Illicit Dose Of Scars: A Dark Rockstar Romance (Love Sick #1) Read online

  illicit

  dose

  of

  scars

  Contents

  Copyright

  Trigger Warning

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  copyright

  Copyright (c) 2021 Dark Illusion Publishing™

  All rights reserved. Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention, Universal Copyright Convention, and Pan-American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

  ISBN: 978-1-7371753-0-8

  Library of Congress Control Number:

  Any reference to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

  Edited By: Kimberly See

  Cover Design By: Diana T. Calcado

  Formatting By: TalkNerdy2me

  First Printed Edition, 2021

  Trigger warning

  This is a dark rockstar romance for 18+.

  It has dark themes, graphic sex scenes with sexually coarse language, profanity, dubcon/noncon scenes, and other mature content.

  His love was a sweet fragrance

  That I couldn’t get enough of

  Until it turned rancid

  Hurting me to the very core Burying me like a seed

  Scarring my heart and mind

  As he threw petals on my bruised body

  -Regina Ann Faith

  “All romances aren’t sweet and innocent. Some are aggressive, possessive, raunchy and raw.”

  -Regina Ann Faith

  one

  Journee

  It is the first time I’ve had a good night sleep in three months. My dad and I had been going back and forth to visit my mother in the hospital. She had been diagnosed with liver cancer and was given exactly a year to live. That was a year ago.

  When she was first diagnosed, my dad took my mom to her treatments, and for a while they were helping with the pain. She could still function. But three months ago, her health started to deteriorate, and the doctors put her in hospice care. When I graduated high school, she couldn’t attend my graduation, confined to her bed. So my dad put in a request with the doctors to stream the ceremony. The doctors said she was the happiest on that day and couldn’t believe her “baby girl was graduating high school.”

  A few days later, Mom slipped into a coma and was put on a respirator. That’s when Dad started going to the hospital solo. I couldn’t handle seeing my mom in that condition. It’s not a valid excuse, I know. Most children would want to be with their parent up until their final breath, but I couldn’t do it. I know Mom so it helped with the guilt I was feeling.

  Tonight, I hear my dad enter my room. He comes and sits on the edge of my bed quietly, with his head down. His eyes are red and puffy from crying, and I can tell he is trying to contemplate how he is going to tell me the news. But I already know.

  He lets out a long sigh before reaching out to embrace me. “Journee, your mother passed away this evening.”

  At this moment I feel like the air is being sucked from my lungs. All I can think about is the month before my high school graduation. My mom was beaming. She couldn’t believe I was getting ready to graduate.

  “I’m going to see if I can make it to your graduation,” she had said.

  “But you’re—” I started to say before my mom cut me off.

  “Sick . . . But the doctors said I’m improving and may be well enough to attend,” she stated, half-smiling.

  “Violet, please don’t make her promises. This is hard on us as it is,” my dad cut in.

  “I know what the doctors said, and they said I was improving, so I’m going to try.”

  My dad just nodded and didn’t push the matter. Mom wasn’t ready to accept the reality herself.

  Violet Watson fought her awful, debilitating disease with grace. She never complained and always had a smile, even on the days she didn’t feel up to par. My mom knew she had to be strong for us. That was her nature. This fight, she just couldn’t beat. She knew that, and prepared us the best she could. But how does one prepare for the death of a parent, or the death of a spouse?

  Dad and I knew this day would come. It was inevitable. Now it is here, but it still hurts like hell, and we both cry.

  A lot of emotions run through my mind as my dad embraces me. I’m angry, heartbroken, numb. I want to spend the entire week in bed, grieving. It is wishful thinking, of course. I have to grieve silently but keep moving, especially if I want to pursue a modeling career. Life goes on, as my dad always said.

  “Honey, we’ll be okay,” my dad says as he breaks our embrace and wipes his eyes with his hand.

  I don’t know how process this. I don’t want to process it, truthfully. This was my mom, my best friend and confidant. She was my everything, and now she’s been ripped from my life.

  “How . . . How am I supposed to go on without her?” I confess.

  Dad lets out a shrug and a long somber sigh. “I don’t have that answer, Jour. The best we know how, I guess.”

  My dad isn’t the most eloquent with speeches or finding the right words to express his feelings. But he tries his hardest to comfort me. He leaves my room not long after. I’m left alone in the dark, to come to terms with how to live in this new reality. So I decide to escape into music. I recently found this band named Supposed Posers, and they have been helping me deal with this whole situation with my mom. Their lyrics are so honest, so real and raw. They speak to me in a way no other band has. I put their playlist on and jam out to their song “Memories,” silently to keep from waking up my dad. That’s the last thing he needs after a night like tonight.

  The night gives way to the morning. I wake up with my AirPods still in and their song “Memories” still playing on repeat. I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing last night was a horrible nightmare. I pray that my dad will come in my room and say, “I’m going to visit your mom today. She’s doing so well.” But as a lie here, I know that will never happen.

