Bad Boy Rock Star (2 page)

It wasn’t his words that got me angry but the way he grinned after he said it
, as if I was someone he could dismiss.

I raised my hand and swung, ready to slap some sense into that annoying face of his, but he grabbed my wrist before I made contact.

"Don’t even think about it, babe."

Then he dropped my hand as though it were something dir
ty.

He turned away, winking and grinning at someone at the bar.

"Megastar Management.
Does that name ring any bells?"

He swung around.

"I'm Hannah Sorrento, the new manager."

"You're kidding, right?
What's this, a new project for the bored little rich girl? Some kind of game. I'm busy, babe, so run back home."

I waited for him to drop his gaze.
For all his bravado, I'd seen the flash in his eyes when I'd said my name. The Sorrento surname still held sway in this town. At least for now. If he wanted a showdown, I'd give him one. I didn't care that he'd kissed me. I didn't care that the look in his eyes made me feel as if I was beneath his contempt. I had one thing on my agenda. He tried that look again, 100 pure volts of arrogance shot my way, but I was prepared this time and shot it right back at him. We locked gazes and anyone coming between us would've been zapped like a bug.

I'd learnt negotiation on my father's knee and I'd learnt I had to be tougher than anyone.
I knew whoever spoke first would lose.

You could only throw me for so long.
My pulse was almost back to normal and my chest barely felt tight.

Finally, he walked away.

I stared after him. Nobody walked out on me. Nobody. I'd show him a thing or two. Mr Jack Colt belonged to me now and I had the papers to prove it.

A drum cymbal crashed as the next band went on stage in the front room and the chatter turned to screams. I shouted over the noise.

"Tuesday. Two o'clock at the coffee shop in the Sorrento Corporation building. I want to see the whole band turn up. We have things to discuss. Read your contract if you need to." I shouted over the top of the music.

He waved over his shoulder.
I wasn't sure if it was agreement or dismissal.

I waited at the dark shelter for the bus to turn up. I could hear the distant strains of music from the bar and the sound of cars in the streets around me but the beachside road that the bus took was deserted.
A massive hedge separated me from the apartment building behind me and a large tree dimmed the glare of the streetlight. I could've sat in the bus shelter if some hoodlum hadn't smashed it up. The shattered glass crunched under my feet, probably doing untold damage to the soles of my shoes.

I hadn't considered the possibility of it being quite so creepy
when I'd planned to catch the bus home. I figured I'd just turn up at the stop at the scheduled time and the bus would be there. It was already five minutes late though. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. If only I'd bought a coat. I hadn't realised the wind would be so chilly or that I'd be standing around on the street.

The branches behind me rustled.
I jumped. Maybe I screamed a little. Something lived in that bush. Something feral and rabid and hungry.

If only I had the money
, I’d call a cab and get out of this place before that feral animal attacked me. How do people actually do anything if they have to wait around for buses all the time? No wonder they are poor since they have to spend all their time waiting around and having to defend themselves from animal attacks. You might as well just be living in the wilderness and sleeping on the ground.

I checked the time again and walked to the curb to look for the bus but could not even see it in the distance so
I paced back to the smashed up shelter.

The wind seemed to be getting colder and still no bus.
I pressed my fingers to my lips. They felt tender from
that man
. At least the thought of his arrogance made my blood boil enough to keep me warm. He’d better turn up to the meeting and he’d better lose the attitude. The world would be a much better place if people just did what I wanted.

My neck prickled,
as if someone stood close to me. I tried to ignore it, telling myself to stop being so damn jumpy. Then I turned to find a huge man mountain hovering over me.

I yelped but no one heard me.
He seriously reached up to the sky and took up the entire footpath. His filthy grey tee shirt stretched tight over his belly with a solid ridge of white, hairy fat peeking out the bottom. A scraggy beard flowed down his face, full of food remains and he looked me up and down as though he was a starving man who'd chanced about a bacon sandwich.  How he’d snuck up without me hearing him was a mystery.

His laugh mad
e my blood run cold and he grunted something I couldn't understand through his broken teeth.

