Manhandled: A Rockstar Romantic Comedy (Hammered Book 2) (2 page)

How sweet.

I beat down the snark with my internal bat. It was always at the ready.

My parents weren’t bad people. Actually they were the nicest people on the planet, as far as I was concerned. The problem wasn’t them. It was me. I didn’t belong in their country-club lifestyle.

I was dark-washed denim and a rude T-shirt to my mom’s silk and pearls.

I was seedy bars with a battered upright piano jammed in the corner screaming my name. They were a baby grand on glossy marble floors with Beethoven’s 5th playing in the background at a party.

I was rock and roll, and they were classical.

Noah must have read my mind, because his pinkie brushed mine. He’d play the boyfriend if I really wanted him to. We’d done a similar role play at a party in Hollywood. Noah might be the quiet brother, but he was far more intuitive than people gave him credit for.

I lifted both glasses. “Refill?” I asked him.

His dimples flashed. “Sure.”

“Thanks.”

I let my mother envelop me into her Dior signature scent. She didn’t give air kisses like Hope. She squeezed and didn’t worry about wrinkles. She tucked a few strands of my hair around my ear. “So nice to see it back to blonde.”

“Mom.”

She sighed. “Hair isn’t meant to be blue.”

The only reason mine was back to my natural color was because everyone and their dog had rainbow hair these days. Going back to my pale blonde was actually being rebellious.

She cupped my cheeks. “You’re beautiful. I’m so glad this was a traditional wedding.”

I rolled my eyes.

If I ever got married, I’d have to come down the aisle in tartan plaid with Converse sneakers just to freak her out. Maybe black lace with a red bodice.

Hmm.

That could work. Might be cute, actually. I blinked back into the conversation as she rattled off names of the people she knew at the party. When she mentioned Donovan Lewis, my ears perked up.

“How do you know Donovan?”

“He’s on the board at the Children’s Hospital with your father.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

She nodded. “Why do you think we were so thrilled when you signed with his little company?”

Little?

I frowned. A multi-billion-dollar company wasn’t chump change, but I refrained from commenting on that one. Ripper Records might be a smaller subsidiary of the Lewis fortune, but there was nothing little about the label.

In fact, his name was another reason we were climbing back up the charts. Ripper Records was synonymous with incredible talent. We’d been languishing on a larger New York City label, and when our contract had come up, Lila had pounced on us to sign with them.

Best decision ever.

Between their marketing, and Hunter’s crazy
Rolling Stone
cover, we were climbing higher than ever. The tour was amazing, the videos were stacking up, and the merchandise was overflowing.

We were in our element, but as far as my mother was concerned, I was going to grow out of the music phase. It was her job to worry about me on a constant basis, but she had nothing on my father.

Isaac Keystone might be a stone cold-businessman when he was in the office, but when he was around me, he was Mr. Overprotective.

“Move over, Meredith.”

The comforting scent of Aramis surrounded me as my father drew me up off my toes. “You were beautiful, sweetheart.”

I patted his shoulders. “Okay, down boy.”

“Right.” My dad put me down. “You haven’t been around much, Faith.”

“I know. Touring has been insane.”

Noah came back with a waitress and a tray of wine, bourbon, and a single glass of seltzer with lime. The man was beyond detail orientated. And a savior.

“Faith, I wanted to introduce you to Derek Burlington.” My dad held out his arm to a guy in his early thirties with shellacked blond hair and a suit that definitely was not off the rack.

I stole Noah’s glass again.

I definitely needed more bourbon to get through this conversation.

I
deserve
all of the awards—especially Academy ones—for my portrayal of the indulgent daughter. Maybe it was the bourbon talking, but I was a friggin’ saint for listening to Dick—or was it Derek? Hmm.

No real difference.

The dude was full of himself and kept twitching his hips forward. So much so that even Noah gave him a steady stare that said, “step back, son”.

Of course my mother and father were blissfully unaware. They kept pumping him for information on his partnership in some law firm. Probably why his hips were twitching.

I giggled.

Noah arched a brow at me.

The soft tones of an acoustic guitar saved me. We all turned to see Hunter drawing a decidedly flushed Kennedy into the center of the dance floor.

