by A. K. Evans
Fragile
Rock Stars & Romance: Cash & Demi
A.K. Evans
Copyright © 2021 by A.K. Evans
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Cover Artist
Cover artwork © Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations
www.okaycreations.com
Editing & Proofreading
Ellie McLove, My Brother’s Editor
www.mybrotherseditor.net
Table of Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Epilogue
Preview of Wish
Also by A.K. Evans
About the Author
Prologue
Demi
“It’s never going to change with you, is it, Martin?”
“Oh, fuck, Brenda. Won’t you ever just shut up?”
The yelling never stopped.
I felt sick to my stomach.
It was Thursday, this was the third time this week, and they were still at it. How had they not lost their voices yet? I was exhausted just listening to them for the few minutes that I did. I didn’t even know what they were arguing about anymore. I just knew I couldn’t take the yelling much longer.
I closed my bedroom door as quietly as I could. Considering how loudly they were shouting, I don’t know why I was being so careful not to make any noise. It wasn’t like they’d hear me anyway.
Moving across the room to my desk, I picked up my headphones, put them on, and turned on my music. Anything to drown out the noise and help me focus.
I sat down at my desk, listened to one song, and tried to get lost in the words, hoping they’d erase all the garbage in my mind. When the song ended and another started, I was at least able to concentrate enough on my homework.
I was a freshman in high school, a place I hated almost as much as being at home. School was tough, and it wasn’t the work that was the problem, either. I was an average student and did well enough.
My issue was with trying to find a place where I fit. I wasn’t one of the jocks. Though I loved music, I didn’t play any instruments, so the band was out. I wasn’t one of the nerds. I didn’t join the drama club. I was just… me. And who I was didn’t seem to fit anywhere.
I wasn’t a complete loner. I did have a friend from my homeroom that was also in a few of my classes. But beyond school-related stuff, we didn’t really hang out ever.
I’d gotten through nearly all of my homework when a hand gently touched my shoulder, and I practically jumped out of my seat.
Spinning around, I saw my mom standing there. She was wearing her scrubs, which meant that she’d be leaving for work. It seemed that it was the only time there was ever any peace in the house. Mom was a nurse who worked the night shift at the hospital. She worked twelve-hour shifts that started at seven in the evening. Given that the hospital was only a ten-minute drive from our house, my mom would get home during the week just as I was leaving for school.
I pulled my headphones off my ears and said, “You scared me.”
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to come in and say goodbye to you before I left for work,” she started. “Are you getting your stuff done?”
I’m trying to, I thought.
“Yeah, I’m almost finished with it,” I told her.
She smiled at me. “Good. Listen, I was thinking that since I’m off this weekend that you and I could do something special together. Maybe some shopping followed by dinner and a movie. What do you think?”
“That sounds great, Mom,” I answered. And it did. Not because I was overly interested in shopping but because it meant that we’d be out of the house, and I wouldn’t need to listen to them yelling at each other. “I can’t wait.”
“Okay. I know you didn’t eat much at dinner, so I’ve put some leftovers in the fridge if you get hungry,” she said.
She hadn’t been making that up. I didn’t eat much at dinner because I didn’t feel well. Then again, it was rare that I didn’t have an upset stomach all the time these days. Most days, I managed to power through and eat. Today, I just couldn’t.
“Thanks,” I replied.
My mom bent down and kissed my forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning before you leave for school,” she stated as she brought her body upright. “Bye, Demi.”
“Later, Mom.”
With that, she turned and walked out of the room. I watched as she walked out. Then I waited and listened to her leaving the house.
Knowing there’d be no more fighting, I turned off the music, set my headphones down, and finished up my work. Thirty minutes later, I had completed it.
I thought I should try to eat something even though my stomach still felt a bit unsettled. I figured that the uneasiness would subside now that my parents wouldn’t be fighting for the rest of the night.
Walking into the kitchen, I found my father sitting on a stool at the island drinking a beer.
“Hey, Demi girl,” he said. “Hungry?”
I wanted to scream. Both of my parents acted like everything was fine. They’d talk to me like I hadn’t just listened to the two of them arguing about everything and nothing.
I shrugged. “I don’t feel great, but I thought it might be because I haven’t had anything to eat.”
“Your mother left food in the fridge if you want to heat that up,” he remarked.
My mother. Like she wasn’t also his wife.
God, they were both just as bad as each other. Mom barely mentioned my dad to me, and he never referred to her as anything other than my mother.
