Dirty Like Seth: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 3) Read online

  Neither Jesse or Brody would talk to me.

  Elle hadn’t returned my calls to her assistant. That hurt the most, actually. Elle; knowing what she must’ve thought of me after what happened. Brody, attacking me in front of the band. Breaking my nose.

  Accusing me of raping Jessa Mayes.

  That memory made my guts churn now, just like it always did. But that, too, I had to face down. That was part of the deal in coming back here.

  Because I could not let an accusation like that lie forever.

  I looked over at Elle and Ash in the hallway again… and I could see how she’d changed over the years. Still gorgeous. More so, maybe. More… polished. Glamorous, in her strapless white top, gold suspenders and low, tight jeans, stylishly ripped to shreds. Her long, platinum-blonde hair was straight and smoothed over one shoulder, a single, thick braid weaving the top of it back from her face. But despite the sun-kissed glow to her skin, her glossy lips, her fresh, flawlessly made-up face… she looked weary, underneath it all.

  Or maybe it was just the conversation she was weary of.

  As Ash spoke quietly to her, close in her pretty face, she just nodded, her mouth tight. And it struck me: that I hadn’t been there to see her through all the bullshit that came along with the success, the insanity of the fame.

  I’d let her down.

  I’d let them all down.

  I watched her turn and walk away, my gaze falling to her tight, perfect ass in her fitted jeans. Then she disappeared through a door.

  Ash stood there for a moment after Elle left, staring at the wall. Then he turned.

  He looked straight at me.

  I’d forgotten that I was supposed to be practicing my song, and our eyes met. Recognition crashed over his features and he started toward the open door.

  “This what I think it is?” he asked, stepping into the room with me. He looked around into every corner, like he was expecting someone else to be here.

  My heart was beating a little too hard, so I took a breath. I had no idea where I stood with Ash. Hopefully not the same place I stood with Brody.

  “If you think I’m here to audition, then yes.”

  He stopped dead. “You’re shitting me.”

  “Nope.”

  He absorbed that, looking me over from head to foot. I did the same with him. Jet-black surfer-dude hair, piercings, tattoos that seemed to multiply every time I saw him. A serious, pensive look in his blue eyes.

  I had no idea what he was thinking. I didn’t know Ash all that well, though I’d met him a few times over the years. He’d told me at the reunion show that he looked up to me, musically. Called himself “a fan.” Pretty humble that way, because the guy could play guitar, he could write, and he could definitely sing way the hell better than me.

  “You here with Dylan?”

  “I’m here with the band,” he said. “House band. All-star lineup.” A smirk crossed his lips. “We’ve got Raf out there. My man Pepper. We play with the kids auditioning, try to make them sound good. Or bad.” The smirk turned devious. “Gotta tell ya, a lot of shit out there.” He looked me over again, like he was still processing my presence.

  “Today?”

  “All fucking week.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You serious? You’re here to audition?”

  “Yes.”

  “You pick a song?”

  Yeah, I’d picked a song. Wasn’t easy to do, since it had to somehow showcase what I could do, impress Dirty, and satisfy Jude’s bullshit request for Metallica. But I’d learned, from experience, how to slay even the most ridiculous of Jude’s challenges.

  “You guys know ‘Stone Cold Crazy’?” I answered.

  Jude never specified it had to be a song written by Metallica.

  Ash looked impressed, so at least I was on the right track. “Fucking right,” he said, glancing at my guitar, like he was making sure I was ready for this. “You want Queen, or Metallica?”

  “I want Ashley Fucking Player,” I said.

  At that, the smile blazed across Ash’s face. He shook his head. “Alright.” Then he took a step toward me, clapped me on the shoulder and said, “Be careful what you ask for.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  The female voice came from behind Ash. He turned, revealing Jude and Maggie in the doorway… and a small, pixie-like woman with short brown hair and glasses, wearing a grandma sweater with jeans and combat boots.

  Ash grinned. “That’s what I said.”

  “Hey, Liv,” I greeted her.