  Then I hear my dad’s footsteps coming down the hallway. He cracks my door open to see if I’m awake. “I’m going out. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  I wonder where he is going, but I don’t want to ask. I know he needs time . . . I need time.

  We need to each grieve in a way that is right for us.

  “Okay, Dad. I love you,” I say.

  “I love you too, Jour.” He leaves my room after that.

  I am in a melancholy mood, but I resolve to get up and start the day. Rummaging through my dresser, I find a pair of dark-wash jeans and a top. It is a white tank top with angel wings outlined in silver glitter on the back. My mom saw it at the mall one day and decided to buy it for me. She always said I was an angel sent to her by God.

  Before I begin my daily search on the internet for modeling gigs, I go downstairs to get some breakfast. Cooking was my mom’s forte. She could cook almost anything from scratch. That’s definitely one thing I will miss—my dad can’t even boil water. I consider myself an okay cook, and though I can make food to survive on, I’m not my mom . . . I wish I were. Then I wouldn’t always have to settle for just eating “okay” dishes. I
guess this is my opportunity to learn. Mom, be with me.

  I look in the refrigerator, overwhelmed. There are eggs and sausages in the fridge, which I pull out. Then I go through the cabinets, looking for bread to make Mom’s favorite breakfast: cinnamon toast. Two pieces of bread go into the toaster while I prepare the skillet for the eggs and sausages. Breakfast doesn’t turn out too bad. By the time I‘m done cooking, I have enough for me and my dad for when he gets home.

  As I clean up the kitchen, I reminisce about the times when I watched my mom cook and sing songs. She was a phenomenal singer, making up songs to sing me to sleep as a child. Even as I was heading into adulthood, before Mom got sick, her songs put my mind at ease. They were such a comfort to me, and I will miss hearing her soft, angelic voice. Then I found the band Supposed Posers. Even though they were a rock band, I connected with their lyrics. They seemed to write exactly what they were feeling. That’s how my mom sung, letting us know what was going on in her mind, whether it was about the weather or something more personal, like how she felt about me or my dad.

  I can feel the tears well up in my eyes, so I quickly finish up in the kitchen and walk back upstairs. In my room, I pull out my laptop. It’s black and has Supposed Posers stickers that I ordered from the their official website on the front cover. I search craigslist, as well as some other websites actually geared specifically toward modeling. I weed through the shady, explicit modeling posts. There are too many, in my opinion. But what do I expect? A lot of photographers look for models to take sexually explicit photos. Sex sells.

  I set my standards early on that I won’t photograph nude, and I’m going to back down from my convictions. I’ve had to walk off a photoshoot once because the ad the photographer posted was very misleading. I got the impression from the ad that the models would simply be in lingerie, which I didn’t mind. But when I got to the shoot, there was a bed set up and the models hired were supposed to pose “seductively” on this bed — nude.

  Hours pass as I sit in my room, finding a few modeling gigs that I will call in the next week or so. I go through my headshots to find the best ones to submit. But looking at my screen for as long as I have has made me sleepy. So I put my laptop away and crash on my bed.

  s

  A commotion in the kitchen wakes me up. I get up and slowly make my way downstairs.

  My dad is at the kitchen table, eating the leftovers I made earlier.

  “Hey, Jour, this food is delicious!” he exclaims as he chews on a piece of sausage.

  “Thank you. I know it’s not like Mom’s cooking, but I tried.”

  “I got you something.” He points to an envelope on the kitchen island.

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “I wanted to. I know I can’t bring your mother back. But I can give you the next best thing. Open it up.”

  I stare at the white envelope curiously. I didn’t expect my dad to buy me anything, but who am I to turn down his gift? This is his way of comforting me, and I’m grateful. I pick up the envelope and shake it. It can’t be money. It’s too light. Watching, my dad has a half-smile on and this look as if saying, “Just open it already.”

  I rip the envelope open and stare in awe. One ticket and a meet-and-greet pass for a Supposed Posers concert. It’s a dream come true. And while I’m both elated and excited, I can’t help but think of my mom. If I had to choose between going to this concert and having my mom back, I would choose the latter. But that isn’t possible, and my dad gave me this gift with the intention to make me happy. For that, I’m truly grateful.

  “I know how much they helped you get through everything,” my dad explains. “I just want to see you smile again.”

  I go over to hug him. “Thank you.”

  two

  Knox

  The Pavilion is a state-of-the-art rehearsal space with several studio rooms. Both local and visiting bands use the space before their shows, and it is sometimes hard to even get a room. It all depends on how booked it is. During our own practices, we spend the first fifteen minutes just warming up before really getting into rehearsal. Depending if we have a show or not, we usually spend an hour or two just practicing.

  Today, we are in studio 2B.

  “Knox, play that guitar riff again. It sounded fucking amazing,” Ezra says.

  I play the riff for him again, this time with my amp turned up.

  “Sweet,” Reid exclaims as the last note dies.

  After playing the last song, Reid, Ezra and I reminisce about our earlier band days.

