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Mia and the Bad Boy
A Backstage Pass Novel
By Lisa Burstein, Stacy Abrams Entangled Publishing, LLC
Copyright © 2015 Lisa Burstein
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63375-266-5
CHAPTER 1
There were a few things that drove Ryder Brooks crazy about Seconds to Juliet.
1. He couldn't play his own music.
2. The music he could play was overproduced, sickly sweet bubblegum crap.
3. The other guys in the band didn't seem to care about either of the above.
But the worst, the absolute worst thing was the press conferences.
It was easy to pop in his earbuds, crank Coldplay or Nirvana, and drown out the other guys when they were traveling on the tour bus, proudly (or whatever) named The One after their first hit single, which he'd written. Close himself away in his dressing room before shows. Hang with hot, old-enough groupies and get what he could from them after shows. But at press conferences, he had to be present; more than that, he had to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, like some lap dog.
He had to act like he bled Seconds to Juliet. Not only bled—breathed, pissed, and shit it too. Only he wasn't allowed to say shit.
They were two weeks into their first major arena tour and Ryder was starting to understand that with bigger venues came bigger bullshit—or bull crap.
"Ryder," called a young journalist in a blond ponytail from one of the .com teen news outlets, "tell us why you wrote 'Kiss This.'"
She had a cute smile and a cute enough body, but neither was enough to make up for the certainty that at least one journalist asked him this same question at every press conference.
Had they ever heard of Google?
He could never give his real answer, Because I want everyone involved in this business-made band, this affront to music, this sham of celebrity to literally kiss my lilywhite ass. He probably couldn't say ass either. But he especially couldn't today.
His gaze skipped offstage to Lester "LJ" Pearl, manager, taskmaster, warden. His paunch hidden behind a manila folder, his bald head camouflaged under an S2J baseball cap, his beady eyes instructing as always for Ryder to be the guy the fans wanted.
Ryder knew what that really meant. Be the Ryder who makes me money.
Unfortunately, that day LJ had something he wanted, too, so Ryder had a lot more incentive than usual to play his part.
Ryder cleared his throat and swallowed. His dirty-blond hair fell in his face and over his eyes as he leaned into the mike. His biceps tightened against his white T-shirt, forcing his wrap tribal tattoo to peek out. "It's an anthem that says 'get out of my way; this is my life' to someone who has ..." He paused. Even in his role as "The Bad Boy" he couldn't say screwed. Preteen girls' moms didn't buy albums and posters and damn action figures from boys who said screwed, or shit, or ass, or any of the other words he wanted to say all day long. "Messed with you," he finally said, laying his lazy, make-all-the-girls-crazy smile on Blond Ponytail.
He was sure he heard LJ wheeze a sigh of relief.
The other guys in the band nodded. Ryder thought he scared them, or at least he'd rather think that. It was better than the other thing that weighed on him. That they tolerated him like you would a brother but didn't really like him that much. Thought he was a whole sentence of words they could never say out loud.
He fought against his stomach rolling, pitching down toward his feet. What did he care what these guys thought of him anyway? It wasn't like he was in a band with them by choice. They'd been thrown together on the reality show Rockstars Live. He'd tried out, searching for a solo career, a chance to get away from his alcoholic mother once and for all.
But that was a whole other story.
Blond Ponytail squealed even though Ryder had given that same answer over and over again. Like always, the iPhone in the reporter's hand would record and spit it back out to the fans, who learned it like a prayer they needed to say before bed at night.
"You play that back for"—he paused—"inspiration, any time you need to," Ryder added, his voice hoarse in the mike.
From the other end of the long table, Ryder noticed Miles roll his eyes, but only so his BFF Trevin could see. Miles was talented, but he hammed it up for the fans way too much. Ryder supposed it made sense, considering he was the one all the girls wanted, though, from LJ's perspective, that was exactly how every member of the band should act.
Ryder was the one who was abnormal.
The reporter aimed herself at Miles, asking him how he stayed in such great shape. Ryder snuck a look in his direction again. The satisfied glow coming off him as he answered made Ryder a little sick. Miles was always a happy guy, but he acted like he was on drugs now that he was in love.
Yet another thing Ryder thought was a sham—love.
"Who's next?" Trevin asked, sitting back in his chair and eyeing the hungry crowd.
Trevin was a decent enough guy. At eighteen he seemed like he understood what a circus this was. Tall, dark, and Korean, he was the favorite of older girls. He stayed away from most of them, though, which gave Ryder the pick of both his and Trevin's litter.
"Tell us more about the world tour," another young female journalist yelled above the flashbulbs.
The world tour.
