My Rock #5 (The Rock Star Romance Series - Book #5)

MY
ROCK #5

THE
ROCK STAR ROMANCE SERIES

By
Alycia Taylor

Copyright
2014. All rights reserved.

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CHAPTER
ONE

TRISTAN

Damn it! Someone was banging on the damned door! I
pulled the covers up over my head and ignored them, hoping they would go away. I
snuggled down deep under the comforter and, just when I closed my eyes again, the
persistent SOB knocked once more.

Fuck! “What?”

“Tristan, it’s nurse Carter.” She stuck her head in
the door and said, “The doctor wants to see you in about fifteen minutes,
okay?”

I pushed back the covers and looked around. I forgot
where the fuck I was for a minute. Shit!

“I see him in the afternoon!” I told her, pulling
the covers back up.

“He wants to see you this morning, Tristan. Fifteen
minutes.” She had that tone, the one that told you she might look like a sweet
little lady, but if you messed with her, she could kick your ass, easily. I
didn’t have to see her face either to know she was giving me ‘the look.’ I
seemed to garner it from her frequently. She left and closed the door behind
her. Fucking nurses and doctors! I was ready to get out of that damned place. I
was tired of people telling me when to get up and when to go to bed and when to
see the fucking doctor. I threw the covers back again and pulled myself up.

I looked out the window. The L.A. sun was shining
through the smog and I ached to get out there into it. I could go out on the
smoker’s patio, but it wasn’t quite the same. I did the basics: face, teeth,
hair, and then slipped on a clean t-shirt and the funky slippers they gave you
when you’re admitted. I had pajama pants on, a thing I wasn’t used to. At home,
I usually slept naked, or in my boxers, but there you never knew when nurse Ratchet
was going to poke her head in the door.

 
Wondering
what the hell the doctor wanted with me so early, I headed down the hall to his
office.
 
Hopefully he wanted to talk
about discharge. I felt ready. The last time I went to rehab, and the time
before that, when I went right back into a shitty environment around a bunch of
losers with more than questionable habits. I was using within a week both times.
I’d start with alcohol, telling myself it was okay because that wasn’t my drug
of choice, but it had always led up from there. I promised myself I wasn’t
going to do that this time—I would be homeless, but at least I’d be alone. I’d
stay away from the bars and the dredges of society and just work on writing
songs.

I found my doctor sitting behind his desk, as usual.
I wondered if his ass ever got sore from sitting on it so much. “Hey, Doc.”

“Good morning, Tristan, have a seat.”

I sat down and he said, “I’m looking at your progress
here and I think you’re about ready to go. How do you feel about that?”

“I think I’m ready to go, too,” I told him. Thank
God!

“My only issue with letting you leave is where
you’ll be going?”

“Home,” I said. I never told him I was getting
evicted. He didn’t really need to know, I thought.

“Is someone going to be there with you?”

“No, but I’m a big boy, Doc. I wipe my own ass and
everything.”

He had no sense of humor. He gave me a stern look
and said, “I honestly don’t think you’re ready to be alone, Tristan. Alone
seems to be when you mess up…am I right?”

I shrugged. The truth was that alone was when I did
everything. I was always alone. “I live alone, Doc. I’m not sure what you want
me to do. You’ve met my parents.”

“Okay, we can have you stay a bit longer until I
feel more confident that you’ll be okay on your own…”

“No…no, I’m ready to be out of here.” I had a
thought and before I really thought it through, I blurted it out… “I can stay
with my friend Elly. Remember, she’s been coming by to see me a lot and sat in
on that fiasco with my parents. She offered already….”

 
He raised an
eyebrow like maybe he didn’t believe me. I’m sure he looked at Elly…so clean
cut and soft-spoken and thought surely she’d never see anything in a guy like
me. Finally he cleared his throat and said, “Fine, but I’ll need her to be at
all of your outpatient appointments then. She’ll be a part of your recovery. Is
that going to work for her?”

“Yeah, of course. She’ll be fine with it.” I had no
fucking idea if she’d agree to that or not, but I suddenly felt like I needed
out of there, immediately. I was pretty sure I could talk her into it.

“Okay then, I’ll have the nurse get together your
discharge papers. You’ll start your outpatient treatment next week. You’ll get
a call to come in later in the week to sit down and make a schedule that will
work for you and Elly.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” I told him. I would have agreed
to suck his dick at that point. Not that I’d do it, but I just wanted to agree
to whatever I had to so that I could go home. I’d even agree to do Nurse
Ratchet out there.

I left his office and started packing. I could taste
my freedom at last. I was packed up and ready to go and I still hadn’t seen the
nurse. It figured, when I didn’t want her there, she was in my face. When I
needed her, she was on her ass at the nurse’s station. I took my duffle bag and
went out to the nurse’s station.

The nurse saw me coming and said, “Oh, now he’s up.”
She could be a sarcastic bitch sometimes.

I rolled my eyes and told her, “Doc said you’d have
my paperwork.”

“I have it right here,” she said, proud of herself
for pulling out a few forms. She put it up on the counter and showed me where
to sign, date and initial. I was ten years older when I got done.

“Is that it?”

“That’s it, Tristan. You be good.”

I winked at her and said, “I’m always good.” I think
she actually blushed.

