Two Worlds Collided
Title Page
Prologue
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
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
Two Worlds Collided
KAREN MICHELLE NUTT
Smashwords Edition
Two Worlds Collided
Copyright © 2016 Karen Michelle Nutt
Art Cover Copyright © 2016 Karen Michelle Nutt,
Gillian's Book Covers, "Judge Your Book By Its Cover"
Editing Copyright © 2016 Briana Nickol and Cathy Nickol
Smashwords Licensing Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with other people, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this ebook without purchasing it and it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your ebook retailer of choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
Two Worlds Collided is a work of fiction. Though actual locations may be mentioned, they are used in a fictitious manner and the events and occurrences were invented in the mind and imagination of the author except for the inclusion of actual historical facts. Similarities of characters or names used within to any person – past, present, or future – are coincidental except where actual historical characters are purposely interwoven.
Dedication
To all...
Laugh like you mean it.
Sing to your heart's content.
Love with all your heart.
Live life to the fullest.
Two Worlds Collided
Evie Reid, on a whim, agrees to travel back in time to 1997 to change bad boy Bellamy Lovel's path of destruction. She's smart with a college degree, but she's still fan-girl crazy for the rock band, Civilized Heathens. Evie knows despite all Bellamy's smiles and enthusiasm on the stage, he's destined to end it all on one lonely night in a hotel room unless she can change his path.
Bellamy isn't keen on having Evie as his personal assistant, hired by his band mates to watch over him, and keep him on schedule. However, there is something about the woman that sparks his interest, despite his best to ignore her. When darkness threatens to consume him, he realizes she may be the only light that will chase the shadows away.
Prologue
I'm Just a Man
September 1997
On September 22, 1997, the media broadcasted the news to millions of fans…
Lovel's death has stunned the music industry here in the United States and Europe…
They're saying this vibrant young man hanged himself…
Pop's wild and vibrant man dies alone in his hotel room…
Rock star dead at age 28…
A cocktail of drugs may have contributed to his death…
Rock star blames himself for his father's untimely death…
Over five hundred flowers cover Bellamy Lovel's casket as Los Angeles says goodbye to the rock star on this day in 1997.
Bryce plopped down next to Evie on the sofa. "He took the selfish way out and left everyone out to dry," he said bitterly. "Do you know how many people are out of work because of him?" Civilized Heathens hired her brother as their cameraman and photographer. He'd been with them for five years, and was friends with Clark Barrymore, the rhythm guitar and saxophone player of the group, since the third grade – long before the band hit stardom status. Bryce spoke out of anger and grief. "Why didn't he talk to one of us?" His voice had softened and he shook his head.
All day long, every news station had been showing clips of Civilized Heathen's performances, with Bellamy as the focal point. The one airing on the television right now was his last performance at the Greek.
"Don't waste your love on a dead guy," Bryce told her.
"Don't be ridiculous," she scoffed. "I'm not in love with him." She didn't know him. She barely knew Clark, who'd come over to the house in his youth and teased her endlessly about her hair. He'd sing the Chia Pet jingle every time he saw her and called her Chia despite her protests. She couldn't help if her hair resembled the bride of Frankenstein's, a frizzy rat's nest at best.
Her gaze fastened on the television screen where the legend danced on the stage as he belted out the song about love and lust on a lonely night. He made women long to be with him. Men wanted to be him as if he were some god sent down from the heavens, but he was just a man, a man with issues, and who dealt with depression. He had turned to a dark side and once he found himself there, he couldn't escape.
Chapter One
Disappear
Los Angeles, September 2007
Evie Reid, the president of the Civilized Heathens fan club slid into the booth at the local coffee shop where two of her close friends and members of the fan club were already seated. They had ordered coffee and pie it appeared, and since only crust was left on their plate, they'd been here a while.
Today had started out taxing and never improved. First, her alarm didn't go off and she missed her yoga practice and three of the nurses, she worked with at the Senior Living Facility, called in sick. It was like the universe was telling her go back to bed and start over fresh tomorrow.
On the other hand, the plans, for the gala set for next week, were coming along wonderfully. Tribute bands were auditioning for the live performance, and Leon Green, the keyboard player of the original band, confirmed he would make a special appearance.
This year marked the tenth anniversary of Bellamy Lovel's death, the lead singer and songwriter of the band, who died too young, a tragic death where he took his own life. Millions mourned, still mourned for the vibrant and sometimes wild man who could light up the stage with just his presence, but then add his sultry voice to the mix and he had the audience mesmerized.
