Always Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part 2

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Always

  by

  Amanda Weaver

  Copyright @2014 by Amanda Weaver

  Cover design by AngstyG/ www.angstyg.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be produced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without permission in writing from the author. Short excerpts for review purposes are excluded.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, places or events is purely coincidental.

  www.amandaweavernovels.com

  I couldn’t have done this without Anne Forlines, always there for pre-reading, editing, cheerleading and just being a wonderful friend.

  Thank you to Sara Mizzen, Jennifer Pickard, Eleanor Noach and Victoria Lawrance for early pre-reading and invaluable feedback.

  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my online community… you know who you are. I discovered this love of writing with you, and I learned so much from all of you.

  And lastly, thanks to my wonderful husband, Matt, and my daughter, Lily. They have been so patient as I find my way in this world and they continue to support me every step of the way. I love you.

  PART 1

  December 31, 2007

  All over L.A., with its crisscrossing veins of asphalt under a glittering net of streetlights, people counted down the minutes till 2008. In this nascent New Year, everyone was hoping for something—for success, stardom, love, or maybe just a warm body, a welcoming smile and a kiss at midnight. As the last hours of the old year ticked away, anything was possible. The future was vast and unknown, and Justine James was facing all the effervescent excitement of her own future in a dubious pair of vintage silver hot pants.

  They’d seemed brilliant when she’d found them earlier in the week, but now that she was staring down her own reflection, she was having second thoughts. It wasn’t the miles of skin they left bare making her question the choice. It was the unfortunate waistline. Too high by half.

  “Jesus, Justine,” David snapped behind her. She met his eyes in the mirror.

  “They cut me off at a terrible place, don’t they?”

  David rolled his eyes. “They don’t cut you off at all! That’s the problem. You’re practically naked.”

  “Give it a rest, David.”

  “You’re not going on stage like that, are you?”

  “No, I was going to change into some sweatpants for the show, but I just like to hang around in these because they’re so comfortable.”

  “Nobody will ever take the music seriously if you dress like a pole dancer.”

  She spun around, face flushed with rage, but he’d already stormed out of the tiny green room, letting the door slam behind him.

  “Well fuck you, too!” she shouted at the door.

  “Don’t listen to him, Justine,” Eddie said from the depths of a collapsing armchair. “David’s just a serious guy. You know this. You look amazing.”

  She blew her breath out in a huff. “Thanks, Eddie. I know, I know. Just… why is he so allergic to fun? This is New Year’s Eve. There are people out in the audience in their underwear. We’re a rock band. Shouldn’t we look like one?”

  Eddie gave her a good-natured smile and shrugged. “I guess? Just do your thing. You’re a rock star.”

  She smiled at him for a moment. With his short dark hair and young face, Eddie looked more like a refugee from the high school AV club than a drummer in a band. He acted more like one, too— way too nice compared to the rock and roll bad boys all around him.

  The festive holiday made no difference to Eddie, David or Paolo, their bassist. They were all dressed in non-descript shades of jeans and t-shirts, like they did for every gig they ever played. And that was David's problem with her. Too flashy, too sexy, too girl. No helping it, though. She couldn't get up there and sing in front of a wild crowd if she didn't feel like they were all at this party together, and that wasn't going to happen in a hoodie.

  Eddie was still pounding out a beat on his thigh and Paolo had his earbuds in, missing the entire exchange as usual, so Justine turned back to the problem of the hot pants. When she looked again, the answer was obvious. She flipped down the waistband and shimmied it lower until the flash of diamond in her bellybutton caught the light. More skin was always the answer. With a satisfied smile, she adjusted her black bustier and smacked her red-slicked lips one more time.

  The green room door banged open and she braced herself for David Round Two. Instead it was the lead singer of Primal, the band they were opening for. He stumbled as the door hit the wall behind him, and raked a hand through his shaggy dark hair. When his bleary, blood-shot eyes found Justine, he straightened up and smiled with new interest.

  “Hey, there.”

  Justine smirked at Eddie in the mirror, but kept her voice light and disinterested. “Hey.”

  “You sing for Failsafe, right? Jessica.”

  “That’s me, but it’s Justine.”

  He shuffled a few steps closer, attempting a sexy grin, but he was too wasted to properly pull it off. “You wanna get lit? I got some great shit.” He began patting his pockets as he tried to remember where he’d put his stash. Justine held up a hand to stop him.

  “No, really…is it Mick? Yeah, no thanks, Mick. I don’t like to be messed up when I sing.”

  Mick reared back and looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language. “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.” While she was far from prudish, she really did hate to feel anything less than fully connected when she performed. And that meant no drinking and no weed before a show.

  “Huh. Suit yourself. Hey, you should come hang out with us out front after your set.”

  Justine opened her mouth to decline, but he kept talking before she could.

  “Some buddies of mine are coming to see the show and we’re gonna have a few drinks. Outlaw Rovers. You know them?”

  Her mouth shut so fast her teeth clicked.

