Rock God_Book 1_A Contemporary Harem Fantasy Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  End notes

  Rock God Book 1

  Michael-Scott Earle

  Chapter 1

  Jack and I have been best friends since fifth grade. We lived across the street from each other in a suburb outside Los Angeles. We were both socially awkward at that age, so we delayed introducing ourselves for many years until we had spent the day riding bikes down the cul-de-sac in tangent. Finally, I got up the courage to ask if he wanted to ride with me across some jumps constructed of newspaper and wooden board. After that, we ended up as close as brothers.

  Even in the awkward stages of high school, we still maintained our friendship. He was more of a jock than me, participating in wrestling, basketball, football, track, golf, and water polo. My parents had to pressure me to do something physical, so I ended up picking track, mostly because I could run in the long marathons and zone out. When I wasn’t studying or running, I spent almost every moment playing guitar. It was my main passion and dream to be a professional classical, guitar player. Even though at that age, I really didn’t understand what that meant besides playing guitar all day and getting paid for the activity.

  Jack’s parents owned a small law firm that picked up steam during our years in high school. My parents were pretty blue collar. My dad worked as the night manager at a local grocery store, and my mom sold cosmetic supplies. Eventually, Jack’s parents did very well and were able to move into a much nicer house in the same town (to keep Jack in the same school). I rarely saw much of my dad since he worked almost every night, so I spent most of my time with my mom. I learned great communication skills from her and also inherited her positive attitude and work ethic.

  I remember days when I would come into the department store and watch her work with women. She had the uncanny ability to make all of her customers laugh, smile, and buy whatever she was selling. I don’t know if I ever fully learned what her secret mojo was with people, but I felt that I was able to capture the core influencing skills she had. My mom was also a shrewd business woman and gave me some advice that ended up shaping my life later on.

  “Eric,” she would say, “there are only two things you need to learn to have a successful business: You have to learn how to sell things to people, and you have to learn how to keep your accounts in order. You can’t learn how to sell things at school; you have to learn that on the street. But you can learn accounting and finance in school. So make sure you always pay attention in math class.” I always did well in math.

  Jack was much less outgoing than I was during high school. He was definitely in better shape than I, because of the extreme amount of sports he participated in. But when it came to girls he broke into a sweat, stuttered, and turned beet red. I had no such qualms about talking to girls, and my arsenal of cosmetic knowledge helped me land many girlfriends, kisses, and a few awkward sexual encounters.

  Come the end of senior year, I had dated and dumped eight different girls and Jack hadn’t even been on a date. All was not lost though. With some prodding and coaching from me, he was able to ask one of the better-looking cheerleaders to prom.

  When college rolled around, we went our separate ways for schooling. Jack’s parents were now making a great living, and he wanted to eventually join their business. He ended up getting accepted into University in Westwood to begin pre-law. My parents didn’t have the income to pay for an upper-tier school, so I made my auditions across Nor and So Cal with high hopes of getting a full scholarship to Berkeley’s School of Music. I was a great guitar player, but I couldn’t really justify spending the kind of money I would need to spend for four years at one of those schools. Fortunately, I got accepted to all of them. Unfortunately, no full or partial ride; there were lots of guitar players looking for scholarships. State University it was.

  The first year of school seemed to go by with agonizing slowness. I hadn’t realized what it was going to be like being a music major. The classes were tougher than I’d thought. The workload was tremendous, and I felt like I spent eighty percent of my time practicing guitar, fifteen studying for core classes, and the remaining five sleeping. I still managed to find time to hang with Jack every other weekend. His parents had put him up with a sweet apartment in Westwood, a short walk from campus. And if he ever needed to drive back home to see them, he could do it in his nice, new German sports car. I think under most circumstances, people would have been jealous of their friend, but I remembered growing up with him poor in the blue-collar suburbs where we just rode bikes all day for fun. His parents’ financial success was the result of hard work, and I couldn’t be jealous of that success. So when I pulled up to his chic apartment in Westwood and parked my beat-up 1984 Honda Civic next to his polished, silver BMW, I didn’t feel envious… okay. Maybe a little.

  Jack’s first year was as tough as mine. The jump from a high-school workload to a pre-law (he was doing an accounting/marketing double major) was larger than he expected, and he spent most of his time studying. When we hung out, it was normally at his place where we would order a pizza, watch a movie, complain about school, and talk about cute girls in our classes. Neither of us had enough time to date, so the discussion about girls was always pretty brief.

  My guitar playing improved drastically every week, but I started to realize my teachers, who were all amazing guitarists, some of them more talented than I could ever hope to be, were struggling to make ends meet and provide for their families. I was never really one for material possessions, but, somewhere along the line, I thought it would be cool to own a nice house, drive a nice car, and buy expensive things for girls. Maybe Jack’s parents’ material success was rubbing off on me. I realized it would be almost impossible to accomplish most of those things as a professional guitar player. Luckily, I had the support of my parents. They really encouraged me to play, and although I expressed my financial fears to them, they spoke with an infallible conviction when they told me things always work out for the best. I believed them.