"Hey, Evie," Lisa Blaine paused long enough to greet her then continued relaying another story about how her mother didn't understand her. Lisa, a twenty-four, leggy blonde still lived at home with her parents, while she tried to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. She enrolled at the community college for the third year in a row, but with no plans to stick it out past the first semester. Seemingly, upset over something her mother had said to her earlier in the day, Lisa tossed her long strands of hair over her shoulder in an exaggerated huff of frustration and it fell like a waterfall of silk.
Evie sighed. She would kill for those straight strands to her unruly reddish-brown tresses she kept knotted at the base of her neck. Evie was average height with a curvy body. Her eyes were hazel, but one was tinted with a splash of baby blue. The mismatch colors made people unsure what eye to concentrate on when they talked to her. Her hand pushed her glasses back on the bridge of her nose. She had contacts but preferred her glasses when she was in a hurry.
"You're late," Kelsey Parish announced as if Evie didn't already know this.
"Sorry," she told her. "Had trouble leaving work. Short staffed today."
Kelsey was the same age as she was, thirty-four and had lived in Louisiana until she was ten when her Haitian mother uprooted her and her sister to drive across country to California, following a boyfriend who ended up being bad news. Kelsey never knew her Irish father, who had skipped town once he learned he was about to become a dad for the second time. With flawless caramel colored skin, black hair that she cut asymmetrical and straightened, and amber colored eyes that added to the mystery of her exotic looks, it would seem she inherited the best features from both of her parents.
She and Kelsey had been good friends since they were in college when they roomed together. Both struggled to complete nursing school while working part time at a restaurant that made them wear tight shirts and skimpy shorts, but the tips were good. To blow off steam, some nights they would crank up the stereo, drink wine and listen to Civilized Heathens into the wee hours of the night.
Now, Kelsey was an ER nurse in a downtown Los Angeles hospital. She worked crappy long hours and had to deal with degenerates who played with knives and guns like they were cowboys out in the old west. However, she claimed she loved every minute of working there. Personally, Evie thought she was crazy, but if anyone could handle the criminal element that walked through the hospital's doors, Kelsey could do it.
This unique woman had a heart of gold that most overlooked because of her brass ways. With her free time, she helped organize the events for the fan club, showed up when they needed extra help, even if it only entailed setting up tables or making necessary phone calls for an upcoming event. Generous too. She donated money, treated the members to coffee or volunteered to pick up people if they didn't have a ride to the monthly meet-ups or to the special events.
"You're obsessed," Lisa reenacted the tiff she had with her mother. "This is what my Mom tells me as I'm leaving the house this morning. Isn't that what being in a fan club is all about?" She threw up her hands. "We can't get enough!"
Evie agreed. It was a fan club after all. She didn't know how to explain her obsession anymore than Lisa could to her mother. Civilized Heathens, the rock band of the late 80s and 90s, mesmerized her. The music moved her, the lyrics were poetic, and the lead singer, Bellamy Lovel, with his long curly hair and striking blue eyes, lit up the screen with his energetic presence on stage. The combo proved to be the fascination that still drew people to the fan site they created last year on the ever-popular forum, launched by Harvard University students. Millions, who hadn't had the chance to see Bellamy Lovel perform when he was alive, could now live vicariously through the videos loaded on the site by the fans. Gotta love technology.
"'Isn't he dead'?" Lisa mimicked her mother in a whiny voice. "As if she doesn't already know the answer. "'You need help', she says. 'You're in love with a dead man'."
"Don't listen to your mother," Kelsey told her. "Of course you're obsessed, we all are. You're right. It wouldn't be a fan club otherwise."
"I just wish…" Lisa sighed, "I wish there could have been some way to save him, you know." She absentmindedly played with the spoon in front of her before placing it on the napkin once again. "I took a picture with him once. Still have it in a frame on my dresser. Of course, my mother gives me a whole lot of grief about it, 'Unless you can time travel and change his past, you best forget about him and stop wasting your time with the fan club. If you put as much time as you do with that damn fan club, you'd have finished school by now. Why can't you be more like your sister?' Jeez, I'm trying to find what I want to do. I can't help it if nothing interests me enough to choose a major." She rolled her eyes. "Anyway, fans have been adding their stories on the site about the first time they saw Bellamy perform and where. There's also interesting stories about mementos fans have kept. Someone has a napkin Bellamy doodled on, and another posted they have a lock of his hair."
