Interview with the Rock Star Read online

  Table of Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  FREE BOOK OFFER

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  CHAPTER ONE

  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

  EPILOGUE

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  A SNEAK PEEK

  MORE BY THE 1203 STORIES AUTHORS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  FREE BOOK OFFER

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  CHAPTER ONE

  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

  EPILOGUE

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  A SNEAK PEEK

  MORE BY THE 1203 STORIES AUTHORS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER

  Interview with the Rock Star

  Rylee Swann

  FREE BOOK OFFER

  CLICK HERE to download my bestselling novella LOVER WANTED: JENN & TONY for FREE! You’ll also join my Tasty Treats Club and be the first to know about new releases, free book offers, sales, exclusive giveaways, early sneak peeks of new releases, cover reveals and much more!

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  He was my first love. My first hate. I can’t let him be my worst mistake... again.

  I was eighteen when Kace Rymer stole my heart. Twenty-two when he broke it.

  Ten years later, he’s back and bigger than life. And guess who has to interview the big, bad rock star? Me! Unbelievable.

  He’s sorry, he says. Forgive me, he asks.

  No. The flat out answer is no, with a kick in the balls to prove how much I mean it.

  Then, the grand gesture.

  He goes on a campaign to win me back, and I can’t help but wonder... am I punishing him or punishing myself?

  ***Interview with the Rock Star is a standalone novella guaranteed to steam up your Kindle. No cliffhanger and a very happy ending.***

  CHAPTER ONE

  Presley Collins

  The morning sun gleams off the Tennessee River as I drive parallel to its banks on the way to work, following its meandering curves along Neyland Drive. What I wouldn’t give to play hooky today. I’d skip the boring staff meeting and just toss an innertube in the water and float like I did when I was young.

  It’s certainly hot enough. It isn’t even eight in the morning, and the temperature gauge on my Camry reads seventy-two. And it’s so humid, even though it’s early September. I don’t need a gauge for that. One glance in the rearview mirror is evidence of another steamy day. My red hair practically springs from my head, already pulling loose from the low ponytail I tried to contain it in.

  Thunder from Imagine Dragons comes on the radio… again. Why do radio stations do that? Take a perfectly fabulous song and play it so often that I snarl when I hear it for the fiftieth time in a week. And I love this song. Well, loved this song. Maybe I’ll pitch a story to the team today about why stations run new songs into the ground. It could work great in my “I Wonder…” column. That’s what today’s meeting is about, after all. The editorial team of Sass & Frass and I will be tossing out ideas to enthrall our readers into plunking down a few dollars to pick up our weekly Southern culture rag.

  Ugh.

  No, I don’t mean that. I love my job. I do. Really. I just sometimes wish it was a bit more glamorous. And… a lot less boring. There, I said it.

  Even as the words escape my mind, I immediately feel guilty. Job stability in today’s economy is a blessing. And with print newspapers and magazines dying on the vine each and every day, I need to count those blessings and be thankful that I can pay for a nice apartment and car that I adore. All on my own, thank you very much.

  No need for a man here.

  No need for white knights to bail me out and sweep me up from near destitution. No need for big dicks to get me off. I can do it all on my own.

  I grit my teeth, thinking of Josh Jones, the man I went out with last week. The last man I might ever go out with, truth be told. It’s official. Men are assholes.

  Let me make you feel good.

  The jerk.

  “I can make myself feel good, thank you very much,” I mutter to myself, tapping my thumbs on the steering wheel. Sex in return for a steak dinner? Seriously? What century is this? I tossed Josh a twenty and called it done.

  Done. Done. Done.

  Hmm… I wonder… if a vagina shrivels up and dies and no one is around to witness it, does it become a virgin again?

  I snort and take a sip of my iced coffee as I wait for the red light to change to green. I’d love to see my editor’s face if I pitched that story to him. I doubt he’s said the V-word even once in his entire life.

  Wow, I’m being a total bitch today.

  Take care, my love. That savors strongly of bitterness. One of my favorite lines from Pride and Prejudice.

  Is that me? A bitter old prune at the ripe old age of thirty-two?

  I automatically think of him…

  Yep. Bitter.

  Especially since I’ve done nothing but think of him the last few days, which isn’t a surprise considering what this weekend should have represented. What should have been.

  And just like that, he appears. Not like some mystical angel in the car seat beside me, but as the voice of one surrounding me on all ten speakers.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  Automatically reaching for the button to switch radio stations, my finger halts just millimeters from pressing it down.

  Lie to me. Lie with me.

  Don’t ever leave.

  I need you like breath.

  I close my eyes as those words travel directly to my core then bounce up to my heart, nearly shattering it again.

  That voice. In an instant, ten years dissolve and I am lying with him. His weight is on me, his mouth on mine as I curl all my limbs around his body, lifting my hips to meet his every thrust.