  Until the night they were killed.

  My dad had the night off, and they had decided to go out to dinner in Santa Barbara. It was a two-hour drive from where we lived. On the way home, they were struck by a drunk driver on the 101. The car flipped and landed wrong-side down. I had gotten the call from the Highway Patrol on a night I happened to be hanging out with Jack. I don’t really recall what happened that night, but I know I cried a lot while Jack consoled me.

  The next month was a blur. Jack’s parents helped me with the legal stuff. My parents owned our house, but I wasn’t able to afford the maintenance, insurance, or taxes on it, so I had to sell. They also had some money saved and a life insurance plan, so I ended up with what seemed like a huge sum of money sitting in a bank account. At least the money had a home. I felt displaced from everything. My dad was estranged from his parents, and I never met them. My mother’s parents died when I was ten years old. My mother did have a sister, but she lived in Virginia. It helped to talk on the phone, but I wasn’t interested in moving there to be with her. I’d only met her a few times and
wasn’t that familiar with her.

  Jack’s parents offered to let me live with them till I felt better, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I felt like a black hole of despair, and I knew it would interrupt their lives if I was under their roof. I ended up renting an apartment close to school. I ended up quitting guitar. I ended up quitting school. I ended up quitting life for a time.

  Chapter 2

  Jack pulled me out. It was about ten months after my parent’s funeral. He showed up at my apartment because I wasn’t returning his or my other friend’s calls and had a come-to-motherfucking-Jesus talk with me.

  “Dude, I can’t possibly understand what you are going through, but I know your parents wouldn’t want to see you like this. I remember your mom always being so positive and cheerful about everything.” Or it went something like that. He yelled it at me and punched me in the chest a few times, and I realized that he was right. If I didn’t pick up the pieces, it would have been like we all died in that car accident.

  Next semester, I was back to school. After some soul searching, I had decided to change my major to finance. While it seemed like a drastic change from music, I couldn’t bring myself to touch the guitar any more. And finance involved numbers. Maybe I could become a consultant and use my charisma to get a great job? Or at least that was the hope. I had enough money to pay for Jack’s university, but I decided to stay with my old school. They had a decent business program, and I would be paying eighty percent less a semester.

  As strange as it sounds, finance was a much easier path than music. I missed some time with my absence, so it ended up that I was a year behind Jack’s four year plan. I took it easy and signed up for the minimum load of classes. I still didn’t touch my guitar because it made me think of my parents, but I figured that I would be drawn back to it one day.

  Fast forward a year and I was almost back to my old self. I had gotten used to living on my own, and the pain of losing my parents wasn’t as intense. I saw Jack once or twice a month, and I had started dating a few girls who went to my school, nothing too serious; I wasn’t fucking anyone.

  Then Jack gave me a call out of the blue.

  “Dude, I need your help.”

  “What’s up?” He never really asked for my help.

  “Okay, so there is this girl… actually there are two girls.”

  “Whoa, dude! There are two girls and you are on the phone with me? Yeah, you definitely need some help.” I laughed.

  “Shut up and let me finish,” he said, exasperated. “Okay, in my marketing class, there are these two girls that I am running a group project with.”

  “Are they hot?” I interrupted.

  “Holy crap, dude, let me fucking finish.”

  “Sorry. Please proceed.”

  “Okay, so one of them is smoking hot. Like, probably one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Amazing body, great eyes, she is super smart and sassy, dude. Dude.” He was getting breathless. I’ve talked to him enough about girls to know he was into her. He also said dude twice in a row, a sure sign of the seriousness of the situation.

  “Wow. Sounds great. So what about this other girl?”

  “She is cute. Not as amazing as Aimee, but still really cool, smart. I like her.”

  “The hot one is named Aimee?” I said, with a long e at the end.

  “Yeah”

  “Okay… sooooooo…. What do you need my help with?” I asked a bit impatiently. I was walking through campus and had gotten to my classroom. I didn’t want to have whatever conversation he wanted to have with me while I was standing in the classroom.

  “Well, you are really good with girls and stuff. I like both of these girls, but Samantha seems to be into me.”

  “Samantha is the ugly one?”

  “No dude, she is cute, just not as hot as Aimee.”

  “Oh, right. So, why do you think Samantha is into you?” I asked. Students were starting to file into the room. This was one of my favorite financial analysis classes. The teacher loved me, and I didn’t want to piss her off by being late.

  “She just seems to talk to me more when we are working on our project. I mean, both of them are friends. I guess they have known each other for a few years and are in the same major. Aimee talks to me too, but I get so nervous around her I can’t tell if she is into me. What do you think I should do?”

  “Samantha is the sure thing, but Aimee is whom you really want?”

  “Yeah. But, I mean I’d be happy going out with Samantha. But, if I have a chance with Aimee, I totally want her. I just think if I ask Aimee out, and she says no, then I won’t have a shot with Samantha. What do you think?” I briefly wondered if girls ever strategized about asking guys out this way, if they had some sort of statistical analysis, or if they just winged it.

