Unwritten Read online

  Unwritten

  Jen Frederick

  Contents

  Summary

  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

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Jen Frederick

  Undeclared

  Unspoken

  Undressed

  Unrequited

  The Charlotte Chronicles

  #GetSacked

  #GetJockblocked

  #GetDowned

  About the Author

  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

  Copyright © 2017 by Jen Frederick

  Cover Photo © Rob Lang Photography

  Cover Design by Meljean Brook

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Summary

  AVAILABLE NOW

  * * *

  After years of trying to hit it big with his band, Adam Rees’ dream is finally about to come true. A new lead singer brings with him a hot tour invite, but with a catch—his sister has to come with them. Despite an off-limits edict, Adam is instantly attracted the smart and beautiful Landry. But if he wants to claim his woman, it might be at the expense of all his ambitions.

  * * *

  Landry Olsen has had success at every stage of her life, except when it comes to men. She’s put her heart on the shelf, but one look at Adam and she’s a goner. The hot rocker heats her from the inside out, and she wants him as much as he wants her. The only thing standing in their way of their happiness is Landry's brother—she ruined his musical hopes before, and she won't do it again. Even if it means saying no to the one guy who makes her believe in love again.

  * * *

  There’s no fruit more tempting than the forbidden kind…

  Check out the other books in the Woodland series:

  Undeclared

  Undressed, a novella

  Unspoken

  Unraveled

  Unrequited

  To Jeanette Mancine, you’re the type of friend that comes along once in a lifetime. Thank you for allowing me the privilege of knowing you.

  Chapter One

  Adam

  The Beginning

  So this is how my single state ends. How all the casual dating, random hookups, and fucking around grinds to a halt because of one girl. A girl I haven’t even laid hands on. A girl I haven’t heard speak. A girl whose green eyes—they must be green to go with that red hair—are bright enough to light up the whole damn bar.

  “You all right, man?” Ian Turner, my drummer, asks as he muscles by me with a snare in one hand and his throne—aka the stool—in the other.

  I wipe a hand across my jaw. It comes away dry. No drool is a good thing. “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You look like someone hit you with a baseball bat,” Ian explains.

  That sounds about right.

  “Just happy with how we played,” I improvise, not entirely ready to admit to my downfall.

  He buys it. A huge grin spreads across his face. “We killed it tonight.”

  We did, indeed. After only a month on the local scene, my band—Fuck Marry Kill—is slaying it. I hoist the bass drum onto my shoulder and gesture for him to lead. We need to clear the stage for the next band.

  Part of me wants to run back out there and play another song or ten, but one of my old man’s mantras was to always keep the audience wanting more. Rock their clothes off (sometimes literally given the band’s infamous collection of underwear collected over the years on tour) and they’ll be hungry to see you again.

  The rest of me wants to hunt down the redhead. I figure she’s in the bathroom now because the corner of the bar near the door where she hid for the three final songs has been filled by a couple of hipster guys with carefully trimmed facial hair and plaid shirts tucked into dark jeans.

  “You see Mica Hollister is here?” My bassist Rudd careens around the corner, barely stopping before crashing into me. His eyes are hot and excited. Ordinarily, the only things that turn Rudd on are women and a sweet guitar riff. But Hollister would get his dick hard, too. Hollister’s a regional promoter with sticky fingers in a dozen pots.

  “I saw. I heard he’s setting up some big city tour for new bands?” I give Davis, our new front man, a nod as he holds the door open for Ian and me.

  Rudd trails behind like an overeager puppy. “Not just new bands—any bands with a decent local following. It’s called the Under the Radar tour. He wants to use it to build a big social media following and then launch the best one into big-time radio play.”

  “Hollister’s always full of ideas.” There’s not a promoter in the business who doesn’t think he has the next Coachella up his sleeve. Making those ideas into something concrete is the challenge, and I haven’t seen Hollister put together anything bigger than a local festival of a couple thousand people.

  Ian shoves his throne into Rudd’s empty arms. “Hold this.” He piles the bass drum on top and hops into the back of the van. We start handing stuff inside. When the band is playing on a regular basis, there’s zero need to get to the gym. Lifting the instruments in and out of the back of this vehicle three or four times a day is all the workout I need.

  “You should hear him out,” Rudd urges.

  I shake my head at Rudd’s persistence. Talking to Hollister is the last thing I want to do right now. I head inside for more of our equipment. Sooner we get this done, sooner I can hunt down the redhead. There’s probably a dozen dicks pointed in her direction, and I need to get out there and stake my claim.

  “Hollister’s a blowhard,” Ian declares. “He’s the kind that strokes your dick with one hand while robbing you with the other.”

