Never Fall in Love with a Rock Star
by Rachel Higginson
Releases June 25th
My name is Clover Calloway and I’ve lived two separate
lives.
The first, I like to call “my past.” I never talk about it. I try not to think about it. My rockstar days of playing in one of the hottest bands on the planet are over. Along with the most volatile, beautiful, tragic love story of all time.
Over the past five years, I’ve settled into my second life. My “normal life.” The one where I work a normal job, hang out with normal people and fall in love with a normal, but wonderful guy. The life where I’m admittedly a little bored, but also safe.
My past wasn’t boring. But my past broke my heart into a million, unfixable pieces. So, I’m determined to keep it where it belongs—behind me.
And the man responsible for the shattering of me? Malachi Porter, lead singer and mastermind of Bright Tragedy, should stay there too. Far away from me and this idyllic life I’ve carved out for myself.
But what happens when my two lives collide?
When Malachi comes crashing into my perfectly normal world, he threatens to destroy it, promises to annihilate everything I’ve replaced him with.
He upends everything I thought I wanted and forces me to question the reasons I left Bright Tragedy all those years ago.
But I didn’t walk away five years ago, I ran. As fast as I could go. And while my heart is whispering that it’s different this time—that he’s different—my brain is screaming for me to run again.
Malachi Porter isn’t a normal guy. And he doesn’t belong in my “normal life.” But, nevertheless, he’s bound and determined to make a place for himself here.
I just hope my heart can survive him, that we don’t burn into another bright tragedy.
The first, I like to call “my past.” I never talk about it. I try not to think about it. My rockstar days of playing in one of the hottest bands on the planet are over. Along with the most volatile, beautiful, tragic love story of all time.
Over the past five years, I’ve settled into my second life. My “normal life.” The one where I work a normal job, hang out with normal people and fall in love with a normal, but wonderful guy. The life where I’m admittedly a little bored, but also safe.
My past wasn’t boring. But my past broke my heart into a million, unfixable pieces. So, I’m determined to keep it where it belongs—behind me.
And the man responsible for the shattering of me? Malachi Porter, lead singer and mastermind of Bright Tragedy, should stay there too. Far away from me and this idyllic life I’ve carved out for myself.
But what happens when my two lives collide?
When Malachi comes crashing into my perfectly normal world, he threatens to destroy it, promises to annihilate everything I’ve replaced him with.
He upends everything I thought I wanted and forces me to question the reasons I left Bright Tragedy all those years ago.
But I didn’t walk away five years ago, I ran. As fast as I could go. And while my heart is whispering that it’s different this time—that he’s different—my brain is screaming for me to run again.
Malachi Porter isn’t a normal guy. And he doesn’t belong in my “normal life.” But, nevertheless, he’s bound and determined to make a place for himself here.
I just hope my heart can survive him, that we don’t burn into another bright tragedy.
PREORDER HERE
My fingers flew over the keys. Up and
down. Black and white. Sharp and natural and sharp, sharp, sharp. The damper
pedal lifted with my momentum. I pressed down again, elongating the notes,
pulling the best of the melody out of the song and letting it hang in the air,
notes dancing and twirling and singing in the emotional symphony. Beethoven had
never sounded so good.
I took a breath. Closing my eyes at the
final, heart-stopping crescendo, I lifted my fingers and let the last notes
resonate through the vaulted ceilings in perfect harmony.
When the sound died and the song
drifted from the building, I couldn’t help but wait for applause. It was
ingrained in my nature. My entire life I’d played to crowds much bigger than
this one. And so, I sat there, my breath trapped inside my chest, my eyes
closed in anticipation and… nothing.
There was no eruption of cheering and
wild clapping. There was no demand for an encore. There was no stadium filled
with rabid fans, blissed out at the end of the best show of their lives.
Only one person was clapping for this
performance and it was Maya from the MAC makeup counter. And she only did it
because she knew it made me happy. I grinned at her over my shoulder. She
clapped louder, jumping up and down in a pure attempt to feed my ego.
A cluster of teenage girls moved
between us, laughing and chatting, eyes glued on all the pretty things around
them. I quickly turned away, ducking my head and focusing on the gorgeous grand
piano that filled the center of the glistening lobby.
Nobody recognized me these days, but
better safe than sorry.
When the shoppers had moved on, I
gathered my music and slipped it inside a folder. Maya was still slow clapping
by the time I reached the counter that was covered with tubes of lipstick.
