Mia and the Bad Boy
by Lisa Burstein
Copyright © 2015 by Lisa Burstein. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Preface
Ryder Brooks
Age: 17
Hair: dirty blond
Eyes: hazel
Hometown: NYC
Favorite song on debut album: “Kiss This”
Turn-ons: confidence, soft skin, a girl who knows her way around an instrument
His dream date: what happens after the date
Quote to live by: “Without music life would be a mistake.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Chapter One
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 lily-white 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.
“I don’t, but I do need a tutor. So maybe you can teach me to be polite,” he said, his voice moving over her like smoke.
She needed to stop looking at his eyes, but they were hypnotic, the color of honey and, apparently, just as sticky.
She sighed, moving back toward his dressing room door. “They taught a monkey to use currency. I guess anything is possible.”
He bit his lip, but she couldn’t tell if it was because he was trying not to laugh or because he was angry. “Would you like to come in?”
Even after all that, it scared her that she sort of did.
She took a seat on a big leather couch in the middle of the dressing room as Ryder closed the door behind her. “I’m Ryder,” he said.
“I know,” she answered like she was saying, Duh, who doesn’t know that, then, realizing he was only telling her so she would reply in kind, she stuttered, “M-Mia.”
“Pretty name,” he said, taking a seat next to her on the couch.
She blushed, the blood vessels in her neck, ears, and chest dilating as adrenaline sent more blood to her heart but, even with this knowledge, there was nothing she could do to stop it. People told her she had a pretty name constantly, but they didn’t look like Ryder; didn’t have thousands of girls with pretty names coming out their ears; weren’t the guy she stared at as she drifted off to sleep at night, dreamed about while she was asleep.
She pushed those thoughts down, realizing that Ryder was a fantasy. This was the real Ryder, foul-mouthed, unpolished, and nothing like she’d thought.
“Nice shirt,” he said, staring at her chest, right where the letters S2J were printed. The blood vessels in her face went on overdrive. She was learning firsthand what she’d read in books: you could try to control your body with your mind, but it was no use.
“LJ gave it to me,” she said, thinking quickly. Even in her short time with Ryder, she could tell that if she told him she’d liked S2J or, even worse, liked him—or at least had—it would put her at a serious disadvantage.
Ryder rolled his eyes. “He gives those out like candy.”
Phew, Mia thought, main humiliation averted.
“So, how did LJ persuade you to do this, anyway?” he asked, laying his arm along the back of the couch. The kind of move a guy made when he wanted to put his arm around you—or at least that’s what Mia had seen on TV and in movies.
She tried to ignore it, even as her pulse ticked up. “My mom works for him.” That was all Ryder would ever have to know. She didn’t want to say that her mom was LJ’s maid. She hated telling people that. Not because she was ashamed, but because people looked at her differently after she did.
“And now, I guess, you work for me,” he said, his fingers playing piano against the smooth, buttery leather.
“I work for LJ,” Mia said, keeping his gaze.
“Who hired you for me,” Ryder replied. “I’m paying you, remember?”
She didn’t respond. Ryder was so direct. She wasn’t used to someone talking to her this way, and she certainly wasn’t used to being behind a closed door with him.
“Okay,” he said, sitting back, crossing his ankles at his black leather boots. “I don’t know how much LJ told you, but I failed everything but math. Only because math and music are pretty similar and, well, music…” He paused.
“Music is my life.”
“There’s more to life than music,” Mia heard herself say without even thinking. It was what her mother always declared whenever Mia requested to sign up for chorus or band at school. She hated when her mother said it, and she was pretty sure Ryder would feel similarly.
He grimaced. “I can tell we’re going to get along great.” His face changed and he leaned closer to her, the couch creaking, “Or, at least, maybe we can learn to.”
Her blood pressure boiled, her skin exploding with goose bumps. She didn’t reply at first because she wasn’t sure how. Is he flirting with me?
She cleared her throat, needing to change the subject so she didn’t spontaneously combust right there. “We should set up a tutoring schedule.”
“Before we get to that, there’s one more thing.”
Mia waited.
He stared at her seriously. “No one can know you’re tutoring me.”
She let out an anxious laugh. She was expecting something a little graver, considering the way things had been going thus far. “Don’t worry. I won’t say anything.”
He moved his hand onto the couch, so close to her bare knee it couldn’t have been an accident, so close she could almost feel what it would be like if he’d touched her. “No, it’s more complicated than that. I mean no one can know, especially the other guys in the band. I don’t want them to even wonder who you are. No one knows I failed out of high school. They all think I’ve already graduated. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Okay,” she replied. She couldn’t look away from his hand; it was a spider she was terrified of, and at the same time, a baby rabbit she was desperate to touch. “If I’m not your tutor, who am I?”
His eyes wandered, focused on an acoustic guitar leaning against the vanity. “You’re younger than I thought you’d be, so my initial plan to say you’re my therapist won’t work.”
He’d rather have people think he has a therapist than a tutor. What is with this guy?
“Who should I be, then?”
He paused, tilted his head. “I guess we could say you’re my girlfriend.”
Mia choked on a breath, the muscles in her throat constricting from shock. If he was really asking for her to be his girlfriend, she might have said yes. But he was not. He was really saying, I would never be with someone like you but, for pretending, you’ll do fine.
“You’re kidding.”
He shook his head.
“Why can’t we say I’m one of your foster sisters or something?” The minute she said it, she regretted it. She knew Ryder’s past and now he knew she knew—though anyone who read any magazine ever did, too.
Ryder sighed. “Because then one of the other guys might try something with you. I doubt you’ll be able to keep my secret when he’s whispering sweet nothings into your ear.”
