Hey girl a hilarious roc.., p.1
Hey Girl: A Hilarious Rockstar Romance (Turn it Up Book 9), page 1
HEY GIRL
TURN IT UP SERIES
BOOK 8
NATALIE PARKER
Natalie Parker
CONTENTS
Title
Playlist
Foreword
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
Epilogue
Also by Natalie
Also by Lizzie
About Natalie Parker
Acknowledgments
By Natalie Parker
Book 8 in the Turn it Up Series
Copyright © 2024 by Natalie Parker
Cover Model: Travis DeLaurier; @travbeachboy
Cover Design by Lori Jackson
Editing by Hart to Heart Edits
Formatting by Paula Dombrowiak
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and organizations, are a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing or distribution of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property and hard work.
Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
PLAYLIST
"My Own Worst Enemy" – Lit
"The Pin" – The Goo Goo Dolls
"Crazy Bitch" – Buck Cherry
"Teenagers" – My Chemical Romance
"Good" – Better Than Ezra
"Hey Girl" – OAR
"Break Stuff" – Limp Bizkit
"Run Away with Me" – Cold War Kids
"willow" – Taylor Swift
"June, After Dark" – Elliot Root
"Sawed Off Shotgun" – The Glorious Sons
This one is for Wendy…
thank you for raising one of my favorite humans.
FOREWORD
While this story is the last of the Turn it Up series, please note that it takes place on the timeline between Matt's (Where You Are) and Josh's (Somewhere in Between) stories. It includes crossover scenes with characters from Lizzie Stanley's Wishbone Tattoo Series, and while it can be read on it's own, you can't go wrong by reading the rest of the series to get to know Chris and the rest of his bandmates. And now, a quick word from the drummer himself…
Hey all,
It's your crazy neighborhood rock drummer here. I know what you all are thinking…what in the fuck has taken Natalie so long to get to my book? Well you and me both. Seriously, she's had me singeing my nuts on the back burner for how long now?
But okay, okay…in her defense, it was hard for her to take me seriously and find the balance between making me humorous and also loving and sensitive. I didn't make it easier on her by bouncing around her brain like an imbecile and using her frontal lobe as a speedbag. She told me to sit down and shut up many times so that she could write me just right, but I wouldn't listen.
And then there's Lizzie…
That chaos human had her hands full with Deano - and fair play, that dude NEEDED his happy ending - and then my buddy Leo got in the way, and I'd be mad at Liz, but she gave me my little Mouse, so I'll forgive her scatty ass.
And the important thing is, I'm here now, and so is my girl, and now I need to show you all why you should know Rebecca Randall.
And how she tamed my fuckwad self.
No mean feat, but... Anything for her.
Enjoy, and remember: I'm hotter than Leo Mills. Trufax.
PROLOGUE
REBECCA
The cheers and whistles of the crowd make me feel sick to my stomach. It’s so loud, and the volume level lets me know just how many people are out there. Thousands of Turn it Up fans - with smartphones, no less - are going to see me, center stage. I’ll be the main focus, all eyes unavoidably on me.
Nowhere to hide.
The air is drafty backstage, and yet I feel like I’m running a fever or having the hot flash from hell. I rub my clammy hands up and down my dark designer jeans, still so foreign to my Kmart-loving self, and swallow hard.
Never have I been this nervous. Scratch nervous: I’m terrified. Completely terrified, like I’m trapped in my worst nightmare, only…it’s going to have a happy ending right?
Oh god, what if it doesn’t?
No. It has to have a happy ending. He loves me. He’ll protect me. Even if this doesn’t go the way I hope, he won’t humiliate me or let anything or anyone hurt me. Even if it’s my own insecurities, he always protects me.
There’s no reason to be afraid, and even if I am, it’s worth it. It’s the good fear, the type you feel when you’re about to go bungee jumping. The type you should feel, and then do the thing anyway. I remind myself of that notion over and over until I feel a comforting, feminine hand running up and down my arm. While at first I jump, I immediately relax when I find it belongs to
Mayzie has appeared at my side, the stage lights reflecting the cheerful encouragement in her grey eyes.
I nod nervously, trying to smile.
Fucking shit, there are seventy-thousand people out there! That’s one hundred and forty-thousand eyes!
“It’s going to be fine, babe. It’s going to be perfect. I am so proud of you,” she tells me affectionately, as if she sensed my inner nuclear meltdown.
I have one of those about every half hour, every hour on a good day.
“So am I,” Melanie appears at my other side, rubbing a soothing hand on my back. “And remember, it’s just like he said. You can’t even see them out there.”
“It’s just thousands of fireflies in the night,” Mayzie finishes, reminding me of what the man of my dreams once compared the expansive audience to when they have their cell phone flashlights ignited.
