FanGirl Squeal (RockStars of Romance Book 1) by Jackie Chanel, Madison Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

onstage after 11:15. At
this point, Cash already owed $150,000. He didn’t care. This was Vegas, the end
of the tour, and the first time in six months that he’d gone over his time
limit. His fans deserved an encore and he was going to give them one.
    “Well, I can’t not go back out there,” he stated without a
care. “I’m just going to do two songs.”
    A few minutes later, Cash strapped on his signature strat,
Bonnie, and walked back to the mic. His wavy brown hair was messy and his
t-shirt was drenched with sweat. He cleared his throat and looked over at the
sea of fans…his fans. He’d played for them for two and a half hours. If he could
have, he’d play for them all night.
    When his band as settled back in their places, Cash began to
speak into the mic and the crowd hushed.
    “You guys don’t even know how much I appreciate you! Like I
said earlier in the show, I live off the energy you give me. Normally, I know
exactly what I want to play, but something happened during my Meet & Greet
earlier. I met a young lady named Michaela.”
    Cash focused on the little girl in the third row, sitting on
her father’s shoulders. She had cried when he hugged her. She reminded him so
much of how Brittany was when she was ten. He was having a hard time
understanding how someone so precious could be so sick.
    Michaela was waving wildly at Cash and beaming from ear to
ear. Cash motioned for one of the security guards to get her and bring her up
on the stage. The crowed whistled and cheered as Michaela ran right up to Cash
with not a single hint of shyness.
    “You guys,” Cash addressed the crowd. “This girl is ten and
told me she’s been listening to my music every day for the last four years! She
told me that she listens to one song on repeat while she’s getting her chemo so
I’m going to play that song for her. It’s a song that I haven’t played in
years, but I wrote it to help my mom get through a particularly bad time. It’s
called Cry No More .”
    Cash waited until Michaela stopped jumping up and down
before kneeling down.
    “What else do you want to hear?”
    Michaela wasted no time in answering. “ Could You Be Loved !”
she shouted.
    Cash burst out laughing. “I was thinking about one of my
songs.”
    “But you play it so good!”
    Cash wondered when and where ten-year-old Michaela Patterson
had ever heard him cover Bob Marley’s Could You Be Loved . He’d only
played it a few times in concert and only once this tour.
    “Alright, I’ll play it for you,” Cash agreed. He slid a
stool over to Michaela and sat her on it.
    He walked over to his band and shrugged. “Could You and Cry
then we’re out of here, okay?”
    Walking back to the center of the stage, Cash took a pick
out of his pocket and lined up his fingers on the second string. He went over
the opening riff in his head before he started playing.
    The crowd was jamming to the classic reggae song, but even
as he was playing, Cash was thinking of what the music critics were going to
say. He’d caught a lot of flack before for covering Bob Marley songs because he
wasn’t a reggae artist. He’d also taken shit for covering Prince, Jimi Hendrix,
and D’Angelo. Seems like people didn’t like when the “culture appropriating
white boy” played songs by his favorite artists during his shows.
    His fans loved it. They didn’t care so he tried not to care.
After a short break while he unstrapped his guitar and sat at his piano, he
began Cry No More .
    There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as he played his mother’s
song.
    Damn it , Chase thought. His voice cracked because he
looked at Michaela, whose tiny hands were clasped together as she wistfully
gazed at him. As he started his solo, he closed his eyes and forgot that anyone
was watching him. His fingers flew over the white and black keys mindlessly as
he waited for the chords to take him to that place only music took him.
    When the last chord reverberated throughout the
amphitheater,