"
Hey, Hagrid, look out of my way," I said, trying to get past him without actually touching him.  My witty pop culture reference amused me and I smiled thinking I’d tell my friends later.

Instead of looking out of the way though, he pushed forward
, making me stumble backwards and impale myself on the sharp branches. I backed away from him until I had nowhere left to retreat to. Why the hell hadn't that bus turned up?

"Get off me," I screamed again but he moved closer, leaning over me.
His breath stank of something that had died last week and his body – well. Fresh sweat gleamed on his skin but the odour was more of old sweat and backed up sewage systems. I turned my face to get away from the full blast of him, the bile rising in my throat.

What could I do?
Even if I screamed, who'd hear me? There was no one on the streets and the music pumping out of the bar would block any sound anyway. I definitely could not fight him.

"Take my bag," I said, thrusting it at him.
"Take my bag and leave me alone."

He didn’t even look at
the precious handbag I was giving him.  He reached for my shoulder, his hand like a big bear paw, and squeezed me tight. His eyes gleamed yellow in the glow from the flickering streetlight and he laughed like a lunatic.

I tried to twist my way out of his grasp and kicked his shin, hoping it'd give me a chance to
run.  Nothing registered though. He kept laughing and tightened his grip on me. His other hand fumbled with the fly on his jeans. I tried to squirm away from him but it was useless. I'd not cry. I never cry and I'd not give him the satisfaction.

He leaned in even closer.
His tongue darted out, licking my cheek. His big meaty tongue touching my skin. All my insides shrivelled.

I swung my bag around, trying to knock him out with it but he flung it out of my hand, scattering the contents all over the street and grabbed me with both hands.
I had no hope left. My head swam with dizziness and I hoped I'd pass out before he touched me any more. I whispered a prayer for someone to save me. A brave hero who’d send that freak running off in the darkness and take me in his arms and protect me.

"Oi, mister.
Get away from her."

A voice.  A girl’s voice but still a voice.  Maybe he’d attack her instead and I could run for safety.

A reign of kicks and punches came out of nowhere. This chick didn't muck around. All I saw was a blur. Man Mountain’s laugh turned into yelps as a boot kicked into him again and again. He dropped his hand from me and turned to defend himself.

I quickly ducked around the side of the shelter, not wanting him to grab me again and not wanting a stray punch
to connect either. When he bent over in pain, I decided to risk running back to the bar. Then a boot-clad foot swung up between his legs and he shrieked like a little girl. When he spun around and limped off, I saw who my rescuer was.

"Sheesh, if I'd know
n it was you, I'd have let him get you," she said. It was the green-haired girl from the bar, only a beanie now covered the hair. She put her arm around my shoulder. "Only kidding, couldn't let a monster like that get away with shit."

"Thanks," I said, a nervous giggle rising up in me.
I moved away and dusted myself down. I wasn't fond of being embraced by strangers even if they had just rescued me.

She looked me up and down then reached over and picked a twig out of my hair.

"You don't exactly look like the type that catches the bus," she said. "Here, I’ll help you pick up your stuff."

I shrugged.
I wasn't exactly going to go into the circumstances that lead to me being a passenger on the 552 bus on a Saturday night to a complete stranger.

"Do you wanna call the cops?"
she asked, retrieving a lipstick that had rolled into the gutter.

I shook my head, remembering Frank's advice to stay out of trouble.

"Prolly a good thing. It'd mean hours of filling out paperwork and they wouldn’t do anything anyway. He was a nasty bugger, wasn't he?"

She fumbled in her bag.

"Want a cig?" she asked. "It'll calm you down."

I shook my head and leaned against the pole of the bus stop to steady myself.

"Well, I hope you aren't one of those sanctimonious bitches who gets all uptight if I smoke. Because I'm going to light up and you should be damn grateful cos everyone knows the bus never turns up until you light up a cigarette anyway." She sparked her lighter and dragged on her cigarette.

"It's fine.
The bus is late anyway." I looked at my watch then gazed over at the timetable.

"Hells, love.
You really are naive if you believe the bus timetable. There's no "time" in timetable or some shit like that. The bus turns up when it turns up. It's like Zen or Buddhism or whatever that religion is that believes in shit like that. One time, I waited over half hour then the bloody bus just went whizzing past me and I had to wait for the next one. Bloody shits. Hey, is it true? Are you really the manager of Storm? I love those guys."