“Yeah, I think I’ll do that,” I replied.
As quickly as I could, I pulled the food out and popped it in the microwave to heat it up. Ten minutes later, I wasn’t feeling any better.
When I pushed the plate away and sat up, my father’s eyes came to me. “What’s going on?”
“I think I’m just going to go to bed early tonight,” I told him. “Maybe it’ll help to sleep it off.”
He assessed me a moment, and something moved through his face. “Okay. Good night, Demi.”
“Good night, Dad.”
At that, I put my plate in the sink and made my way back to my room. It was still a bit earlier than I’d normally go to bed, but I didn’t care. I felt horrible.
Minutes after I climbed under the blanket I was asleep.
It felt like I hadn’t even been sleeping for five minutes when my eyes shot open.
I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. It was just before ten o’clock at night. I hadn’t even been asleep a full two hours. In the thirty seconds my eyes had been open, I realized that my stomach issues weren’t related to my parents arguing with each other earlier.
I was going to be sick.
&nbs
p; Throwing the blanket back from my body, I hopped out of bed and dashed into the bathroom. I just barely made it in time to empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet.
Ugh.
I was sick.
Legitimately sick.
Once I was sure that I’d finished vomiting, I stood up straight, looked in the mirror, and brushed my teeth.
I wanted to tell my dad that I’d just thrown up, so I walked out of the bathroom and ambled down the hall to my parents’ bedroom. With each step I took, I felt worse and worse.
Freezing.
I was freezing.
Putting my hand to the doorknob, I turned it and pushed the door open.
“Dad,” I called as I flipped on the light.
“Shit, fuck, Demi,” he cursed.
His response hadn’t been startled because I woke him from a deep sleep. It came because I’d just caught him with his pants down. Or technically, they were off. He was standing at the side of the bed he shared with my mother, and a woman who was not my mother was naked on her back, her torso propped up on her elbows, and her legs wrapped around him.
Well, they had been wrapped around him. The second I walked in, my father had stepped back from her and unfortunately, he turned toward me.
I couldn’t respond.
That was mostly because the moment I opened my mouth, which was several seconds after I took in the scene before me, I vomited all over the floor.
As soon as I could, I turned and ran back down the hall to the bathroom. I locked myself inside, laid down on the floor, and burst into tears.
I didn’t open the door again until the following morning when my mom got home.
Suffice it to say that we didn’t go shopping or to the movies that weekend.
One
Demi
Sixteen years later
“Hello. How can I help you?”
“I’m so sorry, but I forgot my key in the room. Is there any way you could make another one for me?”
I looked at the woman who had just walked through the sliding door that led into the lobby of the hotel I was the manager at. She had a tiny baby strapped to her chest in one of those baby swaddling things that were supposed to keep your hands free to do other things. Those things always freaked me out because, one time, I saw a father come in wearing one with his daughter who couldn’t have been even a year old in it, and it broke. The carrier had some plastic pieces that snapped, which caused the baby to fall. Luckily, the father caught her before she was hurt, but I’d always been wary of them any time I saw them after that.
Looking at the one this mother was using, I noted there was no plastic on it. It was all fabric, and it seemed to be fastened securely to her, so that put me at a bit more ease. On top of that, despite the carrier making it possible for her to be hands free, the mother was protectively cradling her baby anyway.
“Sure,” I answered. “Do you have your ID on you?”
“Oh, yes. Sure,” she replied.
Keeping one hand firmly on her baby’s body, she set her purse on the counter, dug through it, and pulled out her license. When she handed it to me, she said, “I wasn’t paying attention when we checked in. My husband might have put it under his name, which is the same last name, but we used my credit card.”
“Okay, no problem at all,” I told her. “Just give me one second.”
My eyes left the face of the woman who seemed slightly distressed and shifted to the computer. I wanted to ask her if she was okay, but on the occasions that I’d done that whenever I thought something was wrong, I always regretted it. In this situation, she was probably just frazzled, adjusting to life as a new mother. It was clear the baby was very newly born.
“Room 632?” I confirmed with her.
She nodded. “Yes, that’s correct.”
A moment later, I handed the ID back to her and said, “Here you go. I love your name, by the way. Is it pronounced Chasey?”
“Yep, that’s correct,” she responded. “And the connotation is correct. I’m always the one doing the chasing.”
I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that and decided it was best to ignore it. I made up another key card for her room and held it out to her.
