How Good It Was, page 1
HOW GOOD IT WAS
SCARLETT COLE
Copyright © 2022 by Scarlett Cole
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.
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While Manchester rock bands are legends and famous for their antics, the Sad Fridays are purely a work of fiction.
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Published By: Kadelo Group Ltd.
Edited by: Angela James
Cover design by: Letitia Hasser at RBA Design
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E-book ISBN: 978-1-7398672-2-5
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7398672-1-8
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
Epilogue: ALEX
Thank you
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Scarlett Cole
1
Luke Bryson, drummer of Sad Fridays, breathed in the air of thousands of people crying out the band’s name. Still backstage, he cherished every foot stomp, seat slam, and scream.
Because it meant they’d made it.
Seven months ago, they’d been nobodies. A grafting band with a van playing gigs in pubs and small venues. Then, some influencer, a woman with a huge following, had used one of their songs in Shamaze, a popular video app, and their world had been stood on end.
Currently the hot new thing, they’d been offered management representation and were here, in Detroit, in the middle of February, trying to record their first full studio album. But tonight, at their producer’s suggestion, they were going to play some of their new music live, to test it out in front of fans who couldn’t wait for more.
Intellectually, he knew it was all good. He watched Matt, his former best friend, and songwriter and bass guitarist for the band, talking to Jimmy Bexter, their famous producer. Normally, he’d be there with him, but Matt had betrayed his trust and slept with Luke’s younger sister, Iz, behind his back. Nothing said loyalty and friendship like doing your best mate’s sister and keeping it a secret.
Jase, Matt’s brother and their lead singer, was an asshole. But since he’d met Cerys, Jimmy’s daughter, there’d been a change in the once aggressive dick. Suddenly, he was all about collaboration with a desire to push all ill-feeling under the carpet.
Oh, and now he wanted to be Matt’s co-writer, had even started to play guitar, pushing Luke even further to the periphery of the band that was family, with the exception of himself.
Because Alex, their percussionist, and his brother, Ben, their guitarist, were Matt and Jase’s cousins.
Blood.
Always thicker than water.
Now, he stood on the outside looking in. And if it was a toss-up between feeling everything—all the turmoil and distrust and disappointment—or feeling nothing, he’d pick nothing every time.
Because numb worked.
Getting numb took effort.
The two lines of coke he’d done in the bathroom helped. So had the alcohol that flowed backstage like a river.
None of it affected his performance.
Muscle memory, talent, and a tolerance for the shit vibing through his veins made it possible. While his mind became blessedly numb, his body was able to keep a beat.
Jase stepped up behind Cerys. “Hey. What’s got you all stern faced?”
“Was just thinking I wish I’d picked a different outfit.”
“Nah.” Jase peered over her shoulder and looked down at her feet. “The moon boots are a fashion statement. They say, fuck the institution with a little bit of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’.”
Luke checked out her boots. They were pretty big.
“They’re not that bad,” Jase said. Luke almost laughed at the lie.
But Jase picked her up and spun her around before kissing her. “It was a compliment, sunshine. They’ve grown on me. Just like you have.”
“Let’s start getting you guys ready to go on,” Jimmy said, gathering the band together. “The place is already at capacity.”
Luke cricked his neck from left to right, rolling his shoulders in circles to loosen them. He just wanted to get onstage and play. Studio life got to him. Too constrained. Too manicured to grab the best track. Luke liked music raw, anticipated, spontaneous.
The same way he liked sex.
“Sad Fridays.” A scrawny man dressed in double denim wearing a red-and-white kerchief as a bandana approached them. “I’m Darrin, Willow Warner’s dad and manager.”
The woman on the app.
Matt held out his hand. “Matt Palmer. It’s great to meet you. This is my brother, Jase and our drummer—”
“Glad we could help you guys out on Willow’s platform. She’s one of Shamaze’s top ten influencers because we’ve curated her content so carefully. You’re lucky we picked you. Let me go grab her and introduce you.” Without any further conversation, he walked away from them.
Ben looked over at Luke and mouthed what the fuck.
“Want to bet his daughter’s success is the first thing he mentions to anyone he meets,” Luke whispered to Cerys.
Cerys glanced over her shoulder. “I thought exactly the same thing. It might be judgemental of me to assume he’s probably never achieved anything in his life beyond being Willow’s sperm donor.”
“Cerys,” Jimmy warned, but Luke grinned. He’d thought the exact same thing.
Darrin approached a woman, maybe early twenties. She had the hair he always associated with California. His sister had called it something strange. Bronde. Brunette and blonde at the same time. It was pulled back off her face and she swayed to the music playing, obviously recording herself on her phone.
