Rock on, p.1
Rock On, page 1
ROCK ON
ROCK HARDER BOOK FOUR
KAT MIZERA
Copyright © 2024 by Kat Mizera
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Editing: Tera Cuskaden, Kay Springsteen
Cover Design: Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs
Cover Photography: Wander Aguiar
Cover Model: Griffin F.
Created with Vellum
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
Also by Kat Mizera
About the Author
PROLOGUE
Harley
Dear Harley,
How’s it going, beautiful? I know you’re pissed at me right now, so I wanted to write to you to make sure you know I’ve taken care of you. There’s money for you and River that will allow you to do anything you want and give him everything he’ll ever need. I’ve also left letters and videos for you to give him when he gets a little older and can understand more about his dad.
I didn’t make this decision lightly.
To end my life and abandon both you and our son.
But I’m an addict, Harley.
And the truth is that I like being high.
I love the rush from coke.
I enjoy getting shit faced.
My last stint in rehab showed me that’s never going to change, and all it does is hurt the people I care about. I guess it hurts me too. The difference is I don’t know any better. Or maybe I just don’t care. Death is something I’ve been thinking about for years. I would have done it already if it hadn’t been for you and River.
You’ve given me something to live for the last couple of years. More joy than a fuck-up like me deserves. You two made me better, made me try harder, made me re-evaluate everything I thought I knew. Even if it wasn’t enough to fix me, it was enough to bring light to my soul after so many years of darkness.
Please don’t hate me.
River’s better off never seeing me sprawled on the floor covered in puke.
He’s better off not waiting for me to show up for a birthday party when I’m too busy shooting up to remember.
He’ll be healthier and happier without me around to fuck things up.
Because it’s going to happen.
It’s just a matter of time.
You’re an amazing mom. My best friend in the world. The love of my life.
I have no regrets, Harley.
Not a single one.
So don’t blame yourself. Don’t cry. Don’t miss me too much.
I’m in a better place now.
My lawyer has all the details and he’ll be getting in touch.
I want you to be happy.
Please fall in love again.
Mend fences with Tommy.
Go back to acting.
Do all the things.
Life’s too short not to.
And finally, I know you want another baby. If you want him or her to be River’s biological sibling, I left a little piece of me behind so you can do it. With Tommy or someone else, the option is there. I wish there was more I could do but you gave me a legacy that goes beyond rock and roll. It’s more than I deserve.
Just remember…
No pain.
No guilt.
No regrets.
Rock on.
Always,
Carter
I didn’t know there could be pain like the loss of your best friend. The father of your child. The man you’d so desperately wanted to fall in love with but couldn’t. He would never understand the hole he’s left. In my life, in River’s, in the world. So many people loved him. And now he was gone.
Honestly, from the day I’d found out I was pregnant, Carter had been there for me. No questions asked, he’d stepped up to the plate. It didn’t matter that I was married to someone else. Or that he’d been secretly in love with me for years. Or anything else. He’d simply done the right thing. More than the right thing.
He’d been at my side when River was born and had been there for almost every milestone.
Carter was the guy we all wanted to fall in love with.
The guy millions of women around the world had been in love with.
And all he’d wanted was me.
The woman who loved someone else.
The mother of his child who still yearned for her ex.
Tommy fucking Bane.
Even now, I wanted to smack him.
Hate him.
Rue the day we’d ever met.
But I still loved him.
I probably always would.
And without either of them, I was so fucking lost.
ONE
Tommy
It had been more than a year since Carter had killed himself.
My best friend, the bass player of my band, the closest I’d ever come to having a brother since my biological brother and I weren’t close.
Now Carter was nothing but a memory.
Sometimes it seemed like just yesterday that I’d last seen him; other times, it felt like he’d been gone forever.
And both of those scenarios sucked ass because I missed him no matter what.
We’d been partners in music and mischief, in life and in love, our personal and professional lives so intertwined it was hard to tell where one left off and the other began. I’d eventually figured out that he had a hard-on for me, but we didn’t talk about it since he knew and respected the fact that I was straight. It had never affected our friendship.
Except for that one night.