  He’s not wrong. Hollister’s been around for ages, even when my dad was touring. He’s always trying to put something together, and although he has contacts, he’s disorganized, which means most of his big ideas end up being huge fuckups. Plus, he’s known to employ shady tactics, skimming money off the top of a band’s take, meddling with the makeup of a group, and being a general asshole. I steer clear of him.

  “I don’t care who’s stroking me, as long as I get some loving,” Rudd replies.

  “That’s the most honest thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth,” I grunt. Behind me, Davis cough-laughs. He’s new, so he doesn’t hassle Rudd as much as Ian and I do, but he’ll catch on. The only way to live with Rudd’s gigantic ego is to constantly punch it down to size.

  “We sign up for Hollister’s deal and we’re going to be huge. Roadies will be doing the heavy lifting while we’re in the green room getting some post-concert loving.”

  �
��Except for you, Rudd. No one wants to fuck the bassist,” Ian ribs.

  “Fuck you, man,” Rudd retorts. “Lots of chicks love the bass guitar.”

  “Name one famous bassist.”

  I roll my eyes.

  Davis nudges me. “They always like this?”

  “Always,” Ian confirms.

  “Always.” I nod. Rudd and Ian have been friends for a while, and this is an ongoing debate—whose instrument attracts the most chicks. “I think it’s numbers over quality, though.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Davis says.

  “So is this gig better than filing reports at CloudDox?” I ask, only half joking. Davis’s day job is some kind of data engineering at a local cloud computing company. This particular incarnation of my band will only go as far as our singer takes us. I can write the songs, the music, get the gigs, but without a front man, we’re in the shitter, which is where my band dreams have been since high school. I’ve had other lead singers before, but Davis is hair-raising good. There’s something special about him. I feel it and tonight the crowd experienced the magic, too.

  The guy’s voice is a rare one—great range and a little gravel for the girls. He stepped in to cover for a friend at a concert series last summer. He only sang backup, but the minute I heard him, I knew. He had it. A few beers later and Davis was officially part of FMK.

  “Fuck, yeah,” Davis replies. “So what’s next?”

  “We’ve got a Thursday night gig at the farmer’s market followed by a two-hour set at Gatsby’s. Saturday, we’re driving to Layton to do a half-hour set opening for a local college band.”

  Davis makes a face. No one likes to be the opener. Depsite our success tonight, we’re still so fresh from the garage you can smell the exhaust. Still, we’re burning that all off.

  “Don’t worry. A few more nights like tonight and we’ll headline bars all over the state.” Other states as well, but I keep that ambition to myself. I’m not sure he’s ready.

  Davis is big on going home at nights. Rudd thinks he has a honey stashed away, but if he does, she hasn’t shown her face around here.

  “Or we can go on the road with Hollister, make some decent cash, get our sound heard by a shit ton more people than we played in front of tonight,” Rudd persists.

  “Hollister can wait.” I squint toward the back of the bar. The redhead still looks absent, but if I don’t get over there soon, some other guy’s going to make a move. Then I’ll have to get rid of him, and despite the owner of Tonic House being a long-time friend of my father, that might get me kicked out.

  “What if he asks someone else, though?” Rudd says.

  Ian clears his throat and tosses me a look that says I better go talk to Hollister or Rudd will be riding my dick all night. With a sigh, I mentally hit pause on my plan to find my dream girl. Turning to Rudd, I say, “If I talk to Hollister, will you stop hassling me?”

  He grins. “For tonight.”

  “Jesus Christ. Go inside and find a girl who’s too desperate to say no, will you?”

  Rudd doesn’t immediately do as I ask. As if sensing an imminent explosion, Davis collars him around the neck. “Come on, Rudd, I’ll buy your first drink. The girls inside are thirsty, and I’m man enough to admit I can only handle a couple of them.”

  “I knew I liked you from the first moment I saw you,” Rudd says.

  “I thought the first words out of your mouth were, ‘Who is this douchebag and why is his khaki-covered ass in our studio?’”

  “As I said, liked you from the first.”

  Ian chuckles as he follows them. I don’t get two steps inside the backstage door when Hollister pops up, like a whack-a-mole. The guy might have had hair once, but I don’t remember the last time he looked like anything other than a pale, bald light bulb.

  “Adam Rees, that was a righteous set, my man. Righteous!” He slaps me on the back as if we’re old, old friends. “You played like a motherfucker up there.”

  I stifle a sigh. “Nice to see you, Hollister.”

  “I’m getting a tour together.”

  “I heard.”

  “We need you.”

  “You don’t need to butter me up, Hollister. Just give me your spiel and I’ll consider it.”

  He rubs his hands together, like some comic book villain. “I’m taking five bands on tour, including Threat Alert. Crowds like the variety, but we charge more—for everything. For booze. For food. For merch sales. Each band gets a share after management.”