  “Shit, we started out playing in cafes, and clubs when they let us, and now look at us. I can’t believe we get to play an arena show. We’ve come a long way, boys,” I say with enthusiasm.

  “I know. It’s so fucking surreal. Hey, did you talk to Seth yet about the photographer?” Ezra asks.

  Seth Felton. He found us a few years ago, when were just streaming our songs, trying to get heard. Now that he was our band manager, he handled everything—publicity, our tour schedule, the website. Everything.

  “Yeah, I did,” I say. “He found this guy named . . . Phoenix? Some nobody photographer who wants to be somebody. But I heard he’s good, so our pics should look kick-ass.”

  “We definitely need new pics for the website,” Reid chimes in.

  We have been rehearsing for two hours every day for the past two weeks to get ready for our show. We are clearly excited. Then Ezra’s cell starts ringing while we are in the middle of practicing a song. He is on the phone for a few minutes while Reid and I continue to practice without him.

  When he hangs up, already knowing who it was, I ask, “What did Seth want?” “He wanted to know if we were free to get our pictures taken before our show, and I told him we were.”

  “When?” I ask.

  “This Saturday at nine in the morning. It sounds like it’ll be an all-day shoot,” Ezra explains. “You guys up for it?”

  “Hell yeah. We really need to put new pictures up. The ones we have are at least two years old,” Reid reiterates.

  “Saturday it is,” I say in agreement.

  s

  I barely slept last night. I was so stoked for our shoot today. The night after our last rehearsal, Phoenix called to tell me his idea for the shoot. He wants the band to wear all black because we are going to use the infamous graffiti wall. It’s grungy, edgy, colorful, and exactly our style. He gave me the address and mentioned he was also going to call Ezra and Reid to let them know.

  I have lived in my apartment since I was twenty. My parents helped me buy furniture and even paid a portion of the rent when I first moved in since I refused to get a roommate. For a while, I worked different jobs to pay my half. Then Seth found us, and now money is not as big of a deal.

  My “bachelor pad,” where we also have our lyric-writing sessions, has seen several parties, which tended to involve smoking weed, drinking, and some harder drugs on occasion. Those nights were all about chasing highs, never-ending hangovers, and girls I don’t even remember fucking, but you are only young once, right? But most of my time in this apartment is spent alone, thinking, overthinking, and repeating the cycle.

  I’m just sitting down with my breakfast—a quick bowl of cereal—when I realize that something is missing. I’ve had my fair share of one night stands and ex-girlfriends, but none of them could really handle that I was in a band. All they wanted were the benefits of fucking me, to be able to tell their girlfriends that they slept with the Supposed Posers guitarist. But they couldn’t handle being in the spotlight or that I was the center of attention when we went out to different places. They couldn’t handle me and all the came with being with me, but I want a girl that can. It is a rare thing that I’m asking, but she has to be out here somewhere. After I finish eating, I go back into my bedroom to figure out what to wear for the photoshoot. It isn’t too hard finding an all-black outfit—it’s basically all I wear, with the exception of a little gray thrown in the mix. And our band’s shirts, which I wear on
occasion. While they’re still on the darker side, they come in different colors, like red, blue, gray, and green.

  I search through my closet and pull out a hoodie, a pair of jeans, and a pair of combat boots, all in black. After I get dressed, I gel my hair. The blue dye is fading, reminding me that I need to get it done again, but it will do for the photoshoot. It isn’t that faded. I get my guitar case and put it by my front door so I won’t forget to bring it with me. I don’t know if this Phoenix guy wants me to pose with my guitar since I will probably be the only one with my instrument. It’s easy for Ezra to bring a microphone since he’s the lead singer, but harder for Reid to bring his drums since he’s the drummer.

  Driving to the graffiti wall, I can’t calm my nerves. I just want this shoot to go perfectly. When I arrive, there are two cameramen, one makeup artist, and a few lighting people. I have never been to the wall, and I’ve lived in North Carolina all my life. I park my car, and text both Ezra and Reid to see where they are. They both say that they are still on their way. After getting out my car, I walk up to the group of people.

  “Hey, Knox. What do you think?” says the guy I assume is Phoenix.

  “This is so cool. Great choice.”

  “Where are Ezra and Reid?”

  “They should be here in a few,” I say. “I texted them just a bit ago.”

  “Okay, good. We just have today, and I want to make sure we get all the photos we can before the sun goes down,” Phoenix explains.

  Ezra and Reid finally arrive not long after, and we are sent to get our hair and makeup done. So much for the gel I used earlier . . . But my hair turns out better than I hoped, so it isn’t a total lost.

  The first round of the pictures have us standing in front of the graffiti wall in a group, as a band. I have to admit, Seth, our band manager, struck gold when he chose Phoenix as our photographer. He catches the very essence and vision of Supposed Posers. We, as a band, want to show the different sides of our personalities, something that will catch our fans off guard. We want them to think, “Damn, the Supposed Posers are back and ready to rock our faces off.”