I wondered when she actually found time to breathe but her chatter helped me feel safer even thought I kept scanning the street for freaks.

"Yeah, it seems that way."

"No offence, love, but you don't really look like a manager.
You don't look like you'd know the first thing about rock. In that get up you look like you should be going to the opera or the races or something. Next time, let me pick your outfit."

I hoped my smile looked sincere.
Actually she didn't look too bad once you got over the bright green hair. She'd actually be pretty with the right grooming.

"See
, told you the bus would turn up when I lit up a smoke." She took a last desperate drag of her cigarette.

I looked up to see the bus pulling up.
I got on and swiped my card then took a seat and prepared to put in my headphones but she sat beside me and kept talking.

This was only the second time in my life I’d caught the bus and already I’d realized that no matter what, crazies will sit next to you and talk your ears off.
I figured it was better to let her sit beside me. At least she didn’t smell or drool – and she had rescued me from that oaf.

"Name's Angie by the way.
And you are Hannah. I heard you say that at the bar."

I nodded.

"Where you going?"

I told her.

"You live near me. Cool. If you are going to manage the guys, I have a few suggestions if you don't mind me telling you. To be honest, you don't look like you know much about managing a band and I reckon I'd be really tops at that kind of thing."

I listened to her because she sounded like she knew what she was talking about. And she was right, I knew nothing about managing a band but my motives were more like unmanaging them.

The stupid garbage truck pulled me out of a very hot dream the next morning.
It was all sexy and sweaty and – I refused to dream about Jack Colt. I refused to imagine his hands running down my body, sending divine shivers through me. I refused to think about his long fingers caressing my skin. I wouldn't even think about his mouth or tongue or the things they did to me in my dream. I would not think about Jack Colt in that way at all. Instead I’d think about nice things, like my boyfriend, Tom.

But the dream stuck to the edges of my brain and I kept getting flashes of stupid Jack Colt doing that thing he did with his hips.
And the leather stretched tight around his thighs. The way he strutted around like he owned the place. Mr Jack Colt, if that indeed was his real name because it sounded pretty fake to me, thought he was a sex god but not in my book. I tried to bring up images of Tom instead but couldn’t picture him clearly. I could remember the clothes he wore and the aftershave he used but I could not remember the emotions he made me feel. It hadn’t been that long but already his face had faded in my mind like an old photo.

I sat up in bed then thought about going back to sleep.
When I slept, I could pretend I had my old life back. I'd get up and put together a fabulous outfit then go to meet my friends for coffee. Often, someone would want to take my photo for the campus fashion blog. And that was all before the first lecture.

But the hard, rickety single bed that doubled as a couch gave me a backache and, every time I turned in my sleep, the bed creaked and woke me up.
I'd not had a decent sleep since I'd moved in. I wasn't totally convinced this place didn't have some kind of bugs either, even though I'd gone through three bottles of bug spray when I first got here.

You could almost reach the kitchen from the bed.
Well, if you could call it a kitchen, I suppose. A tiny bar fridge that hummed and rattled all night and smelt like maybe three years ago someone had spilled milk in it and never cleaned it out. There was a hotplate and a kind of sink with cold water. If I wanted hot water, I had to boil it on the hotplate. Someone had left some plates and saucepans on a shelf under the sink. As much as I hated the idea of using someone else's manky stuff, I couldn't afford to replace them.

I didn't
cook anything here anyway. The whole place would reek if I tried cooking and the smell would get into my clothes, which filled most of the room. My regular clothes hung on a rack at the end of my bed that had already collapsed about three times since I'd been there, usually during the night, waking me up in fright. I'd packed the really good stuff away in boxes under my bed so it stayed decent. I had boxes of shoes and handbags stacked up around the room. It looked like a disorganised wardrobe, although the entire room would have fit inside my wardrobe back home. I'd tried not to think too much about how orderly things used to be. How everything was colour-coded and matched and hung correctly. When I left for uni, I'd thought I had it tough with just a single walk-in robe but this place, this place was a slum. Literally. A literal slum. These clothes were all I had to comfort me and I couldn't care for them in the way they needed to be cared for. It broke my heart.

