by Shari Copell
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MY NAME IS CHELSEA WHITAKER.
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS
SHARI COPELL HANGS OUT AT:
Rock’n Tapestries
Copyright © 2013 by Shari Copell. All rights reserved.
Editor: Tara Chevrestt
Cover: Kerry Jesberger
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems, copied to any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author. You must not circulate this book in any format.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the point of acquisition and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever loved a musician.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, my gratitude to Kerry for the wonderful covers she delivers.
And to my husband, the best bass player I know, who has taken me on my own wild ride for the past twenty-nine years. Thanks so much for helping with the technical jargon.
Oh, and Tara Chevrestt? You rock!
MY NAME IS CHELSEA WHITAKER.
I am a work in progress. I suspect that will always be true.
I own every single one of my lousy choices in the same way that I own my greatest accomplishments. My epic failures sit on the same shelf as my victories.
Life is like that, isn’t it? A blend of shining-star triumphs and major fuck-ups. Moments of weakness sprinkled with strength you had no idea you possessed. It’s messy and it’s ugly and it hurts like hell sometimes, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.
I’m just really glad to be here.
CHAPTER ONE
I was musing over the colors of a soap bubble when Scott Dreyfus, my boss’s son, walked up behind me.
“Princess Chelsea washing dishes! What’d you do? Draw the short straw?”
I glanced back at him. I must’ve looked a sight, up to my elbows in soapy water and dirty beer glasses, with my hair falling into my eyes. “No short straw drawn. I volunteered to wash glasses tonight. I like it back here.”
I was typically a waitress at Tapestries, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania bar where I’d spent nearly every day for the last five years of my life. Tonight, though, I had an ulterior motive for wanting to wash dishes in the back room. I’d miss out on the tips, but it was worth it.
Tapestries was “the” place to play for local bands. It was not unheard of for incognito agents from the recording industry to put their butts in our chairs. Just the year before, a local band by the name of Brass Monkeys was signed to a rather lucrative contract. The bands fought to get on our stage; we were booked solid from Thursdays to Saturday nights for the next three years. No one ever cancelled a gig at Tapestries.
“Don’t I usually put the prettiest girls out to serve?” Scott’s eyebrows drew up to a peak in the middle of his forehead. I turned away so he wouldn’t see me roll my eyes. What a jerk.
“Couldn’t tell you, Scott. I don’t make the rules around here.” I bit my lip. The less said to this asshole, the better.
Ignoring Scott Dreyfus never seemed to work for me. He stepped closer and ran his hands over my ass. I knew the drill. This would end with him attempting to grind his cock against me. I was one of only a few women at Tapestries he hadn’t slept with yet, and I had news for him. It. Was. Never. Going. To. Happen.
I guess he thought he had me trapped because my hands were in soapy water. I half-turned and said as calmly as I could, “If you touch me again, I’m going to smash one of these glasses over your head.”
He jumped back as if I’d pulled a knife on him. “I’ll have you fired!”
“Oh, big loss. Like there are no other bars in Pittsburgh who wouldn’t love to have an experienced waitress.” He didn’t need to know I was bluffing. I liked my job at Tapestries and didn’t want to lose it.
Scott’s lips curled as he glared at me. Being shot down was a new experience for him. “I bet your cunt is as icy as the rest of you.” He picked up the partial bag of frozen hamburger patties he’d dropped on the floor and launched it at me. “Here. Put these back in the freezer. You’ll be right at home there, bitch.”
I yanked my hands out of the water and snatched the burgers out of mid-air. He spun on his heels and stormed toward the door, but turned back at the last second.
“Someone said you know the guitar player for the band tonight? Asher Pratt? They say he’s going places.”
“Someone is wrong. I don’t know him.” I dropped the bag of hamburgers on the sink next to me and plunged my hands back into the warm water.
I was lying through my teeth.
After Scott left, I blew out a breath and turned my attention back to the soap bubbles.
The truth was, I did know Asher Pratt, lead guitar player for the band Dirty Turtles. Intimately. It was why I’d begged to do dishes in the back room.
Our relationship ended five years before. I have never been able to put my finger on just why Asher affected me the way he did. I’m not even sure I can describe what he did to my insides.
He had a carnal vibe about him, an inherent maleness that was so compelling, even older women stopped to stare when he passed them by. I’d craved his presence when we weren’t together. Too bad I ended up being just another pathetic moon orbiting his alpha-male planet.
My family moved to Pittsburgh from Rochester, New York in my junior year of high school. I guess I’m pretty enough—long, dark hair, round blue eyes, tall and thin, yet curvaceous. No different than a lot of girls out there, but you know how guys sniff around the new girl at school no matter what she looks like.
