Free How to Catch a (Rock) Star (The Dead Hour #1) by Gabrielle Aquilina Page A

With A Girl” as a duet. You, me and Eddie will have a couple of practices. It’ll be awesome. What do you say?’
    ‘Oh God, I don’t know,’ Lillie said, feeling excited but sick at the thought of it. ‘God, this is crazy. I can’t believe I’m actually even contemplating it. We could practice now, and I’ll see how I feel later?’
    Jed’s face broke into a huge grin as he lifted her up and swung her around.
    ‘I’ll need more beer if you’re gonna make me do this,’ she said. ‘Seriously.’
    ‘Yes! This is going to be fucking amazing. We are gonna be awesome.’ He kissed her again before yelling at Eddie over his shoulder. ‘Eddie, get over here, we need to run through it a couple of times. Johnny, can you let Steve know the change of plans?’
    Jed was so excited, Lillie couldn’t help but be infected by it, even if Eddie didn’t seem too happy about her singing with them tonight. After a couple of run throughs, Jed and Eddie left to go through their pre-gig ritual of mantras and shots, and Kate cornered Lillie.
    ‘Oh my God, this is so exciting,’ Kate said. ‘I can’t believe you’re going to sing on a proper stage and stuff.’
    ‘I’m not,’ Lillie said, suddenly realising what she had agreed to do. ‘I can’t do it. You know I get really bad stage fright, even in a karaoke atmosphere. I really can’t do it Kate. What am I going to do? Jed will be so disappointed. Oh God, I think I’m going to be sick.’ Lillie turned away, holding her stomach.
    ‘Lil, don’t be stupid. You have a great voice and if you can do this tonight, you might get to go on tour with them. Plus, you’ll get to be with a guy you really like.’ She glanced at Chris, beating his drumsticks against the arm of a shabby sofa. ‘Do you know how lucky you are to have a talent? I wish I could sing like you. If I could, I would take every opportunity given to me to use it and get some great experiences out of it.’ She handed Lillie another bottle of beer. ‘Just keep swigging from this and you’ll be fine,’ she said, as Jed came back, grinning wildly.
    ‘It’s all sorted, Steve’s agreed and we’ll do the duet last so it will give you loads of time to psyche yourself up,’ He looked at her more closely. ‘Hey, are you ok?’
    ‘She’s fine, just a bit nervous,’ Kate said, squeezing Lillie’s hand.
    ‘Cool, let’s go to the stage and watch the support act. They’re pretty good actually. I like to watch the crowd before we go on.’ Jed grabbed Lillie’s other hand and pulled her off towards the stage with Kate following behind.
    All through the support act, Lillie felt queasy, her stomach turning over every time they started a new song. Her head was pounding. Jed put a reassuring arm around her shoulders and kept kissing her hair but it wasn’t making her feel any better. She held the bottle of beer but didn’t drink from it, petrified that she would get too drunk and collapse on the stage, or worse. Too soon, the support act finished and the house lights were turned up.
    ‘You know, Johnny used to get really bad stage fright,’ Jed said. ‘He can probably give you some tips on how to get through it.’
    ‘I guess it’s worth a try. I don’t want anything else to drink, though’ Lillie replied.
    ‘C’mon, let’s go down and chill for ten minutes before we need to get on stage. I’ll give you a shoulder massage and Johnny can tell you what he used to do,’ he said, taking her back through the maze of corridors.
    When they were back in the main dressing room, Lillie sat down heavily on the sofa next to Johnny.
    ‘You’re going to blow them away. You and Jed sound awesome together,’ Johnny said, looking at her seriously. ‘Jed wouldn’t risk the gig just because you’re hot.’
    Lillie smiled weakly.
    ‘You’ll see, it’ll rock, and they’ll go crazy for you, and then you won’t ever want to leave the stage again.’ He put his arm around her, leaning back and telling her to