Page 152 of Hard Rock Tease

I laughed. “No killing involved. I just happen to live on the internet and have no real life. Apparently that’s the kind of thing Deena was looking for in a social media intern.”

“You’ve got a life!” Kell protested. “You’ve got the best life. You get to follow me around.”

Ren snickered. “And by best, you mean worst, right? After all, who’d want to stick around you if they didn’t have to?”

“You guys do,” Kell pointed out.

“Yeah, but we’re used to you. I’m surprised you even have fans.”

“Actually, Kell has tons of fans,” I said. “Some people really appreciate his… outgoing nature.”

“How diplomatic,” Morris drawled.

“There’s a whole continent of bloggers who’ve made it their mission to capture every self-absorbed Kell quote and turn it into a meme.”

“Meme?” Ren asked.

“It’s a…” I thought about how to answer and couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to explain images with funny captions without making it sound lame. “Never mind. It’s an internet thing.”

“Are there bloggers who even care about the stuff we do and say?” Ren asked.

“Yeah, there are tons. I’ve actually got some friends who blog about music. One in particular is going to beso madI didn’t tell her what I’m doing. If Emily could follow you around, she’d probably end up writing ten blog posts a day.”

“Why don’t you have a blog?”

I wrinkled my nose at Morris in disgust. “Too much work. If you want to be taken seriously as a blogger, you’ve got to be really professional and write serious, in-depth pieces. It’s too much like writing for a magazine or newspaper. I much prefer posting pithy one-offs from my phone in the middle of lecture halls whenever I get an idea.”

“You? Texting in the middle of class?” Kell shook his head in mock disappointment. “What a bad girl. And here I thought you would be a diligent college student.”

“Hey, at least I pretend to pay attention. I hate those kids who have their headphones over their ears with their heads buried in their laptops. It’s like, why are you even here? Just stay home.”

“When you’re done with us, you should ask your friend about doing a blog post on your internship.”

I looked at Kell in surprise. “You think Deena would be okay with that?”

“Sure. It’d be great publicity.”

“I guess it would be fun to talk about my experience following you guys around,” I mused. Jayce gave me an almost panicked look. “Of course I’d make sure to keep a lot of stuff private, too,” I said, wanting to reassure him without giving too much away to the guys. “I don’t want to do some kind of tabloid exposé or anything. I’d probably talk more about the internship and the work part of it. Less about you guys.”

“No, man, if you’re going to blog about us, you should talk about everything! Including how awesome I am.”

“I’ll be sure to give everyone a rundown on every one of your awe-inspiring moments, Kell.”

He lifted his chin up in a smug grin while the others just shook their heads.

After several more rounds of beers, the guys got deep into conversation about the proposed set list for the next few days, so I ventured down to the dance floor to get myself another drink. I waited for the bartender to notice me, but kept on getting pushed out of the way by bigger and taller people. I was starting to get miffed when someone sidled up next to me and called the bartender over.

“Beer for me and a whiskey sour for the lady.”

Surprised, I looked up to find Neil at my side. He was as gorgeous as ever with those piercing, light blue eyes. He had done something with his hair to tame it, put in some kind of gel. I didn’t like it. It made him look different, not himself. I much preferred his messy hair, like he’d just fallen out of bed.

“Whiskey sour is okay, right?”

Neil sounded almost nervous.

“Yeah, it’s perfect.” The bartender brought the drinks over and I took a sip. “Thanks.”

Neil held his beer in his hand but didn’t drink.