Page 2 of Hot Shot Rock Star
Chapter 1
Ben
The best thing about coming home, no matter how tired I am and no matter whether my team lost, is that Jazzy is waiting for me on the other side of the door. Shifting my duffel bag aside, I pull my keys from my pocket and push open our apartment door. When the first sound I hear is her laugh, I drop my duffel and step inside. I’m ready to call out her name. It’s on the edge of my lips when I hear another sound. Not her voice. A man’s voice. The sound stops me, shooting my heart into overdrive.
I know this man’s voice. It reverberates like a cannon to my gut, leaving a hole, crumpling me. I grip the door and then with my head spinning, anger—no rage—spirals up and I slam the door shut behind me, rattling the hinges.
Jazzy yelps, and I bulldoze inside, not thinking, not feeling, shedding the initial pain of shock and moving like a mountain of vengeance forward to right a certain wrong. Because something is very wrong. Everything in me seethes with that knowledge.
“Ben.” Her voice hits me as I turn the corner into the open living area. I see her rise from our sleek new couch, pulling free from the arms of the one fucking bastard I hate most, the one man I can’t do anything about.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I trap his eyes, my fists pinned to my sides, frustration freezing me, blocking me from the homecoming I’d been looking forward to, that I’ve been anticipating since the final buzzer of the miserable game in fucking Montreal three and a half hours ago. Jazzy comes to me, but I don’t look at her even as my arm wraps around her automatically when she reaches me, pulling her body into my side where it fits, where it belongs.
“Chill, man. Don’t get so crazy. I’m here on official business. I needed some signatures and—”
“Bullshit. We don’t need you making house calls. It’s bad enough Jazzy spends too much time at the studio.” He rises from the couch, a smug look on his face, not intimidated in the least by my anger when he should be. Hereallyshould be, because I want to punch his fucking teeth out his ass so bad right now.
“What do you care? You’re never around. Maybe if you weren’t gone all the time—” I fist my hands, but I keep them at my sides and grit out my words.
“I had a road trip, asshole. I’m a fucking NHL hockey player. I should be able to do my job and not worry about fucking dickheads like you—”
“Hey, wait—” Jazzy interjects herself, but I put an arm up and hold her off as she barges into the space between me and the dickhead. Eying the two glasses and the bottle of tequila on the coffee table, I’m not sure she’s sober enough to have this conversation, and even if she were it’s not the kind of thing she deals with well.
He laughs at me. “Talk about bullshit. You have a real trust problem—”
“Don’t,” Jazzy says. “You should go now, Hal. We can go over the rest of the schedule tomorrow.”
“Whatever you say, doll—”
“Don’t call her that.”
Jazzy squeezes my arm, whispers something in my ear. I don’t hear the words, but her soft breath soothes me. The irony isn’t lost on me. A year ago, it would have been me soothing her irrational anger. Except my anger is far from irrational. I have every reason to believe this bloodsucking agent Harold Walker is interested in more than a recording deal and a concert tour for Jazzy. I’ve had the distinct impression he has fringe benefits in mind, since he hasn’t exactly made a secret of his admiration.
“What do you want me to call her? She’s not Mrs. Weaver, is she?” I say nothing to the asshole. “I didn’t think so.” Jazzy leaves my side and goes to the door.
“You were leaving, Hal. Don’t make me kick you in the ass on the way out.” Hal laughs as he follows Jazzy to the door. I watch him and he knows it, winks at me as he reaches out and cups Jazzy’s face and leans in for a kiss. On her fucking mouth. She pulls away and shoves him out the door. He laughs and pulls the door as I move fast, closing in. It slams shut as I reach him and Jazzy throws herself against the door, turning with her back against it, daring me with her flashing eyes to go after the prick.
“Don’t do it, Ben. I need this contract. My three-month apprenticeship is up and the tour he has lined up is—”
“Bullshit. You can sign with someone else.” Everything in me vibrates, but I recognize the flash of challenge in her eyes. “You’re too good for the likes of him.”
“He’s a dick, but Lion Bold is the best.”
“You need to work with someone else at the agency.”
“There is no one else. I already asked.”
“Who’d you ask? The dickhead himself?” She rolls her eyes and, gripping my arms, she squeezes my biceps like they’re her personal stress balls and pulls me to her.
“Bennie, don’t do this.” Her sultry voice works better than any pharmaceutical to deflate my elevated blood pressure and loosen the bunched muscles in my shoulders. Tension ebbs away as she nibbles at my chin and my bottom lip, working her way to my mouth like she’s going to devour me, eat me bite by bite for a snack.
“Don’t do what?” I ask because I might have forgotten what we were arguing about. She snorts.
“Don’t make me start over from nowhere when I have a real shot at this singing career. It’s all I’m cut out for in this life, you know that? All I have.”
“You have me,” I talk into her mouth as I take command of her lips, tangle my tongue with hers, not giving her a chance to answer. Maybe I don’t want to know her answer. It’s always iffy with Jazzy when there’s any whiff of commitment to us, to me.
Maybe I just need to make love to my woman, finally, tonight, have my homecoming the way I’d imagined it after all.