The reception crowd spread out to get a good view of them. I kissed my mother’s cheek. “That’s my cue to split.”

“Oh, Faith.”

“The band is doing their first dance song.”

“Oh.” She looked crestfallen. “All right, but don’t disappear afterward.”

I swallowed a sigh, but nodded. I slipped through the crowd and climbed onto the dais where my band was settling in. Bats had his jacket off, Wyatt did not, and Zach and Owen were already down to band T-shirts that had been under their tuxedo shirts.

I grinned.

These were my people.

I rushed around the keyboards from the band Hunter had hired. Definitely not my setup, but I could pretty much play anything. I resisted the urge to move things and change settings. Instead, I familiarized my fingers with the worn keys.

The intro was mine. The song Hunter had written for her was embedded into my brain. We’d been practicing it daily for a month.

Owen stepped forward from his usual station in the back. His Irish flowed sweet and soft into the microphone. It was a mashup to start. Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” made Kennedy throw her arms around Hunter and laugh.

Her eyes were only for him, a sheen of tears bright and sparkling as they finally settled into a slow sway. Bats gently eased into Hunter’s song.

The acoustic sweep was everything my band could be when the artifice and lights were stripped away. This was my favorite sound for Hammered. I loved the anthems, adored the hard-hitting beats that Wyatt poured into an arena, and lived for the growls that Hunter brought to songs—but this?

This was the heart of us.

Owen stayed at the microphone, his bass switched out for a worn Taylor acoustic that sweetened Zach’s and Bats’s dueling twelve-strings.

Wyatt used the padded sticks to soften the beat, and the words carried.

A
stolen kiss

A broken man

A heart that was lost

A man who’s been longing to be found

I
n your eyes
I found the light

With your love

I found the courage to change

In your eyes I saw the reason to fight

With your hand in mine

I found pleasure beyond the pain

T
hey twirled and laughed
, they slowed and swayed. His forehead to hers, Hunter whispered the words in her ear. A lump grew in my throat as I watched them press cheek to cheek.

I’d resigned myself to being too busy for love for a long time. And mostly I was okay with that. Until these moments, when the kick to belong to someone—with someone—was too hard to ignore.

As we finished the song and the happy couple drew people onto the dance floor, we jammed on stage with the hired band for a few songs. More bourbon was passed around, along with flutes of champagne as Noah and Wyatt took turns toasting and roasting Hunter.

I escaped back into the crowd. The boys didn’t seem inclined to stop playing, but I needed a drink that wasn’t laced with alcohol, and to find my bag so I could get out of these stinking heels.

Lilac Chucks, how I need you.

A waitress ambushed me as I jumped off the stage.

“Miss Keystone, can I offer you some water?”

“Bless you, girlfriend.” I accepted the bottled water and drank greedily. When she didn’t move off, as most of the waitstaff usually did, I put on a polite smile.

The help wasn’t supposed to come at us with the fame game, but I didn’t mind. In fact, I tilted my head. The young girl could have been my twin on a first look.

She had the same purple streaks I usually wore. Hell, she even had the little trio of crystals on the apple of her left cheek like I wore for photo shoots.

Definitely a fan.

“Hi, what’s your name?”

She blinked at me. “My name?”

I nodded. “Yes, sweetie. I have to know the name of the girl who borrowed my look.”

She touched her cheek. “Oh, gosh. I forgot to take these off before work. I was just so excited to get this job.” She frowned. “You changed your hair.”

I took another swig from the bottle and nodded. The room swam a bit. Wow. Way too much bourbon. Damn those behemoth men and their ability to outdrink me.

Five feet three and a buck seventeen was no match for the six-feet-and-over club with lots of muscles. Well, except for Owen. He was whip-lean, but could outdrink us all. Damn Irish blood.

I really needed to go sit down in the shade for a bit.

“Are you all right?”

I blinked at the girl. My mouth didn’t seem to work, and my fingers were tingling. Were my lips numb?

“I’m going to take good care of you. I promise.” The girl gathered me close, hooking her arm around my back.

I frowned and pushed at her. At least I thought I did. I wasn’t sure my arms were working.

