Rock Read online

  Contents

  ROCK

  DESCRIPTION

  Prologue

  Chapter One copy

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Epilogue

  END OF BOOK SHIT

  About the Author

  A Rock-Star Romantic Suspense

  by New York Times Bestselling Master of Twist, JA Huss

  Copyright © 2016 by JA Huss

  ISBN-978-1-944475-02-4

  No part of this book may be resold or 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. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Edited by RJ Locksley

  Cover Model: Robert Reider

  Cover Photo: Luciana Varga

  Cover Design: J. A. Huss

  Interior Formatting: J.A. Huss

  DESCRIPTION

  He had it all. He lost it all. And the only thing he wants now is a second chance.

  RK Saber ran from tragedy five years ago when his car went over the side of a mountain in a prom-night crash. Consumed by guilt, he threw away Juilliard away and founded the global rock-band sensation, Son of a Jack. Five members. Five best friends. Five rising stars burning so bright, they had to know it couldn’t last.

  When tragedy strikes again and the band goes from five to two, RK is sentenced to… home. Back to the place where all his nightmares started. Back to the memory of all the things he lost. Back to deal with the consequences of reality.

  The Vetti twins were identical in all ways but two. Melanie was insane and Melissa was not. One twin was killed on prom night five years ago and one twin was not. And now that RK has returned home, the twin left standing has quite a story to tell. Could she really be the girl he thought he’d lost forever? Or is Melanie just up to her same old tricks?

  ROCK is a rock-star romantic suspense by the New York Times bestselling master of twist, JA Huss.

  Prologue

  Melissa Vetti’s lips were softer than the down blankets on her bed and they were equally as warm. We lingered in the kiss longer than we should’ve. Longer than ever before, not moving, not tonguing each other, not seeking more with wandering hands trying to pick at the buttons on our jeans. Just connected.

  “I love you,” I whispered into her mouth.

  “I know,” she giggled into mine. She always said that when I pushed, but at least this time it didn’t come with a litany of excuses. We’re too young. You’re leaving in three months. We have our whole lives to fall in love.

  It was too late for me though, because I’d been in love with her since the sixth grade when we ditched the chaperones on the class camping trip in Rocky Mountain National Park in the middle of the night.

  We both lived next to that park. We wandered into that forest so many times, the woods were our home. And the spot the school chose for the class trip was close by. Our town is not really rich, even though if you want to buy a decent house up here in Grand Lake these days, it’s gonna cost you a million dollars. Our schools are not by any means well-equipped. Hell, most younger kids who live here, and there aren’t many, go to school in Granby, the next town over. But a trip to the local woods was something everyone could afford.

  I knew the way—hell, she knew the way too. And when the small waterfall came into view, the moon making the water in the pool shimmer silver, we both got sweaty hands and chills up our spines.

  Missy Vetti and I had our first kiss that night and I loved every moment of it. The sound of the forest at night. The cool midnight breeze whipping past our skin making us shiver, even though it was July. The heat of her breath mixing with mine and the way my fingers found their way into her hair and pulled her close out of instinct.

  That’s all we did that night. Just one kiss in the dark. But it was enough for me to fall in love. And now that we were on the verge of college, it seemed like every moment had been wasted. Like I should’ve done so much more with her. Everything felt like a missed opportunity.

  “You have to go before my dad gets up, RK.”

  “I know.” I’d been sneaking into her house to sleep over for years. Not every night. And we didn’t fuck or anything. Missy Vetti was as pure as the water rushing down the mountain and her dad spent every night sleeping like a bear in the winter, so we never got caught. Or maybe he knew and didn’t care? Maybe he knew his daughter was perfect and would never let a boy spoil her with sex?

  I reluctantly pulled away from our embrace and sat up in her bed, looking back over my shoulder. “Pick you up at eight?”

  She smiled big. Big. Big. Big.

  That’s all I got—a smile.

  And I have seen that smile in my nightmares for the past five years and asked myself the same question over and over again.

  Why did I kill her?

  Chapter One copy

  There are no words perfect enough to describe my memory of the Vetti twins so I had to write a song. A nine-minute masterpiece that flowed from my heart, to my mind, and finally out through my fingertips as I picked and plucked each note on the antique baby grand we kept in front of the music room window overlooking the mountain.

  My description might seem excessive, but every word is necessary.

  The length—an indicator of my reluctance to finish the song. I still consider it incomplete and that’s why I’ve never performed it in public, even though someone leaked the only video of it to Metal Notes Magazine Online and not a show goes by that they, the fans, don’t chant for it from the dark, hiding behind their fake lighters projecting from their phones.

