Just For Now Read online

  Contents

  Just For Now

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Epilogue

  Anyone But You

  Dear Reader

  Acknowledgements

  Keep in touch!

  About Jerica MacMillan

  Other Titles on Amazon

  Just For Now

  Cataclysm Book 4

  Jerica MacMillan

  Copyright © 2020 by Jerica MacMillan

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  To the readers who’ve been waiting for this. And those who’ve had their doubts about Blaire. I hope it was worth the wait.

  Chapter One

  Beckett

  “Beckett, you can’t keep firing your tour managers.”

  I sit back on my plush leather couch and take a sip of the whisky I poured as soon as my agent’s name came up on my phone screen. After the verbal throwdown with the aforementioned tour manager over the latest round of incompetence and his subsequent termination—what kind of tour manager doesn’t make sure there’s transport for the set?—I knew I’d be hearing from Chet. He’s an asshole with an asshole name, but he gets the job done.

  I hold the liquor in my mouth as I consider if I should say the first thing that comes to mind. It’s a new bottle, more spicy than I normally get, a gift from the label to celebrate my recent release. Bet they wish they hadn’t spent so much on this gift now. Shaking my head, I swallow, welcoming the heat as it slides down, focusing on the smooth finish and trying to avoid the irritation that a conversation with Chet always entails.

  “He should’ve done a better job, then.”

  Chet sighs loudly. “You’re getting a reputation.”

  I grunt. I’ve had a variety of reputations over the years. It comes with being a celebrity of any stripe. And my reputation rises and falls like the tides. Sweet and adorable one day. Arrogant philanderer the next.

  According to my ex-wife, Chet and I go great together because we’re both arrogant, entitled assholes. Her tolerance for him was about the same as her tolerance for me once the shininess of dating and marrying a rock star wore off, especially when the added stress of parenthood finally dashed all hopes she had of getting me to agree to star in some stupid reality show. For some reason, she thought having a baby would make me more likely to go for the idea. Not make me even more protective of my private life.

  I guess that’s what I get for marrying someone who craves attention more than anything.

  As I knew he would, Chet enlightens me as to what kind of reputation I’m acquiring now. “People are starting to say you’re impossible to work with. Pretty soon you won’t even be able to find a tour manager. And when a tour goes badly, record sales follow, and then the label won’t want to put out another album.”

  I sip more whisky to cover the frustrated sigh trying to escape, because this tour’s already shit city. The latest firing has forced me back to my condo in Austin to regroup. Four months into a two-year tour, and I’ve had to cancel and reschedule more shows than I can count, largely due to fuckups beyond my control. It’s affecting attendance at the shows that aren’t canceled. Fans are getting pissed, and they’re showing their displeasure by lower than average ticket and record sales.

  I can’t say I blame them. I’m fucking pissed too.

  About everything.

  My personal life has been shit for too long. I’ve become a walking cliché—the aging rock star with the vengeful ex who only wants a payday. I should’ve seen that coming, but I had my head too far up my own ass. Thirteen years ago, I was riding high, dominating the charts and the industry. My inflated ego wouldn’t let me listen to the warnings my mom gave me about Malea.

  I should’ve listened. And now, when I need her wisdom more than ever, my mom’s gone. She fought breast cancer for the better part of a decade, but it eventually claimed her in the end.

  On top of all of that, my latest album is getting dragged as boring and lackluster, and the career I’ve been building for over twenty years is on its last legs. The kicker of it all is that the critics aren’t wrong. This album is probably the worst I’ve put out since I was recording on old equipment at a local rec center and selling CDs after bar shows with covers I printed on my own crappy printer at home.

  “What do you suggest I do, Chet? My last three tour managers haven’t been able to tell the difference between their armpit and their asshole. This tour has enough problems without the manager fucking up everything from hotel reservations to equipment transportation, and fucking every groupie in a ten mile radius while he’s at it.”

  “You’re a great one to criticize anyone for fucking a groupie.”

  I growl. “Number one, I’m more selective than that jackass Ethan who fucked anything with a pulse. Number two, I’m not promising them things I don’t intend to deliver. Ethan told them all if they sucked his dick, he’d get them access to me.”

  “Regardless of Ethan’s proclivities, you need to find someone who you can keep on for more than a month. Preferably the rest of the tour, but at this point, you just need someone you won’t fire before they get their first paycheck.”

  “Any suggestions on where I can find such a magical creature?”

  Chet sighs again. “I’ll see what I can come up with.”

