. And yet it also had a lot of the hallmarks of a 9-to-5 job, except it was 24/7. Like a wandering gypsy who had to punch a time clock again and again and again.

  No wonder so many musicians turned to drug abuse and alcoholism and sex addiction. You needed something to take your mind off of how much a routine you were stuck in, with no end in sight.

  And I just barely got a taste. The band had been touring for four months before I came along. I was there for the very last leg of their North American tour: Los Angeles. Irvine. San Diego. San Francisco. Sacramento. Portland. Vancouver. Boise. Seattle. Salt Lake City. Denver. Albuquerque. Phoenix. And finally a two-night engagement in Las Vegas.

  Even the partying began to take on a desperate quality, like being trapped in some kind of Groundhog Day purgatory. The same types of fans. The same look to the groupies. The same faces on the crew. The same concrete corridors in the stadiums and arenas. The same drinks, the same drugs, the same jokes, the same rituals, the same everything.

  The Road was its own peculiar sort of hell.

  And it was taking its toll on Derek and me.

  I’m not entirely sure it was just the stress of the Road. I think part of it was my paranoia over what Killian and Shanna had said. Either way, I began watching Derek on the sly, taking mental notes, totting up marks on a mental chalkboard.

  And overanalyzing everything.

  Although there was a lot to overanalyze.

  I could give you dozens of stories, but part of good writing is judicious editing, so I’ll just hit the highlights.

  We began snapping at each other, for one thing. Not in the ‘building sexual tension’ way before we’d slept with each other, but out of genuine irritation.

  We had our first fight – our first ‘relationship’ fight – over toothbrushes, for God’s sake.

  “Jesus, Kaitlyn, can you not put your toothbrush right next to mine?” Derek asked one morning. He said it with a sense of humor – but that ‘Jesus, Kaitlyn’ got under my skin.

  I came over and looked at what he was talking about. He kept his toothbrush in a glass, and I’d casually stuck mine in there earlier.

  “What do you care?” I asked with considerably less humor than he’d used.

  “I just like my toothbrush to be by itself,” he said, the humor fading fast.

  “What does it matter? We’re sleeping together. Any germs I have, you’ve already got by now.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Then who cares?” I snapped.

  “I’m asking you – ”

  “It didn’t sound like you were asking me.”

  Now he was getting really irritated. “Well consider this a formal request, then: put your own toothbrush into your own glass. There’s, like, five of them on the counter – ”

  “Why do you care?!”

  “Why do I have to have a fucking reason?! Just don’t put your toothbrush in my goddamn glass! CAN YOU HANDLE THAT?”

  In answer, I took my toothbrush and walked out – not just out of the bathroom, but out of the hotel room.

  I probably looked pretty odd stomping down the hallway with a toothbrush in my clenched fist, but there was no way in hell I was going back in there.

  Derek apologized later and just explained that he liked his space. I apologized for getting angry so quickly.

  What I didn’t tell him was that I had a creeping apprehension that the toothbrushes were just a stand-in for something else.

  But, I mean, that was just the stress of the Road, right?

  The constant togetherness, with only a couple hours’ break here and there, right?

  …right?

  82

  One of my biggest problems was that the jealousy came back. With a vengeance.

  For the first five or six days after we slept together, Derek only had eyes for me. No matter how beautiful the groupies and models and actresses were who flirted with him, he didn’t give them anything other than the obligatory (but still dazzling) smile. Boobs came out en masse, but the most risqué thing he signed was a girl’s arm. And then he would turn away and put his arm around me, and walk me through the crowd introducing me to rock legends and movie stars.

  The green-eyed monster was still lurking in the background, but it wasn’t gnawing at my guts like it had before.

  Then… something changed.

  I think it was an exceptionally beautiful hotel concierge. Brunette, six feet tall, crystal blue eyes. She didn’t know who Derek was, and she didn’t give a damn. She was polite but perfunctory, and acted entirely blasé during the beginning of their interaction.

  Derek was having none of it.

  He turned up the charm to 11. He leaned over the counter in a ‘hey baby’ kind of way and kept cracking jokes like his life depended on getting her into bed.


  It worked.

  Well, not the ‘getting her into bed’ part. Although that was only because he brought her up short once he had her on the line.

  She laughed at one of his jokes. He made a mildly suggestive comment and she shut down. He teased her about her reaction and made her laugh again. Within another sixty seconds she couldn’t take her eyes off of him.

  It was like watching an elaborately choreographed dance. A mating dance.

  And I went from unsure, to astonished, to boiling-hot furious over the course of it.

  A running monologue kept spooling out in my head the entire time.

  Wait… what is he doing?

  Is he doing what I THINK he’s doing?

  What the fuck – he IS doing what I think he’s doing!

  He’s KNOWS I’m here, right?!

  Why the FUCK is he DOING this?!

  Just as they finished their interaction and she looked like she was about to hurdle the counter and jump his bones, I latched onto his arm like a tiger and dragged him off.

  He went willingly, but he threw up a casual See ya! salute. “Catch you later!”

  She stood there, her eyes open wide, her face like a little kid whose birthday gift had been taken away just as she was about to open it.

  “What the fuck was that?!” I hissed, low enough where I hoped no one but Derek could hear me.

  He played stupid. “What?”

  “That!”

  “You’re going to have to be a little more specific, babe.”

  “You putting the moves on that – that woman!”

  “Whaaat?!” he grinned, then shook his head like I had it all wrong. “No, no – that was just a little friendly flirting.”

  “Friendly flirting is ‘that color looks nice on you.’ That was NOT friendly flirting.”

  “Sure it wa– ”

  “Why are you even fucking flirting in the first place?! And in front of me! Do you know how disrespectful that is?”

  “To who?”

  “To ME!”

  He stared at me like I’d just grown a second head. “Are you serious?”

  “No, I just like getting this angry and pissed off. Yes I’m fucking serious!”

  There’s this Pixar short, One Man Band, where two dueling street musicians are pulling out all the stops to get a coin from a little girl. The big buff musician stumbles, makes a fool of himself, and falls all over his drums. The little girl looks over at the skinny musician, who rolls his eyes and gives this utter look of contempt that manages to combine What an idiot with Forget what you just saw even exists, because it was so beneath your notice.