  How he’d sang that song to me… his one-hit wonder, whispering the words against my pussy just before he licked into me deeply, circling my clit with his dexterous tongue.

  Lie to me. Lie with me.

  Don’t ever leave.

  I need you like breath.

  You are my air.

  Lie with me and I’ll never lie to you.

  They called them power ballads in the eighties, although I don’t know if they still called them that ten years ago when this song hit the top spot on the billboards for seven weeks in a row.

  Ten years ago.

  It still doesn’t seem possible.

  I was in grad school back then, the world a shiny new oyster I had been in no hurry to open. Because of him…

  Kace Rymer.

  My college sweetheart.

  The man who taught me about love. The man who’d broken my heart.

  I jump as the car behind me honks. The light is green and I’m sitting here like a dork.

  Lifting an “I’m sorry” hand, I press my foot to the accelerator and speed off with more g-force than I intend. My new car
is certainly zippy.

  And even as I zip down Neyland faster than I should, his voice still rings out all around me.

  As I listen to the beautiful song written for me, I know I should just turn it off.

  I don’t even have to extend an arm to reach for the radio, I can turn the station with just a flick of my thumb on the steering wheel. I can hit the mute button. Turn the volume down. There are multiple ways in which I can spare myself this torture, but even as I turn toward Market Square and leave the river behind me, I let Kace Rymer take me back in time.

  I love you.

  He told me that a million times, and I’d believed him. Every single one of those times.

  But he’d loved something else more.

  I wonder… does Kace Rymer still think of me, or did the drugs wipe away that part of his memory?

  It hurts to even ask the question mentally.

  I know enough about drugs to know that they turn the smartest person into the most foolish. They wrap their dirty hands around a person’s free will, dragging them in the direction it wants them to go.

  And that direction had been away from me.

  Because I hadn’t been able to go with him.

  And I couldn’t save him.

  I’d barely been able to save myself.

  Ten years.

  I need you like breath.

  You are my air.

  Lie with me and I’ll never lie to you.

  As I pull into my parking spot and turn the engine off, the last line dies its own type of death.

  But I won’t cry.

  I’ll never cry over a man again.

  As much as I hate myself for doing it, as I get out of my car on shaky legs and head into the offices of Sass & Frass, I can’t help it… I wonder.

  How he’s doing.

  And if he ever thinks of me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Kace Rymer

  There’s a pounding on my door, followed by a shouted, “Kace!”

  I groan as consciousness returns after several blissful hours of complete nothingness. I drank myself into oblivion on purpose, but nothing comes without a cost. As I crack a single eye open, I’m getting ready to pay that price right now.

  Pressing my hands into my temples, I feel for the iron spike that must be jutting out of my head. Nope. It’s just my stupidity. My lack of discipline. Whatever.

  Licking my dry lips, my mouth tastes like some wild animal has taken a shit directly on my tongue. And it stinks in here… wherever the hell here is.

  Alcohol practically leaks from my pores, and with it, I register the scent of sweat and puke.

  What the total fuck? After four and a half years of sobriety, I got trashed. Good and trashed from the look of it.

  And, dammit, it’s her fault I got drunk.

  Closing my eyes again, I hear my therapist telling me… stop blaming… be accountable. So yeah, it’s not her fault. It’s mine. It’s shit like this that pushed her away.

  It’s also why I’ve been sober for one thousand, six hundred and forty-one days… until last night.

  Damn.

  All because of an anniversary that shouldn’t have meant shit anymore. All because of that damn song.

  I pretty much started drinking the moment it caught me by surprise on the radio yesterday. So close to what should have been our anniversary weekend. My one hit wonder. The song that still keeps me rolling in dough to this day. Even if I never work another day in my life, “Lie With Me” will pay the bills for the lavish lifestyle I don’t give a damn about.

  Sitting up, I look around the hotel room. The penthouse. “Nothing but the best for Kace Rymer,” my manager said yesterday, thinking he was doing me a favor.

  I can’t even remember which city I’m in. Then it hits me… Memphis. One stop of many of my “comeback tour.”

  Another reason I got drunk last night.

  I’m in Tennessee. Her state. Our state.

  I’m in the city that was home to Elvis Presley, the man Elisa Collins named her only child after.

  Presley.

  Even though I’m nearly four hundred miles from her, just being here takes me down the road I swore I’d never again travel. Not because I don’t want to. Not just because the memories bring me pain. But Presley deserves better than that… better than a washed up bastard like me.

  The pounding on the door continues, and I push myself to my feet, pull the sheet around my hips, and stagger to the door.

  “What?”

  It’s Stephen, my manager. And the moment he sees me, a damn shitload of emotions cross over his features. Disbelief. Anger. Disappointment.

  “What in the total hell, Kace?”

