RIPPED: A Rockstar Romance (Wreckage Book 2)

  Ripped

  A Rockstar Romance

  Vivian Lux

  Copyright © 2017 by Vivian Lux

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  I’m going to have to give this dedication to B., even though he’s probably totally jaded about getting books dedicated to him by now. But seriously, honey. You really came through to make this one happen. Thank you.

  I’ve acquired quite a taste for a well made mistake.

  -Fiona Apple, ‘A Mistake’

  Contents

  1. August

  2. Jules

  3. August

  4. Jules

  5. August

  6. Jules

  7. August

  8. Jules

  9. August

  10. Jules

  11. August

  12. Jules

  13. August

  14. Jules

  15. August

  16. Jules

  17. August

  18. Jules

  19. Jules

  20. August

  21. Jules

  22. August

  23. Jules

  24. August

  25. Jules

  26. August

  27. Jules

  28. August

  29. August

  30. Jules

  31. August

  32. Jules

  33. August

  34. Jules

  35. August

  36. Jules

  37. August

  38. Jules

  Epilogue

  Want more from Jules and August?

  Also by Vivian Lux

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  August

  As I thudded my way down the stairs to the landing at the fifth floor, the door to 5D swung open. "Hey Red," called the guy who lived below me.

  He'd told me his name several times, but in my head he was just... 5D.

  "Hey," I grunted, letting my suitcase thud down and executing a quick stutter step to save it bashing into my Achille's heel. "Sorry about the noise."

  "No sweat," 5D said, grinning his eager grin. "You heading out to your work thing now?"

  "Yep."

  "So I'm going to have a new neighbor," he mused, pulling his mouth down into a frown, clearly distressed. "Boo. I hope your sub-letter is as cute as you."

  "She's not," I deadpanned.

  He laughed much more loudly than necessary. "Two whole months? Man, I'm going to miss you, Red. Hope those rock-assholes know how good they have it, keeping you all to themselves."

  "They do because I remind them," I said. "They've never had a manager as good as me before."

  "I'm sure you're the best in the business," 5D added, clearly kissing my ass.

  I shrugged. "I'm up there," I said with a grin.

  "Well," he leaned against the door-frame, crossing his bare feet at the ankles. "When you get back, look me up, okay?" He tapped the number on his door. "You know where I live."

  I could feel my grin fading a little and tried to perk it back up again. 5D and I had been flirting for months. Why the fuck was he making his move now, at the last possible second when I literally had my suitcase packed and ready to go? Just as I'm about to leave for two months to be with my band as they record their comeback album? Jesus, dude. Your sense of timing sucks.

  "Sure," I said and there was no way of masking the wan note in my voice so I didn't even try.

  But 5D either didn't notice or didn't care. He just grinned all low-key cool like, like we had reached some kind of understanding, and for what seemed like the millionth time in my adult life I wondered why on earth I couldn't be attracted to guys like him. Normal guys. The kind with decent, stable jobs and and decent, stable egos.

  In other words, non-musicians.

  So I grinned back. Keep my options open and all that. "Have fun upstate," 5D said with a wave.

  "Don't miss me too much," I said loftily and was rewarded with another cocky grin. I lifted my chin and continued my slow progress down the stairs from my sixth floor walk-up, trying to exude as much dignity as I could with a suitcase banging into my ankles. 5D stood in his doorway and watched me as I struggled down the stairs, clearly wondering if he should offer to help. But I didn't wait for him to make a move. I was used to pretending like I had my shit together.

  It's how I'd made it this far in the first place. Twenty-five years old and managing one of the biggest rock bands in the industry? You don't get in that position by waiting for people to help you. You have to go out and grab those opportunities for yourself.

  With a last grunt of effort, I let my suitcase slam down to the lobby floor. "Success!" I hissed. I was coated in a fine sheen of sweat and more than a little rattled from the constant ankle-bashing. "First thing I do with my bonus is buy a place in a building with a fucking elevator," I muttered as I peered out of the dirty glass doors. The bus wasn't here yet. Thank god.

  My phone buzzed in my hand. I didn't even need to look to know that it was Cabot texting me. It was 9:30 in the morning and he would have just finished second period with the girl he was obsessed with. He was convinced that girls were some alien species and that I, as a woman, spoke for all of them. Sixteen year old boys were just a slow-motion tragedy all the way through.

  I rested against the railing and checked my phone. Sure enough it was the usual Cab silliness. "What does it mean when a girl says she likes your shoes?" my brother had asked me.

  "Probably that she thinks your shoes are nice," I typed back. It was snarkier than my usual responses to Cab, but seriously. My four younger brothers all knew I was leaving today but did that matter? Of course not. So far, as I was rushing around grabbing last minute toiletries, I'd fielded a panicked call from Tate about trouble with his History professor and received three selfies from Simon asking about whether his acne was looking better with the new face wash he was using. Leo hadn't bothered me yet, but that was probably because he was still hung over from the night before. His calls usually came after I'd just managed to fall asleep for the night.