  “Outlaw Rovers?” Her voice was reedy and faint.

  Her mind spun with a million obscure facts, all the things she knew about Outlaw Rovers that she didn’t want anyone in this room to know she knew. Outlaw Rovers: LA-based, four man band, formed in 2003, fronted by Ash Thoren. Two albums out, the first one just a self-produced EP. The EP had caught the attention of Nightfall records and they’d been signed last summer. The first single off their major label debut had been released two months ago and was currently 22 on the Billboard Rock chart and climbing fast. They were in the midst of becoming stars.

  “Yeah, come have a drink and I’ll introduce you.” Mick dangled the invitation like a worm on a hook. And dammit, it was working. Justine couldn’t care less if she never spoke to Mick again, but the chance to meet Outlaw Rovers…

  “Okay. Yeah, maybe I will.”

  “Justine?” Eddie said behind her, unfolding from his chair. “We’re almost up.”

  There was no more time for her pounding heart or sky-rocketing anticipation.
She had a show to do. A show Outlaw Rovers just might see. Were they out in the crowd already? Maybe. She felt overwhelmed at the possibility.

  Eddie looked closely at her. “You okay, babe?”

  She swallowed hard and nodded.

  “I’m brilliant.”

  If she said it, it would be so. And it was. The crowd was everything she’d been hoping for. They were loud, crazed, probably wasted, and totally ready to fall in love with her, even if Failsafe’s music wasn’t exactly celebratory. She did her best to make it a party anyway. For the entire thirty minutes of their set, it felt like she was singing to each sweaty, inebriated celebrant individually. Hands reached for her and brushed against her legs as she walked the edge of the stage. She touched their outstretched fingers with her own as she sang, letting her voice sail over their heads and fill the cramped room. This was why she never played messed up. Who would want to miss a minute of this feeling?

  David’s judgmental scowl faded away, along with the hot room filled with too many sweaty bodies, the smell of cheap beer on the sticky floor, and the crummy amps that made everything hiss slightly. She lost herself in a wave of energy from the crowd. She didn’t even look back at David or the other boys while she sang, preferring to keep her eyes on the people who loved her just the way she was.

  Eddie’s final cymbal crash echoed over her head and she stood panting, smiling, arms raised, as the crowd, no more than two hundred people, screamed their approval. She felt alive and energized, in spite of the sweat and the burn in her lungs. David and Paolo came to stand next to her, David looking stern and uncomfortable, as always.

  With one last wave at the still-screaming crowd, Justine left the stage through the door in the back corner. The boys led the way down the narrow, dark hall back to the green room, laughing as they dodged scattered amps and microphone cords and stepped over empty beer bottles. Even the grime and decay of the venue couldn’t take the shine off her euphoria in that moment.

  “I’m gonna go get a drink out front,” she announced. Eddie and David turned to look at her.

  “Hold up,” Eddie said. “You’re actually going to go have drinks with the guy from Primal? Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  “It’s just a drink. I’ll be fine.”

  David gave a dismissive snort. Justine’s temper, still short from their earlier run-in, flared again.

  “What?”

  “I know why you’re going out there and it’s got nothing to do with that burn-out from Primal.” He gave her a hard, knowing glare. “Yeah, I heard they’re here. A couple of the girls out front were squealing about them.”

  “Who?” Paolo asked, finally registering the conversation happening around him.

  “Outlaw Rovers, that stupid poser band Justine’s so obsessed with.”

  “I am not!”

  “You wanted to cover one of their songs!”

  “That song is amazing.”

  “That song is a piece of pop bullshit,” David sneered.

  “Just because it’s got a melody people can sing along to doesn’t make it pop or bullshit, David. I know that’s hard for you to grasp.”

  His eyes widened as he registered her words. “Are you implying something about our songs?”

  They stood locked in a tense stand-off for another moment, Eddie’s eyes flicking back and forth between them. Finally, Justine looked away and shrugged.

  “Your songs. And of course not.”

  “Because if all you want is to front some bubble gum pop band, L.A.’s filthy with them. Take your pick. Maybe Nickelodeon will hire you.”

  “David,” Eddie interjected, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Back off. That’s not what she meant and you know it.”

  David didn’t look at Eddie, he kept his eyes on Justine. Finally, he threw up his hands. “Whatever. Go be a fangirl and chase after Ash Thoren like all the other girls. Just be back here in time for our second set.”

  Justine opened her mouth to ask when she’d ever showed up unprepared for a set, but David had already turned away, muttering to himself. In the end, it didn’t matter, so she let him go. Screw him and his determination to hate the world.

  “Watch yourself, Justine,” Eddie said. She touched his shoulder as she passed him.

  “Thanks, Eddie.”

  As she made her way back through the warren of dim, narrow hallways leading to the front of the club, she tried to shake off the fight with David. It was nothing new, nothing they hadn’t butted heads over a million times before. Failsafe was David’s band. He’d formed it, he wrote all the music. Justine fronted it, but David never let anyone forget he was the one in charge. Whenever Eddie, or God forbid Justine, suggested a sound or a song, David always shut them down. When it came to the music, nobody questioned David.