  Turning away from the door, I leave it open as I head to the bathroom to take a piss. After I relieve myself of surely a gallon of fluid, I wash my face with cold water then scrub the vile taste from my mouth with a few jabs of my toothbrush.

  Damn.

  How did I live like this for so long?

  Back in the day, I got drunk or coked up every night. Fucked Presley for hours, then bounced out of bed the next day and did it again.

  Am I really that old now?

  Planting my hands on the bathroom counter, I peer into my reflection.

  Yep. I’m that damn old.

  Thirty-four doesn’t look good today, even though I’m normally told I look good, especially for someone who has partied as much as I have. After I quit the drugs and drinking over four years ago, I started working out, making my muscles burn louder than the ache in my belly. The ache in my heart.

  I hit the gym with a personal trainer who didn’t care how much it hurt. Then I began to crave the outdoors and found ways to work out in nature. With the sun on my face, I don’t crave the coke so intently. When I’m climbing a mountain, liquor is the last thing on my mind.

  I’m ripped now. I have a totally different body from the drugged-out husk I was ten years ago.

  Fuck.

  Has it really been that long?

  Turning on the shower, I step into it while the water is still cold. It hits me like a blade, and I let out a stream of curses, but I don’t warm it up. I need to suffer for last night. I wash quickly, getting the stink off while simultaneously trying not to remember every single moment with Presley.

  Furious with myself for allowing her name to continue to circle my brain, I step out of the shower and dry off, shrugging into one of the complementary robes hanging on the door.

  With my fingers, I force my hair into some semblance of order, but there’s not a damn thing I can do for my eyes. They look like Satan himself has climbed into my body and is peering out through the slits.

  Fine. Sunglasses it is.

  Being a rock star does come with a few perks. Wearing sunglasses any time I want, day or night, with people thinking I’m cool instead of a douche is just one of them. Good thing I have a couple dozen pair on my tour bus.

  By the time I’m finished, I feel cleaner but not better. Digging through my toiletry kit, I find and toss back a couple ibuprofen, chasing them down with a full glass of water straight from the tap. Hydration will help. Hair of the dog would help too, but I’m not going there. Can’t go there again. Besides, I’m pretty sure I cleaned out the mini bar last night.

  When I’m ready to face Stephen, I open the bathroom door.

  He’s glaring at me. At least he isn’t screaming and crying like Presley was the last time I saw her. I close my eyes. Why is everything coming back to her? Why is she practically enveloping every part of my brain? One song. One state. One date on the calendar. And everything comes rushing back to me.

  The need for a drink comes rushing back too. My eyes flick toward the bar, and yeah… it’s totally empty. It’s one of the reasons I normally avoid hotels, preferring to stay on my bus. Some people kiddy-proof their space. I have to do something similar. If I don’t have booze and harder shit around, I’m not tempted. I learned long ago that, in the battle of addiction, willpower will get its
ass kicked nearly every time.

  I’m walking proof right now.

  And I hate myself.

  “What the fuck, Kace?”

  Heading straight to the coffee service Stephen had apparently ordered, I pour a cup, burning my lip on the first taste. “Don’t start,” I say to him. “I think I’ve ‘what the fucked’ myself quite enough this morning.”

  Turning to look out the window so I don’t have to witness his disgust and disappointment another moment, I blow on the coffee, glad to have something to do with my hands.

  “Bus is fixed.”

  “Good.”

  Stephen exhales a frustrated breath. “Do I need to call Dr. Gibson?”

  I stiffen. One setback in over four years, and he’s ready to call my shrink?

  “No. It’s done.”

  Another frustrated exhale. “Okay. But the reason I’m here isn’t just about the bus. Something’s come up.”

  I turn to face him, taking another sip of my coffee. It hits my stomach hard, and I set the cup down. “What’s that?”

  “The dude who’s supposed to sing the national anthem before the UT football game is sick and—”

  “No.”

  Stephen gives me a funny look. “What the fuck, man? It’s one song. A song you already know because I’ve heard you sing it plenty of times. It’ll be good publicity for the tour and—”

  I turn back to the window. “No.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  I’ve only known Stephen less than a year now, years after I cleaned house and got rid of everyone who’d enabled or contributed to my addiction. My cousin and former manager had been one of them. He’d thought that all press was good press and having pictures of me puking up my guts was just part of the rock star experience.

  Of all the times I tried to quit, it was James who’d slowly pull me back into the ditch. “One sip,” he’d say. “One snort,” he’d offer. “One time won’t hurt you,” he’d promise, dangling a bag of whatever in front of me.

  The bastard had been best friend, my damn cousin, and I’d made him a rich man as my manager. He’d nearly killed me in return. He’d nearly cost me everything.

  No. He did cost me everything. He’d cost me Presley.

  Ten years ago this weekend. The weekend we were supposed to become husband and wife.