  Managing my four immature brothers was the best possible practice for my new job. My skills went beyond just booking studio space and renting limo-busses. I kept them in line.

  Wreckage was the first band I'd ever managed. As in, getting paid to manage them, I mean. I'd managed Noah's band - he of the silky, soulful voice and roaming dick - but I'd done that for "love."

  Never fucking again.

  No, everything with Wreckage was business and so far that was working great. They were, to a man, slightly immature and prone to the usual rowdiness when alcohol was involved, but they had their good points too. Niall, the bass player, was the most level-headed of the bunch, and approached most band decisions with your typical British stiff upper lip. Ewan, the Scottish guitarist, had his bouts of moodiness, but they had gotten much better once he got together with my best friend CeCe. The lead singer was a guy I had hand-picked myself. Hudson was no trouble at all.

  It was the drummer that was the problem.

  Wasn't it always?

  I ignored Cabot's middle finger emoji and swiped my phone screen. 9:33AM. The bus was late. I blew air out of my nose irritably and tapped my toes against the scuffed marble floor. There were a million reasons why a bus could get held up in Manhattan, but I was fairly certain as to the reason why.

  "Fucking hell, Jules," I muttered, bu
t the second the words left my lips, a white bus squealed up to the curb with a hiss of air-brakes. "About time!" I shouted as the doors swung open.

  My suitcase skidded to the side as I yanked it through the door. "I told you!" I yelled in the direction of the bus as my suitcase lurched this way and that, catching me in the already sore ankle. "Goddammit, you guys we have a really tight schedule." I tugged harder, but it suddenly refused to move. I turned, "Fucking A... what the hell are you caught on you piece of - "

  At that moment, the driver appeared out of nowhere to easily lift my suitcase out of the gap between the bus and the curb. I let out a helpless yelp as the sudden lack of tension sent me sprawling up the stairs into the bus. With a curse, I rubbed my sore elbow and looked up to catch a glimpse of dark curls, darker eyes and a big, swinging...

  "Oh my god, Jules, where the fuck are your pants?!"

  Chapter Two

  Jules

  I forgot she lived so close. Thought I had time to change real quick before I was treated to one of her patented eye-rolls. Truly, I was trying not to piss her off for once.

  But when it came to August Waverly, I could never catch a fucking break.

  I cupped my hands over my cock and decided to try for charm. "I've had women throw themselves at my feet before," I told her. "But never quite so dramatically."

  She glared at me with murder in her eyes, and then looked away again. "Why...the fuck...are you naked?"

  "Well let's be clear here. I'm not actually naked per se. Got a shirt on."

  "Pants, Jules. Where the fuck are you pants?"

  "Don't yell at me, love. It's this clumsy fucker's fault over here," I gestured towards Ewan, who was red-faced holding in his laughter. "Can't hold his liquor. Literally. Spilled it all over my trousers here. I was getting changed. Nothing worse than a wet crotch, aye love? Wouldn't you hate it if I made you all wet like this?"

  August looked like she'd swallowed a frog. "You guys are drinking already? It's 9:30 in the fucking morning."

  "Cheers. Doesn't much matter if you never went to bed in the first place, now does it?" I looked down at her. "Come on, love. Get up off the floor now."

  She swatted my hand away. "Don't you fucking touch me after holding your..."

  "Cock, love? Please, you're about to spend two months with us in the middle of nowhere. This isn't going to be the last time you see my dick."

  August scrambled up from the floor and smoothed her hands down shirt. Christ but she was stacked, and she fucking knew it too. She lifted her chin in that way of hers, where she's cold as ice and hot as Hades at the same fucking time. "Yes," she said with a look that should have reduced me to ashes on the spot. "It is."

  "Ooooh," the boys chorused helpfully from the back.

  I shot them the V-sign with one hand, while I cupped my junk with the other as August shoved past me. Seemed like a good idea to protect my most valuable asset around her, lest she either knee me in the balls right now or cut it off with a knife tonight while I slept. August Waverly was fully capable of doing both, I was sure of it. She hated my fucking guts.

  And the feeling was bloody mutual.

  She'd been a thorn in my fucking side ever since she barged into our dressing room before a show one night and basically announced that she was our manager. The rest of the boys, they seemed to like her brassy, in-your-face schtick, and Lord knows we were in a bind back then with firing our label and having to start again from square one. But I didn't like her. Not one fucking bit.

