Rock Star Romance: Dan (Contemporary New Adult Rockstar Bad Boy Romance) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 4) by Jade Allen Page B

“Not like I have
anywhere to be.” It had been a week--and none of us had gone back into the
studio, because Mark refused to respond to anyone. Either he told them to fuck
off, same as he had me, or he just didn’t answer. Things were starting to get
desperate; the record label wasn’t happy with the fact that we were stalled out
on the album, especially since they’d given us the biggest budget we’d ever
had. We were going to have to come up with something soon, but no one in the
band seemed to have an idea of how to move forward.
    I couldn’t help but feel more than a little guilty
about it; I couldn’t make myself believe that Mark’s tantrum was all about
Sophie, but obviously that had been the straw that had broken the camel’s back.
If we couldn’t figure out how to move forward, then it was going to be bad for
all of us. Not that Jules won’t just bounce back. He’s already got that side
project. Alex could go solo. Nick… I sighed, pushing the thought out of my
head before I’d even finished it. In a certain light, I could understand where
Mark was coming from; at least, where he’d been coming from before, the night
we’d met Sophie.
    But knowing where he was coming from didn’t really
seem to help all that much. I still didn’t have an answer for what to do about
the situation. My phone buzzed on the bar top and I turned it over to see the
screen flashing. I had a text. I unlocked my phone and stubbed out my
cigarette, taking the shot from Sophie without even looking. Meeting
tomorrow. Ron’s office. Mark won’t be there. It was from Nick. I knocked
back the shot and considered the message.
    Is Ron going to be there? What’s the deal? I took a sip of my beer and lit another cigarette. This was certainly getting
interesting--I knew that it would eventually come to some kind of meeting, some
kind of sit-down. The fact that it was Nick messaging me about it instead of
Alex was a little unusual.
    I had to wonder if the rest of the band thought it
was my fault that Mark was throwing such an epic tantrum. After all, the spark
for this had been him finding out about me and Sophie. You have to admit
that you were pretty pissed about the fact that he and Sophie were supposed to
go out after she’d already said yes to you, I reminded myself. And it was
true--and Nick had pointed out how stupid it was for me to be so touchy about
it. And then, too, it’s not like he knew. Obviously. I finished off my
beer and signaled to Sophie. At least for a little while, I had enough money
not to worry too much about running up a huge tab, and how I’d pay for it. We
were still getting quarterly royalties from the first few albums, and since
things had gotten so good with everyone else in the band drawing more and more
attention to us, those checks were bigger.
    Ron’s not going to be there. He’s letting us
figure this shit out. But the label is pretty...the polite way they put it was
‘concerned’. I almost laughed out loud at Nick’s understatement. The label
was pissed. They’d dropped money on the studio of our choice, and they were
bleeding that money for however long we went without working, since--unless we
contacted them and told them to suspend the album--they couldn’t just quit the
lease on the place. My phone buzzed again. Noon, Alex says. You going to be
there? Sophie cracked another beer and slid it in front of me.
    I sighed. I knew I didn’t really have a whole hell
of a lot of choice. I’ll bring pizza, I texted back. There was no real
getting around it--I’d need to be there. Especially since Mark apparently
wasn’t going to attend, it was a good idea. There was no doubting what we’d be
discussing: the future of the band, and how we were going to deal with the
situation.
    “What’s up?” I looked up and saw Sophie standing
across the bar from me, hands resting on the bar top. I shrugged.
    “Meeting tomorrow with the boys--except Mark, who
apparently won’t talk to anyone,” I