I stepped outside the doors and took a deep breath
of the fresh air. I’d been out, back and forth to the studio since I’d been
there, but it wasn’t the same knowing I had to go back. The air tasted
different. I was never going back. I was never putting that shit back in my
body, if for no other reason than how fucking hard it was to get out.

I got on the bike and headed home, feeling better
than I had since I couldn’t remember when. This was my do-over and I wasn’t
going to screw this one up.
 
This was the
first time since I was about twelve years old that being sober was a priority.
I finally got that staying wasted all the time was no way to live and experience
life. It was numbing the pain of what I’d been through, but until I sobered up
and let that shit go, it would just keep dragging me back down.

I parked my bike in front of my apartment and headed
upstairs. When I got there, I dug the key out of my big ass duffle bag and
tried to put it in the keyhole. I say tried, because the fucking thing didn’t
fit. The locks were changed. Shit! I fished out the phone they gave me back when
they discharged me and turned it. I laughed, sardonically when I realized that after
almost two weeks I didn’t have a single missed call. I looked up Buck’s number
and pressed send.
 

“Hello!” he said, all pleasant and shit.

“Hey Buck! It’s Tristan. I guess you kicked me out,
huh?”

“I’m sorry Tristan; I didn’t have any other choice….”

“Where are my things?”

“I’m sorry, Tristan,” he said again.

“My stuff, Buck. Where’s my stuff?” I wanted him to
focus. I wasn’t in the mood for his apologies all of a sudden.

“Downstairs in your storage area, your key to that
will still work. If you need some time to get them out, that’s fine.”

Fuck, I couldn’t believe I was fucking homeless. It
was the one thing I had left…shit! I knew it was coming, but the reality of it
was like getting punched in the gut. There went my do-over.

“Alright, yeah it’ll be a while.”

“Tristan…good luck,” he said. Suddenly something
came over me and for a few seconds I felt empathy for someone else. Fucking
sobriety, the poor guy sounded like he felt like shit for kicking me out and I
actually cared.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said. I couldn’t believe I was
thanking him for making me homeless. I was practically a choir boy sober.
Hopefully Elly will believe that when I show up on her doorstep.

I took my duffel bag and left the rest of my shit in
storage and headed over to see if Elly was going to take me in, or turn me
away. I had a feeling that she was too nice to turn me out on the streets. If
she wasn’t so nice, she’d have probably shut me down a long time ago.

CHAPTER
TWO

ELLY

I was trying hard not to obsess over the fact that
I’d gotten fired from an internship. It was a paid internship, so it was a lot
like a real job, but I’d gotten myself fired. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been
blatantly defiant of their rules and I deserved to get fired, but it was so
unlike me. On top of that, I was worried about money. I kept telling myself
that I had plenty of money left in the bank to get me through until I could
find another job. I doubted that I’d be able to get another internship in LA…but
a job is a job. There were plenty of things I could do. I learned how to do a
lot when I was working on the show. I was an expert at putting people in line. I
hadn’t cried, but thinking about it nearly put me over the edge. Shit! I needed
to get out of the bedroom and do something. I wasn’t going to cry, or wallow in
self-pity. I knew what I was doing and I knew what the consequences would be if
I did it. I had to find a way to live with them.

I went out into the living room and found Susie
sitting on the couch watching television. One look at my face and she clicked
it off and patted the sofa next to her.

“Sit, spill. What’s going on?”

I sat and smiled at her. “I screwed up,” I told her.

“That’s hard to imagine,” she said with a grin.
“You’re perfect.”

I laughed, “A perfect idiot. I lost my internship.”

“Oh my goodness! Why? Tristan?”

“Yeah, because they found out about Tristan and me
seeing each other.”

“Shit,” she said.

“Yeah, my sentiments exactly.”

“So who told them?”

“I guess I did. Did you see the show the other
night?”

“No, I have it on DVR. I haven’t had a chance to
watch it yet. Why?”

I hung my head. “He needed a duet partner….”

Susie slapped the arm of the couch. “Oh shit! You
didn’t? You sang with him on live television?”

“Afraid so,” I admitted. “And when the song ended,
he kissed me.”

“You got it bad girl!”

“Shut up, I do not. He just didn’t have anyone else
and he was doing rehab and trying and I felt bad…”

“Yeah, okay,” she laughed a little and then she
said, “You knew what would happen; you were just willing to give it up for him.
I’m sorry though, about the job…internship. If you need any help…”

“I’ll be fine,” I told her. “It’s really not a big
deal.” I needed to keep repeating that until I finally believed it. “I’m
worried about Tristan, though.”

She smiled again and said, “More worried about the
boyfriend than you are yourself…yeah, you got it bad.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Before Susie could say anything else, there was a
knock on the door. She was still looking like she had plenty to say, so I was
grateful.

“I’ll get it,” I told her.

I got up and pulled open the door. I was shocked to
see Tristan there…holding a duffel bag.

“Hey, why aren’t you at rehab? More importantly, why
are you standing on my doorstep with a suitcase? Oh shit! Did you get kicked
off the show?”

He laughed and said, “Um, wouldn’t you like to
invite me in first. Then, I will answer your questions.”

“Oh yeah, sorry. Come in.”

I stepped back and he stepped in. Nodding at Susie
he said, “Hi, I’m Tristan.”

She grinned and said, “Yeah, I figured,” she gave me
the raised eyebrow look and I knew I’d hear it later. “I’m Susie.”

“Let’s go in my room,” I told him. “Susie was trying
to watch her program.”