"Makes me wonder how they managed that?" Kelsey said.
"Right?" Lisa agreed. "Like to see it though."
"Did I ever tell you guys, I was approached to be Bellamy's private assistant on that last tour?" Evie asked.
"What?" both Lisa and Kelsey said in unison as they stared at her.
"As long as we've been friends," Kelsey said, "you left that little tidbit out. What gives?"
"Yeah, what gives?" Lisa repeated. "'Cause, I would have remembered if you had said something like that. Do tell." She leaned her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hand.
"There's not much to tell. I didn't take the job, obviously, but I had my reasons." She chewed on her lower lip as the memory of that reason came to mind.
"We're listening." Kelsey leveled her gaze at her, daring her to refuse to continue.
She shifted her weight. She'd bet Kelsey perfected that look while working in the ER. Anyone would be hard pressed to refuse her demands. "You know my brother was Civilized Heathens' photographer and cameraman for promotional purposes."
Lisa nodded. "Your brother's work is fantastic."
"The band wanted someone with a low profile to be Bellamy's assistant while they conducted interviews and other promo events before the tour began, and preferably someone with a nursing degree. Bellamy at the time had been in rehab," she reminded them since there weren't too many secrets involving the last months of the singer's life, they would have read the same articles she had. "But he hadn't completed the program, and because it had been a voluntary stay, he checked himself out early. The band knew he was unpredictable, and wanted someone to keep him on schedule."
"They wanted a babysitter," Kelsey added what Evie hadn't said.
"I've always felt guilty I didn't take the job." She shrugged. "Might not have been able to do anything to stop him in the end, but… I suppose we'll never know."
"Out of curiosity," Kelsey asked, "why didn't you take the job?"
Only her brother knew her reasons, but she guessed it didn't matter now. "I've been a big fan of Civilized Heathens since the 80s."
"Of course," Lisa said with a nod. "I dig those 80s songs." Lisa would have been four-years-old when their single, 'Go For It' reached number one on the pop rock charts, and only fourteen when Bellamy Lovel died.
"I was banned from Civilized Heathens' concerts. Told by security if they ever saw me at one again, they'd have me arrested."
"Omigod, you?" Lisa asked. "You? Calm, collected bookworm that you are, how in the world did you manage to piss off the band?"
"It was all a misunderstanding, really." She shrugged. "And I realize it had only been a scare tactic on their part, but I was embarrassed. When I was offered the job, I was scared they'd remember the incident. At the time, it seemed it would be the end of the world if they did."
As she told the story, she thought back to the 1987 concert at the small venue in Orange, where the host stamped the patron's hands with a red circle if they happened to be underage and couldn't be served alcohol. Funny, the band members were all underage. She'd been fourteen at the time, skinny, no boobs and she'd just had her braces put on, not one of her finer years in the looks department. Her brother, three years her senior, had taken her to the concert after she begged him and then threatened she'd tell their parents about the girls he would sneak into his bedroom. He finally relented.
She stood right at the stage, where all the other teenage girls were huddled. Most of them were a few years older than she was, more developed and most likely would catch Bellamy's eye before he'd ever glance in her direction, but she didn't care. She was in heaven.
The eighteen-year-old Bellamy knew how to play to the audience even back then. He leaned down and shook hands with the screaming girls at the stage, her included. She hadn't meant to hold onto him so tightly nor did she mean to yank him toward her, but he lost his footing. Thank goodness he was agile and shifted his fall to land on his feet in front of her as he steadied them both, but the crowd pushed forward trying to reach him. She was crushed against his chest and his necklace tangled itself in her hair.
Luckily, security came to the rescue and quickly lifted Bellamy back onto
the stage and to safety, but his necklace didn't make the transition and was torn from his neck.
"Wow, that was close," Bellamy said from the stage. "Babe, maybe later?" he winked at her.
He actually winked and her mouth started to hurt from the wide grin she wore. He continued to belt out the song as if nothing had happened, but her world had tilted on its axis. She gripped the necklace that happened to be a bonelike carved hippocampus, a mystical sea beast with a head of a horse and a tail of a fish. She had to give it back to him. She knew this. He hadn't meant for her to have it. Her darn frizzy hair.
"I don't have backstage passes," her brother told her. He had yet to become their photographer and cameraman for the band, and it had been a few years since Clark and he'd hung out together. Clark's parents had divorced when he was in the tenth grade and he'd moved to live with his mother in Irvine.
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