Rock Me Hard By Olivia Thorne
1
I once heard a question that both unnerved me and made things startlingly clear: is it more important to love someone with all your heart…
…or to be loved by someone with all of theirs?
We all want to fall head-over-heels in love, and we all want the other person to love us back exactly the same. But that’s not usually the way it turns out.
In fact, I think that’s rarely the way it turns out. Both people may be in love, but it always seems one person is more in love than the other.
So… if you had to choose, which would it be?
Love someone else passionately and completely, even if they don’t feel as powerfully as you?
Or be loved passionately and completely, even if you don’t feel exactly the same towards them?
I thought I knew the answer when I heard the question.
Then I found out years later that no… I didn’t know the answer at all.
Present Day
I sat across from the Rolling Stone editor in his office overlooking midtown Manhattan.
I’d arrived 15 minutes early for my meeting. I thought I was there to interview for some lowly staff position. Layout grunt… gofer… toilet scrubber.
Actually, I hoped and dreamed it was a staff position. As desperate as I was, I would have taken an unpaid internship.
I mean, come on. It was Rolling Stone.
Glen the editor sat across the desk from me, hands folded, serene. He was bald on top with curly hair around the sides, and he wore black, plastic-frame hipster glasses. His personal sense of style was somewhere between 70’s Rocker and College Professor.
“Kaitlyn Reynolds. Finally we meet. Good to put a face with the voice over the phone.”
“Same here. Nice to meet you, too.”
“Journalism degree from Syracuse, right?”
“Yes.”
“When did you graduate?”
“A year ago.” I put on a polite smile. “Almost to the day.”
“I read the pieces you emailed me. Not bad. Not great… but not bad.”
Not great… but not bad.
My temper spiked a little bit. I’m a bit of a hothead sometimes.
But I calmed myself down by thinking, When an editor at Rolling Stone says your stuff isn’t bad, ignore the ‘not great’ part.
“Well, I’m still working on building up my portfolio – ”
Glen interrupted me, ignoring what I was saying. “There was something I especially liked, a short story you wrote for the Syracuse literary magazine.”
I frowned. “I… didn’t include that in the email.”
“I know. I went and tracked it down on the internet. I liked it. Had a distinctive voice I don’t really see in your articles.”
My jaw set a little. “Um… thank you?”
Glen smiled. “I’m just saying I think you’ve got it in you to be a very good writer. It hasn’t come out yet, but you have a lot of potential. But you’re going to need to bring it out quick if this is going to work.”
My heart raced.
This sounded like it might be something better than a toilet-scrubbing position.
I swallowed. “Are you… are you offering me a job?”
“Not a ‘job,’ per se. But we want to give you a shot at a feature article. Shanna didn’t tell you?”
Shanna was my college roommate from freshman year at the University of Georgia. We lost touch when I went to Syracuse, but we stayed Facebook friends – which basically means I just read what she posted on her wall. She moved to New York City a couple of years before I did. When I announced on Facebook I was moving, too, she told me to look her up. That’s how we rekindled the friendship. We occasionally had dinner when I had the extra money (which wasn’t often) and when she wasn’t seeing three different guys at once (which was practically all the time).
I was starting to get dizzy. A shot at a feature article. “No, she was pretty vague about the whole thing.”
Glen grimaced. “Yeah… she said you might not be that happy with the assignment.”
Two minutes ago, I would have scrubbed toilets for free.
Now he was talking ‘feature article.’
‘Might not be happy with the assignment’?
HA.
I was fighting to get pieces published in crappy independent newspapers. You know, the kind mostly devoted to club ads listing what bands were playing, with dubious ‘massage’ ads in the back.
As for my online endeavors, the Huffington Post had turned me down three times in the last month.
I couldn’t even give my writing away.
And now I was talking with an editor at Rolling Stone about a feature article.
There was nothing I wouldn’t do for a break like this. Undercover hooker? ‘Day in the life of a sewage worker’? Pro bono proctology exams? I was there.
“I’m sure it won’t be a problem,” I laughed, a little too giddily. “I mean – what exactly do you want me to do?”
He settled back in his seat.
“Shanna told me you once dated Derek Kane.”
My face froze. I could feel every individual muscle straining to keep my smile in place.
Shit.
Please God, not this.
Anything but this.
3
Derek Kane was currently the hottest thing going in rock. And not just because his band had three singles currently in the top 20, with ‘If There’s A Next Time’ poised to hit number one in the next week or two.