I first locked eyes with Asher Pratt eight years ago. I was sixteen, and he was eighteen. He was walking down the middle of the hall by my locker, in slow motion it seemed, as everyone scattered out of his way. I caught a glimpse of long legs encased in tight jeans, mid-length brown hair trailing out behind him. His chin was dropped in determination, his gooey caramel eyes fastened on mine in high-predator mode. I would later find out the bulge in his pants was real. He oozed sexual promise. I couldn’t look away.
I’m coming for you, Chelsea. It won’t do you a bit of good to run from me.
Run? Ha! I nearly went to my knees in front of my locker. Take me. Take me now.
I still don’t get it. Do they have to work at having that effect on women? Or is it in their DNA? Some type of primal breeding instinct that assures them the pick of the best females? Whatever it is, it’s fucking poison.
I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, I was swept up in Typhoon Asher, taken high into the sky in a deli
rious whirlwind of emotion and sexual bliss, and slammed hard to the ground after a ridiculously brief amount of time.
He was a high school senior, already a guitar rock god, a legend in the Pittsburgh music scene. “You should feel lucky he noticed you,” they said. “He only dates the hottest girls.”
It didn’t feel much like luck. In hindsight, it seemed as though I’d made the choice to commit slow suicide by falling in love with Asher Pratt.
Bottom line: young rock gods are not monogamous. Ever. Their life is a buffet of female flesh. They have only to smile and bat their eyes to taste the bounty.
He plucked my innocent heart from my chest, shredded it with one woman after another, then shoved it back into my ribcage. When it started beating again, when I finally started getting to my feet, I’d been a thousand kinds of fool and given him tacit permission to do it again.
I miss you. There’s no one like you. No one understands me the way you do, Chelsea.
The water was warm on my hands, but I shivered. Nothing good had ever come from reliving my past with Asher. It never brought me peace. There were so many unanswered questions.
I wanted to believe you, you bastard. I did believe you!
Asher Pratt had been a drug for me, and I wasn’t sure I wasn’t still addicted. I certainly wasn’t going to test it. Never again would I allow myself to be the stupid moon that orbited his planet. If he was going to be present at Tapestries that night, I was going to stay as far away from him as possible.
Saturday nights at Tapestries were always busy, but this particular night was chaos. When I wasn’t washing dishes, I was scrambling around getting supplies for the cooks, doing prep work in the kitchen, and just generally trying to be useful without going out into the dining room and stage area.
The Dirty Turtles began their set at 10:00 p.m. They really were a good heavy metal, eighties-cover band, throwing in a few original songs here and there. More than once, I started bopping to their songs in the kitchen. I felt ripped off that I couldn’t go out and enjoy them properly.
The usual band sluts showed up to pay tribute. I could see them when I walked past the half-door into the bar on my way to the kitchen. Couple of visuals for you: tight black tops, short black skirts. Oh, and massive tits. Get the picture? I knew Asher and his Turtles were getting a good eyeful, based on some of the outfits I was seeing.
When I found myself gritting my teeth, clenching my fists, and thinking about a certain guitar player, I knew it was time to go back to washing dishes in the back room.
I slammed the door behind me, relieved that it muffled the music and the boisterous shouts of the crowd. Someone had redrawn soapy water in the utility sink for me. There were several large tubs full of glasses sitting beside it. There was at least an hour’s worth of work, and I was glad. By the time I was done, the Dirty Turtles would be finished, torn down, and gone, and my life could go on as scheduled.
My gaze fell on the plastic bag of hamburger patties that Scott had thrown at me, still sitting on the edge of the sink. Shit. I’d forgotten to put them away. They’d be half-thawed by now. I would just hide them in a lonely corner of the large walk-in freezer down the hallway behind me until they were refrozen.
I pulled on the handle of the freezer and went in, letting it close behind me. I tucked the bag of patties behind several cases of frozen French fries, wiped my hands on my skirt, and walked back to open the door.
I pulled on the handle; it wobbled in my hands. I heard a sickening, metallic clink as something broke inside the handle mechanism.
The door did not open.
The handle flopped uselessly in my hands—it was no longer engaged with the hardware that opened the door. The freezer was old enough that it didn’t have any of the newer safety features. I held my breath as I realized what that meant.
I was trapped inside a walk-in freezer set at twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit wearing only sneakers, a very short skirt, and a thin Tapestries T-shirt.
Panic set in. I pounded on the door. I screamed until my throat was raw. I pounded some more. I threw things at the door. I did all this for at least half an hour. No one could hear me over the band playing. No one would find me unless they needed something from the freezer, and they were just about done cooking for the night.
I pried at the door with a knife that someone had left on one of the crates of rib-eye steaks. The blade bent then broke. Turning around, I let my gaze play over the contents of the freezer, foolishly hoping to see an axe or a crowbar. Needless to say, there was no reason for either of those things to be in a freezer.