My head fell to her shoulder. I looked up at her. Blue eyes like mine. I frowned. No—not like mine. Fake. All of her was fake.

She wasn’t me.

My ankles wobbled. I couldn’t walk in the heels like this. Actually, I couldn’t feel my feet.

“Wow, you must have had more to drink than I thought,” the girl said.

Why would she say that?

“Guess I should have done a drop or two less in the bottle, huh?”

I tried to pull away. The wrongness of the situation finally dented the hazy bubble I was in.

“I’m going to make sure you have everything you need. No one cares about you like I do. We’re sisters.”

I had a sister already.

The skyline dimmed.

It wasn’t sunset yet, was it?

She led me around the back of the stage. The voices around me faded. My feet wouldn’t work, but the girl didn’t seem to notice. She was dragging me along.

“Come on, Keys, help me out here.”

Hell no, I wasn’t going to help her.

I tried to speak. I tried to get someone to notice me.

“She’s had a little too much to drink. Just going to get her…”

Words didn’t work.

Ears didn’t work.

I shook my head as a few people laughed.

No.

Can’t you tell I’m not drunk?

Was I?

No.

No, I wasn’t.

“Hey.”

I was getting dragged along faster.

“Hey!”

“No, no, no,” the girl said. “You ruined everything. Why did you have to drink so much?”

I didn’t.

It wasn’t my fault.

Suddenly the ground was rushing up to meet me. I dropped like a rag doll. So many shoes around me. Heels, dress shoes, ballerina flats—Chucks.

I frowned.

Purple and pink Chucks.

Just like mine.

“Keys!”

Someone shook me, then someone was lifting me.

I struggled. “Just like mine,” I mumbled. “No.”

No.

“Keys.”

The voice was male. Not her.

I relaxed.

Not her.

Not her.

Then the sun set on me. Where were the stars?

Why weren’t there any stars?

“
R
emind
me about that no-more-bourbon clause,” I moaned.

“It wasn’t bourbon that put you on your ass.”

I frowned at the male voice. Who was in my room? I took a deep breath and tried to move. Worst hotel room ever. The bed sucked.

I peeled my eyes open. Way too much bourbon. I tried to sit up, but a firm hand held me down. Beige walls, white curtains, and mint vinyl chairs were in my line of sight.

Definitely not hotel. Hospital?

“How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

“Mom?” I turned my head and winced. She stood over me, her blue eyes bloodshot and makeup free. “Oh, my head.” I lifted my hand, but found an IV attached to my arm. “What the hell?”

I tried to blink away the fuzzy edges, but my head had been replaced with Wyatt’s kick drum.

“Can you turn down the lights?”

“Sure, baby.” My mother reached above the bed and pulled on a string. The overhead light went out. “Better?”

“Yeah.” I looked around. My father was pacing at the end of my bed. “Wow, what’s with the long faces?”

“What do you remember?” Noah asked.

I swiveled toward his voice slowly. Nausea swam up and I had to close my eyes and breathe. When I opened my eyes, he was still there. His arms were crossed and his shoulders stiff. No dimples this time around, just his work face.

That wasn’t good.

I frowned. Everything was jumbled. I tried to swallow, but my tongue felt like it was two sizes too big and made of sand. “Can I have a drink?” Why the hell was my throat on fire?

Worst flu ever?

My mother held a cup with a straw to my lips. I took a sip, but had to lay back down when the nausea rolled over me again. I was pretty sure I got hit by our tour bus, then the driver backed up and went for another joy ride.

I used my other hand to wipe my eyes. It was as if an impermeable film was over them. Finally I noticed the other people in the room.

Hunter and Kenny were clustered together at the edge of the privacy curtain. She was still in her wedding dress, for God’s sake. Hunter’s bowtie dangled on either side of his unbuttoned collar.

Wyatt, Owen, and Bats were along the wall looking worried. Bats gnawed on his thumbnail, his eyes deeply shadowed. Zach sat in a chair beside Bats, his knee bouncing.

“Hi, guys.”

That’s all it took. All of them came forward and surrounded my bed, talking at the same time.

I held up my untethered hand. “Guys.”