I needed those clothes.
I needed them to look good and to smell good. Imagine if I gave off an odour of fried onions or garlic? I'd never fool anyone into thinking I was still a princess. But already I had a basket of things that needed dry cleaning and dry cleaning cost money.

Someone shuffled down the hallway to the bathroom.
I'd stay in my room until they were done.

A draught blew through the gaps in the floorboards, chilling my feet when I got out of bed.
The walls had traces of bright pink shining through the chipped white paint and a speckled pattern of mildew. The woman in the room next door muttered to herself and I could hear her at night when I tried to sleep. And sometimes I could hear the girl down the hallway and her thug boyfriend making weird noises. I'd cover my head with my pillow and try not to think about what they were doing.

But one day, this would be over.
One day, I'd back in the house where thick carpets muffled all sounds and the sun reflected off the pool and everything I wanted would be mine with just a snap of my fingers. This would be a nightmare.

I should call Tom.
If he didn't hear from me, he'd get worried and the last thing I wanted was for him to come down here looking for me. All he knew was that I'd dropped out of school to find myself and had moved back home for a while. I'd give him a ring later when he'd finished classes to keep him happy. Lately, he'd been busy when I tried to call him. I didn't have much to say to him anyway.

Until then, I had to get out of this place.
If I sat in this room all day, staring at those four walls, I’d go crazy. I needed to at least go out and get coffee and forget for a moment that I didn’t really have any place to go.

When I heard the footsteps shuffle back to a room and the door close, I grabbed my stuff and headed to the communal bathroom, carefully locking my room behind me.
The bathroom was none too clean and I thought one of the losers in this place could at least give it a scrub.

The hot water in the shower washed away all the grime, the places that Jack Colt's hands had touched me, thinking that his slight attention would be a way to make more sales
, it seemed. The spot on the back of my neck where he'd caressed me, I didn't care about that at all. I let the soap and water carry away any traces. And I scrubbed the place on my thigh where his leg had pressed against mine. I didn't need any reminder of that.

I planned
on turn up to the meeting on Tuesday all business-like and professional and like I'd forgotten he'd even kissed me. That would teach him a valuable lesson. I'd put my case to them and hopefully they'd see sense. Then I'd walk away with a bundle of money and could go back and finish my degree and wait for Dad to return. I'd even forgive him for dumping me in this mess.

I dried myself off then popped my head out the door to make sure no one was around.
I really didn't fancy running into anyone in the hallway and standing around having a chat about their back pains or what boringly awful things they'd been doing all day.

The floor creaked as I ran along the hallway to my room and I thought I heard a door open but I darted into my room so quickly no one saw me.
I began getting ready to go out.

I picked up a bottle of moisturiser and shook it.
Nothing came out. I squeezed and a dollop splattered onto my hand. I shook it some more. It was almost empty. No way. I needed that moisturiser. It made my skin soft and glowing and it was one of the few brands my sensitive skin could handle. How much was a bottle of moisturiser anyway? About $300.

Then I realised I could not afford to buy more.
How does a person get to this state? Not being able to afford life's essentials. Surely poor people need moisturiser too or they'd all have dry, flaky skin. I had to find out about this.

Once I was clean and dressed, I got out the
folder Frank had given me. It was fat and packed full of notes – all the records and financial statements of Megastar Management. I packed it into my bag and headed out to the café on the corner to make sense of it all. I had $500 in the bank, which meant I could afford to pay rent for the next few weeks and eat and maybe buy one coffee a day. I'd make that coffee last for a long time and not even look at the bagels or the fries.

I'd never really thought before about the concept of
afford
or
can't afford
, just
want
or
don’t want
. Now, I had to scribble away on pieces of paper, working out budgets and how to survive. I could do this. Like Dad said, I had to be stronger than anyone and living for two weeks on a budget couldn't be too bad. Surely it wouldn't be any longer. The end of those two weeks loomed in front of me like a closed door. If Dad didn't come back and open it… well, I wouldn't think about that.