  Liv just stared at me, but I could see her shrewd mind going a mile a minute behind her little glasses.

  “We filming this or what?” Ash looked from Liv to me. He was starting to get pumped up; I could feel his lead singer’s ego blooming with the challenge of the song I’d chosen.

  “Uh, yeah. We’re filming this,” Liv said. “Get your asses out there.” And then she was on her cell, Ash was barreling down the hall, and Jude was beckoning for me to follow.

  Maggie sighed and muttered, “Oh, dear God,” then disappeared through a door along the hallway.

  Ash went through another door, which had been spray-painted with a single word: STAGE. I was at the threshold, about to follow, when Jude’s big hand clamped down on my shoulder and I paused.

  “Do me a favor,” he said, looking me in the eye. “Don’t shit the bed.” Then he released me.

  I nodded, swallowed, then stepped through the stage door, alone. The door was heavy, sound-proofed, and it slammed shut behind me with a resounding bang.

  I walked out onto the black stage, the overhead lights in my eyes. The stage was literally black; painted black and equipment-battered. It was a rock bar that had been converted to a dance bar; sometimes bands still played here, sometimes a DJ held court over the crowd. Right now, I was the main attraction.

  Though no one could see me.

  I heard voices, indistinct beyond the mellow classic rock music playing over the bar’s sound system. It was The Guess Who’s “Undun.” Which made sense if you knew that Burton Cummings was one of Zane’s all-time vocal heroes, and also, that Zane liked to play DJ wherever he could, even in Dylan’s bar, apparently.

  I could envision Zane out there, with his long blond fauxhawk, lounged back in a chair, arguing with Jesse over virtually every guitarist they’d auditioned. Zane and Jesse could rarely agree on anything; I wondered if that had changed over the years.

  With every step I took onto the stage, this shit was getting more real. The members of my former band were in this room. Right now.

  The heartburn feeling was creeping up in my throat again and I tried to clear it—softly, as if anyone could hear me. At least this wasn’t a vocal audition; I probably couldn’t handle that.

  But no matter how nervous I felt, my hands would know what to do.

  As my eyes adjusted to the lights, I saw a drum kit on the other side of the stage, and Pepper, the Penny Pushers’ drummer, standing behind it twirling drum sticks. He didn’t seem to notice me. He was talking to someone in the shadows behind him, maybe a crew member. Ash was gone, vanished somewhere over there that I couldn’t see because of the giant silk screen that blocked me from the rest of the room—including most of the stage and my supporting band.

  A couple of crew guys had appeared, scurrying around me, turning shit back on, and someone plugged in my guitar.

  And that familiar sound… the sizzle of electricity and the whine of feedback. It took me right back—to the last time I was onstage with Dirty, at the reunion show in Vancouver. And how the crowd had loved it. Loved me.

  I took a deep breath, letting the memories of that show flood my senses… and the nerves left me.

  Certainty settled over me again.

  All that bullshit about getting kicked out of the band—my band… it was like it never fucking happened.

  This is what I am.

  This is where I belong.

  The fans knew it, even if Dirty didn’t.


  Maybe Jude knew it, too. Maybe Ash knew it. Maybe Liv knew it, and that’s why she was making this happen.

  And if that was true, I just needed to prove it to Dirty. Prove to them that I was Dirty, as much as any one of them was.

  Obviously, I’d fucked up. I knew that. My talent had once made my wildest dreams come true, but I’d let my addiction twist those dreams into a nightmare.

  I’d fallen—flat on my face.

  I’d failed. Epically.

  But my memories of failure weren’t going to stop me. Crashing from one failure to the next, hitting bottom, clawing my way back and still rolling the fuck on, stronger than before—that was what it took to be standing here.

  Right now.

  Stronger than ever.

  I was a changed man, and I wasn’t fucking around anymore.

  Dirty needed a new guitarist, but they sure as hell didn’t need the Seth Brothers they used to know; even I knew that. Or the Seth who made a half-assed comeback at the reunion show, bent on some kind of closure that never fucking happened.