  The flow of creativity—because it all came from my heart. Broken as it was, as I sat in front of Melissa’s grave, tapping out the tempo on my leg, the rain pouring down on me in rivers. At the time I had no lyrics, only the melody, because the only words in my head were dark and I refused to give that darkness a place to live inside me forever. I refused to let Melissa be reduced to RK’s pathetic darkness.

  The imagery—because I could see their bedrooms from the music room in my house. The flick of their lights sent me signals all growing up, lights that will never flick again because there is no them anymore. I breathe deeply as I sit in my truck and look through the thick fog mixed with a light snow to find their house.

  Not their house, RK. Her house.

  And I hate that in my mind I still call myself RK inst
ead of Rowan Kyle. Or Rock, for that matter. I’m Rock to the entire world, to everyone but me. When can I stop being RK or Rowan Kyle and just be Rock?

  I am wordy and incoherent most of the time, I know this. My lyrics are nothing but run-on sentences broken up with the bass guitar and the beat of the drums as the lead plays with the tempo just enough to make you stop and say, Yes. That’s nice. Who is that? What is the name of that song?

  That’s how we became mega-rock stars in the span of five years. That’s how I pulled myself up from the darkness that surrounded me after Melissa died. That’s what got me through.

  But now that’s gone too.

  Because my band, Son of a Jack, the band I started when all five of us were penniless on the streets of Hollywood, desperate for change and opportunity, is as dead as Melissa.

  It’s like my life is on song repeat when all I want is a shuffle.

  I survived the crash that took Melissa and me over the edge of a mountain road five years ago, the night of our high-school prom. Melissa’s twin sister, Melanie, survived that car crash with me. She was not there. But she was a survivor nonetheless. Because I broke them apart. I cut them in half. And she, like me, had to learn to live on.

  I survived the crash that took Son of a Jack over the edge of a cliff on another mountain road as we were driving up to Winter Park to ski. My drummer, Kenner, survived the crash with me. He was there. So he earned his survivor badge honestly. I broke the band apart too. And he, like me, has to learn to live on.

  That was eight weeks ago.

  I’ve been in rehab up in Steamboat Springs ever since. Well, until today. My larynx was fractured. A group II fracture that was elevated to a group III after they tried to intubate me and fucked it up even worse. They repaired it with resorbable plates in Denver and then sent me somewhere pretty to recuperate. They say it’s working now. That’s what they say.

  I have no idea if the operation was a success because I refuse to talk. And it’s not because I don’t want to talk or I don’t remember so I have nothing to say. I remember every moment of the crash because I was not drunk. I was not high. I was not asleep. They said all those things about me afterward, but the blood tests came back clean, and I know I wasn’t asleep because I relive every second of that crash in slow motion every time I close my eyes.

  So fuck them. I wasn’t asleep.

  But the throat still hurts like hell, so I’m not gonna talk until that goes away. My thoughts are so crazy I’m almost afraid of what might come out if I do talk, so it’s better this way.

  I shut the truck off and let out a sigh.

  Melanie’s light is on. She lives alone now. Her sister is gone. Her father died of lung cancer two years ago. I never came for the funeral. I was in Bangkok getting sucked off after a show when I got the call.

  And that night I was high and I was drunk, and the thought of traveling back to Colorado for a funeral, well, let’s just say that bitch’s mouth was a lot more enticing than a twenty-hour trip that would bring me right back to the place I ran from a few years earlier.

  No. I missed it. On purpose.

  I get out of the truck and turn away from Mel’s house and then face mine.

  And it is mine. My dad died last year, and no, I didn’t come home for that either. He left the house to me and the bar to my brother, TJ.

  Toby John, I correct myself, or Teej, as I like to call him. When will he stop being TJ and Teej and start being Toby John? When can we go back to the way things were?

  I push the key in the door lock and it swings open with a creak. The alarm sounds and I key in the familiar numbers to silence it.

  I killed this house too. I can feel death in here. It winds around me like a mist. A thick fog of putrid decay.

  I walk past all the white sheet-covered furniture, into the living room, round the corner and through the kitchen, and keep walking until I see it.

  The piano.

  I told myself all the way here I would not sit down and play. And I won’t. But I pull the sheet off and stare at it for a moment. It’s still black, but the luster is gone. It’s still big, but it feels smaller. I flick the lights on in this room and then turn around and walk to the door that leads to the garage.

  The tools are all here, but the cars are gone. I have no idea if my father bequeathed me a car with the house, but I’m not looking for a car.

  I’m looking for a sledgehammer.

  I spy the handle sticking out from a pile of stacked tile and cut-up drywall. A remnant from years ago when my dad decided to remodel the master bath for my mom. She died before it was finished.