  So what if Justine sometimes felt disconnected from the music she was making? So what if the audience sometimes seemed to connect more to her than to the song? Failsafe seemed to be doing alright. The independent record they’d made last year had gotten some modest local notice and they stayed busy enough playing local gigs despite the friction. Eddie and Paolo had their issues with David, but he and Justine were the most toxic mix. Her looks attracted notice and she figured he resented her for it. Maybe once David realized the attention actually worked in their favor, he’d start listening to her and she’d get to sing what she wanted once in a while.

  She slipped through the battered metal door separating the front of the club from backstage. A DJ had taken over in the break before Primal went on and the crowd was a mass of sweaty bodies swaying under the flashing blue and red lights. Sound Lounge was a bare bones venue, just a low-ceilinged basement with a small stage at one end and a long bar at the other. Justine pushed through the crowd, looking for Mick or anyone else she recognized. Twenty feet from the bar, she spotted a small group of girls and behind them stood Ash Thoren.

  Ash Thoren was a rock god in the making. He was tall— nearly six four— with the rangy spare muscles of an athlete built for speed. His wavy blond hair brushed his shoulders, too long to be cool, but Ash was the kind of guy who made his own rules. He had pale skin and angular features inherited from his Swedish father, a modestly successful movie director, and clear blue eyes inherited from his Ukrainian mother, a former model. Those were the things about him any fan could learn from the Internet. While photos might capture his startlingly beautiful face or his tall, perfect body, it couldn’t quite convey the charisma that enthralled everyone in his orbit. It was something you could only feel when you shared space with him.

  He was currently holding court at the bar, the rest of Outlaw Rovers, a few members of Primal and a handful of hopeful young girls hanging on every word he spoke and every smile he threw their way. Justine watched the girls flatter and fawn over him. It was the oldest rock and roll story in the world.

  Then her eyes shifted to the man on Ash’s right, the one she’d really come to meet— Dillon Pierce. He was watching Ash and Mick talk, smiling slightly and swirling his drink. Ash might be the front man of Outlaw Rovers, and the one everybody paid attention to, but Dillon Pierce was its magic. He was the lead guitarist and songwriter for the band and responsible for their shift in sound that resulted in their first hit record. Rumor around L.A. was that when the band’s label debut album was stuck in the studio, falling apart at the hands of an inept producer, Dillon was the one who stepped in and saved the day. Someone else got producing credit, but the song currently climbing the charts was Dillon’s doing and everyone knew it.

  Where Ash was all golden exuberance, Dillon was a dark mystery. Next to Ash he looked small, but he was easily six feet himself. Messy hair the color of black coffee framed a face that might have been almost ordinary if not for his eyes. They were the same dark brown, almost-black of his hair, shadowed with heavy lids that left him looking perpetually disinterested, sleepy or maybe turned on. The rest of him gave nothing away, so it was impossible to tell.

  She was as close to Dillon as
she’d ever been. Every time she’d seen one of their live shows, she’d been stuck way back in the crowd. He looked so much better up close. When she was just a few feet away, his eyes suddenly shifted away from Ash, locking with hers. At the same moment, Mick noticed her approach.

  “Hey, it’s Jessica!” Mick called out, waving her over. She smiled in response but never looked away from Dillon, whose bored expression had snapped to full attention.

  “It’s Justine, actually. Justine James.” she said, coming to a stop in front of them.

  Ash hiked an eyebrow. “That’s your real name?”

  She turned to face him. “Yeah, I’m afraid so. And save the jokes. I know it sounds like a stripper name.”

  “Nah, that’s not a stripper name,” Ash said. “That’s a porn star name. But like, high end porn. You know, the kind with plots and good lighting?”

  Justine blinked at him in surprise. “You’re one to talk. Where’d you come up with Ash Thoren? Your Lord of the Rings role playing game?”

  Ash laughed. “It’s my real name. It’s Swedish! Or Swedish meets Hollywood. Anyway, it’s all me, I swear to God. Ask Dillon. Wait… you don’t know him. This is Dillon.”

  Justine’s heart flipped over. Finally, finally, she was going to meet him. He’d talk to her. She kept her expression steady as she turned back to him. He was already extending a hand towards her. “I know who he is,” she murmured. Dillon looked intrigued as she took his hand.

  “Then you’re one up on me,” he said. “Nice to meet you, Justine. You were really good up there.”

  All of Justine’s intentions to stay calm and cool dissolved in the face of his compliment. Her insides melted and she smiled.

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah, absolutely.”

  “Thanks.”

  This close to him, the musician she’d idolized since she’d first heard their self-produced EP over a year ago, she found herself utterly overwhelmed. He was her hero and the first thing he said to her was that he’d liked her performance. It was almost too much to take in.