  As I slid my shades back on and got ready to play the hell out of this song, I knew I was ready—more than ready—to take back what was mine. And I knew, with certainty, I was gonna fucking crush this audition.

  They thought they knew me…

  But they hadn’t even met Seth Brothers yet.

  Chapter Three

  Elle

  Fuck this.

  I was so done with this.

  As I walked back out into the bar, I felt restless and agitated. Bored, actually. What the hell was left to discuss? We were at a stalemate. We’d gained no ground here at all.

  This entire fucking process was a waste of my time.

  Mind-numbing auditions. Listening to wannabe rock stars play song after song. Most bad. Some good.

  A few very, very good.

  Not one of them Dirty.

  We’d seen the process through, for the cameras, for our deal with the network, but off the record we all knew that talent-wise it was down to Johnny O’Reilly or Boz Bailey—a couple of actual rock stars we already knew.

  Johnny, if we could convince him to ditch his other band and join us; doubtful, since they had a song at the top of the indie rock charts this very second and our last conversation had gone along the lines of a three-way argument between Johnny, Jesse and Zane.

  Boz if we could get around his travel issues. As in, he was banned from ever entering the United States because of some drug charge over a decade ago.

  Great news for a touring band.

  Fucking awesome options.

  If we couldn’t seal the deal with Johnny or Boz, it was down to one of these auditions, and none of us were happy with the prospects.

  Well, a few of us were, but none of us could agree on which ones we were happy with.

  I flopped into one of the chairs that had been arranged in a semi-circle on the dance floor, facing the stage, for us—the band and our record producer. We’d agreed, easily enough, that it made sense to film the L.A. auditions at Dylan’s bar, because it was the kind of place where we might hold actual auditions, even if we weren’t doing them for a documentary TV series. No one wanted to go film in some TV studio or on some fake set, and Zane, in particular, said there was no way he was going to “sit on some fucking throne like on some bullshit reality show and judge people.”

  So here we were, in old theatre seats that had been reclaimed from some derelict theatre, in the middle of Dylan’s place, with a house band onstage made up of friends of ours, and it felt pretty fucking homey—the only weirdness being the film crew and cameras, and of course, the giant screen that had been set up, blocking our view of one side of the stage, where the hopefuls stood to play guitar for us. There were lights behind the screen that tossed a bit of a silhouette onto it, but it was pretty much a blur. Most of the time you couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman or an alien rocking out back there.

  Zane had bitched about that, said we needed to see what people looked like as part of the process, but Brody had convinced us to go with the idea, which was all Liv’s. And we’d trusted Liv, like we always did.

  Blind auditions read well on TV, she’d said. It’ll add to the drama.

  As if we needed anything to add to the drama of live auditions with Zane in the room. And with all of us disagreeing over every single guitarist who played for us. All we could agree on so far were the ones who’d totally tanked the audition.

  Currently, the guys were still arguing, which meant even though my head was already on a beach in Kauai, I had to put in the appearance of being here until they were done with their debate.

  As usual, Jesse and Zane were butting heads. Dylan was sitting back with his mouth shut, and I was trying very hard not to lose my shit. We’d wrapped almost half an hour ago; I’d already wandered off to check my messages and come back. We were now halfway through The Guess Who’s greatest hits and they were still debating the guy up in Vancouver who’d managed to impress Jesse last week with his take on Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train,” and the girl who’d played a weirdly slowed-down and somehow sultry Avenged Sevenfold cover yesterday.

  “If she didn’t have tits,” Jesse was saying, “would you still think she played ‘God Damn’ worth a damn?” He was sitting in the seat to the left of me, though I’d barely looked at him throughout this entire process—unless the cameras were rolling and I had to make normal.

  “She had tits?” Zane said dryly. He was kicked back on Jesse’s other side, wearing his trademark black leather vest over a distressed white T-shirt, with low-slung jeans that showed too much manscaped treasure trail. Zane had a hot bod, yes. Did I want to see it? No.

