Musical Monday: Exclusive first peek at Broken Chorus...I give you the opening scene.

 

Taking the fall for a shared mistake ended his once promising career, now he's a roadie traveling with one of the few people who knows who he used to be. It's a secret he clings to even when an unexpected second chance to take the stage presents itself. If jail taught him anything, it was how to keep his head down and stay off everyone's radar. When the truth is unexpectedly revealed, his first instinct is to run as fast and far from that tour bus as he can get. Unfortunately, the past has a way of finding even those determined to cling to the shadows, if only to prove that a broken chorus can still be made whole again.

Vander Morrison: 

Once I had friends.

I had a band. 

I made a living off my voice. 

Growly and powerful

Able to hit the high notes until goosebumps were running up your arms.

Pain filled and emotional

Able to bring you tears with every ballad. 

Then I fucked up. 

What was supposed to be a prank became a nightmare I can't escape from. 

In one reckless moment I threw everything away...only I didn't do it alone. 

I was just the only one of the two of us honest enough...or stupid enough to admit to it. 

My name is Evander Morrison. 

But the world knew me as Vander. 

I was a rockstar. 

A rebel. 

A wet dream. 

Now I'm just another ex-con. 

Cordell Wilson:

They said show him the ropes, but I look at him and nothing sits right about him doing this job. 

I knew from the first time I saw him play that he was born to be on the stage. His fall from grace shouldn't have ended that. Other men had come back from worse than a prank gone wrong. The remorse was written all over his face even all these years later, yet not one outlet had stepped forward to offer him the chance to express it. 

If it wasn't for Logan, he'd have stepped from behind those prison gates with nowhere to go and only the clothes he'd been wearing the night he was arrested. 

The clothes he burned in the first bonfire we had after he joined us. 

That eyepatch of his doesn't detract from his beauty, he'll always be rockstar handsome to me, but I know there is a story behind it, some horror he experienced while locked up in that prison. I can't help but feel like his fame, money or management company could have gotten him placed at a safer location, but when I asked Logan about it, all he'd say was that Vander didn't ask. 

That he didn't say or do anything to protect himself, he'd just admitted the truth and owned up to his mistake...

...only talking to Logan and hearing the story the media didn't portray has left me thinking it wasn't a sober one. 

That's not an excuse and I'd never try and make it sound like one...but it is a factor and I know better than anyone how that factor can fuck up a life. 

According to Logan, that particular bit of truth never came up, since there wasn't a trial. 

No need for one when Vander pled guilty before the DA could finished explaining the charges. 

Logan's words, not Vander.'s 

Vander never talks about it. 

Hell, he barely talks at all. 

The music world wouldn't touch him in any capacity, hell, Puma was still skeptical about having him as a part of our crew. It's a good thing it wasn't his decision. Vander not only works his ass off but he's always willing to jump in and help with a task, even when it wasn't assigned to him. 

He barely interacts, even in the down times when we're joking around, and he's cautious, super cautious, like he's afraid that any little mistake will get him kicked down the road. He's wrong. Not a single member of our crew is flawless, we all fuck up from time to time, but we're family, which means that we don't give up on someone just because they get something wrong. 

Sometimes I wonder if that's what Logan brought him here to see, or if there is more that's gone unsaid about their dynamic. 

When I watch them together, it's the only time a ghost of a smile crosses Vander's face. I know we're supposed to call him Evan, I do when I say his name out loud, but he'll never be Evan Morris to me. He'll always be Evander Morrison. 

And now that I've started to see the truth about who he is and not the public persona dissected all over the dirt sheets, it sucks to see his talent go to waste. 

Broken Chorus is part of the multi-author Road to Rocktoberfest 2024 series. Each book can be read as a standalone, but why not read them all and see what antics our bands get into next? Hot rockstars and the men who love them, what more could you ask for. Kick back, load up your kindle and enjoy the men of Rocktoberfest!

Broken Chorus preorder is here!

“Are you still sure you want to do this?”

Groaning, Logan buried his face in his pillow and tried to ignore the big man stroking a hand up and down his back, his massive hand pausing to cup his ass and give it a squeeze every now and again.

“Once the rigg is parked in front of that fence it’s going to be impossible to go unnoticed.”

“How many times do we need to go over this?” Logan grumbled as he punched the pillow and tried to mold it to cradle his head.

It was past time to replace the worn-out thing with something massively fluffy and made of memory foam, only he was notoriously forgetful when it came to remembering to pick up comfort items. Maybe because he wasn’t finished punishing himself for his past, which was what Cordell thought he was doing by hiring Vander to be a roadie for this tour.

“As many as it takes to get you to turn around and give up on this bit of insanity.”

“It isn’t insanity, Cor, it’s the right thing to do,” Logan said as he tried to wiggle out from beneath the weight of Cordell’s arm resting across his hips.

Nope.

No escape for him.

The man barely moved now that he had Logan pinned where he couldn’t walk away from the conversation, which sucked, because the longer he was awake, the more he needed to piss and spark up a joint for a little wake ‘n bake.

Was going to be a stressful enough morning without Cordell heaping his misgivings all over it, along with occasional twinges of jealousy whenever Logan mentioned the nature of the relationship he and Vander had shared before he’d been locked up.

Time and distance had changed it, but not the friendship that had been there since they were kids and Vander had declared Logan his big brother, despite a lack of blood relationship or marriage to tie them together.

“The guy you knew isn’t the guy who is going to come walking through those prison gates, you do know that, right?”

“How could I forget when you’ve insisted on reminding me since the moment I told you his release date and that I wanted to be the one there to greet him when he got out.”

“I might have been good with that if it wasn’t for the whole bit about hiring him and bringing him on the road with us,” Cordell insisted. “What happens when the dirt sheets get wind of it? Hell, you don’t know that they haven’t already. They could have someone there already camped out and waiting to interview him upon his release and then what, we pull up into a shitstorm and a story that could wreck this tour before it’s even gotten underway. Do you really want to do that to your fans…or the rest of your bandmates?”

“The only way the dirt rags find out what’s going on is if one you fuckers tells them,” Logan said. “And if that happens than the conversation we need to have next is going to be a lot more serious than the one we had about me hiring my oldest friend to work for the band.”

“You be a lot easier to accept if it had gone to a vote and not just been you making a unilateral decision.”

“That I would not have needed to make if I’d thought you guys would give him a fair shake and not base your opinions on what you’d read,” Logan said. “It paints a very one-sided picture.”

“Or a truth you were too blind to see because you were too close to him.” Cordell attempted to point out.