All Shook Up
Authors: Josey Alden
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #New Adult & College, #Contemporary Fiction
All Shook Up (Rock Your World #1)
A new adult romance serial by Josey Alden
With the legendary guitarist Lang Winter as a father, Sophie Winter grew up around sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.
After her father dies of an overdose, Sophie discovers that Lang blew through almost all of the millions he earned—and even sold the rights to his chart-topping songs. Now, she lives in a mansion she can't afford, drinks vodka she buys with credit cards, and parties like the party will never end.
Mark Dillon has worshipped Lang Winter from the moment he could pick up a guitar.
Sixty days into his rehab sentence after an assault charge, Mark is bored and restless. When he finds out that the Winter mansion is for sale, he uses it as an excuse to leave his L.A. rehab early. In Dallas, he proposes to buy Lang's house and let Sophie continue living there, if she'll help him play guitar like Lang did.
There's only one problem. Or two.
Sophie hates guitars, and she hates her father even more. She wonders how she can pull this off without losing everything ... including the guy who just might hold the strings to her shattered heart.
~ The Rock Your World serial will have five episodes. ~
Scene 1 ~ Sophie
The second I hear the doorbell chime, I know I'm screwed. I sit up and assess my ability to walk from the couch to the front door with no injuries. On a scale of one to ten, dizziness is a five. I have a fifty/fifty chance of cracking my skull open on the Italian marble. Before I can test my luck, though, my guest lets herself in. As I feared, it's my real estate agent. And the guy standing next to her? A dead ringer for Mark Dillon.
The
Mark Dillon.
I have to get a closer look. With all due caution, I cross the room at half-speed, using furniture as handholds, until I reach the foyer.
"Sophie, we had an appointment this morning?" Friendly Neighborhood Real Estate Agent Mary says, turning her statement into a question. Translation: "Sophie, why are you here, and why are people passed out in random places in your living room?"
I stare at Mary's matte-finished face and powder-blue Chanel suit, trying to wring a coherent response from my sodden brain. Unfortunately, I seem to be fresh out of coherence. So, I turn to study the Mark Dillon look-alike instead.
He sure seems like the real thing, down to the guitar-string callouses on his fingers. In fact, he's even better than the real thing. I remember Mark Dillon as a tall, gaunt lead guitarist who never looked at the audience while he played. This version of him seems more … alive. It's too bad that guitarists are not my thing. I can ignore how his black t-shirt molds to his muscled chest and arms, and I don't care if his jeans look custom-stitched for him. And those aquamarine eyes? They have no effect on my breathing. None at all.
When I fail to break the awkward silence, he steps forward and holds his hand out to me. "I'm Mark," he says. "Thanks for letting us intrude."
I take his hand. My thumb glides over the smooth skin and tattoos on the back of his hand, and my fingers brush against the rough spots underneath. A second later, I realize that I'm supposed to shake his hand like a normal person—not make a love connection. I let go like he shocked me.
Then, I remember the incident. The one that sent Mark to mandatory rehab instead of jail. After an after-show party, Mark had downed ten too many and punched out a guy cold when he said the Never More Alone show sucked that night. It was something my father would have done.
"Lang Winter's daughter," Mark says. Right away, I recognize the reverence in his voice, and I groan to myself. "Your father—"
"Was a selfish, immature, wasted asshole." Kind of like me.
Mark raises his eyebrows. Damn, damn, damn. I didn't mean to say it out loud. This is not the way to unload this monstrosity of a house before the equally monstrous tax bill is due. I sigh and look down at my feet. And bare legs. And the world's skimpiest pair of panties. I'm not even sure they can be classified as underwear. My cheeks catch fire.
"Excuse me," I say. "I'm not wearing pants."
My fast exit is foiled when I trip over Hondo's foot and catch myself two inches away from smashing my face on the floor. Hondo moans and swears at me. I recover my footing and skitter out of the room to the safety of my bedroom. Luckily, it's the second master bedroom downstairs, so I don't have to suffer the humiliation of climbing stairs in my current state of undress.
I go straight to my closet and sink down on the velvet chaise lounge, fanning my overheated face with the cardboard from a package of tights. This closet is the size of most normal bedrooms. Every wall is stuffed ceiling to floor with clothes and shoes, obliterating the clever system of hangers, shelves, and drawers that were intended to organize this grand mess. I grab a pair of jeans from the end of the chaise and tug them on, careful not to jostle my stomach too much. On a scale of one to ten, nausea is approaching a seven.
Mary appears in the doorway. "Sophie, a word, please?"
"You might not want to stand between me and the bathroom," I say. A look of disgust clouds her neutral mask, but she heeds my warning. She steps inside the room, one heel piercing my favorite kimono, which is a silken, violet heap on the floor.
"Mr. Dillon flew here from L.A. just for this showing," Mary says. "How could you forget this appointment?"
"Well, you certainly didn't mention him by name." I sniff, trying to figure out why I smell vodka. Finally, I look around and realize that the back half of my shirt is soaked in alcohol. Damn. What a waste of good vodka. I pull a t-shirt from an overflowing drawer and change, not caring that Mary can see me without a bra. She breached my private sanctuary at her own risk.
"Actually, I gave you his name two days ago," Mary says. "I tried to persuade him to give you a few hours to make the place presentable, but he wants to view it now, as planned."
I shrug. "Sure, whatever."
"Then, on Monday, we can talk about your future plans for selling the property."