“Fireflies,” I echo softly and nod to myself as I feel a gentle warmth overtake my soul. That’s what he told me. That an audience of this size can sometimes be intimidating even for him, and that’s what he imagines them as.
I can do that too…
For him.
1
CHRIS
I’m jolted awake, my heart pounding out several hard, startled beats as the opening chords of Crazy Bitch by Buck Cherry blast from my phone. My eyelids fly open despite the sleep that had them sealed shut like rubber cement.
Ow. That kind of hurt a little. But I have no time to worry about that or the fact that my surroundings are shifting from one side to the other as I squint against the daylight, frantically fumbling for any clothing I can find. Because the sound of Josh Todd wailing that infamous song from my phone can only mean one thing:
Tatiana.
I have my ringtone set to alert me when that…well… crazy bitch is on the prowl.
Why don’t I block her, you ask?
Because she tends to call when she’s gotten her ankle tracker removed and has a hankering for breaking her restraining order. If she’s planning on making another terrifying cameo in the movie that is my life, I’d rather have a heads up about it.
I find a wadded-up shirt and pull it on before vigorously shaking my head to get rid of the cobwebs. Last night was fun. I mean, I don’t really remember, but it must’ve been if the empty liquor bottles, discarded whipped cream cans, and variety of pool floaties are anything to go by. Not to mention my pants - hey, there they are- hanging from the chandelier.
I jump and snag them, taking turns hopping on each foot as I try to pull them up in record time. Stepping over the bodies of various half-naked sleeping party people I don’t know in search of my phone, I let good old Crazy Bitch guide me through my still half-drunken haze. I need my morning BLAST, stat.
The song gets louder and I finally find it hiding under someone’s hot pink feather boa (sweet, I might keep this).
Ohh, Tatiana.
When you live the wacky kind of life I do, you tend to get mixed up with some questionable people and wow, is Tatiana her own brand. I asked for some space when she got a little too clingy - and by clingy, I mean tattooing my name across her ass, bulldozing her way past security at VIP parties, and scaring the shit out of me by breaking into my laundry hamper - and she did not like that at all. It only made her up her game, and it’s been a steroid level game of cat and mouse ever since.
I pick my phone back up and swipe to answer as I cautiously step through the bedroom door of whoever the hell’s mansion this is.
“Tatiana! Hey!” I greet the psychopath on the other end as I drape the boa over my shoulders. “How are you doing, sweetie?” Gotta use kid gloves with this one.
“CHRIIIIS!” she wails into the phone on a sob. Oh yeah, she’s off her meds again. “Where ARE you?!”
“What?” I nervously chuckle as I look ev
“I know you’re around here somewhere, motherfucker!”
Fuck. I hate it when I’m right.
“Around where?” I play dumb as I gingerly crack open the massive front door to this party pad. I peek my head out slowly, looking both ways. She could be anywhere, lurking in the shadows, ready to strike. When the coast looks clear, I fully emerge from the house, phone still to my ear.
“Don’t play with me!” She scream-cries again between sobs.
“I’m not playing with you, sweetie,” I try to placate as I start walking down the driveway on this beautiful morning. “Hey, you sound tense. Do you want to do some breathing?”
“Fuck you Mr. Fancy Rockstar! You know what I need!”
“Uh, no. What’s that?” I ask coyly again as I reach the end of the nicely paved drive and step onto the street.
“I need you to get your head out of your ass and come back to me and repair the remaining shards of the heart you broke, you ASSHOLE!”
She’s so poetic. That’s one of the things I liked about her. Before she showed me she was really cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and her nasty side made itself known.
“Now, now,” I chide, trying to sound like the voice of reason. No, the irony is not lost on me as I keep a soothing, placating tone. “We’ve been over this, Tatiana. We were getting along great until you started to have an issue with space in all of its forms. I tried to tell you it’s healthy for a couple to maintain separate space, to grow individually so that-”
“Shut up with that bullshit!” She interrupts sounding like a scorned harpy. “I gave you EVERYTHING! Every single piece of my heart and you told me you needed space and that I needed to chill! Who says that?!”
I roll my eyes, starting to get fed up for the zillionth time this year. It’s not that she’s crazy; like Norman Bates said: we all go a little mad sometimes. It’s that she’s spiteful and dangerous with a mean streak a mile wide. This one time she got pissed that she couldn’t reach me, she decided to throw a dead rat at Mayzie backstage, convinced I was having an affair with her. Poor rat.
“Tatiana, my name in a small calligraphic font inside a cute heart or something would be one thing. But you got my name in giant bold caps across both cheeks. It was a little…” I trail off when I hear a familiar rumbling.
Oh…no.
In case I needed confirmation, I hear the tell-tale rev of a giant engine with seven hundred horse power that belongs to an even more giant lifted black monster truck.
I slowly turn, phone still up to my ear even though it’s pointless.
She found me.