“You can trust me,” Mia said. Though really, no one had ever whispered sweet nothings into her ear. Ryder had just done the total opposite of that, and she was still sitting here.
“Swee…” He pressed his lips together. “I don’t do trust.” The words came out gravelly, like they were too heavy to even say.
“What do you do?” Mia responded in a voice she didn’t even recognize.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Ryder said, his façade back up, his devious smile cementing it.
Mia looked down at her hands, tried to slow the beating of her heart, though she knew it was no use, her endocrine system was in power now. “There is no way I’m getting paid enough to deal with this.”
He inclined toward her so she could smell his cologne—sharp, like ice felt on your skin. “Are you asking for more money to pretend to be my girlfriend? Because I think that would make you a prostitute.”
“Excuse me?” She stood so quickly the couch almost flipped.
Ryder reached his hand toward her but stopped, running it through his hair instead. “That came out wrong. We don’t have to do anything. You only need to pretend you’re my girlfriend when other people are around. Then it’ll make sense why we’re spending so much time together.”
She stood above him. This was way more than she’d signed on for, and from the gossip she’d read about Ryder Brooks, she’d already signed on for a lot.
“If that’s what you’re asking,” he said, “I can pay you extra.”
Mia looked down at her bright white tennis shoes. She didn’t want to talk about money. She didn’t want to talk about any of this. Now she understood why her plane ticket had been one way. LJ had said it was because he wasn’t sure how long they would need her, maybe even longer than a month, but really she knew it was because he didn’t know how long she would last.
Because the gossip about Ryder didn’t even scratch the surface of what he was truly capable of.
“I’m not doing this,” she said. Sure, she’d imagined the real thing, but this was not the real thing.
“There’s the door,” Ryder replied, nodding his chin toward it.
She couldn’t leave. She wanted to—desperately—but her legs wouldn’t move. It was like her brain had shut off the minute she saw Ryder.
She’d always been so in control. But now all she could think about were the hands that had been so close and what they might feel like… She shook her head as another image came into focus—her parents beaming on her college graduation day. Her whole life had been about making them proud, and they would never be prouder than when she became the first Reyes to fulfill their American dream.
“If I agree,” she said, attempting to gain some power back, “we need rules.”
Ryder laughed. His eyes met hers. “Like?”
“No kissing.”
“Just kissing?” Ryder asked with a sly smile.
“No anything,” Mia spurted, her blood heating, climbing like the mercury in a thermometer.
Ryder’s lips twisted. “We can act like brother and sister behind closed doors, but in front of anyone on this tour, you’ll need to act like my girlfriend.”
“Fine,” Mia replied, unable to even think about Ryder being that close.
“Whatever that might mean,” Ryder said, his eyes heavy.
Mia bit the inside of her lip.
“It’s not like it will be real,” he said, “and it’s only until I pass the GED. I’m signed up to take it in a month.”
Could Mia pretend she liked Ryder Brooks for a month? She could have before she’d actually met him, but now she knew the way he looked had zero to do with the way he acted. Not to mention the way he made her act…feel.
She guessed Ryder could sense her hesitation because he continued. “It’s mostly for the guys in the band.”
“Why do you care what they think?”
“I don’t,” Ryder said far too quickly. “I’d just like to keep at least one aspect of my life private.”
As Ryder waited for her answer, his eyes slid to her lips and down slowly, methodically halting and focusing on her breasts.
Mia reddened and stared at the floor, her mother’s voice in her head: be a good girl, Mia.
Mia thought about her mother. Sure, she’d okayed Mia being paid for tutoring, but she would kill her if she knew what Mia was considering agreeing to. Then she would bring Mia back to life just to kill her again if she knew that part of it was because she was kind of curious what it might be like to actually be Ryder Brooks’s girlfriend.
Ryder Brooks’s girlfriend. Her brain did cartwheels at the thought until she reminded herself he meant his fake girlfriend. Besides, the Ryder Brooks she thought she knew was nothing like the one sitting in front of her still staring at her breasts. She crossed her arms over her chest, squashing both his view and her fleeting, silly fantasy.
She had an urge to call her best friend, Ellie, and ask her advice. She was the daughter of one of the families her mother cleaned house for, and they’d played together when they were little. They’d bonded and stayed friends because they shared the same sheltered background. Ellie’s parents were just as demanding and strict as Mia’s, even though Ellie lived in a Beverly Hills mansion while Mia lived in a ranch-style house in the valley.
Ellie would tell her to leave. Insist her self-respect was worth more than money. It was easy for someone who was rich to say that.
“You’re still here, so I’m assuming that means yes?” Ryder asked, breaking the silence.
“You’re not used to people saying no to you, huh?”
“Not when I have something they want.”
Unfortunately, he did. Unless money started raining from the ceiling, she was doing this. She could either pay back loans for the rest of her life or accept from Ryder what he probably made in a day.
“Wait, what about all your groupies?” she asked, the word acidic on her tongue. If the gossip about him was accurate—and so far, wow had it ever been—he’d never be able to stay faithful to her for a month.
“You’re not really my girlfriend, so it’ll be easy to be a good boy,” he said.
“What does being a good boy mean to the Bad Boy?”
“In our arrangement, it means no groupies, no starlets, no strippers. You pretend to be my girlfriend in front of the guys in the band and I’ll be a model boyfriend. Boring,” he admitted, his eyes skimming down to her waist and lower, causing her breath to catch, “but maybe you’ll turn out to be more fun that you seem.”
“You’re a total jerk.” Sure, she’d thought it, but she couldn’t believe she was saying it. She never acted this way. She was usually modest to the point of shyness—what was Ryder doing to her? What would the next thirty days with him do?
“Tell me something I don’t know, non-sweetheart.”
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