Great rack and tiny waist highlighted by a cropped black T-shirt and jeans that sat low on her hips. Hips that you could get a hold of.
Fuck.
“Did her dad just knock her arm down?” Luke asked over Cerys’s shoulder. He’d seen Willow’s wince mar what was otherwise a pretty face.
Cerys scowled. “If I’m being generous, I might say he was encouraging her to stop filming, but it did look like that.”
“What a dick. Dad always used to say that to judge a man, you should watch how he treats a woman,” Luke said.
“Your dad sounds like he was a wise man.”
“Yeah, he was.” Andrew Bryson had been a hero. A supportive husband, a loving father, and a firefighter who stayed too long in a warehouse fire and never come out.
Darrin approached them. “Willow, this is Sad Fridays. Can you believe your breakup video ended with them coming to record their album here? What we were able to do for them? Would you guys be up for filming some content for Shamaze?”
While Darrin gloated, Luke caught Willow rolling her eyes.
Jase put his hands up. “Sorry, mate. Happy to take a picture but the whole dance choreography storytelling thing is your territory, not ours.”
Luke nodded. “We’ve got rhythm, but not necessarily moves.” Plus, while he’d definitely help Willow, he didn’t want to do one thing to help the slimy bastard who was living vicariously through his daughter’s success.
“I’m sure I could teach you.”
Willow tipped her head to one side and smiled at Luke. The kind of smile that said a lot more than hello. It held promise, one he couldn’t help but respond to. “I might just let you.”
“We could do photographs,” Jase suggested.
“That would work. I’m Willow. It’s great to meet you all.”
Luke watched as Jase introduced everyone. Willow nodded and smiled, but occasionally glanced his way, as if waiting for the moment they would be officially introduced.
Perhaps tonight would turn out okay after all. Because he loved fucking almost as much as drumming.
“This is Luke, our drummer,” Jase said as Luke reached for her hand. It was soft, her nails short and painted a pale pink. Deliberately, he rubbed his thumb over her skin.
“Pleasure,” he said, sliding his fingers along hers as he let go.
Doe eyes glanced up at him through long lashes. Hazel flashed with gold.
Damn.
“It’s nice to meet you. I was hoping to meet you during the day. I’m a total early bird,” Willow said.
Cerys looked at him carefully before turning her attention back to Willow. “Bands are very often night owls. We came straight from the studio.”
“I’m probably the only one in the room who’s an early bird. Without the opportunity to meet with you, I would have snuck to bed with a good book hours ago.”
He liked the idea of her in bed—only with him, instead of a book. Perhaps it was all the stimulants coursing through him, but the image of the two of them in bed played in time-lapse. Bed. Shower. Against the wall. Yeah, fuck, he was horny, high, and morally bankrupt. “You’re doing partying wrong. Come hang out with us one night. We’ll show you how it’s done in England.”
“Ignore him,” Cerys said. “They’ve got a handful of days to finish the album, and Jimmy came along to make sure nobody stays too late.”
“Willow, guys, let’s get those photos.” Darrin gestured to a spot over by the boxes that transported all the studio’s instruments.
He watched Willow follow her dad.
“Bet you a hundred quid you can’t tap that before breakfast tomorrow,” Alex whispered, and Luke laughed.
“Bet you two hundred it’s before midnight.” He didn’t have two hundred quid to spare. His credit card wheezed under the weight of his debt. And the loans he’d taken out to make sure his sister didn’t struggle through college, after their dad died and their mum abandoned Iz to his care, demanded a hefty sum just to meet the minimum.
But as Willow looked over her shoulder at him, he knew it was easy money.
“You’re on.” Alex slapped him on the shoulder.
As she carried on walking, he noticed a mottled red blotch on her arm. Anger began to simmer. Concerned, he hurried over to her.
“Are you okay, flower? Because your dad gripped you pretty hard there.”
Willow rubbed her arm self-consciously. “No. It’s fine. Honestly. I mean, I was being rude not coming straight over to see you guys, but sometimes you just have to take video when you can. And that song is trending right now, so I had to capture it right away. I think he caught me harder than I expected because I was spinning.”
“You sure? Because I’ll kick his arse for you.”
Willow looked up at him. “You’d do that?”
Luke shrugged. “I’ve hit someone for a lot less. Why not? You shouldn’t have a red blotch on your skin. If anyone did that to my sister, they’d be having trouble breathing right now.”
“That seems so . . . violent.”
“Sometimes bad things happen to bad people.”
She stopped in position. “And the people who do the bad things to bad people—are they bad or good?”
Luke ran his tongue along his lower lip. “You tell me, Will.”
With pursed lips that looked cute enough to nibble on, she considered his question. “I don’t know you well enough to answer that.”
