The Complete Rockstar Series

desire to help those fighting mental illness stems from a life-changing incident in her past.

When Abby meets Hawke backstage at a local club, she’s instantly attracted to his bad boy good looks. But when she discovers the damaged man beneath the beautiful

exterior, she’s compelled to make up for past mistakes.

How long will it take for Hawke to realize his reckless

behavior isn’t only endangering him, but the hearts of those around him? How long will it take for Abby to see that she can’t help someone who has no desire to be fixed?

***This is book 4 in the Rockstar Series. It can be read as a standalone. This is a spin-off of the Famous Series***

Quotes

All damaged people are dangerous. Survival makes them so.

—Josephine Hart

Never be afraid to fall apart because it is an opportunity to rebuild yourself the way you wish you had been all along.

—Unknown

Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength.

—Teddy Roosevelt

One of the hardest lessons in life is letting go. Whether it's guilt, anger, love, loss or betrayal. Change is never easy. We fight to hold on and we fight to let go.

—Unknown

78

Hawke

Laughter surrounds me from all sides. I high-five my way through the crowd of jocks and rich princesses filling the hallway. I want to shrink down, hunch into myself, but my parents expect me to be like them—popular, fun, the guy everyone likes.

So I do it, and I do it well. Too well.

“Hawke! Call me.”

“Bro! Text me later about the party!”

I wave and nod my head as classmates call out greetings. It takes everything in me not to turn around and shove the entitled assholes into the wall and tell them how shallow I think they are. I think about it all the time but never do a thing. It’s just easier to maintain the status quo, be the popular guy I’m supposed to be, even though it’s killing me.

Waving and smiling at everyone, I walk out into the bright Los Angeles sun. My car is all the way across the sprawling parking lot, a fifty-yard minefield of idle gossip and “bro” pats on the back standing between me and my escape from what I imagine a teenage Dante would have used as the seventh circle of hell if the Inferno had been written in the twenty-first century.

Luck is on my side, because I make it through row after row of high-end luxury cars to my vehicle without a single person stopping me. The black Audi R8 was a present from my parents. Present for what? I have no fucking clue. For existing, maybe? For being cool and popular among the children of Hollywood’s elite? They mean well and they love me, but they have no idea I’d rather go to the public school with normal kids than these spoiled brats.

“We want you to be with the best, Hawke. Greater Malibu Prep is the best high school in southern California.”

I wonder if my big shot Hollywood agent dad and my gorgeous ex-supermodel mom would think the school was so great if they knew half of the student population was high at any given time, including the “cool” kids they want me to be friends with. My parents probably wouldn’t care if they knew about the drugs. I mean, my mom and dad were the epitome of cool when they were my age. Hell, I know for a fact they both did their fair share of drugs back in the day.

Begrudgingly, I expend the necessary time and energy to be important in a group of kids that would kill to be me. In my mind, it’s a complete waste of time sucking up to the vapid, entitled, trust-fund babies just to achieve a social status I don’t want, in order to spend time around people I can’t stand. But I’d do anything to make my parents happy, and seeing me go to endless parties with well-known socialites on my arm makes them happy.

I sigh and start the car, its engine growling beautifully under the shiny black hood. Another day done. Only a little over a hundred more until I graduate and get out of here.

Crap. I hope I can last that long.

* * *