  We hang up, and once again, I’m wishing that blonde chick I met at the Savage Sound Festival would’ve taken me up on my offer. She was competent. Didn’t take any shit. Got me a hotel room in two minutes, when my manager at the time—the one who started off this firing spree—couldn’t handle that with six months’ notice.

  Opening my email app, I search her name. Blaire Saint. I’ve stared at her email enough times, wondering if I should reach out, that her name is imprinted in my memory.

  She’ll probably turn me down flat again, but at this point I have nothing to lose.

&
nbsp; Tapping out an email, I explain my situation, hoping I sound desperate enough to get her attention but not so desperate that I come off as pathetic. No forty-year-old man’s pride can handle being perceived as pathetic.

  But Chet’s right. Poor tours mean poor record sales. With dwindling radio play, shit ticket sales, and even shittier record sales, I need someone who can help me turn this tour around.

  And something tells me that Blaire is just the woman I need.

  Chapter Two

  Blaire

  The knock on my apartment door pulls me from my cocoon of fuzzy blankets. It’s late enough that I know it’s not a neighbor asking to borrow a cup of sugar. Not that any of my neighbors do that, since most of them probably think this unit is vacant most of the time. But we’re back in LA for our break.

  The only neighbors who actually stop by are the guys from Cataclysm, the band I work for. Well, and the girlfriends of the three who’ve found themselves in committed relationships. And while the guys never bother to text before coming over, all of the other women in our expanding family definitely would. Which means the person at the door can only be Mason—the only unattached member of the band and my occasional hookup.

  I’d wrapped myself in blankets searching for comfort, but when I try to kick them off so I can get off the couch and they tangle around my legs, I just feel trapped. Suffocated.

  Or maybe that’s just me.

  I fumble for the remote and pause the show I’m not really watching. It’s just background noise while I switch between Insta, both my own feed and the official Cataclysm feed, the Cataclysm Facebook page, and Snap. Yes, there’s a PR company that handles most of the band’s social media, but part of my job is to monitor and respond to comments as well to keep the band’s voice authentic. I forward posts to the guys that I think would benefit from their personal interaction, like if a fan has a specific question for one of them or it’s about one of their pet projects. The PR company mostly handles the original content. When I first got hired, I handled all of it, and the control freak in me has a hard time letting it go completely.

  Marcus constantly tells me that I don’t have to make extra work for myself, but I also can’t stand the idea of them looking anything less than their best. Part of their brand is how friendly and accessible they are to fans. That’s one of the reasons for their massive popularity. I’ll be damned if I let that go downhill on my watch. Plus, they’re my boys. The family I always wanted. Yes, I’m their personal assistant, so it’s literally my job to take care of them. I make sure they have anything they need and keep them on schedule, running interference, and double checking that everything’s running smoothly. I sometimes piss off their tour manager, Chad, with what he terms as my meddling, but I’ve caught errors enough times that he sucks it up. No, that part’s not technically in my job description, but I’ve always gone above and beyond for my boys, and I know they’d do the same for me.

  Besides, it’s not like I have anything else to do right now. Especially with the extended tour break we’re on. After we found out that Ava, Danny’s wife, was pregnant, we rearranged our tour a little bit, extending our last leg to include a few early summer festivals so that we could have a longer break afterward and not have to find a sub for Danny.

  The fans wouldn’t tolerate a sub for the lead guitarist anyway. Not for that long.

  Ava had their baby last week—a gorgeous little girl named Mila—and Danny’s taking well-deserved time to bond with his family. I don’t begrudge anyone the time off, but the truth is that I’m bored out of my mind being stuck in one place with only social media accounts to monitor to keep me busy.

  My personal life is …

  Well, it’s not the same since Aaron and his baby mama Sam revived their relationship, that’s for damn sure.

  Aaron and Mason and I have had an … arrangement since partway through our first tour a couple of years ago. It was supposed to be about safety for everyone after Danny accidentally knocked up a groupie. We didn’t have constant menages or anything. I split my time between the two, for the most part. There were a few other guys for me over the years, and I know Mason at least liked to hookup with other women while we were on break. But while we were traveling, it was easiest for us to stick to our arrangement. They trusted me not to get pregnant and screw them over, and I trusted them not to give me an STD.

  Despite it being about chemistry and proximity, over time I started having feelings for Aaron, and even though he’d never given me any indication that he wanted anything more from our relationship, some part of me hoped that someday he would.

  So when Aaron found out he had a four-year-old he’d never met, I was livid on his behalf. Even more furious when I found out he’d gotten back together with the mother of his child, Sam.

  I mean, she hid his kid from him for years. Who does that?

