Free Rock n' Roll All Night by J.A. Bailey

Chapter One
    Jazz sighed as she studied the stage
critically. “Run through it again,” she called to Len, her lighting guy.
Everything had to be perfect. She’d invested a fortune in this event. She
needed to bring some new blood into the club if she was ever going to cover the
cost of the unnecessary sound-proofing of the London club.
    It had all
been fucking faked, she thought bitterly. Queen’s Rock Bar was well within
legal sound limits but just because she’d turned down the inspector’s advances,
he’d made up some bullshit about the club causing noise pollution. And now she
was seriously out of pocket after having the walls soundproofed. The club had
only been running a few years and she’d invested all her savings in it. Now she
was in the damned red and falling further. The bar did well, but not good
enough to cover the interest on her debt. If tonight didn’t bring in some new
clientele then she was thoroughly screwed.
    A last
ditch bid to save her club.
    And it
just happened to involve Jackson Wilde.
    She ground
her teeth just thinking about him. How could it still hurt a decade later? But
she had no choice, did she? Jazz leaned back on her bar stool and watched the
lights play. Her ex-sweetheart, Jackson, was bound to bring in so many new
faces. Though his band had split only a month ago, the lead singer of Ravaged
Alter was still hot stuff.
    “Okay,
Len, that will do,” she called and glanced at her watch. Jackson would be here
soon. Her stomach twisted. What would he make of her? She wasn’t the same
starry-eyed girl who spent all day listening to rock music and planning all the
amazing acts that would come and play at her bar.
    Jazz
allowed herself a smile as she studied the bar. Okay, so she hadn’t had any
huge acts yet but the club did rock. With a dark, clean interior, the leather
couches and stools were trimmed with studs. When she first purchased the place,
she had a graffiti artist come in and paint the walls with images of rock
legends. Slash, Freddie, Lemmy, Ozzy… they all graced the walls of her bar,
surrounded by some awesome rock memorabilia she’d picked up over the years. At
least she’d achieved this. Jackson had what he wanted out of life—fame,
fortune, adoration—and she had her bar. For how long though, was another
question.
    Clutching
her stomach when it grumbled, she gave the place a quick once over and decided
to grab something to eat. She lived above the bar, so she went through the rear
doors and took the stairs up to her apartment. Jazz grimaced. It was still
pretty bare. She’d really not had the time to do anything to it. The walls were
cream. She had a couple of old rock posters on it and her blue couch was
threadbare. She still kept a big collection of CD’s in spite of mostly
purchasing music online nowadays.
    Jazz made
a quick run past the coffee table and cleared away the discarded chocolate
wrapper and an old coffee cup, dumping them in the small kitchen. Plates still
awaited her in the sink and she scraped a hand through her hair, wondering if
she even had time to do them. Problem was, the bar was pretty much a
twenty-four hour job. By the time she finished at night, she was too tired and
if she wasn’t in the bar, she was doing accounts and paperwork or dealing with
bookings and staffing issues. Christ, what kind of a thirty-year-old woman
lived like this? Her room in her parents’ house had looked better.
    Fuck it,
she’d worry about it later. Once tonight was over and Jackson Wilde had gone
back to wherever he lived now—probably with some gorgeous blonde thing in a massive
mansion somewhere.
     Changing
into clean jeans, Jazz pulled on her Queen’s Bar tee. It showed off the tiniest
bit of tanned flesh at the waist. Thank God all the hours she worked kept her
stomach flat. Sliding on a couple of chunky bracelets, she went to the bathroom
to do her makeup.
    Ten years…
Jazz sighed. Would she look ancient to Jackson? She still looked good,