I took a deep pull from the bottle of Corona in my hand, wondering if the past would ever let go of its hold on me. Since the day Harley had served me with those divorce papers, my life had been a never-ending spiral of self-loathing, confusion, and regret. So much damn regret.
I’d lost the woman I loved and then my brother.
Losing him had been inevitable.
Losing her was something else altogether.
It hadn’t made sense back then and only made slightly more sense now.
Now I knew they’d betrayed me.
It had been over a year since I’d found out that Carter and Harley had a kid together, and it still hurt as much today as it had the day I’d found out. At least now I knew why she’d left.
I downed the rest of my beer and tossed the bottle into the recycling bin.
The plan for today had been to get shitfaced, but I’d nursed that one beer for a couple of hours. Now I was restless and desperately needed to get out of here. The four walls of my condo felt suffocating, and I knew if I didn’t do something to distract myself, I would do something stupid instead.
Like call her.
I grabbed my keys and jumped on my bike, the Harley-Davidson motorcycle I’d jokingly named Harley after she bought it for me as a wedding gift. It was a constant reminder of her, and it fueled the ever-present pain and regret.
Jesus, I was a philosophical mess tonight.
As I pulled onto the dark, mostly empty roads of Mulholland Drive, the tightness in my chest started to let up, and I picked up speed. Harley—the ex-wife, not the bike—had been insistent we both take lessons to become as safe as possible when operating any motorcycle, so I was a good driver. Nursing one beer over the course of several hours wouldn’t impair me in any way, either, and somehow, I found myself heading toward the cemetery.
Fans often camped out at Carter’s grave during the day, to the point where police were called in to manage the occasionally overwhelming crowds. It was after two in the morning, though, so I figured they’d all gone home by now. He was dead, after all, and the cemetery had closed hours ago. Not that it being closed would stop me. I’d been there so many times in the last year, in between rehearsing, recording, and touring, I knew the place inside out.
The wind felt cool against my overheated skin and I momentarily closed my eyes, letting my body become one with the rumbling engine between my legs. A self-driving bike would be heaven, but technology wasn’t there yet, and I forced my eyes back open. The cemetery was ahead on the right, and I parked my bike on the side of the road, just outside the entrance.
I left my helm et on the handlebars and slowly headed toward the gate. I shimmied under it and took off down the main road at a brisk clip. Carter’s grave site was all the way in the back of the cemetery, about half a mile away from the entrance if you stuck to the road, so it was a bit of a trek to get there. It was nice, though. There was a huge oak tree that provided shade during the day. Sitting outside under a tree with a book and his bass had been one of his favorite things, so his final resting place was painfully appropriate.
As I rounded the bend, I slowed my pace, focused on my surroundings. It was late, but I wasn’t stupid. I was here alone, and I couldn’t be the only person who knew you could sneak under the gate after hours. In addition, as a member of the platinum-selling rock band Onyx Knight, I was easily recognizable. Anyone there to see Carter’s grave site would instantly know who I was.
Luckily, the place seemed deserted, and I stopped walking a few feet away from where Carter was buried. It was dark and eerily quiet, as if I was the only person left alive in the whole world.
I knew how ridiculous that sounded, but in the moment, it was accurate.
This sucked so much.
Despite the success of my band and all the money in the world, I was lonely. I still had my bandmates, of course, and I loved them, but it wasn’t the same. My bond with Kingston, Z, and Kellan wasn’t like the one I’d had with Carter. Devyn, who’d replaced Carter in the band, was still relatively new, so it was too soon to compare my friendship with her to the bond I had with the others. And nothing was comparable to what I’d had with Harley.
She was my heart, my soul, my other half.
But she didn’t love me anymore.
She’d loved Carter.
And the fucker had abandoned us both.
I was miserable that he was gone and pissed off at him at the same time.
And that pissed me off even more.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I demanded, sinking down on the ground and glaring in the direction of the tombstone. “You can’t just die to get away from your problems, you asshole.”
“He can’t answer,” an equally indignant voice responded. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”
I looked around, frowning.
Why did the voice sound so familiar?
“I was here first,” the female voice continued. “So go away and leave me the hell alone.”
Oh, yeah.
Indignation and spunk.
Now I knew why it was so familiar.
Dammit.
Why did she have to be here?