“Woman, you were on fire today,” she
cheered. “I was seriously moved by that last piece. Tears, Clover. Actual
tears.” She pointed at the corner of her eye where her electric blue eyeliner
was smudged.
“Moonlight Sonata.” I took a steadying
breath, banishing the lingering emotions that clung to the edges of me.
Beethoven’s masterful piece was one of my favorites too. And I rarely played
it. But today I’d been in the mood for melancholy and memories. And that song,
above all others, despite what the tabloids and bloggers said about me once
upon a time, weighed the heaviest with my past. “It’s a good one.”
She leaned forward on her elbows.
“You’re stupid good, you know that?”
I tilted my head, letting my long,
fiery red curls fall over my shoulder and partially hide my face. “What you
really mean is I’m good for Macy’s standards, right?” I looked behind me as
Walter arrived and started to set up for his three-hour block. Macy’s hired us
for elegant entertainment. We were the background music for the high-end department
stores evening and weekend shoppers. There was a rotating total of six pianists
and each of us were happy for the work. It was a relatively easy way to make a
hundred bucks.
This was all part of my new normal.
Trying to live and eat and sleep off the grind of regular employment.
Once upon a time, my piano-playing
skills made me lots and lots of money. Not that I put in fewer hours. But it
seemed easier to make money as a headline band dropping platinum albums.
It seemed easier, I realized. But it
hadn’t been.
I breathed deeply of this normal life I
lived now and smiled at the simplicity of it. Sorrow and heartache tugged at
the corners of my thoughts, desperate to get my attention and claim some space
in this adjusted life of mine, but I refused to give them room.
They were banished, along with
everything else that used to be.
“Girl, I mean you’re good period. Stop
playin’.”
“You’re really sweet. Thank you.”
She winked at me. “You’re welcome.”
“What is all this?” I asked, picking up
a random tube of lipstick and turning it over. Russian Red. “Wow, this is
bright.”
“Restocking,” she sighed. “It’s a pain
in the ass. But also, better than giving tweens makeovers all day.”
“What about former tweens? Do you have
time for one of those?”
She laughed her deep, throaty laugh
that always made me smile. Maya and I had gotten to know each other slowly over
the last few years after I’d first started playing at Macy’s. She’d been one of
my most favorite parts of slowing down and finding normal.
She was a real friend. And a real
person. There was nothing shallow about her. She jumped right into a deep
friendship and demanded raw honesty. There were still parts of my life I kept a
secret from her, but that wasn’t because I didn’t want to tell her the whole sordid
history of how I’d ended up in Kansas City, Missouri. It was for her safety.
And mine. And to honor all those pesky nondisclosures I’d signed.
Her big brown eyes widened. “Oh, my
gosh, is tonight the night? The big night?”
I nibbled my bottom lip and nodded.
“Yes.” My stomach flipped with anticipation for the surprise that waited for me
just hours from now.
She leaned forward, bouncing on her
toes with shared excitement. “What do you think it is? Oh, my gosh, what if he
proposes?”
I lifted a shoulder and felt my stomach
drop to my toes. Equal parts dread and hope spiraled through me, chasing each
other, racing to see which emotion would win. “I have no idea what it is. He’s
so excited though. He can barely contain himself. Yesterday, he had outfits
spread out on his bed like he was deciding which one to wear.”
“Oh my god, Clover! This has to be it.”
I shrugged again. “It could honestly be
anything, but a proposal, Maya? For real, that would be crazy.”
“Would you say yes?”
I took too long to think about my
answer. Maya wanted an easy, breezy yes. She wanted to know that my
relationship with Adam Shepherd was a whirlwind romance that had totally and
completely swept me off my feet. She wanted a real-life romantic comedy and epic
love story wrapped in one. She wanted me to be happy. And it was so sweet of
her. But it was also unrealistic.
I’d already had all of that. And it had
ended in the worst kind of tragedy.
Her question was supposed to have an
easy answer. Even if I wasn’t ready for the proposal now, I was supposed to
want it sometime, right?
Meet a normal guy. Fall in love with a
normal guy. Marry a normal guy. Live a very normal happily ever after.
Every girl’s dream. Except mine.
“We’ve only been dating for six months,”
I told her, laughing, playing it off, shining light on her absolutely
ridiculous idea. “He hasn’t even told me he loves me yet.” A sick feeling
rolled through my stomach, my body wholly rejecting the idea of saying those
words to anyone.
