: Lily Clements
: Backstage Pass An MM Bodyguard Rockstar Romance
: Publishdrive
: 9798905166075
: 1
: CHF 3.00
:
: Erzählende Literatur
: English
: 250
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB

Jules Cross knows how to survive a screaming crowd. He is less sure how to survive being truly seen.


As the guarded guitarist of Hollow State, Jules keeps his grief, his music, and his private life locked behind stage lights and sharp silence. But when intimate notes start appearing across the tour, quoting his lyrics and reaching into wounds he never made public, his team hires Decker Reid to stay close.


Decker is former military, controlled, watchful, and built for danger. Jules expects a babysitter. Instead, he gets a man who notices the exits, the tremor in his hands, the tea he drinks when he cannot sleep, and the songs he writes before he understands what they mean.


On buses, in hotel rooms, and behind the roar of sold-out venues, protection becomes proximity. Proximity becomes trust. And trust becomes the one risk neither man can control.


But the threat is escalating, and Decker’s job is clear: keep Jules alive, even if loving him makes that impossible.


Backstage Pass is a tender, tense MM bodyguard rockstar romance about fame, grief, chosen safety, and the terrifying courage of being known.


Start reading today.

ONE: Static


Jules

The acoustic in the green room is flat by nearly a quarter tone, which means someone tuned it weeks ago and nobody's touched it since. Jules can hear it through the monitor speaker—the opening band halfway through their set, the lead guitarist hitting an E chord that sits just sharp enough to make his teeth ache. He runs through his own tuning one more time, Les Paul across his lap, listening to each string settle into place. The tobacco sunburst catches the overhead fluorescents. He bought this guitar the dayBleeder dropped, back when they thought that album would be the ceiling. Turned out it was just the floor.

Today would have been his mother's birthday. Fifty-eight. She made it to forty-seven before the cancer did what cancer does, which is take everything that matters and leave the rest standing around wondering what comes next. Jules has been standing around for five years now. Still wondering.

"You good?" Liam appears in the doorway, still holding his in-ears. The frontman's pre-show ritual involves pacing the hallway for twenty minutes, checking his voice against his phone's tuning app, and asking if everyone's good. Jules has watched him do this for a decade.

"Sorted." Jules sets the Les Paul in its stand, reaches for the setlist taped to the wall. The Greek Theatre, Los Angeles. Mid-April, warm enough that the outdoor amphitheater doesn't need heating. They're three weeks into theQuiet Country tour and the routing makes sense now—West Coast swing, then Midwest, then back East for the summer festivals. Sharon planned it like a military campaign. Their manager doesn't do anything by accident.

"Sharon wants to talk after the show." Liam's trying for casual. Missing by a mile.

"About?"

"Security stuff. Don't worry about it."

Jules looks up. Liam's got his worried face on, the one that means he's already worried enough for both of them."What security stuff?"

"Just—there's been some notes. At the venues. She wants to bring someone in."

The note. Right. Jules found it yesterday, left on the merch table in Phoenix, his name written across the envelope in handwriting that looked like it was trying too hard to be beautiful.You played 'Static' wrong last night. I know the real version. I know what you meant. He'd handed it to Pete, the tour manager, who'd handed it to Sharon, who'd apparently decided this warranted a conversation Jules doesn't want to have.

"It's one person with too much time and a pen," Jules says."We've had weird fans before."

"This is the third venue."

"So they're following the tour. That's what fans do."

Liam crosses his arms, which is his tell for I'm-the-frontman-and-I'm-pulling-rank."Sharon's hiring a bodyguard. Just for you. Non-negotiable."

"I don't need a babysitter."

"You need someone who knows what they're doing if this escalates."

"It won't escalate."

"Jules." Liam's voice drops into the register he uses for serious conversations, the one that means the decision's already made and he's just informing Jules as a courtesy."Someone's leaving you notes that quote your lyrics back to you with annotations about what you really meant. That's not fandom. That's something else. Sharon's bringing someone in. End of story."

Jules wants to argue. Doesn't. Liam's probably right, which is the annoying thing about having a best friend who's also the person wh