Rising West: A Turner Artist Rocker Novel (The Turner Artist Rocker Series Book 1) Read online

  This novel is a work of fiction and intended for mature readers. Events and persons depicted are of a fictional nature and use language, make choices, and face situations inappropriate for younger readers.

  Names, characters, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover Design: Maria @ Steamy Designs

  Cover Image: Wander Aguiar

  Cover Model: Lucas Loyola

  RISING WEST: A Turner Artist Rocker Novel

  Copyright © 2019 Alyson Santos

  All Rights Reserved

  For the members of ABC (Aly’s Breakfast Club) who have been my “sun” in more ways than they’ll ever know.

  Also for Hazel James, Jayne Frost, and Lindsey Domokur who convinced me I could when I couldn’t.

  RISING WEST CONTENTS

  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

  EPILOGUE

  ORIGINAL SONG

  MORE FROM ALYSON

  STAY IN TOUCH

  Excerpt from FALLING NORTH

  NOTE FROM ALY

  PLAYLIST

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  Did I see him first? The way he breathed music and bled poetry from a stage that never saw him coming. What spotlight can hold a man who outshines its radiance? A dreamer. A legend. An anonymous shadow already etched into history… and he doesn’t even know it yet. No one does, but they will. Yes, one day the man who captured our small cluster of unsuspecting hearts will be the living, breathing cosmic gift everyone craves. They will claim him, live for him, fortify his legend beyond our time and space—but me, I will know the universe became his on a warm August night no one remembers. I will be the one who spelled his name in stars before he could admire them from a summit he never dared to imagine. His name will be epic and forever mine. If only I knew what it was.

  MASON

  “Mason West. Nice to meet you.”

  The other man’s clammy palm brushes mine, barely qualifying as a handshake. His gaze shifts over me in suspicion before darting back to a phone screen that’s clearly more important. Seedy bar? Check. Jaded, disinterested crowd? Check. A punk-ass bass player who hasn’t even shown up yet? Check. Should be a fun night.

  “Yo, Cat! Can you take care of the band?” Seedy Owner shouts while stalking toward a “Restricted Access” door without looking up from his phone. A woman taking an order at one of the tables scattered around the bar glares after him before firing a look at me. I shrug an apology, accepting her eye-roll as yet another fixture of The Fat Eagle’s ghetto charm.

  “This place is a dump,” Weasel mutters behind me. I cast my drummer a warning look, then cringe at the familiar, pungent odor emanating from him.

  “You couldn’t even wait until our break to light up?” I hiss.

  His eternal smirk lifts higher as he concentrates hard on the stick winding awkwardly between his fingers. Drums are my fourth instrument and I can do that trick with more finesse.

  “Your uptight ass needs a hit more than anyone,” he snorts out, then full-on cackles when the stick clatters to the floor.

  Breathe-two-three-four. “Just start bringing in the cases from the van, okay?”

  His face scrunches into a display of fanatical amusement I hope to never see again. “And put them where exactly?”

  Right. Guess, that’s where “Cat” comes in. I check on her status, and find her behind the bar, clearly doing anything she can to avoid taking care of the band.

  “One sec,” I say to Weasel, and start weaving through the tables. “Cat?”

  Her eyes flicker to mine in acknowledgement, then back to the very important lemon she’s slicing.

  I lean my forearms on the bar, breaching her line of sight. “Where should we set up?”

  Her knife stalls, maybe even tilts ever so slightly in my direction. “Wherever you find room?” Yep, so incredibly charming, this establishment.

  I manage a tight smile and push back from the bar, pulling in another draught of stale air. Like me, maybe this woman has also been up since five AM. Maybe she baked her ass off on a roof for nine hours, only to come home to jelly and toothpaste smeared over her entire apartment. Maybe she too is desperately clinging to the one last thing that’s still hers, even if it goes unappreciated in a rundown, practically vacant hole-in-the-wall.

  “Grab the other end,” I direct to Weasel as I grip the edge of a neglected foosball table.

  “For real?”

  “Will you just shut up and help me?”

  Weasel has maybe a quarter of my strength sober. High, he’s pretty much useless, but we manage to slide the giant fake-soccer box to the closest corner. I scan the bared space, checking for outlets and visualizing the layout of our equipment. We’ll have to dodge some pretty cagey looking dust bunnies, but with a few adjustments to our gear we can probably make this work.

  “Okay, let’s get those chairs stacked and—”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Cat shrieks behind me. At least I finally got her attention.

  “Making room,” I say, lifting a cocktail table with one hand and dragging a chair with the other.

  “You can’t just wreck my bar!”

  Pretty sure anything I do to it would be an improvement. Unless they’re breeding those dust bunnies as a side business? I keep my observation to myself when I see her face. Knotted in fury, she looks ready to punch me. Thing is, I have an intimate relationship with overworked, underpaid exasperation and speak it fluently. Dragging in a long breath, I force my demeanor calm.

  “Cat, right?”

  Her arms cross, brow lifting in challenge.