He glanced over to where her father was busy talking to Matt, then looped his finger and thumb loosely around her wrist. “Well, I suggest we change that. You’re staying for the show, right? You can stand with Cerys and watch.”
“I’d love that.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three in March, next month.”
Phew. Not as young as he’d thought. “You feel like getting out of here afterwards?” he asked, his voice rough.
Willow bit down on her lower lip. “I’d like that.”
Luke grinned. “Be ready to go. I’m walking straight off that stage and we’re leaving before anyone has the chance to realise we’re gone.”
“Luke,” Matt yelled. “Get your ass over here for the photograph so we can get onstage.”
“You have a deal,” Willow said before hurrying to the rest of the group.
“Do I ever,” he muttered.
And it remained on his mind. From the first beat of his sticks in the air onstage, with the audience screaming, and her eyes on him. To a guitar battle between Ben, Matt, and Jase, when he slipped his phone out of his back pocket and took a photograph of Willow dancing in the wings as she watched the three of them.
Anticipation thrummed through him. Sure, she was a little young for his twenty-nine, but what happened in Detroit stayed in Detroit.
Right?
What on earth was she thinking?
She was America’s Shamaze app queen with a responsibility to the young women who followed her platform. But as she looked down at the tattooed fingers currently entangled with hers, leading her swiftly through the backstage hallways of the Detroit concert venue, she couldn’t think of them.
Luke’s broad shoulders and inked arms blocked her view as he hurried the two of them to the exit. When he’d said they’d leave straight after the gig, she hadn’t imagined he’d jog to her, grab her hand, and lead her away before the band’s lead singer had even left the stage.
Only Cerys had witnessed it, and Willow hoped the wave she’d given her had been enough to reassure her that she was totally okay with what was happening.
When she’d featured the band’s song in one of her videos, she hadn’t thought about how it might change Luke’s life.
And now, the band was here on the brink of something huge, recording an album with a leading producer.
All because of her.
And it gave her a deep-down thrill to know she’d done that.
When her father suggested they meet up, she’d flown to Michigan from her home in Malibu, hoping for an opportunity to make some content with them.
She’d done her research. The bad boys of rock and roll from Manchester, with tempers and habits and stories of women. Lots of women. A walking definition of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. And for once, she wanted a taste of it. She wanted to shake off the wholesome label she’d garnered as a child actor and for one night just be Willow.
Leaving every instinct for safety behind, she followed a man who’d turned her on with every beat of his sticks on his skins. Who’d blown her away with his intensity. She was a cliche, getting turned on by the drummer of the band. It was a Penny Lane move. A groupie. Straight out of every rock star fan handbook.
And yet she was doing it anyway.
Luke was offering her an escape.
An escape from the stifling environment of her father’s constant reminders of how every single choice could affect her living. Always choose the right words. Always dress to be photographed. God, she’d left the house once without a full face of makeup, and some stupid photographer had snapped her for one of those awful how-she-really-looks articles.
For once, she wanted real bona fide excitement in her life.
And he was striding right in front of her. All six feet of him. Well-defined arm muscles. Dimples. And a panty-melting smile, all the more devastating with the ink that crept up the side of his neck and down his bicep.
Fully aware of what she was letting herself in for, she followed him anyway. One night with no rules. Eight hours, maybe ten if she was lucky, where she could leave all expectations behind. For some reason, the sex she’d had in the past hadn’t remotely lived up to her expectations. She wanted that rush, that uncontrollable desire for another person.
Even if it was only temporary.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“We are going to cause all kinds of mischief.” He stopped so abruptly that she almost tripped into him. When his thumb stroked her cheekbone, she leaned into him. “We’re going to feel alive.”
Willow closed her eyes and smiled. “God, I love the sound of that.”
His lips brushed hers so quickly she didn’t have the chance to respond.
When they finally stepped outside, Luke let out a string of expletives. “Holy fucking shit on a stick. It’s freezing.”
Willow looked up at the occasional flake of snow fluttering around them and laughed. “It’s February in Detroit. You’re wearing a sweaty T-shirt. Of course it’s cold.” She wrapped her arms around her chest, her cropped T-shirt offering even less protection.
“Smart arse. Where are you staying?”
“The Shinola. It’s not too far.”
Luke flagged a taxi down and they climbed inside. “Okay. First, Willow Warner. It’s a terrible idea leaving with a stranger. We really need to know each other by the time we get to the hotel.”
Willow turned in the seat. “How do you suggest we do that?”
Expecting him to make a move, to touch her or kiss her . . . anything that would introduce them physically, he shocked her by leaning back in the seat. “We bypass all the boring stuff. Like, does it matter if you know what my favourite colour is? Here’s my first question. If you can only take one memory with you when you die, which memory would you take?”