When I got to the
café, I sat in a corner booth with red vinyl seats. Planters of ferns hung from the ceiling and I wasn't sure if they were going for a retro '70s look or if they just hadn't redecorated since the '70s. The counter with its tempting display case of cakes ran along one side of the room, the booths along the side and tables at the front looked out onto the street.  There were more tables outside but they were always full of people who might be hipsters or might be homeless. I couldn’t tell the difference.

I'd never even been to this part of town before I'd had to move here.
I didn't realise it existed. But the rent was cheap and they hadn't asked any questions when I moved. They just took the money and gave me a key.

I opened the file and checked the papers.
I'd gone through them before but hoped I'd find something, anything that meant I could make money. It seemed Megastar Management had once been a money-making concern but then Dad had turned his attention to other things and the business just floated along. The only acts still on the roster were Storm and some oldies that never played any more.

The only real asset of the company, if you could even call it an asset, was the Storm contract.
It had to be worth something. I'd started on Plan A, now I just needed to work on Plan B, just in case.

As I sip
ped my coffee, I wondered if I could do this. I didn't know anything about managing a band. How much could they earn from playing a bar like they did last night? How many people were there? Who had even been organising this stuff for the past year?

"Hiya, what are you doing?"

Angie slid into the booth. She was all grins and wearing another Storm t-shirt, her hair in pigtail bunches all over her head, and bright blue lining her eyes.

She'd talked my ear off on the bus ride home, mostly fangirl gushing, then we'd got off at the same stop and realised we lived really close to each other.
Still, when she'd said "see you around", I hadn't expected it to be quite so soon. She would be much better at managing the band than me and I wondered if she had any money.

"Okay, since you need some help, I've set up a web site."
She pulled out her phone and showed me what she'd done. It looked fantastic. I grinned, then remembered.

"Didn't they have a website before?"
God, who doesn't have a website in the 21st century? No wonder these guys made no money.

"Yeah, they had one but it was shit.
It looked like it'd been made in Geocities and was never updated."

"You know we have no money to pay you."

"That's okay," she said. "I'm happy to do it. For love. Love of a groupie for her band is the purest love of all, right. You don't expect money or even for your love to be returned. All you want is for them to keep on doing what they do. Okay, and maybe one day notice you in the crowd and realise you are their one true love and live happily ever after…"

I laughed.
"Do you think anyone is going to live happily ever after with Jack Colt?"

She waved to the waitress for a coffee and sighed.

"Word on the street is no. Word on the street is that he has a two week limit. That's the longest any woman has caught him for. But hey, maybe two weeks is better than nothing. It would be the best two weeks of my life."

The waitress sat down the coffee.

"You having another?" she asked me.

I looked at my empty cup.
I wanted more coffee. I really needed more coffee. Screw it. Coffee is an investment, right. You can't work without coffee, so, if I deprived myself, I'd end up not making a profit. I understand business. You only get out if you put in.

"So," I asked her
, "Have you ever dated him?"

She leaned on the table with a wistful look in her eyes.
"Not yet, but you know what they say – it doesn't matter if there's a queue, so long as it's moving."

I laughed.
She didn't mind laying it all out there. It was something I could never do. Even when people asked me about Tom, I never liked to talk about my private business.

She folded her hands and I noticed the chunky silver rings on her fingers.
I looked at my hand with just the thin band that was my grandmother's left on it. It'd been her wedding ring.

"He thinks he's a badass.
Is he really that amazing?"

"Hey
, he kissed you too. Didn't you feel it? The thunder. The bolts of lightning. They are called Storm for a reason! That welling up like fireworks about to explode? The sounds of cannons firing… POW! If he can do that with just a kiss, imagine what his cock is like."

I
spurted out my coffee. Imagining Jack Colt's cock was not my intention, although it'd be long and thin, like his fingers and…

"What about the rest of the band?"

"Well, there's Eric the bass player. He's half-Korean and pretty quiet most of the time. He doesn't really let on what he's thinking but he takes the music seriously. I think he does most of the stuff for the band because their management is pretty slack. Oops, sorry."