She blinked, her fake lashes fanning
over high cheekbones. “Oh.” Maya was a romantic to her bones. She wanted
everyone to fall in love. If a man so much as knelt to tie his shoe in front of
the makeup counter, she assumed it was some elaborate proposal stunt. “Well, maybe
tonight’s the night for I love yous!”
My heart thrummed with the idea,
bossing my nerves back in line. This was an easier question to answer, although
she hadn’t asked it. Would I tell Adam I loved him if he said the words first?
Yes. Yes, I would.
At least, I hoped I would.
Sometimes my mouth had a mind of its
own.
I bat my lashes at her. “Better make me
look pretty just in case.”
She grinned and grabbed the tube of
Russian Red. “The good news is, if he doesn’t love you yet, he will after I’m
done with you!”
Jumping up onto one of the high back
stools, I set my messenger bag full of sheet music at my feet and waited
patiently for Maya to make me gorgeous. The woman was a magician when it came
to makeup. Seriously, she could make anything look beautiful.
Not that she had to try very hard. She
was truly one of the most stunning women I had ever seen. Her dark skin was
absolute perfection. Her natural hair, wild and curly and edgy, so perfectly
fitting to her larger than life personality. And her curves the kind that every
woman wanted, dreamed of, spent hours in the gym to get. She was one of MAC’s
bestsellers consistently because everybody wanted to look like her.
Hell, most women wanted to be her.
Also, because she could transform
anyone from blah to banging with a few mystical strokes of her brushes.
Thirty minutes later, I barely
recognized myself in the small circular mirror on the counter. She’d given me
smoky eyes, highlighted cheekbones, and dang that Russian Red if it didn’t look
amazing on my lips next to my natural red hair.
“No way,” I whispered as she grinned
over my shoulder. She’d highlight the dusting of freckles over my nose and
under my eyes and given me perfectly porcelain skin that seemed to have no
blemishes. Although, I knew that to be a lie. I looked better than I ever had.
I looked even better than when I’d had
an actual makeup team.
“You’re going home with this lipstick,”
she ordered. “You need to own it and wear it every damn day.”
“It makes my hair look so red.” I
groaned. My hair and I had been at odds since I could remember. There was a
time I did anything to hide the crimson curls. I straightened, I tied it back
and hid it under stocking caps and finally, when the PR team got involved, I
colored it in crazy vibrant colors like neon pink or bold purple. I loved the
fun shades, even if I looked like a Barbie.
But, I’d given all that up five years
ago and went back to my natural shade. The curls were more manageable than
trying to straighten this mess every day. Eventually, my new hair stylist had
found the perfect red to match my roots. I didn’t even get it dyed anymore.
This was just me. Clover Callaway, completely natural. Completely anonymous.
Nobody expected the red curls. They
were my new signature. And I was slowly learning to love them.
Like I was slowly learning to love this
life.
“You’re welcome,” Maya repeated,
laughing. “Tell you what. If I had your hair, I would rock the shit out of it.”
Now that I believed. “M, if I had your
hair, I would never worry about my hair again.”
She bugged her eyes out at me. “You
think this is easy? You have no idea how long this takes me every day.”
“Same,” I sighed.
Shaking her head, she murmured, “I
guess the grass is always greener.”
“Now isn’t that the truth.”
An older woman and a thirty-something
younger version of her stepped up to the counter, pointing out eye shadows.
“That’s my cue,” Maya whispered, totaling up the lipstick with her employee
discount.
I gave her my credit card. Honestly,
whenever she picked out makeup for me, I gave her my money. Maya knew best.
“Thanks for this.”
She grinned at me. “Good luck! I want
all the details tomorrow.”
To be honest, I wasn’t expecting
anything as grand as I love yous. Adam and I had met at one of my other
jobs—local photographer. He had been a groomsman at a wedding I helped shoot.
We’d hit it off when he’d gotten socked in the face with a wayward basketball.
The groomsmen and groom, while waiting
for the bride and her attendants to get ready, had been messing around in the
church’s gym. My photographer friend, River, and I had been shooting fun photos
of the pickup game in their tuxes when Adam had gotten distracted and taken a
ball to the face. Blood had gushed everywhere, spurting out his swollen nose
all over his tux.
His excuse? He’d been staring at me and
hadn’t seen it coming. I’d rushed to his aid and helped nurse his poor nose
back to semi-normal, so he wouldn’t look like a cartoon for the wedding
pictures.
