Rocked with Passion (A New Adult Rockstar Novel) (5 page)

I thought about it that night, calculated what I would most likely be doing and what I would charge a client in Ohio. I came up with a figure that was fair and gave it to Jonathan, who shook his head immediately. I froze. Had I asked for too much?

“
Quadruple that, at least. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“I didn’t, I charged you exactly what I would charge any of my other clients.”

“Well, we’re not your other clients, and we don’t live in Ohio. Don’t worry, as soon as you start trying to buy things here you’ll realize just how much more expensive it is to live here.”

We quickly came to an agreement, and I was officially being paid more money than I could possibly imagine. Even when I started apartment hunting, I found that while prices were
definitely
higher than what I was used to, I was still easily going to be able to afford this new life. Hell, I could live in luxury if I wanted to. He also gave me a bonus that I can only describe as extremely generous, in exchange for the short notice he gave. I paid off all my student loans, put half of the remainder in my savings account and used the other half to buy myself some new clothes.

After all, as I quickly realized, to get ahead in Los Angeles, one had to look
good.
I put all the clothes I’d brought from home aside, most of which came from cheap department stores, and went shopping for a wardrobe of designer labels. New dresses, skirts, shoes, purses, jewellery and anything else I could possibly think of to help me look the part of a Hollywood professional, all coming straight from my bank account. I didn’t even touch a credit card!

Jonathan had said I was a quick learner, and I didn’t really believe him, but I liked to think I picked up my new role pretty quickly nonetheless.
I learned where to send out press releases to make sure they were published properly, I reached out to a number of bloggers and set up an appointment to have coffee with a few, I met with the editor of a few different gossip magazines and generally made myself known in the industry. I quickly found that Jonathan was right: simply mentioning that I was the new head of PR for Knight Blindness immediately got me past the receptionist and to whoever I wanted to talk to.

I thought I was settling into my new role nicely,
except for two things: for one, Jonathan’s assistant Miranda absolutely
hated
me. I don’t know if she saw me as competition, or what, but she would send daggers my way whenever she saw me speaking with Jonathan, as long as he wasn’t within view. Jonathan must have told her he knew me from before, and I guess she saw me as competition or something. If only she knew. On top of the fact that Jonathan had no interest in me whatsoever romantically, Miranda was model gorgeous, with long blonde hair and a tall, slim body that was almost entirely legs.

The other problem was the band’s manager, Liam Noah.
For some reason, the man took an instant dislike to me. “He’s like that with everyone” Jonathan told me when I aired my concerns. “Don’t worry about it.” But still, I noticed that Noah made sure to disagree with most of my suggestions, and expressed scorn whenever my ideas were favoured in front of him. There was never any open hostility, but I could feel the undercurrent of it, and it made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I thought it was important to be on good terms with the band’s management, especially as we’d have to work together quite often, and I didn’t quite understand where Noah’s hostility came from.

Eventually I stopped worrying about both problems. Miranda didn’t bother me at all. I could stand her glares, I didn’t care about them at all, and to her credit she never did anything that would prevent me from doing my job or seeing Jonathan when I needed to.
Noah was a bit more of a problem, but I decided if he wanted to act like a douche, then that was fine, I’d just do my job while being as civil as I needed to be with him, no more, no less.

It made it all that much easier that Jonathan was really true to his word. After that first dinner, he made no more mention of our past, and all of our conversations were strictly of a professional nature.
If anything, he seemed even a little bit more distant.

I couldn’t deny my own feelings, however.
The more time I spent with Jonathan, the more I felt my old feelings return. My heart panged with desire every time Jonathan looked at me, every time I walked into a room with him in it. I quashed these feelings as well as I could, always thinking about Kevin, and how much I loved him. And it was true, I did love Kevin. I loved Kevin with all my heart. But there was
something
about Jonathan. There was a spark there, and I didn’t know where it came from. What I did know is it had to go. There was no way it could be acted on, and I wasn’t going to act on it. I didn’t want to feel this way.

Nonetheless, everything continued well for a few weeks. I got settled into my new role, but two weeks after I started, I finally had my first major disagreement with Liam Noah.

Three days before the fight, I was with the band, in the recording studio. To be honest, I didn’t really have a real reason to be there, I just wanted to see what it was like. After all, recording an album sounded exciting! I brought my laptop and my phone with me, which allowed me to do around 99% of my work, all the while getting to see a real live album being recorded.

I had to admit, while I sat in the room with the producer moving dials up and down on the recording equipment, the band on the other side of the room playing the same part of the song over and over to get it
perfectly, I was pretty pleased with myself. After all, I’d just managed a total PR coup: the band was going to be featured on one of the country’s biggest fashion magazines.

The idea came into my head a few days after arriving. After all, whenever female artists needed a big PR boost they made their way onto the cover of a magazine. Why couldn’t a band of men do the same thing?
Using the Knight Blindness name, I managed to speak directly to the magazine’s editor, and she thought the idea was as amazing as I did. We were going to do something that had rarely, if ever, been done before.

It worked really well for both of us: the magazine was going to get the shock factor of having a male group on their cover, not to mention a male band that had been in the news a lot lately, and we were going to get to tell our side of the story.

Jonathan, Eric and Jared weren’t quite as enthusiastic as I was about it (“Will we have to wear dresses?”), but eventually I brought them around. I wanted this to go well. This was going to be my first major project as the new PR manager for the band, and I wanted it to be a good thing. We were headed to the shoot for the editorial spread after the recording session, and as much as I tried to focus on what I was doing, I was really nervous about how things were going to go.