  But no matter how hard I tried to hang on to my anger, I couldn’t. Aaron clearly loves her, and she’s actually really nice. And when Marcus’s girlfriend Kendra enlisted my help for Sam and their daughter Maddie to surprise Aaron by joining him on tour … I lost my battle with wanting to hate her.

  Another knock sounds at my door, and I briefly contemplate putting on pants. But it’s after ten at night. I know it’s gotta be Mason at the door, and he’s already seen me in less. And if I’m wrong, I guess some stranger’s about to get an eyeful.

  Cracking the door confirms my suspicions. Mason leans with one arm propped over his head against my doorframe. He gives me a slow smile, his eyes traveling down my body and back up to meet mine. “It’s like you knew I was coming over before I did.” He steps closer, his other arm reaching through the door to wrap around my waist and pull me against him where his dick is already hard. Bending, he kisses me.

  I let him, but don’t wrap my arms around him or do much of anything except back up when he maneuvers through the door and kicks it closed behind him. He kisses his way down my neck. “I’ve missed you. I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages. Not even to talk. Why’s it been so long since we’ve fucked? Where’ve you been hiding?”

  He murmurs the words against my skin, and at one point I would’ve thought it was sexy—his grins, his messy rock star vibe, his full sleeve tats, his casual talk of fucking. At one point not so long ago—just a few weeks ago, even—I would’ve been clawing at his clothes and dragging him to the nearest stable surface so he could fill me up.

  He’s good at it, too. Which is why it’s so irritating that I don’t want it. Don’t want him. Not anymore.

  I’ve been hiding from that fact for a while. But now, sitting alone in my apartment night after night only a few weeks into a three month break, I’ve come face to face with my feelings. And I can’t do this. It’s not fair to either of us.

  At first he interprets my hands on the side of his face as encouragement to keep licking and sucking at the spot where my neck meets my shoulder. But my gentle, insistent pressure pushing him away finally gives him a clue.

  Pulling back, his eyes narrow, but not enough to hide the glassy look in his eyes. I’d already caught the whiff of lime and tequila on his breath. The eyes give it away. He’s been drinking, and not just a little bit. “What’s wrong, Blaire?” The question comes out more like an accusation.

  I cross my arms over my chest and step back, putting space between us. “Nothing. But you’re drunk.”

  His square jaw clenches, his brows low and drawn together in irritation. “Not that drunk. I was out partying. I tried calling you to come with me, but you didn’t answer.”

  Not only that, but I’d sent his call to voicemail so I could keep scrolling through Insta.

  “Sorry. I must’ve been in the bathroom.”

  He crosses his arms and snorts at the transparent lie. Even if I had been in the bathroom, I would’ve answered if I wanted to talk to him. He knows it.

  “What gives, Blaire? I know you wanted to keep things casual when you were seeing Aaron too, but he’s with Sam, so I thoug
ht …”

  And there it is. He trails off, but we both know how that sentence is supposed to end.

  He thought …

  The same thing as everyone else. That since Aaron is coupled up, our little throuple that wasn’t a throuple is over, and Mason and I would just naturally end up together. To be fair, that’s more or less how it’s seemed.

  And that’s why I’m so frustrated. About everything.

  The assumptions. The fact that everyone else is pairing off and starting families, and Mason and I are just supposed to be next without anyone asking me what I want.

  Clearly Mason’s on that same wavelength. And it’s not that I don’t like Mason. I do. He’s a great guy, and we have physical chemistry, but …

  He’s a little too moody for my taste. Where Aaron was like a bright sunny day, Mason is storm clouds and overcast skies. While he’s quick to pick up on my moods and do what he can to make me feel better, I have to watch what I say and how I say it around him more than the others because he’s quick to take any criticism as a personal attack. The clincher, though, was last month when I mentioned that I’m trolling Kendra’s ex. Instead of laughing and telling me how awesome I am—because dammit, I am awesome at trolling Mitchell and someone needs to make that weasel pay for trying to keep her and Marcus apart—he wrinkled his eyebrows and said, “Why would you do that? That’s ridiculous.”

  While he’s great in bed and knows how to give me multiple orgasms, he’s not someone I really want anywhere but in bed. And with all the expectations piling up around me, I don’t even want that anymore.

  Sighing, I drop my arms and turn back to my couch. Right now I wish I’d bothered to put on pants. And a bra. Instead I climb back into my nest of blankets, using the extra covers as both shield and source of strength to get through a long-overdue and unpleasant conversation.

  Mason follows me into the living room, plopping down in the armchair adjacent to me, unashamedly adjusting himself and staring at me. “You don’t want to be with me. That’s what you’re trying to tell me without just coming out and stating it.”