Crazy to Love You: A Forbidden Rockstar Standalone Romance (Wild Love Book 4) Read online

  “No. It’s fine. It’s just hormones, right?”

  Except a tear falls, and I didn’t think I could feel worse. Hurting this woman, again, after all I’ve done to her, is like the ultimate knife to the gut.

  She lets out a self-deprecating laugh and asks, “Dance with me?”

  “I would love nothing more.”

  I take her into my arms, tucking her in against me, my hands on her lower back, hers around my neck. “Just like when we were kids,” she laughs as I start to sway her a bit on the outskirts of the dance floor.

  “I remember a lot more grinding, actually.”

  She laughs some more, smacking the back of my head. “Always with the dirty mind.”

  She has no idea.

  I open my eyes and immediately lock on my brother, who is standing by the bar talking to Lyric Rose, but his eyes are on me. And in them, I see so much. So much love for me. For the woman in my arms. So much hope that one day I’ll have this too.

  Just not with her.

  And that’s what I have to tell myself. Because it’s one thing to know it, another to see it, but finally accepting that the one you love is lost to you forever is a brutal, crushing reality that defies logic and rationalizations.

  “I love you, Gus.”

  I smile, turning away from my brother so I can kiss his bride on the cheek. “I love you, Vi. Always.”

  She pulls back and meets my eyes, her hand sliding along my head until she’s cupping my jaw. “No, Gus. You won’t,” she states simply, but the conviction in her voice pulls me up short. “Not the way you think you will. You don’t love me that way now. The woman who will truly own your heart will tie you up in knots.” She rolls her eyes. “Knowing you, probably both literally and figuratively.” I smirk, despite the serious mood and tone she’s pushing on me. “This woman will consume you. She’ll be the one you fight everything and everyone for. That’s not me, babe. It never was.”

  Something in her words, in her quiet truth, hits me hard. Steals the breath from my lungs. Forces a shudder from somewhere deep within.

  No one has ever consumed me like that. Not even the woman in my arms.

  She smiles brightly up at me, almost as if she’s reading my thoughts. Leaning up on her toes, she plants a small kiss on my lips. “Go find her, Gus. You’re ready.”

  Chapter Two

  Gus

  Two Months Later

  * * *

  “I can’t sing that song.” I stare at my brother and think, I sorta already knew he was going to say that. But it’s a song I had to write, and writing is not my thing. Singing one isn’t exactly either. It’s why I handed it to him in the first place. Jasper is our lead singer. Our lyricist extraordinaire.

  That’s never been me.

  I can write the hell out of some notes though.

  “It’s shit, right?”

  Jasper leans back in his chair, rubbing at the beard he felt the need to grow. I guess when you get married and have a kid on the way, you can start to let things like that go. It’s not the best look on him, but he doesn’t seem to care what I have to say or think on the matter. Viola likes it, and whatever Viola likes, he delivers.

  “It’s not shit,” he murmurs absently, staring at the words on the half-crumpled paper in his hands. I think I gave him the right draft. I only wrote ten. “That’s not why I can’t sing it.”

  “It’s not shit,” Keith, our drummer, agrees earnestly, swiveling around in the rolly-chair behind the soundboard in our studio in Jasper’s music room. He knocks into it and Jasper growls out his annoyance, leveling him with a what the fuck glare. Keith throws his hands up in surrender, but like a little kid, keeps going the second Jasper’s focus drifts back to the paper.

  Honestly, we’ve been sitting here too long without a break, and I think at this point, we’re all just a bit nuts with it.

  “Then why can’t you sing it?” I ask, a touch of frustration in my tone as I run my hands across my face and through my hair. I want him to lay it out for me. I’m hoping, praying, he’ll reconsider.

  Jasper stares me down as if I’m speaking to him in Russian, which is one of the few languages he actually can’t speak a word of. “How about because it’s a love letter, an apology, and a goodbye, to my wife written by my brother?”

  “Right.” I shrug. “So, it’s a little awkward?”