And there it is: My second real estate agent in four months is going to dump me. Not even the commission on a $4.2 million house is enough to keep her on, if selling the place means dealing with a drunk loser like me.
I avoid looking in the three-way mirror as I follow Mary back into the living room. The damage is nothing new: snarled blonde curls, raccoon eyes, puffy lips. I'm even less presentable than my gargantuan house. At least I have pants on now.
We catch up with Mark by the pool. He's standing at the deep end, studying the water that has more in common with pea soup than a crystal blue oasis.
"Just a little chlorine problem," I say, turning away from the ruined water and hoping he'll follow.
The day I inherited this house, I fired the pool guy. I told myself it was for a practical reason, that I had to conserve my bank account balance. I didn't tell anyone, not even Hondo, that I don't want that water touched. Ever. For eternity.
Actually, I had to let all of the staff go to slow down the hemorrhaging of my money. I thought Hondo and I could handle this house on our own. Within a week, though, I realized how little I know about basic housekeeping for a 12,000-square foot house. Besides, hangovers and vacuuming do not mix, as a general rule.
Mark presses his lips together and looks sideways at me, as if he's trying not to laugh at the poor, little spoiled girl who can't take care of herself or anything around her. Mary closes her eyes, and I can almost hear her wishing that I will be gone when she opens them again.
The three of us flinch in unison when someone starts coughing and retching behind us. I look back and see my friend Lisa puking a belly full of red Jell-O shots into one of the giant planters. My stomach grumbles another warning. Seeing someone else throw up is not helping. Nausea is at a firm nine now.
"I'm going to take care of my girl, here," I say, backing away from Mary and Mark. "Feel free to look anywhere. Sorry for the mess. It really is a nice house."
A
nice
house? Gah, could I sound any more idiotic? People don't pay four million bucks for nice.
I stand very still and wait for Mary and Mark to walk back inside. The second the door closes behind them, I join Lisa at the planter and let my body eject the pure vodka. It's all clear liquid. When was the last time I ate? No wonder I got so smashed.
Lisa heaves one last time and then sinks onto a beach chair with a dramatic groan. "Never, ever again."
"Yeah, that's what you said on Tuesday," I say, stepping away from the foul smell of the planter. One more thing I'll have to clean up later, when I feel better. Right now, my stomach is a sack of nails. "Let's go. We have to make ourselves look a little less dead. Mark Dillon is viewing the house, in all its drunken glory."
Lisa squeals and jumps to her feet. "I threw up in front of Mark Dillon? Why the hell did you let me do that?"
"Like I could've stopped you?"
"You could have tried," she says, following me away from the pool. Then she stops. "Wait, he was in rehab."
"Yeah, so?" I say.
"What if seeing all this makes him want to party again? What if we're responsible for him relapsing? That would suck on a level I can't even contemplate."
I laugh. "If anything, I'm pretty sure our little show reinforced his decision to go clean."
We take the back way to my bedroom to avoid bumping into Mark and Mary. As my remaining guests wake up and realize they are in the middle of an open house with the lead guitarist of Never More Alone, they pile into the bathroom with Lisa and me.
"Why didn't you say anything about Mark Dillon looking at the house?" Hondo says. He sheds his clothes without a shred of modesty and steps into the shower. "You bruised me, by the way."
"Try sleeping somewhere other than the floor, then, my delicate flower," I say.
The truth is, no matter where we crash each night, Hondo and I always sleep within ten feet of each other. He is my safety, my soulmate, my platonic better half. The one thing that we can both count on is coming home to each other. As soon as this albatross of a house sells, though, we have no idea where "home" will be.
Lisa sits on the counter to get a better look at her face in the mirror. She's a small-time model, mostly catalogs, and she spends half her time in front of a mirror or camera.
"Look at this," she says. "Look at this! I have a shoot tomorrow. What the hell am I going to do?"
I look, but I can't see the flaw that she sees. "Lisa, love, that's what make-up is for."
From her perch on the toilet, Clara groans. "Shut up if you don't want my head to explode."
"It might be an improvement for you, sweetness," Hondo yells from the shower, the deep bass of his voice thundering off the walls.
"Fuck you." Clara tries to rip off some toilet paper, but it just keeps rolling. She gets frustrated and pulls half the roll off, throwing most of it on the floor.
"Hey, we're trying to clean up here," I say. Of course, it's far too late for that.
Hondo leaves the water running in the shower when he comes out. "Your turn," he says, wrinkling his nose to let me know a shower is not optional.
Seeing six-foot-five Hondo with that expression always cracks me up. I watch him dry off, starting with his short and spiky bleached hair. Body-wise, he's a cross between soccer and basketball—perfectly proportionate and muscular but with stretched arms and legs, and hands that can practically wrap around your wrist twice. Nature treated him kindly, too, except it doesn't matter much to him. Hondo is asexual. In high school, he dated a few girls. In college, he dated a few guys. He finally realized that no one really does it for him, and now, he's content just being Hondo. Our running joke is that he has the longest, loneliest schlong in the south.
"Find me some clean clothes?" I say to Hondo as I strip and get into the steaming shower.
"Yes, dear."
"Kisses."
The hot water massages me from neck to toe, thanks to a complicated shower contraption that Mary says is a "luxury feature" of the house. I wonder if apartments have these kinds of features? Or tents?
The shower helps me feel half-human again. I wish I could live my life in this shower, where the only thing I would have to do is wash away the dirt day after day.