  “Eric?” he asked again urgently. My professor had just walked into the room and gave me a smile.

  “Class starts in a minute, Mr. Weiss. Are you going to be there?” she said. I nodded.

  “Eric? Did I lose you? Shit.”

  “No man, I’m still here. Okay, here’s what I think: You are always going to wonder what would have happened if you’d asked the hot one out.” I had already forgotten her name.

  “Aimee”

  “Yeah, so if you ask Samantha out, you’ll always wonder. So ask Aimee out and you won’t have any regrets. If she says no, then you’ll know. Maybe don’t ask Samantha out if it feels too awkward. But, you shouldn’t settle for second best if you really want something.”

  “Okay dude. What should I say?” He asked excitedly. Oh man. Felt like we were in high school again and I was coaching him to ask out his first date. This girl must be really awesome.

  “Be honest. Tell her you like studying with her; you think she’s pretty, and ask if she wants to have dinner with you. But, you’ll have to let me know how it goes tomorrow. I’ve got a class I’m late for and then two study groups tonight. Call me tomorrow m’kay?” I said as I walked into the room.

  “You got it. Thanks dude!” I closed the phone as he was saying his goodbye.

  Chapter 3

  I forgot about the advice and Jack’s promise to call the next day. It was a week later that I remembered; it was midterms, and I was swamped. I called him up.

  “Dude, what happened with that girl you wanted to ask out? Did you ask out the hot one or did you bitch out and ask the ugly one?” I was sitting in my apartment on a Friday night finishing up class selection for the next semester. Yeah, yeah, I should have been out on the town, but besides the few dates I had earlier in semester, I wasn’t really feeling the desire to be intimate with anyone.

  “Oh man, I totally forgot to tell you!” His excitement, no, overwhelming joy, was so evident in his voice, that I already knew the good news. “Aimee said yes to me, and we went out on a date last weekend. We are going out again tonight. I am about to leave. Oh man, she’s so great, dude. I can’t wait to introduce you to her.”

  “Sweet, dude.” He sounded in a rush. “I’ll talk to you later. Have fun storming the castle!” I said with a smile.

  He laughed and said in his old woman voice: “Think it will work?”

  “It will take a miracle.” I said jokingly with a Billy Crystal accent. Yeah, we were nerds like that.

  Chapter 4

  I didn’t see Jack for another month. He was tied up with school and Aimee. We talked on the phone a few times, and he expressed the same infectious energy about her that he did when he first told me about her.

  “I’m having a party this Saturday night. Aimee and some of her friends are going to be there plus some of my other classmates. Probably going to have about thirty people. I really want you to meet her. Can you come by?” he asked during a phone call.

  “Hmmm, let me check my busy social calendar. Please hold.” My social calendar looked like the Yukon territory: absolutely barren and colder than fuck. But, I wasn’t too excited about going to hang out with a bunch of rich kids from Westwood. Then I s
tarted to think I was finding excuses to isolate myself from any social situation. I should stop being such a little bitch and have a good time. I also did want to meet this girl Jack was so smitten with.

  “Good news. Looks like the Swedish Girls’ Soccer team is coming over Sunday night. So I should be gravy for Saturday. What time?”

  “Ummm, like sevenish.”

  “Want me to bring anything?”

  “Naw, I’ve got booze and shit. Just bring your mojo. I’m excited to see you. It’s been a while.” We exchanged a few other tidbits of small talk and then hung up. I got excited. It had been a while since I’d been to a good party, and the girls who went to his university were supposed to be cute.

  Chapter 5

  I got to Jack’s house at twenty-five to eight. The street was packed with cars, so I found a nice spot for my beat-up Honda about 100 yards from his house. The cars around his place were all pretty nice. I suffered a pang of regret that I hadn’t bothered to spend some of the money I had in the bank on a newer car, but I figured I should ensure I had a job out of school before I spent my inheritance.

  Jack’s place was bumpin’. He’d upgraded to a townhome in the last year, which must have cost a shit-ton of money in Westwood. When I ascended the steps to the door, I heard what sounded like a live band inside: drums, bass, guitar, and someone singing. It sounded like a cover of U2, but I couldn’t tell. The door opened before I could even knock, and Jack smiled back to me.

  “Dude!” he yelled loudly and wrapped me in a big hug. “Come in and let me introduce you to everyone!”

  I noticed he was dressed very nicely and the townhome was very impressive. Stylized carpet, paintings, and décor seemed to be placed very well. Obviously some woman came through and had her way with it, because Jack used to use pizza boxes as a coffee table.

  There were about twenty people in the main entryway. I could see a three-piece band in the back that confirmed the cover tune I heard earlier. I felt my eyes drawn like magnets to the singer’s electric guitar and then bounce quickly to Jack’s back as he threaded his way through the crowd to the back of the room.