Say it Louder (30 page)

Second chances don’t come easy for a guy like me.

When I get one—as a roadie for Tattoo Thief’s concert tour—I’m gonna give it all I’ve got.

But the band’s new drummer rocks me in every way. She’s Ryan Sinclair, my teenage dream. I fell in love with her, and then I broke her heart.

No way she’ll give me a second chance. No way I’m leaving this earth without it.

Skip a Beat (Tattoo Thief #5) is coming January 31, 2017.

Read on for a sneak peek at one of the first chapters…

I mash my foot hard on the accelerator, trying to find the speed that will get me back to Jayce in time for the concert, but not pulled over.

If I get stopped, I’ll never make it in time, and Jayce will be playing the concert without his guitar. I’ll have another mark on my already shaky driving record. And this roadie gig will vanish faster than concert beer.

I’ll be back to unemployed. Fuck if that isn’t depressing.

This gig is supposed to be the start of something great. If I’m careful, a sixteen-city tour with Tattoo Thief will fill up my bank account enough to get through my last year in school.

I curse myself for not checking backups. As the lead on the string instruments, I’m responsible for tuning and setting a half-dozen guitars for Tyler, Jayce and Gavin.

When Jayce sprung his D string in sound check, it was no big deal. But when I finally found the box of spares with no D strings to be had, I screwed up his other guitar trying to swap strings.

One more screwup in my already screwed-up life.

I dump the truck next to our tour trailers and weave through the back lot behind the amphitheater, hoofing it to the green room as fast as I can go. I cut myself in my haste to change the string, curse, and wipe the blood off the instrument with my black T-shirt.

Tuning the D almost does me in—I’m shaking from the adrenaline of the run but force to be silent, nearly still, to ensure I get the note right.

Then I’m running again, my Chucks pounding up black stairs marked with glow-in-the-dark tape. The crowd’s cheers reach a roar when Tattoo Thief walks onstage, and I slip onstage behind them to deposit the guitar in its stand.

Jayce catches me in his peripheral vision and quickly ducks out of the guitar strap holding my baby. The Taylor’s not too spendy, it’s definitely not pretty, but it was the best option when I was the guy who screwed up Jayce’s guitar in the first place.

We swap, he gives me a friendly pat on the back in thanks, and I turn my back to the crowd as Tattoo Thief takes their places for the show to begin.

I close my eyes. Just for a half-second. Just long enough to pause, to believe that thousands of screaming fans are here for
me.

That’s the dream.

But this is reality. And reality says I’m not just a roadie with a dream, but a financially responsible future business guy.

What will I be selling? No clue.

I stride to the edge of the stage and I’m just about to hit the glow strips down the stairs when the snap-pop of a snare and high hat signals the start of Tattoo Thief’s first song.

I turn to look at the drummer, some last-minute addition to the tour like me, and nearly sprain my ankle as I clatter down the stairs. I grip the handrail like a lifeline, then turn back and just stare.

It can’t be her.

Jesus. It feels like a grenade to my chest, this explosion of
knowing
. My teenage dream, Ryan Sinclair, is sitting on the drum throne, legs spread around the snare. And she’s fucking glorious.

My body vibrates in her presence, like the tingly return of sensation to a numbed limb. I’m frozen in place, clutching the rail like I’m drowning as I watch her beat a ferocious pace down the toms and cymbals.

Her sure hand moves back to the snare and she’s everything, she takes up my whole vision. The lights and the stage and the crowd are edged out of the picture by pale brown hair that sways around her face in a few soft curls.

Her arms flex and her whole body moves in a dance, wrapping thousands of fans in her spell and driving the other three musicians forward.

She’s got the beat. Layers of it. My heart stuttered when I saw her—when I
recognized
her—and now it’s in rhythm with her beat, like she sets the pace and I follow.

That’s always the way it was between us, until the day I broke her heart.

“What are you doing, man?” Somebody jerks on my sleeve and it takes me a moment to refocus on anything beyond Ryan.

Guy in black. Right.

Another roadie like me.

He tugs me down the stairs to wait out the first few songs and I sway like I’m wasted or out of it. Memories of how Ryan smelled and tasted and felt under my body hit me faster than her drumbeats, each sense memory bitter and sweet.

But so potent. So fucking potent that I could play reel after reel in my head of the way her small pink nipples tightened in my hands. The tiny moans she’d make when I touched her just right.

In my dreams, I’d win her back. And she’d be my own personal porn star, straddling my lap and riding me like a rodeo horse so hard I’d gasp when I came. And then she’d go sweet, tender, as she kissed my eyelids after fucking me senseless.

I feel my jeans tighten but before I have a chance to covertly adjust my squashed dick, the roadie next to me barks “transition!” and we’re pounding up the steps, ready to move shit here and set shit there so the band’s ready for the next song.

