M
addox Kershaw is the main
vocalist of the world’s biggest boy band. He’s at the top of every music chart,
every award show, every social media platform, and every sexiest-man-alive
list. He’s the bad boy, the enigma, the man everyone on the planet wants a
piece of.
He’s also burned out and
exhausted, isolated and lonely. Not in a good headspace at the start of a tour.
Roscoe Hall is Maddox’s
personal manager. His job is high-flying, high-demand, high-profile, and he
loves it. Maddox has consumed his entire life for the past four years. Roscoe knows him. He sees the real Maddox no
one else gets to see.
He’s also in love with him.
When the tour and stress
become too much, when the world begins to close in, Roscoe becomes Maddox’s
lifeline. But as Maddox knows already, and as Roscoe is about to learn, the
brighter the spotlight, the darker the shadow.
Tag Line: The brighter the spotlight, the
darker the shadow
N.R. Walker Bio
N.R.
Walker is an Australian author, who loves her genre of gay romance. She loves
writing and spends far too much time doing it, but wouldn’t have it any other
way.
She
is many things: a mother, a wife, a sister, a writer. She has pretty, pretty
boys who live in her head, who don’t let her sleep at night unless she gives
them life with words.
She
likes it when they do dirty, dirty things… but likes it even more when they
fall in love.
She
used to think having people in her head talking to her was weird, until one day
she happened across other writers who told her it was normal.
She’s
been writing ever since…
For more about N.R. Walker you can find her at:
Website
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Email:
nrwalker@nrwalker.net
Excerpt:
“Roscoe Hall,” I answered my
phone, out of time and patience. It didn’t dawn on me that it was Ryan’s number
until after I’d said my name. It was my twentieth call this morning already.
“Just confirming ETA for 9:00
am.”
I checked my watch. It was
7:30 now and I’d already been up for far too long. It was a big day, and I
could take a moment to breathe once we were all together.
“Yeah, Ryan. Will be there,
thanks.”
There was a brief pause. “Is
Maddox with you?”
“On my way to get him now.”
“See you there.”
I pocketed my phone and did
one last check. Phone, wallet, passport, tickets, keys. I grabbed my carry-on,
locked my front door, and wheeled my suitcase down to the waiting car. I hadn’t
even greeted the driver when my phone rang again, and it beeped again on
my way to collect Maddox.
I was organized and efficient,
aggressively so.
It’s what made me good at my
job. Being the personal manager for one of the world’s biggest boy bands was
every minute of my life.
These boys didn’t accept
second best for anything, and neither did I.
And I should clarify that
while they were classified as a boy band, they were men. They might have
started out as boys—they were just kids in high school when they formed their
first band. But they were twenty-three now. They’d done the small local gigs,
needing their parents’ permission to play in bars and clubs around LA when they
were underage.
The story of how the band
called Atrous made it to the big time was well-known.
The five boys came from
nothing. A garage band that crossed pop with rock and rap, playing small gigs
wherever they could, when a well-known radio DJ saw them and uploaded footage
to his social media. Platinum Entertainment, one of America’s biggest
entertainment management companies, signed them, and they’d been on the top of
the world music stage for the last four years.
To the outside world, these
guys were the ultimate success story.
They had no idea what went on
when the lights went out.
Saying I was the personal manager of the whole band
wasn’t true either. Personal assistant, handler, manager. It was all the same.
But it wasn’t just me. I was one of three. Ryan Morten, Amber Seratt, and I
were the personal managers of Atrous, as a whole. While the three managers
looked after the five band members, I was, however, the unstated personal
manager of one of them in particular.
Lead vocalist and rapper, main
dancer, bad boy, Maddox Kershaw.
Ryan and Amber took care of
Jeremy, Wes, Luke, and Blake. But Maddox was mine.
Well, not mine. But mine.
God, how I wished he were mine . . .
Over the last four years,
Maddox and I’d just gelled. He didn’t trust easily, and for some reason he’d
put his trust in me. And the truth was, he needed his own personal manager more
than the other four guys.
Maddox was the face of Atrous.
Unwilling, but the face, nonetheless.
He carried the weight of their
reputation, their brand. He was the one they hounded, the one they chased, the
one they followed, the one that made headlines every other day.
He wore black, he had a full
sleeve of tattoos, perfect skin, and he had attitude to spare. His motto was to
burn down the institutions, to stand tall for those who had to kneel, and to
speak for those who had been silenced.
He resonated with the youth
around the world.
He was also incredibly
good-looking.
When I say good-looking, I
mean hot. Sexy, enigmatic, ethereal, even.
His heritage had been talked
about a million times. So much of his life was public. His grandmother on his
mother’s side was Japanese, and his grandparents on his father’s side were
Dutch. He was a second generation American, a very talented musician, and he
was incredibly smart.
He sang like an angel and
danced like the devil.
And he answered the door
looking like a mix of both. His hair was wet from the shower, he smelled warm
and clean, he wore black cargo pants, a black T-shirt, and combat boots. It was
his standard attire. Seeing him like that made my heart feel far too big for my
chest. “Forget your key?” he asked. He even almost smiled.
It had been so long since I’d
seen him smile . . .
Yes, I had a key to his house.
But that was for emergencies only. I followed him inside. “You ready? The
others are meeting us there.”