Liam Noah wasn’t able to make it to the shoot, he had to attend to other band business at the lawyer’s offices
, working with organizers to plan the band’s worldwide tour, scheduled to start in seven months. He wasn’t pleased about this idea, but when the band agreed to do it, he realized he didn’t really have a reason to say no. After all, I was the one in charge of public relations.

When we arrived at the studio, there were dozens of clothing and makeup artists, all ready and waiting for the band to arrive.
I felt completely overwhelmed. The closest thing I’d come to a photo shoot was in school when every year a photography company would come by, a man would stand behind the camera as I sat in a seat and tell me to smile. This was way different.

There were at least four photographers, all with multiple cameras on straps hanging off them.
They ordered the lighting folks around a white backdrop, scrambling to get the perfect lighting. As soon as we entered, makeup artists took the band to a makeshift dressing table and the editor of the shoot came over to me.

“You must be Sara” she greeted me, holding out a hand.

“Yes, it’s nice to meet you.”

“I’m Janice. Let me tell you a little bit about what I have planned for today,” she continued, motioning around the room with her hands.

“Even though we generally have women on the cover and in the main shoot for the magazine, there is no reason we can’t make men sexy. I thought we should go for something retro, going back to the times when rock bands were gods. I’ve got the crew making up the band as if it were still the 80s, but with a bit of a modern twist. What you think?”

I had to admit, I thought it was brilliant. Knight Blindness were one of the few famous rock bands at the moment, with pop and rap making up the majority of famous musicians at the moment. Going back to the heyday of rock bands was a brilliant idea. Everyone still thought they were sexy, and I knew that with a modern touch the spread would look incredible.

After Janice left I found myself creeping to the corner of the room, trying to stay out of everybody’s way. After a few minutes, the band members came out, and I had to admit Janice knew what she was doing. I had never seen them look like this. The three men look like they came straight out of the 80s, with tight leather pants, ripped T-shirts that showed off their abs and chest and hair that looked disheveled but still modern. It was the perfect combination of then and now.

As the photographers led the band to their backdrop, I watched in amazement as I experienced my first ever photo shoot. Everyone involved was so professional, and I quickly knew this was going to be a success. Props were brought in, photographers ordered everyone around, and every few minutes they moved to the table with the computers set up so they could see their photos in real time.

I stood behind one of the tables, watching all of the photos pop up onto the screen. I had to admit, I felt a little familiar tingle of pleasure running down my back towards my nether regions as I saw just how sexy Jonathan looked in the photos. He was incredible. He was the leader of the band, yes, and it showed in these photos. There was something about him, something that made him stand out. I forced the thoughts running through my head to the back of my mind. I wasn’t allowed to have thoughts like this.

Instead of staying for the second part, I went out of the room and chose to enjoy the quiet for a while. I needed to cool my nerves. Why was I having these thoughts about Jonathan? To get him out of my head, I called Kevin. After all, with the time zone difference, he would be off work. We spoke almost every night, although sometimes life got in the way for both of us.

I pressed his speed dial number, longing to hear my boyfriend’s voice. Unfortunately, the voice I heard was that of his voicemail. I guess he was working late, or was running errands or something like that. Disappointed, I asked for him to call me. I went into the bathroom, cleaned myself up a little bit, and then went back into the photo shoot.

They were just starting to wrap up when I arrived. Jonathan came over and congratulated me.

“I’ve seen a number of the photos they’ve done for today. They are absolutely amazing! I honestly had no idea that this was going to turn out so well.”

“I’m glad. I saw a chunk of the photos as well, and you’re right, they do look amazing. That, combined with the interview, should lead to huge sales. You’re still all right with doing the interview tomorrow?”

Jonathan nodded. “Of course, yes. I realize it’s not really neither going to want to talk to go. Eric was a little bit hesitant at first, but I think you’re right. If we lay it all out, then that gets rid of all the rumors. Well, it never gets rid of them of course, but it will help them die down.”

Yes, my plan was going swimmingly. This was exactly what I had wanted. This was the perfect opportunity for the band to clear the air and get a new start. Not to mention it would coincide with the
release of their new single, for which I knew Jonathan hoped would be the best-selling single of the year. I didn’t know enough about the industry to know whether or not that was realistic, but I knew Jonathan was ambitious, and I knew Eric and Jared were as well, and if anybody could have another huge hit it was them. I just hoped I was good enough to help them get there.

Three days later, Liam Noah came bursting in on me whe
n I was eating lunch, thinking about that night when I was going to go out for drinks with the band. Despite their fame, perhaps even because of their fame, Jonathan, Jared and Eric loved to go clubbing, and I sometimes joined them.

“What the hell have you done?” Noah exclaimed as he burst into the room.

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about” I replied, trying to keep my anger at being interrupted like this under wraps.

“Bullshit you don’t, you’re the one who set up that magazine interview in the first place.”

“And what exactly is wrong with the interview?”

“Have you seen what they did to the band?” Noah replied, holding up an advance copy of the issue in which the band was to be featured, waving it in my face.

“No, I haven’t seen the issue at all,” I replied, grabbing it out of Noah’s hand and turning to the feature on the band.

I had to admit, I had expected something bad. I had expected that they would have made something up that happened in the interview, or invented some gossip. From the way Noah was going on about things, it sounded bad, and I was really quite worried that my first major coup as the head of PR for the band was about to go terribly.