  He raked his blond hair back from his face with a ring-laden hand and his ice-blue eyes caught mine. He winked.

  I sighed.

  I didn’t bother mentioning that the girl in question was barely eighteen and probably shouldn’t have been here at all, and likely wouldn’t have been if not for the fact that we were filming these auditions, and “good TV” and all that shit.

  “So, if no one slays this thing, where are we at?” Dylan asked, for about the dozenth time this week, weary of the argument. He was sitting to my right, long, jean-clad legs spread out in front of him. I glanced at him and he shot me a pained look, his green eyes pleading with me to help him end this madness. “Do we just pick someone for the TV series,” he suggested, “and ditch them after the contract is done?”

  “No way we’re doing that,” Jesse said.

  “Why not?” Zane argued. “Who the fuck cares? Ride it out, enjoy the publicity, and fire them if they suck.”

  “No fucking way,” Jesse said. “I’m not sharing the stage with anyone I don’t want to share it with.”

  “No one wants to do that,” Brody put in. He was standing back against the wall, arms crossed in his leather moto jacket, and hadn’t said much since the last guitarist left. He usually didn’t speak up when the cameras were rolling, but now that we’d wrapped and we were still arguing, we were clearly in need of the voice of reason among us. “But we have an obligation to the network. If we can’t pick someone, they may expect us to extend filming and keep searching.”

  He looked to the series producer, who was also sitting back, against the wall, playing with his phone. He didn’t talk much at all, other than to enthusiastically kiss our asses at every opportunity, relying heavily on Liv to drive this whole thing creatively.

  And where the hell was she right now? She was part of the deal, and frankly, a major reason the network had greenlit the series.

  A major reason we’d agreed to do the series.

  “It’s not in the current budget,” the producer confirmed, looking at us and nodding eagerly, like what he’d said was somehow helpful. Frank something? I hadn’t bothered to remember his name. “But, yes. They’ll probably ask.”

  “Fuck the budget.” That was Zane.

  “I agree,” Jesse said, and I turned to look at him, bec
ause agreeing with Zane was something he was usually allergic to. “I’d rather we pay for it ourselves and keep the search going until we find someone right.” His dark brown eyes met mine; his gorgeous face was mere feet away from me. My stomach twisted a little, but it wasn’t the same way it had twisted when we were a couple. Or before that, when I wanted us to be a couple—badly.

  It was a twist of discomfort.

  And I wondered: when the fuck was that ever going to go away? Was I ever going to be able to look at him and feel… nothing? Nothing but what I felt when I looked at Zane… a completely impersonal appreciation of his male charms—because they were completely irrelevant to me.

  I looked away. He and Zane were right, but it was not what I wanted to hear right now. We were all burnt out on this search. Not the search that started with auditions last week. The search that started seven years ago when we lost Seth.

  We’d been through eight different rhythm guitarists, officially, since Seth Brothers was dismissed from the band. And none of them had technically joined Dirty. They’d been hired on, on temporary contracts, as studio musicians or touring musicians, or they’d played as “special guests” on our albums. The closest we’d come to actually filling the spot was when we’d hired Seth himself back six months ago.

  That contract had lasted mere days.

  Since then, we’d been looking, fiercely, to fill the void. At this point, we were all starting to feel like we were cursed or something. Every time we thought we’d found our guy, it fell apart.

  The documentary series was an idea cooked up by our management team, spearheaded by Brody and Maggie, along with Woo, our record producer, and developed with Liv. It was a good idea, for many reasons. It would—hopefully—create a lot of buzz and excitement when the series came out, excitement that would aid in the launch of our upcoming tenth anniversary album and tour. It also opened up auditions to the public, which meant casting a wider net, and the possibility of catching a rising star.

  Hopefuls had been screened by Woo and Brody as the first step in the process, which meant they’d watched dozens of hours of audition videos. The best, and in some cases, the worst—this was TV, after all—were invited to audition for the band. Today was the last day of auditions and, to date, we had maybe a half-dozen half-decent prospects, but no real contenders.