He grumbled something that
sounded like assent. His house was still dark, open and vast, mind-bogglingly
expensive, and it felt empty. It was in Beverly Hills, worth a reported twelve
million with incredible views of the canyon and the city, but Maddox had the
blinds drawn.
He plucked a black hoodie off
the back of his sofa and pulled it on. I ignored how his T-shirt lifted a
little, exposing a sliver of pale skin above his waistband. I’d seen him
shirtless a thousand times. Hell, I’d even seen him in his underwear. It was
nothing new, but it still managed to warm my blood.
I grabbed his two suitcases,
wheeling them toward the door. He picked up his black backpack. “Got my
passport?”
“Yep,” I replied. “We’re all
good. Your mom’s got her key and security numbers?”
“Yeah,” he said with a shrug.
His mother was going to come
look after his place while we were gone. We’d be gone for almost seven weeks.
Seven long, grueling weeks.
“Come on, I have an iced
coffee waiting for you in the car.”
He pulled up his hood, but I
swear there was the beginning of a smile before the shadow stole it.
My phone buzzed again, and I
pulled it out of my pocket and groaned at the screen. Another message that
could wait until we were in the car. I pulled the door shut behind us, made
sure it was locked, and wheeled the luggage to the waiting car. I opened the
car door for him, I closed the door for him, I loaded the bags into the
trunk—it was my job to do these things for him—and finally I got into the back
of the car with Maddox.
My phone buzzed again, and I
thumbed out a quick reply. We’d been driving for about ten minutes when I
realized Maddox hadn’t said a word. He’d sipped his coffee but not much else. I
looked at him then, really looked at him, and underneath the killer good looks
was a tired man.
“You sleep okay?” I asked.
He scoffed as his answer, then
glanced pointedly at my phone. “Did you? Has your phone stopped yet?”
I didn’t need to reply because
we both knew the answer.
He nodded because he knew he
was right and proving his point, I replied to some more emails and messages on
the drive downtown. Yes, we all lived in LA, and yes, we were staying at a
hotel in LA because when the tour began, the band and the whole crew would stay
together. Mostly for logistical and security reasons, but also for bonding. We
were one unit from day one, regardless of location.
As the car pulled into the
hotel’s underground parking lot, Maddox’s eyes trained on the people rushing
about. “The guys are already here?” he asked.
“Yep. Arrived five minutes
ago.”
His shoulders relaxed a
little, and for that I was glad. He and his bandmates were like brothers;
they’d been through everything together. He was closer to Jeremy than the
others, but the bond between the five of them was clear. I was relieved that
he’d be with them again. I was pretty sure he’d spent the last few days by
himself, holed up in his house. I’d spoken to him on the phone, even came to
see him a few times, but getting ready for a tour was a busy time for me.
Before we came to a complete
stop, he was quiet and chewed on his bottom lip. I wanted to ask him if he was
okay, but there wasn’t time. I doubted he’d even answer that question, or
answer it honestly, anyway.
“You excited?” I asked
instead. “Sellout stadium tour, twenty-three concerts. You ready for that?”
He met my gaze and didn’t look
away. His smile was as brief as it was beautiful. “Yeah. Of course.”
I didn’t believe him, and it
was devastating how he could look right at me with those dark, dark eyes and
speak so sincerely while he lied.
I spent almost every day with
him. I knew him. I knew the real Maddox Kershaw, not the Maddox he showed the
world. The private one, the quiet one, the intellectual
one . . .
The miserable one.
The Maddox I’d been secretly
in love with for years . . . the Maddox I could never have.
“Maddox,” I said, but his door
opened from the outside, and people were getting luggage from our car and
giving directions, and there was no time.
The commotion had begun. These
seven weeks were going to be brutal.
He lowered his head, pulled up
his hood to hide his face, and got out of the car.
Code
Red
by N.R. Walker brought me to tears. There were so many emotional, sad,
and emotionally draining parts, that I felt as if I went through a roller
coaster/tilt a whirl.
Teenage,
now adult, singing sensation Maddox had a secret that I’m not sure even he
fully knew he had. Along with his four best buddies, the five guys were
sensation group Atrous- working themselves to the ground to please the
recording company, their fans, and sometimes even themselves.
Life
as a super star was not easy. Managers, security, personal managers; all people
that were always in your bubble whether you liked it or not. Roscoe Hall was
one of those people, personal manager to Maddox, and the man who loved him from
afar.
Ms.
Walker
has the uncanny ability to create a world where the reader became a part of the
action. Good or bad, happy or sad, everything which occurred with the
characters was felt through the reader.
At
first, I thought Maddox was needy and somewhat spoiled, but very quickly I determined
that he suffered in silence from anxiety, but held to the credo, the fans came
first. Roscoe gave him peace and stability and eventually the two gave in to
their feelings.
Ms.
Walker
wrote with delicacy and grace, wading through the stigma of mental anxiety,
giving it life yet with controllability. The messaged delivered was one of
self-acceptance in light of self-doubt. Her characters showed real life
dilemmas, the pretty and the ugly, while allowing them to forge forward with
help from others in friendship and love.
Code
Red
was life, not wrapped up in a neat package, but in the messiness that life
usually can be.
Definite
S.E.X.
A
five handcuff review
~~~~~
2021 ©Evelise Archer All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. No portion of this work may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.