Hunter clamped a hand on Noah’s shoulder. “We don’t know what we would’ve done if Noah hadn’t been there.”

“And we’re not going to find out.”

I sighed at my dad’s terse voice. “Let’s talk about this.”

“What’s to talk about?” My dad stopped pacing and gripped the bottom of my hospital bed. “Some…person tried to drug you and do God knows what to you.”

Bits and pieces started to fill in. “I think there was something in a water bottle.” I closed my eyes and tried to shuffle the flashes of memory together. “She was dressed like one of the waitstaff.”

“Just take it slow,” Noah said.

“Right.” I swallowed down the nerves that jumped in my belly. “I thought it was the bourbon at first. I’d had more than my share with everyone toasting. Then there was champagne…” I trailed off.

I sounded like a lush, but I knew they wouldn’t judge me. If anyone was a lightweight on the drinking scene, it was me. I could hold my own, but I didn’t need booze to have fun.

Not to mention I got a little too mouthy when I had too much to drink.

“Your blood alcohol wasn’t terrible, but they found ketamine in your system.”

My eyes flew open at Noah’s words. “What?”

Noah nodded. “We’re keeping it in house right now, but we really need to bring the cops into this.”

I ran my middle fingernail across my forehead lightly. We dealt with overzealous fans more often than I really wanted to let on with my parents in the room.

It was just part of being famous. And since the surge in our band profile, it was only getting worse. We didn’t closet ourselves away like some artists in the industry.

We didn’t have an entourage of bodyguards with us.

We had Patrick. And he was usually enough.

But ever since our
Tonight Show
appearance, and subsequent appearances on a handful of daytime talk shows, there was definitely a bit more of a security issue at play.

We handled it.

We added extra security when necessary, but this felt different.

I didn’t like the ribbon of fear that was trapped in my chest. I really didn’t want to worry my parents, but it wasn’t like they were going to leave the room while we had a band meeting.

Hmm.

Maybe. I opened my mouth to try it, but my dad’s face was mutinous and my mother was shredding a tissue.

I dropped my head back on the pillow. There was a frustrating level of details that I couldn’t quite capture. Like her face.

All I could picture was my own face.

But that wasn’t right.

I crossed my arms and the IV pulled. I growled. “Do I really need this?”

“Yes,” everyone said together.

“Who made you all doctors?” I groused.

Noah moved up to the head of my bed, across from my mother. “Look. This is what I do, okay? And this is way more than your run-of-the-mill fan. This woman went out of her way to get a drug that would scramble your memory. That’s concerning.”

I glanced away from Noah to my father, who had resumed pacing. So not helping my situation. “Can’t any kid on a college campus get this stuff though?”

“It’s not quite as easy as you’d think.”

“This is LA, Noah,” Bats said quietly.

Noah sighed. “All right, I’ll concede that this is definitely an easier town to get it in, but I still don’t like it. We need to make a report to the cops. We need to have this sort of thing on the record.”

“Even if I can’t even tell you her name? Or what she looks like?”

“Yes.”

I crossed my free arm over my middle. “All right. They aren’t going to do anything.”

“I know.”

“What the hell?” Hunter sputtered.

Noah held up a hand. “You know better than anyone that stalking cases are hard to prove.”

“This isn’t just stalking. This bitch— Sorry, Mrs. Keystone.”

My mom gave Hunter a tight smile. “It’s quite all right, Hunter. I’ve heard worse.”

His lips flattened into a thin line. “This girl got through security, which was top shelf, I might add.”

Noah nodded. “The hotel has a good staff. They deal with a lot of celebrities. I also vetted the waitstaff list through my own databases at Roth Defense.”

“She was dressed like a waitress, but didn’t have one of those little gold name pins.” I gestured to my chest.

“That’s good.” Noah pulled a notebook out of his pocket and scribbled into it.

At least I remembered that. “And she was wearing my shoes.”

Noah’s eyebrow spiked.

I rolled my eyes. “Not my shoes, but ones that I wear a lot.” I shrugged. “It’s not like I’m Gwen Stefani or anything. People don’t copy my look—”

“Sure they do,” Kennedy said. She came up alongside Hunter and linked her fingers with his. “That stuff is my job, and I know for sure there are message boards dedicated to your style, Keys.”

