My Rock #4 (The Rock Star Romance Series - Book #4)

MY
ROCK #4

THE
ROCK STAR ROMANCE SERIES

By
Alycia Taylor

Copyright
2014. All rights reserved.

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CHAPTER
ONE

TRISTAN

I promised myself before I went to sleep that I was
going to clean up the pigsty I was living in. Being that I was semi-sober, it
wasn’t as easy to tolerate as it was before. I pulled my tired ass out of bed
and, after a quick shower to wake up, I went to work. I started in the kitchen.
I didn’t have many dishes, but I realized when I was trying to wash out the
bowls I’d used for cereal, I’d have to buy more. The cereal was dried to the
sides of it and there was no way it was coming off. I tossed three of them,
along with the spoons that were sugar-glued to the sides into the trash. Luckily,
most of what else I ate came in foam or cardboard containers that I could throw
away.
 

After the dishes were taken care of, I found an old
rag and wiped down the counters and cleaned off the refrigerator. It was funny
when you sober up enough to realize how you’ve actually been living. I opened
the refrigerator and saw that there were three beers and two bottles of water
in there. Other than some ketchup and hot sauce, that was it.

I took out the beer and opened all three of them. I
was sorely tempted to drink them, but I didn’t. I poured each one down the
drain and tossed the bottles in the trash. I realized then how nasty the
kitchen floor was. It was amazing I ever got girls to come over and have sex
with me. Besides
Elly
, it spoke volumes about the
type of girls I was dipping my wick into. Most of them had been too stoned or
drunk to notice their surroundings. It took much longer than it should have to
scrub the six by three foot kitchen and I was actually winded when I got done. I’d
forgotten what the floor even looked like.

Next, I went to work on the little beat up dining
room table. Every piece of mail or paperwork I’d received or brought home with
me in the past few months was piled there. I couldn’t even tell you what most
of it was. I sat down and started sifting through it all. I found a lot of past
due bills that indicated soon I’d be living without heat or lights or water. I
also found a nasty letter from my landlord. That month would be three months
late. He was pissed and he made insinuations in the letter that he would be
looking into eviction proceedings soon if I didn’t get caught up. He was
basically a nice guy…thus, the letter. He wouldn’t be one that would enjoy
telling me that to my face. I was surprised that he let it go that long. Him
being a nice guy was probably all that stood between the street and me.

I sorted the bills into piles of ones I needed to
pay—although I had no fucking money to pay them—and trash. The electric, gas,
and water bills were all pink. I knew that was a fucking bad sign. The trash I
threw away and the ones I needed to keep, I put into an empty drawer in the
kitchen. Then I turned back to the table. There was still a mirror on it,
covered with powder of course, and a couple of half straws. The box I kept my
weed in was there too.

I went over and looked at the mirror first. There
was enough loose powder there that if I used the blade to scrape it into a pile,
I’d almost have a full line. A couple of days before, that and the beer would
have thrilled the shit out of me. I had dumped the coke I had in the cabinet a
couple days ago; I knew if it was there, I’d be too tempted. As I stared down
at the mirror, I wondered if I’d be able to do this, knowing that was all there
was.

I picked it up and carried it over to the sink. I stood
there, turning it over in my head for a while before finally just turned it
upside down and letting the powder fall off of it. I ran the hot water then to
wash it down and I washed off the mirror. I wondered if it was true about all
drains leading to the ocean. If it was, there’d be some happy fish later on.

The straws went into the trash and then I opened the
box. There were papers and a baggie with enough weed for another two or three
joints. Personally, I didn’t consider marijuana to actually be a drug, but I’d
been down that road before. At rehab, they were going to extoll it’s evils to
me and talk about how it led to other, harder drugs. With a heavy sigh, I took
it into the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet. I threw the papers away
and washed out the box. It was all gone. I wondered if tobacco was a bad thing.
Maybe I’d buy a pack of smokes before I got locked away in no-drug land.

I cleaned up my bedroom and the living room,
throwing away the bong. The crack pipe was already taken care of. I’d broken it
to pieces the day I kicked it across the room. I carried a load of clothes down
to the laundry room. Mrs. Stromboli was on her way out. She hadn’t made
eye-contact with me once since the day she saw me naked in the hall. I tried
smiling at her and saying hello, but she just walked quickly by like I was
going to rape her old fat ass. I really didn’t give a shit if she liked me or
not. It was easier that way; if people don’t like you, they don’t bother you. I
remember how many people used to pretend they liked me, when I still had a
little money and my name still meant something. I sure didn’t see those
bastards around anymore.

I put a load in the washing machine and went back
upstairs. It was weird, opening the door to a clean apartment that actually
smelled decent, too. I had to use the broom on the carpet in the living room—I
didn’t own a vacuum. That resulted in a huge pile of crap that I swept into the
dustpan and threw away. Then I had to clean the kitchen floor again because I’d
swept everything in there.

I saved the bathroom for last. It was so disgusting
that they wouldn’t have even allowed it at the Chevron station down the street.
I scrubbed for quite a while, finally giving up and telling myself it was going
to take some bleach to get all the stains out. I didn’t have any bleach, so I’d
have to come back to it. When that was done, I went into my room and got my
guitar and the notepad I use to write my songs. I sat down on the couch and
strummed the guitar a few times. I was spending so much time alone that I was
running out of inspiration for new music. I thought about all the songs that
other artists, like Elton John and the Eagles and the like had written and
performed and made a billion fucking dollars off about drugs. I wondered how
well one by me would be received. Maybe something good would come out of all of
it.