I took one last stab at screaming and pounding on the door before I pulled my skirt down a little to protect my legs and sat on a case of kielbasa. As I rubbed my arms and shivered, I tried to think of a way to save myself before I froze to death.
The only thought that came to me was this: it wouldn’t be long until my cunt really was as icy as this freezer.
CHAPTER TWO
At first, freezing to death was horrible. My teeth clattered together like castanets. My body shivered so violently trying to warm me that I pulled a muscle in my neck.
If I can just find something to cover myself... Desperate, I began opening the boxes of food and removing the large plastic bags. Was plastic a good insulator? I’d find out. It was all I had.
It helped, but it wasn’t good enough. I‘ve never been so cold in my life. I didn’t want to die this way, but I knew it was inevitable.
How much time had passed since I closed the door? There was a point where I just ceased to care. After a while, I began to warm up. I stopped shivering. Things were soft and dreamy, and I was drowsy. I threw the plastic off and relaxed down onto the floor, limp and boneless, and tried to go to sleep on the tropical beach I now appeared to be lying on.
Pain was my next experience. So much fucking pain. And shouting. Stop with the noise already! I was languid and sluggish, and some asshole was touching me. I wanted them to go away.
They didn’t go away though. In fact, there were soon more hands on me, shaking, poking. More shouting. I heard someone ask if I were dead. I tried to tell them I wasn’t, but my body wasn’t taking orders from my brain.
I heard and felt plastic being pulled away, then I was lifted up in someone’s warm arms. My chest convulsed as I tried to draw a breath. I hadn’t needed to breathe on my tropical beach, but I did now. It hurt like a bitch.
“Call 9-1-1!” someone yelled. Blah blah blah. Don’t you know? It’s too late for 9-1-1. Let me die.
Someone else knew it was too late, but they weren’t willing to let me die without a fight. “She’s too cold. We can’t wait for the goddamned ambulance! She’ll be dead by then. Wrap her up in my coat. I’m taking her to the fucking hospital myself!” Then I heard him—my guardian angel was male—mutter under his breath, “Son-of-a-bitch, Chelsea. Fuck!”
Don’t bother, dude. I don’t care.
Somewhere, in the frozen tundra of my gray matter, I knew this voice. The night air bathed my face as my rescuer ran outside with me. He clutched me tight against his chest, wrapped in a coat that smelled all too familiar. I tried to remember, but it was painful.
Things filtered into my cognizance as I thawed. I was laid across the back seat of a car by gentle hands. My hero was frantic, continually pleading, “Don’t die. Don’t die. Please don’t die.”
The car smelled familiar too. I inhaled sharply. I was startled by how quickly it came to me. Lemon and a man’s cologne I had no name for just then.
I know who this is! I was overwhelmed with blind panic. In my mind I flailed, screamed, and escaped from the car. I couldn’t make it happen though.
I pried my frost-encrusted eyelids open, had a peep at the back of my hero’s head, and then squeezed them shut again.
Damnit!
I was lying half-dead in the back seat of a car driven by Asher Pratt.
Now I know the skeptics among us would ask, Who didn’t see that coming?
Me.
My next coherent experience was a smell. My mother’s perfume, Dolce Vita. I loved everything about my beautiful mother, but I especially loved that perfume.
I forced my eyes open and looked up into her blue ones. Mom bent over me, cooing and clucking. I could hear soft hisses and beeps off to one side, and I knew what that meant. I was in the hospital, hooked up to machinery.
My father was off somewhere else in my room, muttering under his breath. He was going to sue and make no mistake about that. Nobody puts his little girl in danger. My parents are awesome.
I must have faded out again, because my mom grabbed my face and forced my gaze back to hers. “Chelsea, wake up this instant!”
“Mom.” My voice sounded as though I’d gargled with Clorox.
She started to cry, and it made me feel bad. I remembered everything, right up until I’d wrapped myself in plastic and laid down on the floor. I’m just one of those people who has weird things happen to them. This time it nearly killed me.
Daddy was suddenly at the other side of the bed, peering into my face.
“Why can’t I move?” I wanted to. I couldn’t. “Am I paralyzed? Did they amputate something?”
“No, baby. They needed to bring your core temperature up as fast as possible, so they wrapped you in electric blankets. “My father was as pale as snow, his brown eyes large with fear.
I picked my head up and looked down the length of my body. Wrapped was an understatement. I looked like a butterfly pupa in a cocoon. The only thing sticking out of the blankets was my face. And I was still cold.
I nodded and dropped my head back onto the pillow.
“The doctors said you were within fifteen minutes of dying. I’m going to sue that miserable boss of yours for having a defective freezer.” My father’s hands were wrapped so tightly around the safety bars of my bed that his knuckles were white.
