Whirlwind: A Friends-to-Lovers Rockstar Romance (The Wind & the Roar Trilogy Book 2), page 1
Whirlwind
Cat Porter ©2021
Wildflower Ink, LLC
Editor
Jennifer Roberts-Hall
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Proofreading
Jezzie Hughes & Jo Lazier
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All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, nicknames, logos, and symbols of motorcycle clubs and rock bands are not to be mistaken for real motorcycle clubs and rock bands. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products and locales referenced in this work of fiction. The use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Also by Cat Porter
- Lock & Key MC Romance Series -
Lock & Key
Random & Rare
Iron & Bone
Blood & Rust
Fury
Lock & Key Christmas
Lock & Key - The Complete Series Boxed Set
Boxed Set of books 1-4
- Lock & Key’s Legends of Meager Series -
Blast to the past of the Lock & Key series
The Dust and the Roar
The Fire and the Roar
The Year of Everything
- The Wind & the Roar Trilogy -
Friends-to-Lovers Rockstar Romance
Freefall
Whirlwind
Whisperwind
Dagger in the Sea
Mediterranean Romantic Suspense Adventure
Wolfsgate
Historical Romance
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
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Books by Cat Porter
About the Author
1
Beck
Stranded in no man’s land.
My fingers hovered over the strings of my guitar. They didn’t know what to do. The beat of Jude’s bass rose from somewhere next to me, inviting me in. My pulse thudded, my body stiffened even more, and an iron hand clamped around my neck, my lungs, over my wrists.
“Play. Play,” I screamed at myself.
The audience was already singing along to our latest hit. Our I-got-the-girl-of-my-dreams song. The fucking irony.
The crowd stamped their feet and clapped, the pounding revere in the cavernous arena a relentless roar. Even after over a year of being on the road on this tour, at each performance this very moment would set my pulse on fire—my loud chords joining Jude and Zach’s beats. The opening of Freefall’s show.
But now? Last time, last show? Couldn’t breathe, could barely move. I staggered as if my guitar weighed a thousand pounds. Cool sweat prickled over my face.
Maybe downing all that vodka before I stepped onstage wasn’t such a great idea. I always drank before a gig, but I’d really hit that bottle tonight.
I needed it.
Whatever. Screw it. Screw her.
Zack pounded out his four time beat behind me. Jude picked the beat up with his bass, driving harder than usual at this point. I swallowed hard. I wasn’t going to let anything or anybody fuck with a performance and get in between me and my guitar.
No way.
I jammed down on my strings and my guitar blazed through the arena. The vibration of sound sent an electric shock through me, and I sucked it in. The crowd roared and applauded. “Beck! Beck!” Yells and screams filled the air.
Myles’s aggressive baritone rocketed and we took off. The blue and red lights flicked and flickered over us as the crowd sang along with Myles. My gaze lifted to Myles’s lips, and I followed the words he sang. I knew these lyrics, I’d written them, I’d sung back up for him on this song hundreds of times on this tour of the USA and Europe.
It was beyond me now.
Get it the fuck together. Keep it together. Breathe.
I pivoted toward my mic stand and caught up with Myles, singing my piece about the girl of my dreams kissing me.
Girl of my dreams. Was she ever? Really? Such an idiot.
I stumbled back, my grip tightening on my guitar. My head was as heavy as a boulder, my knees shook. My guitar strap cut into my shoulder, weighing down my back. I faltered, my head falling forward, my hand, clammy, wet around the neck of my guitar.
The crowd roared and took over, chanting the verses for us. Thousands of voices reverberated through me, singing verses I’d written. Myles leapt over the stage, seducing his mic in that sexy way he was known for, and the crowd tore into a frenzy. A rush of heat twisted in my head, and I clamped my jaw tight, trying to stem the acidic surge of my insides from being pulled out of my body and spewed on the stage, on my pedals, in the coil of cables and speakers.
“We love you, Beck!” voices screamed in unison from down below. “Fuck Mae!”
Good news travels fast. Nothing like Instagram.
That image kept flaring back in my vision, no matter how hard I fought it. Mae tongue-kissing and groping somebody else. Not just somebody else. A mutual friend.