“You’re all set,” I declared.
Chasey took the key card from me, allowed her eyes to drift to my name tag, and said, “Thank you so much, Demi.”
“You’re welcome. Enjoy the remainder of your stay.”
As she walked off, two hands back on her baby, I watched. That was something I did a lot of in my line of work.
Watching.
Observing.
And in most cases, hating every second of it.
I’d been working at this job for years now. I did it because it paid the bills and put food on the table. I didn’t do it because I loved it.
Having said that, I’d lost my drive for becoming anything noteworthy a long time ago. I couldn’t even remember a time when I had a dream about what I wanted to be when I grew up. So, naturally, I just took the days as they came and handled what needed to be handled. When this job opened up, I applied and got the position. It came with benefits and had a decent salary, so I couldn’t really complain about that.
But deep down, I despised working here. There were just too many things I saw that didn’t sit well with me. And as much as I wanted to jump in and say something in those instances, I managed to hold myself back.
Instead, I’d unload my frustrations on my best friend, Samantha and my cousin, Calvin. Sam also worked here, but she was the event sales director for the hotel. She handled all the weddings, corporate events, baby showers, and more. Cal was the owner of Granite, a relatively new bar here in the small town of Finch, New Hampshire. He handled serving drinks and lending a listening ear whenever Sam and I had a bad day.
Lately, I’d been having more and more of those days here.
For that reason, I was just about to head back into Sam’s office to see if she wanted to stop for a drink after work when Chasey rushed up to the desk. Her face was red with rage, but her eyes were filled with sadness and horror.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She shook her head and placed the key card back on the counter. “Thank you for your help,” she rasped. “I’m sorry I lied.”
I blinked in surprise, trying to figure out what was going on. “Lied?” I repeated.
Nodding, she explained, “I didn’t check into the hotel, but I saw my credit card was used here. My husband wasn’t home, so it wasn’t hard to figure out.”
Oh no. No way was this happening.
“Chasey!” someone yelled out.
“Don’t you dare come near me, you piece of shit,” Chasey shouted in the direction she’d just come from, which was by the elevators.
My eyes followed hers, and they settled on a man who was wearing a pair of baggy underwear, a wifebeater tank top, and a pair of socks that went up to the middle of his shins.
See?
Lots of unsavory things to witness in this line of work.
“Wait,” the man begged. “We need to talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I never want to speak to you again!”
As I stood there watching the scene unfold, unable to move, I realized Sam must have heard the commotion and come out of her office. I knew this because she walked up behind me and asked, “What’s going on?”
“This poor woman walked in here and told me she’d forgotten her room key,” I started. “She showed me her identification and credit card, so I made her another key for the room. As it turns out, she never checked in. She just realized that her credit card was being used at a hotel. The next thing I know, she’s down here yelling at him, and he’s not only panicking but also in some serious need of his clothes.”
Sam did not respond. Part of that was probably because she was just as riveted to the scene unfolding before us, but the other part was probably because she knew I was feeling very much on edge.
; I wanted to scream.
I wanted to cry.
This was beyond horrible.
Chasey was backing away from the man I now knew was her husband as he continued to approach.
Eventually she stopped, and so did he. The moment was tense, and though I knew people had walked into the lobby, I couldn’t take my eyes off of what was happening in front of me.
“You son of a bitch,” Chasey shouted. “I can’t believe you. While I’m at home struggling to take care of our five-week-old daughter on my own, my husband is here screwing some bimbo.”
I gasped.
Five weeks old.
This poor woman. Her beautiful little baby.
“He did not,” I seethed, unable to stop myself. “Tell me he did not do that.”
Chasey stood firmly rooted to the spot, her eyes pinned on her husband as she clutched her baby against her chest and confirmed, “He absolutely did.”
“Bastard,” I clipped.
“Baby, please,” her husband said as he took a step toward her. He had resorted to begging. It was evident, as ever, in the tone of his voice.
Begging or not, Chasey didn’t stand for it. She took a step back from him and demanded, “Don’t you ‘baby’ me. I just saw something that no wife, let alone a new mother, needs to see her husband doing. You just lost me, so I hope it was worth it.”
My heart was breaking by the second for her.
I could imagine how she must have felt. I never caught a boyfriend or a husband, but I caught my own father. I figured that had to give me some idea of what she was going through.
“I promise it was just sex,” he declared. “It didn’t mean anything. Please, Chasey, we’re a family.”