“Really?” I was honestly shocked. I didn’t exactly have a style. Well, unless you wanted to call British punk rock with an LA flair a style. Sort of.

“Yeah. When I was researching you guys as a client, I dug around a bit. There’s a Reddit with everything from the T-shirts you wear to the colors of your Converse sneakers.”

I rubbed at the goose bumps that suddenly flared on my arm. “Wow.”

Noah nodded. “We live in a digital age that makes stalking pretty easy.”

My dad growled.

I gave Noah a look, but he ignored me and kept on talking. Actually, to be honest, this was probably the most I’d ever seen Noah’s lips flap in all the years I’d known him.

Noah rattled on about all the scary things that made my mother’s eyes shrink farther into her sockets, for freaking shit’s sake. I didn’t want them to hear this.

I liked keeping my life separate from theirs. Sure, sometimes I felt a little lonely at family functions, but at least they didn’t worry about me. Now, I’d have my mom crawling up my butt and my dad losing his freaking mind.

“Enough,” I finally said.

Noah patted my arm. “I know it’s a lot. It might be a situational thing. There are a million different stalkers active in this region alone. They don’t call it Hollyweird for nothing, Keys.”

Hope flared. I tried to beat back the uneasiness. Honestly I did. But the creepy way I couldn’t remember the girl’s face was really messing with my head.

I wanted to keep the details to myself. Each one was more damning than the last. But it wasn’t fair to my family, and it surely wasn’t fair to my band.

And dammit, it scared me.

I didn’t like being scared. I loved my fans. I loved reaching out to soothe a fan who was excited to meet me. I wanted to be able to still hug a stranger.

I gritted my teeth.

No one was going to take that away from me, dammit.

“She was dressed like me.” I swallowed and gestured to my hair. “How I wore my hair even just a few weeks ago. The same strips of purple. The same way I wear my long layers. If I had to actually say it, she probably had the same base color for my hair before I added the temporary dyes.”

Noah started scribbling again. “So, she had the same shoes and look?”

I fisted my fingers. “Even the same crystals I wear on stage.”

“Jesus, Keys,” Bats said, and broke through Hunter and his brother to get to me. He pressed his forehead to mine, his huge hand curling around the back of my neck.

I patted his cheek. “I’m fine.”

Reed Mason was the most volatile of all of us. From anger to love, and all the emotions in between. We fought as much as we loved in this band.

Not romantic love.

They honestly were my brothers. I’d never felt the need to get my Stevie-Nicks-and-Lindsey-Buckingham style love story on. The guys were hard enough to deal with as brothers without getting a dick involved.

Besides, I knew way too much about them and their habits. I’d kill all of them inside of a month if I dated any one of them.

After ten years, that was so off the table that it was dust in the far corners of our history.

It didn’t stop my eyes from prickling with tears as Bats brushed a kiss over my temple before he rushed out of the room.

I sighed. “I’ll stick close to Patrick.”

“That’s not enough,” my father said.

“Dad.”

“No. If Mr. Jordan is right about the police’s lack of help in this situation then I’m hiring you a bodyguard.”

“Over my dead body.” I winced. Okay, so that wasn’t the best choice of words in this particular instance. “Dad. Patrick is amazing—”

“Where was he when this happened?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but couldn’t. I remembered seeing Patrick at the reception.

“I was seeing to an issue with another fan who crashed the party.”

I craned my neck to see Patrick hovering just outside the room. Was he guarding my door?

This was way out of control.

He came inside and stood beside Noah. His usually clean-shaven jaw was shadowed with auburn stubble. Patrick had been with us since the beginning. We’d never needed more than him unless it was a special occasion.

He clasped his hands in front of his belt, his fingers clenched. “Three people had been at the wedding off our no-fly list.”

“This girl?” I asked hopefully.

He gave a curt shake of his head. “Two of Hunter’s and one of Owen’s.”

My father’s eyes went arctic and his dark blond brows snapped even lower. “You have a list of these people?”

“Aww hell,” I muttered.

This so wasn’t going to end well.