And that post of hers. Her words seared through me all over again:
“Living every day full of FLAVAH. ;) Doing what I wanna do every moment. No labels, no boundaries, just me. Feels so good, tastes even betterrrrrrr!” 😛 #LivingWildLivingFree #LoveLife #InLoveWithMe #GirlsJustWannaHaveFun #GirlsNeedToHaveFun #FullOfFlava #DoYou #YouBeYou
Earlier, as we’d downed a premium bottle of vodka and about to leave the dressing room, everyone around me was suddenly glued to their phones, their faces drawn, glancing up at me then looking away. I always shut down my phone an hour before showtime to focus, breathe, do my vocal warmups, relax.
Once we made it through the long, serpentine hallway of the arena to the stage entrance, a stagehand who stood next to me, a young woman, looked up from her phone and bit her lip the second her eyes landed on me. Had someone died? I grabbed her phone and there it was, Mae’s post. I took it in as if I were trying to swallow jagged stones. My gut twisted, I shoved the phone back into the girl’s hands.
“I’m so sorry,” she’d whispered.
There’d been no time to make sense of it, compute it. I’d choked back the nausea as we’d all climbed the steps. The darkness stifling, Zack, Myles, and Jude hopping up and down, laughing, high fiving each other. They were psyched to perform our final show.
I froze. A zombie. Numb.
Everyone got into place while the audience screamed out our names and hooted. My tech handed me my first guitar for the night. Zach’s drum beat out its heavy signal that this was happening, here we were, Freefall. The crowd roared. Myles’s passionate baritone filled the arena in the darkness. “My broken heart can’t beat no more…”
“No more,” I sang on reflex.
Cheers and applause thundered through the arena. Colored lights flashed over us.
Was that what this was? A broken heart? When I’d written this song, I’d assumed what a broken heart felt like. Joke’s on you, motherfucker.
Jude’s bass drove up from somewhere behind me, jolting through me like a burst of octane. I pivoted toward him, grateful for him, and we stood close togeth
I jammed down on the chords, sticking next to Jude who whooped as he moved toward the edge of the stage, doing his famed quirky shimmy dance as he played. Screams and shouts rose from the crowd at his feet.
Maybe this was only shock? A broken ego? A broken sense of identity, thinking I had it all under control and I so obviously hadn’t.
I’d thought we were good. We’d always been good, that’s what was so cool about me and Mae. We were pros at this shit. We both knew plenty about navigating the celebrity game board, the full schedules, the abrupt and unexpected changes. We knew the score. We had no crazy expectations or obligations to put on each other. She didn’t even expect monogamy from me since I was on the road, and I knew not to expect it from her either. But we communicated, because you had to if you were going to be in a polyamorous relationship. I’d agreed to it all. I’d thought it was perfect.
Obviously, for me, it was bullshit.
The woman I’d been seeing for over six months just dumped with a single Instagram post for all her 170 million followers and the entire planet to see. And in the next sentence, declared her lust for her new lover because she was being true to herself and to her fans.
I blew air out of my stiff lungs and scanned the crowd. Twenty-thousand people on their feet, yelling, and singing with us in the dark. Tonight, the final show of our first world tour, instead of playing my heart out, a hatchet was stuck in my hollow chest.
I was supposed to be singing some kind of back up here, wasn’t I?
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Myles stalked toward me, his grip on his microphone aggressive as he sang. His long curly hair flying, his ripped T-shirt revealing his sculpted chest and abs, he twisted and hopped up and down, and the crowd screamed. He ripped off his shirt on my final note, like he always did, and it went flying through the air. Screams battled with my guitar. It’s good to have a colorful charismatic front man. For the first time, I was grateful for Myles’s antics.
The applause boomed through the arena. One song down. So many fucking more to go.
My tech zipped out and landed before me, ready for our exchange. I took off my guitar and handed it to him as he gave me the next guitar. I strapped it on, checking the strings.
“Hey.” Jude handed me a bottle of vodka. I took a long swig and its liquid fire flared down my throat, blazed in my belly.
That was more like it.