  I mean, I liked looking at her. With her wild red curls that licked up from her head like she was on fire from within, and her mocking brown eyes the color of cinnamon. And I fucking loved staring at her high, stubborn tits, especially on days like today when she wore a white T-shirt cut low enough to reveal that constellation of freckles across the tops of them. And it was fun as hell to watch her screw her pretty little lips down into an angry frown when she got pissed at me. Which was pretty much all the time.

  But when she opened her goddamned mouth, that was the end of it.

  "Are we still on schedule?" I heard her saying to the driver now. She'd plopped her pert ass in the very front of the bus, for all the world like that eager little shit in grade school who raised his hand every time the teacher asked a question.

  "Yes ma'am," the driver said. He seemed to pick up on the vibe as soon as August came on the bus and was now sitting up nice and straight in his seat. "We should be arriving right in time for lunch."

  I yanked a new pair of boxers up my hips. I couldn't help but notice the way August's eyes flicked down to my crotch, and I grinned. "Sorry to see it go, love?"

  "Don't be fucking gross."

  "Can't help it." I pulled on my trousers. "There, now you can look me in the eye again, love. They're up here," I gestured.

  She rolled her eyes and looked away from me, back to the driver. She flicked through some paperwork and then back up to the papers in front. "It's two hours north to Bearsville."

  "Why couldn't we have booked space in the city?" I asked, sitting down across from her. She shifted, turning her body away from mine and I leaned forward. "Now we have to spend two months in some backwater named Bearsville? Is that because there are more bears there than actual human beings?"

  "I booked space there for two reasons," August said with a frosty smile as she looked down her nose at me. "One, because the engineer there is one of the best in the business. You told me you wanted that Phil Spector wall-of-sound feel? Jimmy can do that for you." She reached up and tugged one of her curls, twining it around her finger in that way she always did when she's about to rip you a new one. "And two, because I know that in order for you to actually get some work done, I need to make sure to remove all distractions."

  I grinned, letting her know that her attempt at insulting me had failed. "Sound reasoning, love," I said, clapping softly. "You definitely thought this one through."

  She beamed, tucking her clipboard primly into her lap. "What can I say? I'm good."

  I licked my lips. "I'll give you that. But there's one thing you didn't really think through."

  "Yeah?"

  "Us lot," I gestured back to the rest of the band. "Are about to spend two months bored out of our minds in the mountains Upstate." I leaned in closer. "And you're gonna be stuck there with us."

  She rolled her eyes again and twisted in her seat, whipping out her cell phone and burying her face in it. I leaned back on my seat, not really sure why the idea of being stuck in the woods with August was so damn appealing.

  "Ugh," Ewan sighed, getting up and heading to the cooler again. "She just reminded me I'm gonna be spending two months with you lot. I need another beer."

  Chapter Three

  August

  Fucking Jules.

  I flicked through my clipboard, triple-checking the paperwork from the label one more time. We were headed up to the Catskills, to Bearsville, a town just outside of the famous Woodstock, NY. I leafed back, tracing my finger over the check-in paperwork for Onteora Villas, the luxury cabins I'd booked for the two months we'd be recording.

  I was a New York girl, born and raised, and while I considered myself pretty worldly and unflappable, the idea of spending two months in the wilderness - luxury version or not - gave me an odd sense of claustrophobia. I'd spent last night mapping out the surrounding area, checking for necessities like Indian take-out and twenty-four hour liquor stores, but hadn't found much by way of either. Bad for me.

  Good for the band.

  After re-forming from the ashes of the original line-up, the boys of Wreckage now had something to prove. I liked to think I'd built up some serious buzz around them with a series of live shows around the New York Metro, but Hudson was still singing the old songs. The ones made popular by the old frontman, Killian Ness.

  Killian Ness was currently doing six to ten years for assaulting his girlfriend. He wasn't coming back any time soon, and no one wanted him to either. But his mark was still all over the
band and his words were the ones that Hudson shrieked and bellowed in his wailing, bluesman's howl.

  They needed new songs. They needed a new album. That was priority number one, and the reason I was sitting on this bus, ignoring the sounds of the guys getting trashed in the back. I was here to make sure they did their jobs.

  "Oy, August!" Jules called from behind me.

  I twisted in my seat to answer him, but he immediately threw up his hands as if to ward me off. "Aye, don't kill me love. I only wanted to ask a question is all."

  I narrowed my eyes. What was he talking about? Don't kill him?

  Then I remembered.

  My face

  Some girls have resting bitch face. It's just a fact. They don't mean to look angry, that's just how their face looks when they concentrate.

  "You don't have resting bitch face," CeCe informed me once, when I'd asked her to tell me the truth. I'd sighed with relief until she continued. "You have resting murder face."

  "What's up, Jules?" I said, trying to rearrange my face into less hostile lines.

  The expression on his face made me realize I failed.

  "Never mind," he said stiffly, and turned back to the rest of the band, lifting a bottle of his beloved lager to his lips.