I picked up the pen and started writing. I wrote and
scratched out and changed the whole thing about ten times, and when I was
satisfied that I was on the right track, the song I was writing turned out to
be about addiction…and how it affected your whole life. It was pretty
depressing, but it was a good song and it was true. So kind of cathartic.

I got a good start on that and felt like I was
satisfied with it so far when I realized it was getting late in the day. I
needed to start working on my music for round seven. I got that music book out
and started marking the changes I wanted the musicians to make. As I worked on
it, I played it myself on the guitar to see what it sounded like and sang it
through a couple of times. I made changes here and there as I went, and just
about the time I was really jamming on it, someone was banging on my fucking
door.

Pissed at the interruption, I slammed the guitar
down and went over and pulled open the door. Shit! It was my landlord.

“Hi, Tristan,” he said. He had a neat little stapled
pile of papers in his hand. It looked like legal paperwork and I was already
pretty sure that I knew what it was.

“Hey, Buck, what’s up?” I leaned against the door
jam.

He didn’t make eye contact with me. “I like you,
Tristan….”

“Shit, Buck, just tell me what the fuck is up,” I
said. At that moment, I didn’t care how it was making him feel to kick me out
of my home. I obviously had enough problems of my own.

“Okay, fine. I need the rent money. You’re three
months behind. I would have evicted anyone else by now.” He handed me the
papers and said, “I’m
gonna
give you thirty days to
come up with it and then the eviction process starts.”

Fuck! I hadn’t had a gig in weeks. I had like a
hundred bucks in the bank and no prospects on the horizon. I didn’t even know
how the hell I was going to pay for rehab. My very first thought was that a
hundred bucks would buy me enough cocaine and weed that, by the end of the day,
I wouldn’t give a shit.

“Okay,” was all I said to the landlord. I closed the
door in his face. I wasn’t about to grovel to that slumlord motherfucker. I
know I’d just been saying what a nice guy he was, but that was before I was
actually looking at living in the fucking park.

I walked back over to the couch and tried to finish
working on my song. I couldn’t concentrate though. All I could think about was
calling my guy and seeing what he could hook me up with. Shit! I had to get out
of there, but I didn’t know where else to go but a fucking bar. I suddenly
thought of
Elly
. I thought a ride on my bike might do
me some good. Seeing
Elly
might do me better. I sent
her a text.

“I
need to get out of here. I’m thinking about scoring. Text me your address.”

A few minutes later, she did.

CHAPTER
TWO

ELLY

I woke up to the buzzing of my phone. I groggily reached
over to find it on my nightstand and my hand bumped into the picture of my
boyfriend…my dead boyfriend. I was tired of him judging me. He died because he
had no self-control. I’d spent months making that my problem. I grabbed the
picture and slammed it down flat. Then I finally grabbed of the phone. It was a
text from Tristan. It said that he was thinking about scoring. I sat up and
text him my address. Then I sat the phone down and wiped the sleep out of my
eyes.

Realizing that I was hungry and Tristan might be too
when he got there, I decided to cook some breakfast before he came over. I got
up and went into the bathroom. I washed my face and brushed my teeth and pulled
my hair back into a ponytail at the nape of my neck. I had on a t-shirt and
panties, but it was hot in the apartment; Susie hadn’t turned off the heat
before she left for work. I turned it down. I’d get dressed before Tristan got
there.

I went out to the kitchen and pulled out the stuff
to make pancakes. While I was mixing the batter, my phone rang. I was afraid
for a second that Tristan had changed his mind and he’d decided on getting high
instead. I had worried for no reason though: it was my mom.

“Hi, Mom,” I answered as I poured the batter by
spoonful’s onto the griddle.

“Hi, Sweetheart, how are you?”

I was holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder. “I’m
good. I was just making breakfast. I have chorus later this morning.”

“Mm, what are you making?” she asked.

“Pancakes and eggs,” I said.

“That sounds good. Is Susie having breakfast with
you?”

“No, my friend…” I didn’t know how to finish that
sentence.

“Your friend who?”

“A guy that I’m sort of seeing is coming over….”

“You’re seeing someone? That’s great, honey. Your
father and I have been so worried about you since…well, anyways, you’re a
young, beautiful girl and I’m glad you’re getting back out there.”

“Thanks, Mom. It’s just dating for now…” I still had
guilt over the worry I put them through when my boyfriend died and I got into
drugs.

“You’re making breakfast for him. He didn’t spend
the night, did he?” she went on to say.

I rolled my eyes. I knew she worried, but she also
still thought I was twelve sometimes. “No, Mom. He’s not even here yet.”

“I’d like to meet him. Your father and I are coming
out for your concert.” I could hear the curiosity in her voice.

“No, Mom. We’re really not there yet. It would
probably scare him off. We’ve barely started dating.” I changed the subject by
asking her if she’d been watching the show.

“We watch it religiously. I think Tristan’s going to
win. Your father was sure that blonde girl…Brooke? I think that was her name.
He was sure she was going to win. He thinks she must have been sick or
something that last performance because she did so poorly. I wondered if maybe
it was the sound system or something. Tristan seemed to have a bad time that
same night.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a lot of pressure for them,” I
told her. “It’s actually pretty grueling work to have to be on that much. Tell
Daddy that I heard Brooke already got offered a contract, so don’t feel too bad
for her.”