Jude guzzled from the bottle as I adjusted my guitar on my body. My fingers closed over the polished wood, the frets, the taut strings. That blazing fire slid through my veins, melting everything in its path.
This, now, was mine, this was where I belonged, this was home. And I wasn’t going to let Mae fuck with my head. My fingers grazed the strings, the next song on our setlist erupting from my guitar. A cheer rose up from the crowd for this smug love song.
Joke’s on me.
Myles’s voice rang out as he drove through my lyrics. Verse after verse. Refrain. I moved toward the edge of the stage as I plunged into my solo. Drowning out everything and everybody but this song.
No thinking.
No thoughts.
Just me and the melody.
“We love you, Beck!” someone shouted, their voice rising over the music. “Fuck Mae! Fuck Mae!” they chanted. The pounding in the arena got louder. I withdrew from the edge of the stage, and Myles’s roar took over the song again.
Jude came up next to me, his fingers working his bass as he swung to the music. “You okay?” The side of his warm body pressed against mine as he continued to play in that way we always did together while performing.
“Yeah.”
Jude grinned at me.
The crowd sang back to Myles. Jude and I moved to the front of the stage. I flung my head back, my wet hair cold on my neck. I focused on Myles’s singing, and I jumped in. A little late on the verse, but fuck it, I was in. My voice lower than usual. Myles caught my gaze and he drove us to the finish, his voice soaring on the last verse.
The crowd yelled, swallowing it all. The lights flashed on, flooding us in bright.
“Hello, Denver!” Myles yelled back. “So good to be here with you on our last gig of the Upshot Tour!”
I went over to the bottle of vodka and drank more. Jude took it from me and swallowed deep. Myles finished up his heartfelt spiel, as Zack and I locked gazes, nodding at each other. Zack thundered on his drums, a blur of movement, and I took in a deep breath and jammed down on my chords.
The one thing that never disappointed me was the music. Composing, playing, practicing, performing. All of it. It never failed me. Right now, I needed to burrow in it more than ever.
Jude hopped in the air. Myles positioned himself in front of his mic stand and let loose his firepower. I stepped back and grabbed the vodka from the top of the speaker and swallowed more.
Thank fuck.
Twenty-two more songs to go.
2
Beck
“Thank you, Denver!” Myles waved to the crowd with both his hands.
The four of us, wired, exhausted, buzzing stood at the edge of the stage. The roar of thousands of people, all of them standing, yelling, clapping for us. For our music. For the past two and a half hours that we’d given them.
Every time it amazed me.
Every time I was moved, ecstatic, grateful.
Now, I was grateful it was over.
Shame stung my insides at the knowledge. This tour was the stuff dreams were made of. It had been a sold out success, making money, money, money for all of us, our management team, the record company, and everyone else in between. The album had seen a resurge on the charts as well.
I should be down on my damn knees with gratitude. Nope, if I did that, there’d be no way I could get up again.
The house lights switched on as Jude, Myles, Zack, and I broke our line and headed offstage.
I handed my guitar off to Dan as I wiped the sweat from my face and grabbed a cold beer. Slaps on the back. High fives. The adrenaline coursed through me as I tracked toward the meet and greet area with everybody. I needed more booze. Now.
VIP guests swarmed the big space. Bright lights. Photos. Flashing. Squeals. Questions. Phones in my face. Enthusiasm like a narcotic, but I was full up.
Fangirls came rushing at us.
A girl sidled up to me. “Beck, you’re so hot up onstage. You’re amazing! You’re my favorite. Love you so much! Autograph my chest?”
A crowd of girls smashed around me in the blur.
“She’s an idiot, Beck!”
“Let me show you, Beck I’ll make you feel so good.”
“She’s a fucking bitch. You’re better off without her.”
“She doesn’t deserve you! I bitched at her on Twitter. I hate her now! I’m boycotting her next album! She’s so fucking canceled.”
I stopped listening. I couldn’t listen. I’d shut off my switch. I’d developed a switch years ago. I couldn’t take this in right now. My hands rubbed over my scalp as I took in a breath.
I posed for photos, an endless stream of photos.