“It’s public property, Harley,” I muttered.
“Actually, it’s not.” She continued to speak, even though I couldn’t see her. “It’s private property and we’re both trespassing. But since I was here first, you need to leave.”
“Well, I’m not going anywhere. And would you stop skulking around in the shadows?”
“How am I skulking?” She sounded irritated. “I was here first.”
For the first time, I realized her voice was coming from above me.
I gazed in that direction, shaking my head as I spotted her on the lowest branch of the tree behind me. Her legs dangled and she was holding a bottle of wine in one hand. She held it in my direction in a mock salute.
“How are you going to get home?” I asked, since I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I didn’t see your car.”
“I didn’t think that far ahead,” she admitted, “but I’ll figure it out.”
“It’s dangerous to be out here alone at night.”
She laughed, but it sounded wry and humorless. “You stopped being responsible for my safety a long time ago. Not that you ever cared about my safety, as long as I was the perfect rock star wife.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I demanded, putting my hands on my hips as I continued to stare up at her.
She guzzled from the bottle of wine and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You weren’t exactly husband of the year.”
“I’m not the one who cheated!”
Before I realized what she was doing, she’d hurled the bottle in my direction, throwing it with such force she lost her balance.
“Harley!” Instinctively, I reached for her as she came toppling out of the tree in my direction.
TWO
Harley
The day that would have been Carter’s thirtieth birthday had hit me hard.
I hadn’t been able to go to the cemetery earlier in the day because thousands of fans had wanted to pay their respects, which made it difficult for me, so I’d sat at home with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and watched soap operas I didn’t care about on TV. Anything to stop missing him.
I’d had an enormous amount of love for a man who couldn’t seem to love himself, and it broke my heart all over again. Finally, sometime after midnight, when my sister got home and could stay with my three-year-old, I called an Uber and had it drop me off at the cemetery. I snuck under the gate and headed for my favorite spot, hoping to drink a bottle of wine and honor him with my presence.
The last thing I’d expected was for Tommy to show up.
And I definitely hadn’t expected to fall out of a tree and have him catch me.
Well, he’d tried to catch me.
It was more like he broke my fall and we landed in a heap on the ground.
Good thing I was drunk, or it might have hurt. Instead, all I felt was sore and embarrassed.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Harley.” My ex-husband was flat on his back, looking up at me in annoyance.
“Oops. Guess I lost my balance.” I couldn’t move at first, trying to catch my breath. And not notice how firm and hard his torso was. Or how handsome he still was. It had been more than three years since I’d been this close to him, and I’d almost forgotten the effect his proximity would have on me.
Oh, what the hell was wrong with me?
Tommy Bane was one of the most gorgeous and successful rockstars in the world. Of course, I noticed how hot he was.
Of course, he was strong and in shape.
Of course, I had no business thinking about his body. Or him.
I took a breath and tried to move, but I winced at the ache in my leg.
“Ow. Fuck.”
“You okay?” One of his hands travelled to the small of my back, his voice momentarily gruff.
Our eyes met and I wasn’t sure what I saw there.
Concern? Regret? Maybe a touch of arousal?
Yeah, that was definitely arousal, and spending another second in his presence was a terrible idea.
“Just a little sore.” I rolled to the side and managed to get to my knees.
“You sure you’re okay?” He reached out a hand to steady me as I tried to stand and wobbled a little, but that was probably more the alcohol than the fall.
“I’m fine!” I snapped, anxious to get away from him. “Don’t touch me.”
“Hey, no skin off my teeth.” He held up his hands. “Far be it for me to pretend to be a gentleman.”
“Fuck you,” I muttered, wiping my hands on my jeans.
This was always the problem with Tommy; he could be so sweet and thoughtful sometimes. Then he’d turn into douchebag Tommy. And this was a hard enough day without adding a dose of Tommy’s fuckery.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he ground out.
“Excuse me?” I turned, knitting my brows together.
“You’d like to fuck me.” His voice was practically a snarl. “Don’t even try to deny it turned you on being on top of me a minute ago. I know that look in your eyes. You still like it rough, Harley? Still like it from behind? With my hand on your throat, squeezing just enough to make your eyes roll back in your head when you come?”