  Jasper rolls his eyes, an incredulous chuckle bursting from his chest. “A little?”

  “A lot, brother.” Keith points at me with his drumstick. “That’s actually a lot awkward if Jasper sings a song you wrote for Vi.”

  “I didn’t write it for Vi. I wrote it for me about Vi.”

  I wrote it for me. I wrote it as my goodbye. My I’m sorry I fucked up so many things for you. For me. For us.

  Three sets of eyes land on me, and I bluster out a sigh. They’re right. I know they’re right, but this song… I want this song. No, scratch that. I need this song. How can these bastards not know that when they know me so well?

  I need to move on already. I’m ready for it, I think. But it’s like it’s not possible unless I put this out there. Set the words and sentiment free. Let them drift off and become the words and notes for someone else to take in and make their own. There is no closure for me otherwise. It’s the only thing I can think of to end this crazy shit that shouldn’t still be crazy shit, so here we are.

  I thought maybe writing it would be enough, but it wasn’t. Like I said, I’m not a writer. I’m the farthest thing from a poet. I make music. That’s how my mind makes sense, and until I put this down with the band, it will remain unfinished.

  And so will I.

  Dramatic? Maybe a bit, but isn’t love dramatic? And heartbreak? Come on, man. Doesn’t get any more dramatic than that.

  The fact that I even showed it to my brother, felt comfortable enough to share it with him and the guys, says I’m ready to try to move beyond my now sister-in-law. No more lies between us. About anything. Including this. Especially this.

  Viola and I dated for four years in high school. But it’s more than that. I stole her from my brother before they even got started. In my head, in my heart, she was always mine. Even though I knew Jasper loved her as much, if not more, as I did. Then I fucked up the best thing to ever happen to me by cheating on her the second we started to get famous and girls looked in my direction.

  Losing her was the mistake of my life.

  She went her way and we went ours.

  It wasn’t until seven years later, and we were set to go on tour, that all the pieces of my past with Viola Starr fell into place. She’s a special education teacher, and Jasper needed a nanny for his daughter, Adalyn, who has autism. And the moment Viola stepped foot in his house, I saw how they looked at each other. The way they both secretly felt, though they did everything they could to try to hide it.

  And I knew she belonged with him and not me.

  So yeah…this song.

  Jasper isn’t upset about it. Or even jealous.

  He’s Jasper and he knows the score. He has Viola and I don’t. I let him have Viola and she chose him. That’s how our story goes. It’s the way it’s all supposed to be. But just because something is supposed to go down one way, doesn’t mean that all feelings are magically erased.

  After all, I’ve loved Viola my whole life.

  Same as my brother.

  But I’m trying to move on. I’m trying to start over again.

  And this song is part of that process.

  “You realize that’s just semantics, right?” Henry asks, shaking his head back and forth so the long, red licorice string in his mouth will hit his cheeks with an annoying smack, smack, smack sound.

  “It’s more than that. This song…” Jasper trails off, staring at the words I wrote, his eyes scrolling line by line. That’s all he’s been doing since I handed it to him yesterday, and that’s all he’s been doing since we sat down in the studio over an hour ago. “It doesn’t feel finished to me, Gus.”

  “How so?” I rub my hands over the top of my head, along the strands of my short sandy-blonde hair, staring down at the ground between my parted knees, my elbows digging into my thighs.

  “Well, it feels like you’re singing to someone. Not about them. Almost like a duet,” Jasper utters that last part thoughtfully, and everyone stops. Everyone freezes whatever the hell they were doing and stares over at him, dumbstruck.

  “A duet?” Henry repeats, resuming his chewing on his piece of Twizzlers. “We’ve never done that before.”

  “First time for everything,” Keith interjects, spinning around again to the point where he’s starting to make me dizzy.

  Jasper raises his head, his green eyes locking with mine. And for a moment, we do that twins thing. Where we don’t need to speak to know what the other is thinking. He’s saying it needs a counterpart. I’m saying I can’t write that. He’s saying I need to be the one to sing this. I’m saying I don’t think I can. He’s saying I have to be the one because it really can’t be him.