  “Look, I know how busy you are. Believe me, I get it and I’m just trying to help. If you let us do it our way, we can be in and out without you lifting a finger. We’ll play our gig and put everything back where it was. Sound good?”

  I add a subtle nod to trigger her agreement—a technique that also works on preschoolers. Funny how this entire scene is basically the adult version of Brooklyn’s jelly-toothpaste meltdown an hour ago. That’s my story, though.

  Crisis. Breathe. Deal: My mantra since I was nineteen.

  “Mason, I’m pregnant.”

  “Mason, she’s dead.”

  Mason, you’re a single father without a job, home, or shred of knowledge about what the hell that means.

  Can I move a fucking foosball table six feet to the left?

  Also consistent with overworked exasperation, Cat maintains her skeptical look as she mutters a curse and leaves me to my demolition.

  “What’s her problem?” Weasel grunts.

  “We are. Just stack those chairs with the rest of the stuff so we can get set up.”

  The bass player never showed, Weasel kept the right beat at the wrong times, and I bare
ly made enough in tips to cover the sitter’s ridiculously low fee. I did get a number from a cute girl I have no interest or time to date and shove it in my gig bag as we finish loading the van. And yes, we put everything back to the cluttered way we found it.

  Weasel is too high to drive so I have to deliver him to his parents’ house on the way to the storage unit. Interesting that unloading my drummer turns out to be way more work than unloading a van of band equipment.

  It’s well after midnight by the time I finish emptying the van. Resting against the wall of the steel cube, I study the pile of cases and gear while I catch my breath. It’s a lot smaller than it used to be, still bigger than it needs to be. After tonight, it’s probably time to face the truth: I’m a never-was who never-will. At some point I need to accept that reality and scale back to the occasional acoustic solo-gig of committed hobbyists. The thought compresses my chest, crushing the part of my heart that’s already shrunk to a sliver of what it once was. If I lock these crates away for good, what else will I lose? How do you let go of the blaze that created you?

  But I’m not a dreamer anymore. Can’t be, and musicians aren’t exactly lining up to audition for a band fronted by a broke single father who can’t devote more than a few hours a week to failed destiny. Problem is, I’m no coffee-shop folk artist either. I’m built for the lights, the adrenaline, the addictive high of locking into a moment with other bodies who breathe music like I do. I had that once. For a fraction of a minute, fantasy peddled promises I’d just started to believe when reality ripped me away for the only thing I could love more.

  Crisis. Breathe. Deal.

  By the time I make it home and trudge up the stairs to my apartment, I’m desperate for the tiny, auburn-curled reminder that sometimes crises breed dreams you never had.

  “How’d it go?” the babysitter asks as I drop my guitar case and gig bag by the door.

  I force a shrug. “You know. Same. How’d Brooklyn do?”

  “You know. Same,” she mocks, and I shoot Heather a lazy smile. She returns it and pushes up from the couch to follow me into the kitchen.

  My gaze spreads over the room in slow amazement when I enter. Except for a few wet stains on the walls, you’d never know this place looked like a dental disaster site a few hours ago.

  “You cleaned it up?”

  “It’s no big deal. Brooklyn even helped. Apparently, the toothpaste was her attempt to wash off the jelly. We decided that it only works on teeth, not walls.”

  “Heather, thank you. Really, this is…” I laugh, sudden emotion simmering in my chest. Damn, I must be beyond tired at this point. And now, thanks to the world’s best neighbor, I can get a full five hours of sleep.

  “No problem. Happy to help.” She’s leaning back against the counter, absently tugging a lock of bleached blonde hair when I glance over. And staring. Hard. I feel her studious gaze shifting over my body in that same unanswered interest she’s expressed since the day we moved in across the hall. Like always, I feign oblivion as I reach for my wallet. I can’t date her; I also can’t live without her at the moment.

  “Here you go,” I say, handing her a few bills. “I can’t thank you enough for coming through on such short notice.”

  “I love watching Brooklyn.” And you, her eyes add when they rest on mine. It’s why the bills I give her are much smaller than they should be for babysitting a preschooler for six hours.

  I swallow my guilt and return my wallet to my back pocket.

  “Still on for tomorrow night?” she asks. “Do you need me to pick her up from school also?”

  Shaking my head, I start toward the door to lead her out. “Rose will get her.” Sparks rush through me at the rest of the thought. The part I didn’t say. The part about tomorrow’s date with destiny I never should have encouraged. What was I thinking? I’ve been dreading this gig since the second I said yes. And after tonight, there’s no way in hell I’m humiliating myself on that particular stage. I’d rather perform in our building’s laundry room. “Actually, I’ll have to bail on the gig until I find a new bass player.”

  Her gaze hangs on me, searching for a hidden story, and I look away.

  “What happened, Mason? I thought tonight went okay.”

  “Yeah, well, I lied,” I say with a smile. Her eyes narrow at me, and I shrug.

  “Offer still stands. I can talk to my cousin who plays if you want.”