It was all LJ Pearl talked about, how We've taken over America and now we need to take over the world. Ryder definitely wanted to take over the world, but with his own music. Not the music he had to write and perform with S2J. Not like he had a choice.
"Three months, thirty countries, ending in Australia," Trevin said.
The journalist frowned slightly. Trevin's maturity could make him a little stiff. Ryder considered saving him, but he'd given an answer and so had Miles. It was someone else's turn.
"I'm most excited for Japan," Nathan gushed, flashing his baby-face smile, pausing so the cameras could get the most of his big brown eyes. "Manga comics are my favorite."
Nathan had just turned sixteen—he probably shouldn't have been out past nine p.m., let alone on tour with a band.
"What about you, Will?" another journalist yelled.
"I'm excited," he answered, his eyes on his latched hands on the table in front of him.
Wow, a whole two-word answer. It was more than people got out of him most days.
Ryder wondered why LJ didn't give Will the kind of shit he gave him. Maybe because Will's part as "The Shy One" was only bolstered by his tight lips and downcast stares.
But if that was the case, why did Ryder even need to act like he cared? He was "The Bad Boy," so wasn't he supposed to be a rebel?
Yes, he heard LJ's words in his head, but a sympathetic rebel. LJ was always telling him his bad attitude made it hard for fans to relate to him.
Why should the fans have been different than any other person in the world?
But this was what fate had handed him. A fucking boy band; albeit a very successful one: a #1 chart-topping, arena sell-outing, magazine-cover-adorning fucking boy band.
He figured he could ride it out for a while, but the longer he stayed, the more they expected him to actually like it and the more the guys counted on him. After being abandoned his whole life, he wasn't looking forward to dishing out that misfortune to anyone else.
Ryder glanced over at LJ. He'd finally asked for help, and LJ had obliged by finding him a tutor who he guaranteed could be discreet and wouldn't leave screaming and crying like the others had. Ryder went through tutors like some guys went through girls. Hell, he went through girls that way, too.
Knowing LJ, he'd probably found some old lady who wore squeaky shoes with cheese wedge heels.
"What can we expect from your next album?" another journalist asked.
Ryder sat back, stifled a laugh. Let the other guys sweat about answering. The next album didn't exist yet. They were supposed to be working on it, but considering their chemistry was mass produced, that wasn't really happening. It didn't matter. He would have enough money after the world tour for school and a healthy nest egg.
He just had to make it through. He just had to get his GED so he could be accepted to the Berklee College of Music and he could truly study his craft.
He just had to last more than one day with his "discreet new tutor."
Hopefully she wouldn't be a literal nun.
* * *
Mia Reyes stepped out of the taxi and looked at The Palace of Auburn Hills. From the name, she'd been expecting a castle, but it was only an arena in the shape of a huge UFO outside Detroit. She'd already called her mom to let her know she'd gotten there okay with the cell phone her parents finally purchased after two years of begging.
Of course, it had nothing to do with her begging; it was because for the first time ever she wasn't under her mother's thumb, but that didn't mean they weren't monitoring the phone to make sure it was only used for communication with them.
She couldn't believe her parents even let her travel alone on a plane, not to mention on tour for a month with a rock band. It could only be the excessive amount of money offered that had swayed them. The ransom for Mia's freedom was her full college tuition paid for four years.
"Be a good girl, Mia," were her mother's last words before she hung up. Like Mia needed to hear them again—she'd been hearing them her whole life. She smoothed down her hair, a habit when she was nervous. Her crow-black hair was stick-straight. It didn't need straightening, but Mia was always nervous.
Maybe that's why my hair is so straight?
She'd been given instructions from Lester Pearl to go to Ryder Brooks's dressing room and introduce herself.
Easy, right?
Unfortunately, in addition to being the guy she was going to tutor for the month, he was also one of the hottest and most sought-after teenagers in the country and a member of one of her favorite bands, Seconds to Juliet. She'd swooned over him in magazines, on billboards, on boxes of breakfast cereal: long dark-blond bangs, hazel eyes like amber with sunlight running through them, lips that made grown women cry.
Lips that made her lower abdomen ache and throb when she stared at them for too long, which made Mia's easy introduction all the more nerve-racking.
She pressed out the wrinkles in her S2J shirt, took a deep breath, and pushed on. She pulled her bag over her shoulder and forced her free hand into the pocket of her jean skirt. If she straightened her hair any more, she'd be as bald as Lester.
Lester, aka LJ Pearl, was her mom's boss, manager of S2J, and now—if all went according to plan—her liaison to Ryder Brooks being her college benefactor. Lester had said he would be busy meeting with the record label and wouldn't have time to make an introduction for her, and really, considering what she was getting paid, couldn't she do it herself?
Like everything else having to do with this, she didn't have much of a choice.