  Like I said. Putrid decay.

  If I can destroy everything tonight with this sledgehammer, I will. Just let me get that fucker in my hands, just let me get that motherfucker in my hands and this whole house is going down. This whole life, or what’s left of it, is going down.

  The sledgehammer is propped up against the back wall behind a stack of cinderblocks. I throw them into the center of the garage floor—breaking some of them, but who the fuck cares—and after a dozen of these tosses, when the parking pad is good and littered with cracked blocks, I wedge the sledgehammer out and let out a roar of victory before the pain shoots up my throat like fire.

  I drop the sledgehammer and bend over to stop my head from spinning. The aftereffects of a serious injury combined with the memories of how I got that wound are pure agony.

  Bending over really doesn’t help, so I drop to my knees, my head bowed, to wait out the pain.

  “RK?”

  And that’s how she finds me.

  On my fucking knees. As broken as the litter of crumbling cinderblocks around me.

  Her snow boots are dripping water because we are eight thousand feet up in the Rocky Mountains, and as ridiculous as it sounds, it snows here in May. That’s all I see. Just her feet. Because I can’t lift my head and look her in the eyes.

  “I heard you were coming back. TJ told me you’re not allowed to leave Grand County until the investigation is over, so I figured you’d show up here. I was—” She stops, then walks forward to stand in front of me and kneels down. “I was waiting for you. I have a lot of things I want to say to you.”

  Her last few words come out with a hitch and I know she’s crying.

  “Melanie,” I say. My voice is that of a stranger—raspy and deep. I don’t even recognize myself talking. And I want to say more, but the pain is so bad, I have to take a deep breath to stop my own tears. But I force the words out. I have to force the words out because they need to be said and they need to be said now or I’ll never get through this night. I’ll never make it if she stays.

  So I become that guy you see on those tabloid TV shows. The dick.

  “Get the fuck out of my house.”

  Chapter Two

  There’s a long silence that hangs in the air.

  Not seconds, but minutes.

  Her boots never move. The puddle just continues to grow beneath her feet. I watch the trickle of water as it makes its way to me and when it finally touches the faded blue jeans and seeps in to touch my knee, I can’t take it anymore.

  I look up.

  She nods her head. “That’s all I ever wanted from you, RK. Acknowledgment. That I matter in this. That what happened happened to all of us and not just you. You were not the only one confused. You were not the only one who was sad afterward. But you were the only one selfish enough to walk away from this town. From your friends. From your family. From me. And as much as I’d like to yell and scream at you right now, I’m not going to. I’m going to tell you something else instead. And I’m going to say it calmly.”

  I just stare at her. Because I don’t even know this girl. I have no clue who she is. The girl standing in front of me is not Missy’s sister. She’s Melanie, but she’s some Mel I’ve never met before. Her hair is long and dark. Darker than I remember. Her eyes are dark too. They are still blue, but the eyeliner is thick and black. Her jeans are ripped and her cropp
ed biker jacket is leather.

  She looks so much like… But why shouldn’t she? They were identical.

  “Feel free to get up and walk out,” she continues when I say nothing. “I’m prepared for that, since you do it so often. I’ll follow you. In this house, outside the house. If you get in your truck and drive off, I’ll follow you. I’ve had something to say to you for five years and tonight’s the night, Rock. Tonight is your night.”

  I stand up and walk out. If I’m forced to hear her out, I’m sure as fuck not going to do it kneeling at her feet. I have so much to say about what she just said, I can’t keep still. I hate the fact that she called me Rock. Even though I want to be Rock, it feels like an insult coming from her. It feels like a badge I’d rather not wear. So I go back into the house. She follows like she said, and I make my way to the kitchen. I flick the lights on and pull open the fridge out of habit.

  To my surprise, there’s food in there. And beer.

  I grab a beer and twist the top off, then take a seat at the bar and take a small sip.

  It burns.

  It burns like fuck. But it feels good at the same time. The burn and the cold. I take another sip and wait for Melanie to join me. She stands in the archway that leads to the front hall and watches.

  I stare back.

  “You can thank TJ for the groceries.” She waits for my response and when I don’t say anything back, she shakes her head in disgust.

  “Melanie,” I say, wincing as the pain takes over. “I can’t talk to you.” I clutch my throat to help her understand and she narrows her eyes at me. “It fucking hurts. So just say what you have to say and leave.”

  Her chest rises and falls, like she just took a giant breath of air. Something necessary to deal with me tonight. Then she walks over to the connected family room, pulls the white sheet off the couch, and has a seat.

  I take a big breath too. To ask myself to be patient with her. The less I piss her off, the faster she will talk, and the sooner I can get rid of her.