Free Rock Hard: A Bad Boy Rock Star Romance by Arielle Archer Page B

little more discerning when it came to my love life. Of course I had a feeling that Mia was a good choice. It was crazy since I’d only had that brief conversation, but there was just something about her.
    Blake clapped me on the shoulder again as the music out in the arena looped again. “We probably ought to get going or else that crowd’s going to storm the stage.”
    Finally I got over to where that poor PA was waiting for me to do the change. The poor girl was probably wondering what the hell was going on what with all of us standing around chatting while an arena full of thousands of screaming women was waiting for us just a few feet away.
    I stared at myself in the mirror as I moved into my next outfit. I felt a strange exhilaration that went above and beyond what I usually felt at these shows. It was the exhilaration of knowing there was someone in particular out there I was performing for. Not just the generic all-American girl out to have a little fun and see her favorite band.
    I wondered if this was how Todd felt whenever he was out onstage because he knew Lisa was out there watching him perform. If so it was one hell of an inducement to get out there and have some fun. I hadn’t felt like this going out on stage in years. Since back when it was all new and exciting. How I felt about this Mia girl after so many empty one night stands was new and exciting, and that was making all the difference in the world.
    I couldn’t wait to get out there and dazzle even if she didn’t particularly care for the band. No, I was out there to impress a specific girl for the first time in my life, and I was going to give the performance of a lifetime!

 
     
     
     
     
     
    10: Backstage
     
    We started making our way towards the backstage area during the second encore. They still hadn't played their biggest number one hit from way back when, but it’s not like I really cared to hear that song after spending the better part of the past decade trying to forget it.
    Hey, I might be having a little bit of a starstruck experience with Grant, but swooning over a hot guy and deciding that crappy music was suddenly wonderful because I was swooning over a hot guy were two very different things thank you very much.
    I was surprised Kayla was going along with it though. I figured she would be out there in the middle of the crowd until the very end whether or not I wanted to sit and suffer with her, but when I suggested we get going she’d hopped up right away muttering something about how it was well worth missing a song she’d heard a million times anyways to avoid the rush of people who were inevitably going to be trying to get backstage whether or not they had backstage passes like we suddenly did.
    I was surprised at that sentiment from Kayla of all people, and I had a pretty good feeling that she wouldn’t be so understanding about, say, leaving the concert early to avoid the rush out to the parking lot in a hypothetical world where I didn’t get backstage passes and we weren’t going to meet the band.
    Not that I’d ever get to test that particular theory. No, Grant, lead singer of Twenty Promises, seemed to have it out for me. It was the strangest turn of events I never could’ve imagined when I headed out with Kayla earlier in the day, but here I was so I figured I’d roll with it.
    It took forever to make our way through the press of bodies, but eventually we got up to security and flashed our passes. One of the guards, a big muscular hulking thing with a bald head, smiled and stepped aside to allow us through. And then he immediately moved back into place with a scowl on his face as other women tried to rush into the opening we'd just created.
    Other women who didn't have the backstage we’d gotten in the most spectacular way possible. I couldn’t help but think “tough luck girls” as I felt an irrational flash of jealousy. Oh yeah. I knew who those girls were back here to see, and even if the rational part of