  I’m saying fuck my life because he’s probably right about all of it. He always is.

  “I have no idea who would even be able to write the other half of this, let alone sing it. I don’t have the voice, Jas. That’s always been you, man.”

  “Not true,” Keith disagrees. “Not true at all. Plus, if you have a woman singing with you, she can take the lead. Inject the stronger voice with more range and depth. But I think I agree with Jas. It needs more. It’s short right now, yeah. But it’s more than that. There’s a lot of emotion to this. A lot of feeling and soul and damn…” He trails off, gripping the back of his neck, an awestruck grin on his face. “Just think how fucking epic it would be with a woman’s voice. With more heartache. I don’t even kn
ow if you should have drums or bass with this. I’m hearing piano and acoustic guitar only. It needs to be raw and rough and all about the voices and lyrics.”

  Jasper hums something out as if he agrees.

  Jesus. What the hell have I done?

  “Has Vi seen this thing yet?” Henry asks, and I glance up at him and then over to Jasper.

  “Yes. I showed it to her first,” I tell him because I’m not sure whether he knows that or not.

  “And she’s okay with you singing this? With us producing it?” I turn back to Henry and nod.

  That’s it. Because Vi is still my girl. She’s just not my girl. We’re still close and best friends, and she’s the most loving, supportive, and accepting woman I know. She cried and I held her. We talked and laughed. And at the end of it, she told me to go for it.

  To set my soul and heart free because it’s so beautiful, the whole world should experience it.

  That’s freaking Viola. Only she’d say something like that and mean it.

  “Then we all agree on a duet? On Gus singing it?”

  I think on this. Like really freaking hard. Because it’s my song and it’s ultimately my call as such. Do I want to sing this with, to, another woman? That’s what happens with a duet like this. You’re not just singing with them, you’re sharing it all with them. Every word and emotion.

  It’s an intimate experience from what I’ve been told.

  Like Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.

  But if I want this song out there, these words and feelings set free from my heart and mind, I think I have to do it.

  “Alright. But who do we know who can write and sing and would be willing to do it?” I ask, and we all fall silent, exchanging lost looks, hoping someone comes up with a brilliant idea.

  “What if you run it by Lyric?” Jasper finally suggests, intertwining his fingers and tossing his tattooed arms behind his head. “That woman knows absolutely everyone in the music industry, and she’s our producer. The goddamn owner of our label.” He glances at each one of us before landing firmly on me with a look I cannot deny. “Yeah. Go find Lyric. She will absolutely know the perfect woman for this.”

  Chapter Three

  Gus

  * * *

  “Knock, knock,” I call out in sync with the rapping of my knuckles on Lyric Rose’s open office door. She starts, her blonde head flying up, her hazel eyes meeting mine. The second they do, and she registers who is ingratiating themselves upon her busy afternoon, a full, bright smile lights up her face.

  “Gus!” she yells, rushing around her orderly desk and throwing her arms around me. Lyric is a shorty. She has to get up on her toes to reach me, so instead, I scoop her up in a bear hug. She laughs, planting a kiss on my cheek before I set her down. “This is an awesome surprise. Come in.”

  “Am I interrupting? You look busy. Your assistant wasn’t here to tell me to fuck off and make an appointment.”

  Lyric laughs. “Gus, I’m always busy, but you’re an interruption I’ll gladly take.”

  She sits behind her desk and points to the chair on the opposite side. Lyric Rose is Gabriel Rose’s daughter. Gabriel Rose as in the lead singer for Blind Tears, one of the biggest bands in history. They’re up there with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. But Lyric is an incredible producer, and she’s now the CEO of Turn Records since Robert Snow, the former CEO, passed away last year.

  Lyric is all of twenty-six if I had to guess, but she makes this daunting job look easy and does it all with a kind heart.

