Hawk and Dove (Rock Star Romance Novel) Read Free Page A

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the bed. Yelling out a string of creative curses, I pull myself back into the
open and fumble through my purse. Mitch’s name is blaring across the screen of
my phone. Even his ring tone sounds moody.
    “Yes?” I say, answering the call.
    “Have you seen it?” he demands angrily.
    “Seen what?” I ask, “Mitch, what are you—?”
    “Turn on a computer,” he growls. I hurry across the room to
my desk and tap idly at the keys of my laptop. “Type our band's name into the
search engine,” he tells me. I do so, and wait for the results to load. The
first hit blinks onto my screen, and I feel my jaw drop a full foot.
    “Exclusive interview with Ellie & Mitch’s front woman,
Eleanor Jackson,” I read, “What the hell is this? That’s a major music blog,
isn’t it? I haven’t given any interviews to them.”
    “Click through to the article,” Mitch demands. I follow his
orders and let my eyes travel down to the byline of the piece.
    “By Theodore Farmer,” I groan, “That twerp Teddy sold me up
the river! God, I was doing him such a favor, too! The most exciting thing the Barton
Bugle ever gets to write about is parking meters and the occasional teacher
getting fired for smoking too much weed.”
    “This isn’t funny, Ellie,” Mitch says, his voice raking
harshly across the line, “He’s got you saying all kinds of ridiculous shit in
this thing. Did you really say you like the Hawk and Dove fest for the drugs?”
    “What?” I cry, “Of course not. Mitch, he’s just cashing in
on his one degree of separation moment. No one’s going to believe any of it.
Hell, no one will even read it, probably. No one knows who we are outside of
Barton and Berklee.”
    “Really?” Mitch says dryly, “Maybe it looks like that right
now, but I’ve been checking our website’s analytics this afternoon. Our page
views have gone through the roof. Our band email is getting flooded. Ellie,
this is exactly the kind of attention we don’t want.”
    “I thought all press was good press,” I say quietly.
    “False,” Mitch says, “If things keep up like this, we’ll
never be respected as real musicians. We’ll just be another couple of hipster
assholes getting high and mumbling nonsense. You’re too good for that, Ellie.
We’re too good for that.”
    “I made a mistake, Mitch” I say, “I’m not exactly used to
this kind of thing. Ever since we won this contest...”
    “We could still back out,” he offers.
    “No,” I say firmly, “We’re leaving for Kansas tomorrow. We
can stop by Teddy’s house and egg it or something.”
    “Yeah. Maybe he’ll write an article about how we’re vandals and junkies,” Mitch sighs, “I’m going to bed. Get some rest, would you?”
    “You too,” I tell him. The line clicks off, and I toss the
phone not-too-gently across the room.
    I know I shouldn’t give a crap about some dumb high school
kid trying to get noticed on the Web, but this whole thing makes my skin crawl.
And I hate that Mitch is trying to make me feel reckless and irresponsible over
it. I know he’s trying to maintain his position of power within our little
duo—he’s always been the one to make the decisions, to guide our direction.
When it comes to our music, he demands control...maybe because he doesn’t have
any when it comes to our relationship.
    With a heavy sigh that feels very appropriate for my teenage
bedroom, I begin to toss things into my worn leather suitcase. I summon up the
excitement that’s been building inside of me as the trip looms ahead. Whatever
happens at the festival, our being invited to play is still a huge deal. But
suddenly, and not for the first time, I wonder if going along with Mitch is the
best thing for me. He’s always been my music partner by default, and I love
what we do together, but his attitude is dragging me down.
    I let my eyes skirt across the room to my guitar case. I
only have the most basic knowledge of the instrument—some chords and