  I pull open the door with another smile, polite this time. “Thanks, but we’ll be fine. You already help me out way more than you should.” I mean it too. I’ve known since the day she became indispensable to us that Heather Billings would be the next shoe to drop in my life. All gifts come with a price tag, and anyone who says differently just hasn’t paid yet. Until then, you hold on as firmly as you can.

  “Okay well…” Her fingers make small arcs along the doorframe as she hesitates.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  Her gaze lifts to mine, searches deep in the silence. “Is it?”

  I pull mine away and shrug again. “Fine.”

  “It’s just… You’ve seemed worn down lately. Like, beyond exhausted. I’m worried about you, Mason.”

  I do my best to blink away the evidence and force a smile. “I’m fine. It’s the new job that’s kicking my ass, that’s all.”

  “The roofing project?”

  I nod. “It’s brutal but the pay is better, and they just increased Brooklyn’s tuition. Plus, she needs to see the dentist. I’ve been putting it off, but the pediatrician said—”

  “Mason.”

  I meet her eyes again and breathe out relief at her soft expression.

  “You’re doing great,” she says, squeezing my arm. “I wish my mom had been half the parent you are.”

  Stunned, I can only stare after her as she retreats across the hall and lets herself into her apartment. She waves an all-clear signal, and I close my own door. Leaning against it, I draw in a long breath to steady myself before heading down the hall to check on Brooklyn.

  I sneak through the door and dim the unicorn lamp by her bed. She insists on leaving it at full brightness. It’s the way unicorns are supposed to sleep—in the light, she says. I don’t exactly agree, so we compromise, and I reduce the unicorn to nighttime levels after she’s out. With her eyes closed and little arms tucked around the plush Lego brick named Bill, I know it’s safe to lower the magical glare.

  “Hi, Daddy. I waited for you,” a sleepy voice mumbles from the pillow as I sink to her mattress.

  “Is that so?” I say, biting back a smile. She’s already sleeping again when I lean over to brush my lips against her soft curls. Heather must have managed bath-time as well, and I linger an extra moment to inhale the scent of strawberries and soap. Can your heart explode from loving something so much? This little girl has brought so many questions and answers into my life since she uprooted my world.

  “See you tomorrow, Baby Bug,” I whisper. Her delicate brow scrunches in protest as if she knows I broke our agreement to leave the “baby” off her nickname now that she’s a big girl. Big Bug doesn’t have the same ring. I soothe the wrinkle with another kiss and push up from the bed.

  CHAPTER 2

  Mason. His name is Mason and I’m telling you he has the most incredible smile you’ve ever seen. I’m not even saying that in a groupie-crush way. It’s pure, unadulterated starlight the way his eyes shine and his face comes alive when he smiles. He’d be drop-dead gorgeous without a guitar and microphone, but with them? Lord have mercy, it’s not fair to those of us who have to look but not touch. And I’m not the only one; he owns a room, guys and girls, young and old. The lady next to me could be his mother, and I’m pretty sure she’d claw over dead bodies for a taste. Would I? Maybe I’ve already started.

  MASON

  “I didn’t need it to be you, but I needed you to be more…”

  Shit.

  “Can you change the station?” I mutter from the passenger seat. Rory glances over with
an annoyed look but reaches for the dash.

  “What’s up your ass this morning?” he asks, flipping through stations until he settles on classic rock that’s much easier to stomach.

  “Nothing. I just hate that song.” And that band.

  “Really? I kind of dig it.”

  You and everyone else. I shift my gaze out the window and take another sip of scalding coffee. I’d been enjoying our last few minutes of air conditioning before losing a thousand braincells on a blinding hot roof for the rest of the day. Thanks for ruining it, Eastern Crush. Eastern Crush. They couldn’t even come up with an original name.

  “I’m pretty sure they’re from around here too,” Rory continues, and this is officially the first time I’ve been annoyed that my boss is a music lover.

  “Yeah.”

  “Should have checked them out before they got big. Now try to get tickets. I don’t remember hearing about them back in the day though.”

  I force a tight smile. “That’s because they were called Western Crush when they were local.” I cringe at the slip and take another careful swallow of coffee.

  “Really? I didn’t know that. I thought you weren’t a fan.”

  “I’m not.”

  “And yet…?”

  “Is that Uncle Kerry?” I push open the passenger door and hop down at the approach of a gray Dodge hatchback. Maybe it used to be silver. Or white. Or brown. Or green? Now it’s that same color all cars become when they pass their expiration date. My van was that color before this car was manufactured.

  “Morning,” the older man barks out, cigarette clenched between his teeth. He pulls a thermos and cooler from the back, then proceeds to shove them toward me. I feel Rory’s snicker as I try to balance my coffee, so I can juggle Kerry’s shit.

  “What’re we doing today?” he directs to his nephew, and it’s my turn to smirk. Rory may be the “boss,” but we all know who runs the show. True to form, Uncle Kerry is already walking toward the house before Rory can even open his mouth to respond.