I take a little too long to move Tyler’s monitor. I’m staring at pale brown hair, like coffee with too much cream, as she tips back her head to chug from a water bottle.

Fuck. Even watching her throat work as she gulps it down is going straight to my groin.

She puts the bottle down, grabs her sticks, and then I’m caught.

Caught in the tractor beam that is her gaze, frozen in carbonite like Han Solo, and shit, maybe I’m mixing Star Wars and Star Trek metaphors but this girl is like her own planet.

She stares at me and licks her lips—not in the porn star pre-blow job way, but furtively. And even that is enough to unbalance me.

Her own gravitational force. Pulling me in, again.

But this time, I won’t let myself burn up in her atmosphere.

Want more? You can
preorder
Skip a Beat
on Kobo now
.

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. I often include freebies and early reader invitations, plus I mail a signed paperback to one reader every month.

xoxo

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wrote this book for you.

Yes, you.

Since I published
Revenge Bound
, I’ve received so many messages from readers like you—on Facebook, on my website, and via email—asking when Dave and Willa’s story would be published.

Holy wow,
you’ve been patient.

Thank you so much for sticking with me.

Your messages encouraged me when I wasn’t feeling like much of an author. You helped me keep my head up and refreshed my focus on this fabulous band, Tattoo Thief. You contributed ideas, including some of the names in this book, via my Facebook page.

Some of you have been waiting patiently for more than two years. I took a break to publish another series, bought a new house and sold the old one, changed jobs and traveled a ton. After all of that, I’m back at my keyboard with great joy.

So thank you, thank you, thank you, readers. I couldn’t do this without you.

Special thanks also goes to my amazing assistant Lisa Reeves. She’s been my cheerleader from day one, and her loyalty and support is truly rare and special.

My author friends offer smart advice, inspiring motivation, and boundless empathy (and sometimes they just tell me to have a drink and get over it). Diana, Stephanie, Delancey, Clare, JC, Meghan, Adrian, Brenna, KK, Jim, and Eve—you make this lonely writing thing fun.

So I lift my glass to the best friends and readers (who are often one and the same) that anyone could ask for. Sending you all love. xoxo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Heidi Joy Tretheway
is a sucker for campfires, craft cocktails, and steamy romance in books and real life. She sings along with musicals (badly), craves French carbs, and buys plane tickets the way some women buy shoes.

Heidi Joy’s first career as a journalist took her behind the scenes with politicians, rock stars, chefs, and detectives. Backstage, she learned that sometimes a wardrobe malfunction is exactly what the rock star intends.

Heidi Joy is currently working on her ninth book from her home near Portland, Oregon, and she adores hearing from readers at
[email protected]
.

Books by Heidi Joy Tretheway

Tattoo Thief

A rock star trashed his apartment, abandoned his dog and fled the country. His house sitter must pick up the pieces to find out why he’s running and what can bring him back.

Tyler & Stella: A Tattoo Thief novel

A fledgling music journalist must decide whether to sell a story or tell the truth about a rock star’s explosive secret.

Revenge Bound: A Tattoo Thief novel

When Violet’s naked pictures go viral, a stalker pursues her. But the man who wants to protect her is the one whose fame could hurt her most.

Say it Louder: A Tattoo Thief novel

Dave’s ex threatens to expose a secret that will ruin him, but his intense connection to a mysterious street artist could unlock a shocking truth.

Skip a Beat: A Tattoo Thief novel
(coming January 31, 2017)

When Ryan’s first love and first heartbreak turns up as a roadie for Tattoo Thief’s tour, their sizzling chemistry could destroy her career—and the band.

Contemporary romance

The Phoenix Candidate: A Grace Colton novel

A congresswoman’s one-night stand turns out to be the political consultant assigned to vet her as a vice presidential candidate.

The Phoenix Campaign: A Grace Colton novel

The secrets Grace kept to protect the people she loves most are exposed under the white-hot spotlight of a campaign.

The Phoenix Decision: A Grace Colton novel (coming in 2017)

As the election approaches, an extremist group seeks to end Grace’s run for the White House—and her life.

Women’s fiction

Won’t Last Long

Can two people who are totally wrong for each other ever be right? A Seattle woman faces the destruction of her pristine image as she falls for her polar opposite.

Children’s

A Handful of Gold

A village girl uses kindness and courage to battle bandits and rescue a prince in this fairy tale adventure with an un-princess twist.
(Ages 4-9)

COPYRIGHT

Say it Louder. Copyright © 2016 by Heidi Joy Tretheway. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters and all incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

Credits:
 

Developmental editor and line edits: Jim Thomsen

Copy editor: Cynthia L. Moyer

Cover design: Heidi Joy Tretheway

Cover photo: Shutterstock 139861861

Author photo styling: Adrian R. Hale