Sure enough, I’m face to face with the aforementioned truck; a raven-haired beauty with a few screws loose behind the wheel, mascara streaking her cheeks and determination etched in her eyes. She looks pissed. So does the truck, actually, with its wide chrome grill.
Welp. No good’s going to come from just standing here.
I turn and bolt in the opposite direction, looking for any kind of life-saving detour. I hear the engine gunning behind me, a proverbial hound of hell snapping at my heels. It’s obvious my legs, powerful and toned as they are, are no match for this beast.
I need reinforcements.
I bring my phone back up and dial one of the band’s drivers.
“Where the fuck are you, and what have you done now?” Wes answers on the first ring and I can imagine him shaking his head.
“Some rich neighborhood in the Hills, and nothing!”
“Yeah, yeah. Right,” I hear the sarcasm in his voice, but thankfully, also his keys jangling. “Party last night?” I hear him ask someone in the background. “Where?”
The monster truck picks up speed and I veer right, doing a pretty bad ass tuck and roll into some bushes.
“Alright, so you were partying at that movie producer's house last night right?” Wes asks as I stand and bring the phone back to my ear, looking around for the next route to take. Probably shouldn’t stay here standing in someone’s yard.
“Oh…yeeeah!” I cheerfully remember as it all comes hurtling back to me.
“Good thing it’s near the hotel,” he scoffs. “I’m five minutes out.”
“Oh, thank you! THANK YOU! I owe you Wes! I’m the freak in the feather boa running terrified down the street, you can’t miss me!”
“Yeah, what else is new?” He hangs up and Crazy Bitch immediately starts playing again as I look for an escape. I’m not answering this time; she’s made it clear there’s no reasoning with her right now, and she’s out for blood. I find another row of bushes on the opposite side of the yard and burst through them like the Hulk, finding myself on another neighborhood street.
Crazy Bitch plays on as sprint in the opposite direction. I think Tatiana might be driving parallel to where I’m running, but no dice. The truck pulls off the side street right in front of me, cutting me off, its driver wearing a creepy wide lipstick Joker-grin on her face. I hear a three-year-old girl shrieking. Okay, that was me.
Oh no. This is it.
This is the end of Chris Richards, talented and charismatic drummer for the multiple award-winning rock band, Turn it Up. His tombstone shall read:
Found face down with sixteen-inch tire treads on his back and his drumsticks in his ass.
But just as I’m about to accept my fate, the clouds open up, and a familiar black SUV rolls up and screeches to a halt beside me.
Just as Wes, my savior, climbs out of the vehicle, two squad cars pull up on either side of Tatiana, their red and blues revolving. Several uniforms close in on the truck, and go through the motions of ordering her to exit the vehicle.
“Careful, officers!” I call out. “She’s a wrestler on Tough Bishes Live! Keep your guard up, yeah? She body slams people bigger than us for a living.”
“Chris!” Tatiana is back to the crying, her tone now defeated and desperate as her hands get cuffed behind her back. “Chris, baby, I’m your soulmate! And you’re mine, and you fucking know it! CHRIS! I loooove you!”
“I know,” I call back with a wave. “You’re going to be okay sweetie.” I give her a little head bow before hefting myself into the back of the SUV.
“Thanks, Wes,” I say as we get on the road. “You saved my ass.”
“As usual. But hey, I’m getting paid for this shit,” he returns as he reaches back and hands me a cold can of BLAST.
“Hallefuckinlujah,”! I crow as I quickly pop the tab and chug half the can. Once the taste catches up with me I abruptly pull the can away to examine it. “What in the fizzle-fuck is this?”
“It’s jalapeno candy corn,” he answers casually. God bless this man and his attention to detail like how I enjoy the most fucked-up flavors BLAST has to offer. “What do you think?”
“It’s absolutely amazing.” Where has this gloriousness been all my life? Seriously, if this flavor was a woman, I’d marry her.
“I’m happy you’re happy,” Wes sighs. “Nice top.”
I look down to see that, in my panicked hurry to get dressed, I threw on someone’s leopard print crop-top.
Huh. I might wear this on stage tonight…
Rebecca
I found myself dusting the artificial flowers and plastic yucca plants in my front room at two a.m. this morning because I was too nervous to sleep. Social anxiety is a real bitch.
I suffer from it even at the best of times, but I have an added justification for it on this occasion. Today, I’m not just meeting new people, which scares me rigid as a default; today, I’m meeting actual celebrities.
God, I might throw up.
One of my contacts has set me up with a really amazing opportunity, designing the new stage backgrounds and light shows for Turn It Up’s upcoming tour, and I’ll also be a part of creating their new album cover. I’ve even designed some new merch they can sell at each concert, like t-shirts and posters, just in case they’re interested. I may be petrified, but this is a huge chance for a freelancer like me, and it really sparked my creativity. I’ve spent days sketching and finalising more professional images on my computer for them to approve.