  Interesting. Threat Alert is a rockabilly band with a bluegrass sound. They were just signed to a small indie label and had one song on the Billboard Top 100 chart. “What’s your role?” I ask warily.

  “My job is to set up the gigs and Right Stuff will take care of the rest.”

  I perk up. Right Stuff is a legit outfit. They ran a big tour out east a year ago and two bands of the seven that worked the coast ended up playing at big summer festivals.

  Damn. This might be the real deal.

  I don’t ask how Hollister hooked up with the promotional firm, because it probably involved shit that wouldn’t make me happy. “How long?”

  “Five months.”

  I whistle. “That’s a long damn time.”

  “I know. But all you got to do is show up. I swear the thing is going to pay for itself. Look at the crowd tonight.”

  Over Hollister’s head, I take in the venue. People are lingering by the stage, as if they’re afraid if they move they’ll lose that euphoric feeling that engulfed them while we were playing.

  Hollister presses me. “Four hundred people paid a twenty-dollar cover tonight. They’re spending a ton on booze and I bet if you checked with your merch man, you sold a bunch of CDs.”

  It’s never been about the money for me, but that’s not true for the rest of my guys. Ian’s got a new baby. Rudd lives in a trailer with three other guys. And if I’m pulling Davis off his cushy desk job, I’ll need to dangle a real carrot in front of him.

  “Don’t know. I’d have to talk to the band. Davis, my singer, has a day job.”

  Hollister grimaces. “Well, he’s going to have to quit that.”

  “It’s a real job. Benefits and all.”

  “We need a big name, Rees, and yours is the biggest around here.”

  “You mean my dad’s name is the biggest around here,” I correct.

  He shrugs. “Same thing. Last I checked, you’re still Adam Rees.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I say, not wanting to get into a big argument about using my last name rather than my music to gain success.

  “All I ask.” Grinning, he pulls an envelope from inside his jacket. “The details are in here, including the Right Stuff management contact. You’ve always wanted to tour without using your old man’s connections. This is it.”

  I fold the envelope and stick it into my back pocket. “I’ll let you know.”

  “Don’t take too long,” Hollister warns. “There are a dozen other bands that would kill for this.”

  Try a thousand other bands, but there’s no point in showing Hollister that I’m eager. He might have questionable ethics, but he’s sharp. Pretending lukewarm interest is the right play because any excitement will be leveraged against me. “Like I said, I’ll let you know.”

  Hollister purses his lips in frustration. He wants an immediate commitment, but that’s not going to happen. I want to investigate this deal, but most of all, I’m not going to commit to a five-month tour of anything until all the guys are on board. I stare implacably back at him. When he realizes he’s not going to get an answer tonight, he gives me a sad shake of his head. “You’re going to be a headache on this tour, aren’t you?”

  “You’ve known me forever, Hollister. Did you think I wasn’t going to question everything?” I’ve spent my entire life keeping one eye out for people who wanted to take advantage of me—my money, my skill, my parentage. Because of that, I’ve cultivated a close set of friends outside of the music i
ndustry, kept my achievements to myself, and learned to rely on my gut instinct. Despite a few missteps here or there, my system hasn’t failed me.

  And while I love the idea of this tour, agreeing to it can wait. Tonight is about paying attention to my gut and finding the redhead before someone who isn’t distracted snatches her up.

  I make my way down the back hall to the door that leads to the front and spot her back in the corner. Bingo. Our eyes meet. I drink in what I can see from this distance—her red hair framing an oval face, a slender neck, the delicate slope of her nose. She raises a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. A flash of gold winks at me.

  My feet start moving in her direction.

  “Adam! Over here! Adam! Adam Rees, get your ass over here.”

  I want to ignore Rudd’s shouting, but if I don’t go over there and tell him what Hollister had to say, he’ll hassle me all night. Better for me to get my business out of the way so I can spend the rest of the night with her.

  I’m coming to you. Hang on. I try to telegraph. When she doesn’t move, I make a beeline to the bar.

  “What’d Hollister have to say?” Rudd asks when I reach the counter. All three of my bandmates look at me with expectant eyes.

  I hand the envelope to Ian. He pulls out the contract while I explain the deal. “We’ve got an invite to go out on tour with Threat Alert and two others. It’s being partially underwritten by TA’s new label. Bad news is it’s for five months.”

  “That’s not bad news!” cries Rudd. “That’s fucking awesome!” He punches his fist in the air.

  “Ian?” I ask.

  “Is it even a question?” His smile is so broad the corners of his mouth might reach his ears. “I’m in. I’m so in.”

  “What about the baby?” Ian and his wife just had their first kid.

  “Berry will be as psyched as anyone, plus, her mom will help. Is this the real deal or another of Hollister’s pipe dreams?”