No. He was also the most gorgeous guy to front a rock band since Jim Morrison.
Six feet tall… black hair… chiseled face… cheekbones to die for.
Most rockers outside of Death Metal are scrawny little dudes with pasty bird chests and no muscles. Not Derek. He looked more like an underwear model, with a muscled chest, incredibly strong arms, and abs you could scrub laundry on. Broad shoulders, muscular legs, and an ass that made you want to tear off his pants. Some women at his concerts occasionally did.
He also had the most intense, gorgeous green eyes you’ve ever seen. Like emerald ocean water warmed by the sun.
Of course, not many people knew that, because he never let himself be photographed without sunglasses on. Never performed without them. Every candid shot in every gossip rag always had him with his trademark Maui Jims wrapped around his face, his beautiful eyes hidden from the world.
I only knew what they looked like because I had met him four years ago. Back before he was a Rock God.
I had known him for exactly two weeks.
The last time I saw him, we’d spent the night together. I’d told him I loved him… and then I got in my car and drove away, tears streaming down my face.
I never saw or heard from him again.
But it’s not what you think.
However, walking away from him that day was probably the single worst mistake of my life.
Now I was afraid I was going to make an even bigger one.
4
I stared at the editor. My smile was still in place, but it was more like a waxworks expression, it was so fake.
“Um… what is it that you want, exactly? Because I’m not doing some kiss-and-tell piece.”
Glen waved his hands as though to ward off bad mojo. “Oh, no no no no no. Nothing like that.”
“…what, then?”
“Well, as you know, Kane is notoriously averse to the press.”
Actually, I did know that. Just because I hadn’t talked to him since our final day together didn’t mean I hadn’t been keeping tabs on him.
‘Notoriously averse to the press’ was kind of like saying ‘The Pope isn’t tremendously fond of gay marriage.’
Derek hated the press. Hated them. With a vengeance bordering on lunacy. He’d go on shows to perform, no problem – Letterman, Conan, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel. He’d go on Ellen and banter with her.
But what he would not do was talk to the press. Not Rolling Stone, not Spin, not The New York Times, not the Anytown USA Herald. He hadn’t for years.
Which had the curious effect of making them slobber over him all the more. Like semi-popular girls spurned by the Prom Queen, they gossiped and backstabbed and gushed over him – sometimes in the same article – hoping that they, maybe, just maybe, might get to be BFFs with him in his first print interview in two years.
It really was like high school, in the most shallow and disgusting of ways.
Omigawd, did you see what he’s WEARING?! He’s SO over. Totes. Omigawd, did you hear, he just had another hit! It’s the worst song E-VER. Do you think he’d come to my party?
“…and what does that have to do with me?” I asked. I wasn’t trying to be bitchy, but I have to admit, my stress over the situation was beginning to leak out around the edges.
“We think he’ll talk to you.”
There it was. My stomach knotted up seventeen times over.
“I don’t think he will,” I said with a forced smile.
“Actually, we know he will.”
My forced smile faded. “How do you know that?”
“We’ve been trying to get him to talk to us for the last six months. Actually, we’ve been trying for longer than that, but it didn’t become a priority until they started charting in a big way. We must have tried thirty times. At first we just did general inquiries through their manager – ‘could we talk to you while you’re playing Madison Square?’ ‘Let me check with Derek.’ And then he’d email back, ‘No.’ We started throwing out names – our best guys. People who have interviewed everybody – Madonna, Springsteen, Obama, for God’s sake. ‘No.’ We lined up authors who agreed to do a one-off for us – Bret Easton Ellis, David Mamet, people it would be a f*cking honor for Kane to even be in the same room with. ‘No.’ Same damn thing every time – ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ And then I meet Shanna at a party, and in passing I mention I can’t get Derek Kane to give us a f*cking interview… and she tells me about you.
“On a complete whim – in fact, and I’m not proud to admit this, but I was pissed off and a little bit drunk when I sent the email – I gave the manager your name.”
He let the silence build up the suspense.
I was about to puke – not because I didn’t know what was coming, but because I did.
“‘Yes.’ No preconditions, no rules, no bullshit… just one word: yes.” Glen threw his hands up in the air. “So you’re it, kid. This is the Call. You’re moving up to the big leagues. Congratulations.”
My hands shook as I clenched them in my lap. “Thank you, but… no.”