  She leans forward in her chair, tilting her head, studying me intently. “So, what’s up? I don’t think in all the years we’ve been friends and I’ve been producing your albums, you’ve ever come to my office. If you have, it wasn’t alone.” She throws her hand up in the air as if she’s just had the most horrible thought. “Shit. If you tell me you’re here because you’re leaving the band, I swear to God, Gus, I will call Marco and have him come here and kick your ass.”

  I laugh, leaning back in my comfy seat and propping my ankle up on my knee. “You do realize you could likely kick Marco’s ass, right?” Marco is our manager, and he’s like Rudy. Five-foot nothin’, a hundred and nothin’. But still, I wouldn’t fuck with that man on a bet. I know Lyric and everyone else feels the same.

  “Marco lays a better smackdown than any WWE wrestler out there. But I guess I’ll have to have Ethan do it if you think Marco can’t. But Gus…” She trails off, her eyes growing wide and I shake my head, cutting her off before she gets carried away.

  “No. I’m not leaving the band. In fact, we’re working on songs for our next album and this happened.” I slide my now very crumpled piece of notebook paper across her desk and resume my previous position. “Jasper thought I should bring it to you.”

  Curiosity paints her features as she leans forward and picks it up, dropping her elbow to her glass desk and reading over what I wrote. My heart picks up an extra few beats, and I realize I’m nervous. It felt different when the guys read it. Even when Jasper and Vi read it. They’re my family and love me no matter what I throw at them. There’s a certain amount of strength and confidence that comes with that knowledge.

  But Lyric is a different story altogether.

  She’s a producer. She’s a record executive.

  I hold in a breath, trying to rein myself in as my gaze casts away from her and outthe window. This is what art is, right? Putting yourself out there and allowing others to watch you bleed.

  I tap my foot on the carpet, listening to the incessant ticking of my watch. It’s been minutes and this isn’t exactly a long song, so I know she’s reading it a few times. I shift in my chair, unable to handle the silence a second longer and blurt out, “Jasper thinks it should be a duet.”

  The paper drops, floating from her hands to her desk as Lyric’s stunned and steady gaze meets mine. “A duet?” she parrots, and I nod my head. She pushes back from her desk, the wheels on her chair rolling her in the direction of the window, and the Los Angeles skyline beyond. She spins in its direction, staring out at the same view I just was. “You’re singing this, aren’t you? I mean, it’s why you’re here alone.”

  That last part wasn’t a question, but I answer, “Yes,” all the same.

  “Fuck,” she hisses out, scrubbing her hands up and down her face.

  I chuckle. “That bad?”

  She spins back around to face me, shaking her head adamantly. “No. It’s so beautiful and heartfelt, and it will wreck everything else that’s been done before. I mean that. I can already hear music with this, and I’d be willing to bet you can too. Like, I hear a cello, something low, mournful, and hypnotic in the background.” She lets out a self-deprecating laugh and shakes her head. “I digress. Ignore me. Do you have someone in mind to work on this with you? Add some more to it, maybe?”

  Damn, I love Lyric. I love how her brilliant mind works.

  “That’s why I’m here, babe.”

  “I figured that much. Okay. But…shit.” She taps her lip and then slams her hand down on her desk. “It’s freaking insane, Gus,” she practically yells, and I feel my eyebrows pinching in. I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  She presses a button on her phone, and two seconds later a man’s voice comes through the speaker. “My lovely Lyric,” the man says in a sing-song voice.

  “Ethan, are you busy?” she asks, a touch of urgency in her tone. Ethan is Lyric’s best friend and second in command here at Turn Records.

  “No,” he deadpans. “I’m sitting in my office jerking off.”

  “Fantastic,” she retorts dryly, rolling her eyes at me, and I can’t help but smile. “How about you tuck your dick back in your pants and get your ass into my office. I have Gus Diamond here.”

  “Oh?” he says, his voice rising an octave. “Well, in that case, I’m coming right now.” Then he lets out a loud laugh. “Pun fucking intended.” He laughs some more as he disconnects the call.

  “I’d apologize for that, but it’s Ethan and there are no apologies for him.”

  I throw my hands up, chuckling lightly. “It was pretty funny, actually.”