He’d asked me out before the night was
over, and now we were dating.
Adam was one of those guys that always
made things easy. He was laid-back, responsible, and adorable. The last six
months had been a surprising whirlwind of romantic dates and constant
butterflies. And tonight, he’d planned something epic for our six-month
anniversary.
I had never celebrated relationship
anniversaries with anyone before, so my expectations were low. But I was also
ridiculously excited. It made me feel special. I loved the idea of celebrating
small milestones with this simmering anticipation for more to come.
And it just fit Adam in every way. Of
course, he would make a sweet thing out of our six-month. Of course, he would
make me feel cherished. Of course, he would make this about us. And not about
himself.
I left Macy’s in my cool blue Mini
Cooper, my favorite of all the cars in the world, and drove directly to his
house. We lived across town from each other, so I didn’t have time to go all
the way home after my shift before I was supposed to be at Adam’s house in
Kansas City suburbia.
He was thirty-one with a stable job as
an IT guy at a tech company, which seemed redundant to me. But he assured me
even tech companies have tech problems.
His house was bigger than what he
needed as a single guy. It seemed huge for him alone. When he’d first moved in,
he’d shared it with three roommates. They’d all gotten married in the meantime
and moved out. Over the last two years, he’d been slowly remodeling and
updating. Making it his.
I didn’t know why I found that
attractive, but I did. It showed me how stable he was. How reliable. How
invested he was in his life.
And for those reasons, I loved his
house. It was this symbol of responsible adulthood and trustworthiness.
It was an older one and a half story
home with the master bedroom on the main floor and three bedrooms and an
adorable terrace that looked out over his sprawling backyard. He’d let me plant
a flower garden on the terrace last spring complete with pallet planters he’d
built for me and hanging pots. It was my favorite place in the entire world.
The hot summer air stuck to my skin as
I got out of my car and hurried toward his front door. I didn’t want to start
sweating and ruin all of Maya’s hard work.
Pushing through the open door, I
stepped inside, feeling a little extra ownership in Adam’s place. Six months
was a milestone.
Six months meant something special.
“Hello?” I called out, feeling brave
that I hadn’t even texted to let him know I was on my way.
I’d earned the right to show up
unannounced, right?
He stepped out of his bedroom, tugging
a t-shirt down at his waist. My eyes lingered on the smooth, stretch of skin
across his midsection and I felt a burst of warmth bloom through me. This was
going to be a fun night. It had to be.
“Hey,” he grinned at me. “You’re here.”
He was so happy to see me. It was
written all over his handsome face. My heart swelled in my chest as I realized
this was what a normal, healthy relationship felt like. This was what it felt
like to be happy.
“Hey,” I repeated. “I’m here.”
We moved together across the living
room, sidestepping furniture and the big, clunky coffee table he’d built
himself on his first try at furniture making. Our arms wrapped around each
other and he dipped me into a long, satisfying kiss. Butterflies buzzed beneath
my skin at the sensation of his tongue tangling with mine. The scruff of his
jaw wasn’t typical, and I shivered at the sensation.
Maybe we didn’t have plans tonight.
Maybe we were going to hang out here instead and find other ways to celebrate
six months.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked when
he’d pulled away.
“Depends,” I laughed. “Are you ready to
tell me what we’re doing?”
He took a step back, barely able to
contain his excitement. No offense to my bedroom skills, but any hopes of staying
in tonight were dashed in that one uncharacteristic skip in his step.
Reaching into his back pocket, he
pulled out printer paper with barcodes in black ink. “I have tickets to Bright
Tragedy! They’re playing at the Uptown Theater tonight.”
His words were a bullet to my good
mood, killing whatever happiness and anticipation had been inside me. My heart
dropped like a stone to my stomach, calcifying and fossilizing and drying up
all at once. “The Uptown Theater is too small for them,” I heard myself say, my
brain relying on logistics to make this not true. To change what he’d said into
something different, something that didn’t make me want to run away from his
house, from this city... from this country.
“It’s a more intimate show,” he
explained, his grin ticking wider. “This tour they’re doing is all about small
shows and private meet and greets. I missed the tickets for the meet and greet,
but I managed to grab the main event tonight.”
His grin stayed in place, waiting for
my reaction. I did breathe a small sigh of relief that he’d missed the intimate
photo op. God, I couldn’t even imagine the shit show that would have been.