If she wanted enough money for college, she needed to go inside that hulking arena; she needed to stop being nervous. She needed to actually tutor Ryder Brooks well enough so he could pass his GED and she needed to keep her fangirling to a serious minimum.
She showed her backstage pass to the bodyguard posted outside the door. He glanced at it and waved her in. She walked out of the sunlight and down into the bowels of the arena. It was chilly down there, stark. She considered the other parts of the building. If she was in the bowels, would that make the stage the brain? The seats cells? S2J the heart?
Or did she only think that way because she'd had anatomy books thrust in her face since she was five years old? She kept moving and dodged roadies, speakers, scenery, instruments, and wardrobe closets; the chaos of preparation for a show that night was in full effect.
She had no idea where to go.
"Are you supposed to be back here?"
Mia was thrust out of her confusion by a tall, skinny girl in ironic pigtails, a half-shirt and tight jeans.
"I think so," Mia replied, showing the girl her badge.
"Which part of back here?" The girl smiled, though not in a friendly way, and Mia noted she had a badge, too, hanging from one of her belt loops. It read: Paige Curtis, Talent.
"I'm supposed to find Ryder Brooks."
Paige laughed, also not in a friendly way, and pointed. "Good luck," she said over her shoulder as she walked away.
Mia veered down a long hallway and found five dressing room doors. She'd need a lot more than luck.
The five most wanted boys in the country were behind those doors, a gold star stuck on each one above their names. Tons of girls would kill to be standing where she was right now, but instead she smoothed her hair down again. She took another deep breath, filling her diaphragm, allowing the oxygen to penetrate into her lungs through the alveoli, passing into her blood and up her pulmonary veins to her heart, before she finally got the courage to knock on Ryder's door.
Ryder Brooks, one of the guys in my favorite band, is behind that door.
"Get lost," he yelled without even bothering to answer it.
Not who is it, or even what, but get lost. Did he know she was coming?
She knocked again, more forcefully.
"Jesus," he huffed.
She pressed her ear to the door, heard crashing, feet stomping. He pulled the door open. She jumped back, startled.
Ryder didn't say anything at first, just stared at her with his famously dreamy hazel eyes like she was the last doughnut in a box and he was determined to grab her and swallow her down before someone else did.
The back of her neck heated until he spoke again.
"I said get lost," he repeated. "I'm not signing autographs now."
She was speechless. He was even more gorgeous in person, his cheekbones seemingly bioengineered, his frame much taller and better built than he was in pictures, and he was perfection in pictures—in the posters all over her wall. But it was clear his good looks were directly proportional to his bad manners.
"Do you speak English?" he asked when she still hadn't responded.
She knew her widened brown eyes probably hadn't even blinked—well, at least they hadn't until she heard Ryder say that. If there was one thing Mia hated about being a Mexican American, it was that until a word came out of her mouth, everyone assumed she wasn't American at all.
"Probably better than you do," she finally managed, even though her heart was in her larynx. She knew his grades—it wasn't probably, it was definitely.
"Okay." He sneered, crossing his arms over his broad chest. "Then you'll totally fucking understand when I tell you to go bother someone else. Miles will sign whatever you want. He loves sweet little groupies with big brown eyes."
She stiffened at his words and his assumption. Sure, she sort of was a groupie, but considering he was being such a jerk, there was no way she was going to tell him so. Of course, her shirt said it all.
"I'm your new tutor," she blurted. Mia kept her arms flat against her sides, fighting the urge to touch her hair. She wished she could go and see Miles. He seemed nice, at least.
Ryder stepped back and looked at her in a new way, his lips curving into a smile, an OMG break your heart down into molecules and then create it from scratch again smile. "Fuck me." He ran a hand through his bangs. "I guess you should come in, then."
"I think you should be a little more polite," she replied, not moving. While Ryder was "The Bad Boy" of the group, she had no idea he was this bad. She tried to reconcile the warm and fuzzy feelings she'd had for him all these months with the person standing in front of her now.
He shook his head, his smile flattened. "Sweetheart, I don't do polite."
"I don't do being called 'sweetheart.'" She turned and made like she was going to walk back down the hall. "So I guess you'd better get another tutor." She couldn't believe how bold she was acting, but dealing with Ryder was like a substitution reaction in chemistry. Her usual demure nature was being replaced by Ryder's stage-filling confidence so she could keep up.
"Wait," he said, reaching out to stop her. When she didn't turn, he said, "Please, let's start over."
She looked at him over her shoulder. "I thought you didn't do polite." She smiled; she couldn't help herself.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Mia and the Bad Boy by Lisa Burstein, Stacy Abrams. Copyright © 2015 Lisa Burstein. Excerpted by permission of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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