You
wouldn’t have gone, my brain whispered honestly. And it
was true. If Adam had tried to drag me to a private event where I would have
been forced to interact with the members of his and the entire world’s favorite
rock band and take pictures with them and shake their hands… I would have run
screaming from his house. That was the worst-case scenario for me.
But a concert was a different story.
Not because I had any interest in watching Bright Tragedy live or seeing them
in person ever again. But because I wanted to preserve what I had with Adam.
I refused to let Bright Tragedy steal
any more of my happiness. I refused to let them take anything more from me than
they already had.
But this wasn’t a celebration for me.
This was one of the hardest things I would ever have to do.
And the worst part… I couldn’t even
tell Adam why.
He didn’t need to know that I used to
be a member of his favorite band. Or that I had grown up with the guys. Or that
the lead singer, Malachi Porter, had been my first boyfriend. My first
everything. My only everything until Adam. I had loved him with all that I had
in me. I had thought we would get married. That our entire lives would be each
other and our band.
And that Malachi, or Kai as his adoring
fans knew him, had hurt me in the worst way possible—that he had let our love
burn into the brightest tragedy and left me ashes and dust and wisps of
nothing.
He’d left me barely breathing.
He’d left me hurting more than I knew
was humanly possible.
With no other choice, I’d fled. I’d
disappeared. I’d carved out my normal, safe, happy existence without him. And
without the world-famous band I’d helped build.
But now, my wonderfully normal
boyfriend was asking me to go back to that dark place and I didn’t know how to
tell him no without exposing all my shadowy secrets. Secrets he would never
forgive me for.
Secrets I could hardly explain fully or
reconcile with the girl I was now.
“Are you okay?” he asked, concern
drawing his eyebrows together. His strong hands landed on my shoulders, rubbing
soothingly. “Do you not want to go?”
I tried to smile, but it wobbled. And
then it died completely. “I’m sorry, I just don’t love their music like you
do.” Panic seized hold of my heart, squeezing it in an iron fist.
His face fell, crumbling with
disappointment. The grip on my heart tightened. “Oh, but it could still be fun?
We’re in the balcony. We’ll get drinks…”
I couldn’t stomach the way he was
looking at me. I couldn’t be responsible for ruining this for him. I knew I had
to face this. I knew I had to go. It was the only way to save my past from
totally screwing up my future.
If I told Adam the whole truth, he
would never look at me the same. He would never treat me the same. He would
never… want me the same.
I would become an idol. And my past
would become a badge of honor. And his feelings for me would become plastic.
But the band… if they saw me. If
Malachi saw me…
They wouldn’t, I decided. They won’t.
They can’t. How many fans did I recognize at any of our concerts? Zero. The
stage lights were too bright. The crush of the crowd was too big. The
adrenaline of the performance was too intense.
And besides, Malachi wouldn’t be in the
right state of mind anyway. He wouldn’t even notice me.
I ignored the despair that colored
everything inside me black. Death seeped inside my new life, turning everything
cold and corpse-like. My bones grew stiff and my muscles weakened. My heartbeat
slowed to a crawl. My lungs shook with the effort to draw breath.
“It’s fine,” I heard myself say,
desperation to save this easy new life of mine setting in. I wanted to shake my
limbs loose of the rigor mortis. “It will be fun.”
He squinted at me, trying to make sense
of the hollow sound of my voice. “I promise, you’re going to love it. Love
them,” he said, overly enthusiastic. “You’ll see why I think they’re amazing.
You’ll be a super fan by the end of the night.”
I smiled, it was paper thin and fake,
but it held. He was wrong. I had already been a super fan. I had been their
biggest fan. I had wanted them to have the most success. To be the greatest
thing that had ever graced the stage.
Now I knew better. I had loved a broken
thing because I wanted to fix it. Instead, it had broken me too.
“Maybe,” I told Adam, knowing the truth
would be the opposite.
His answering smile restored some of my
faith in life. I wasn’t the same girl I was five years ago. I wasn’t a part of
Bright Tragedy. And I wasn’t in love with Malachi Porter.
But I did like Adam. And I could
support him this one night. I would slip inside the theater, be a good
girlfriend and hang out on the balcony. And then we would leave at the end of
the night and life would go on.
Malachi and the guys would move on to
the next city.
And I would move on with my new normal.
Easy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Check out her website: www.rachelhigginson.com
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