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  FIGHTING FOR OUR FOREVER

  HEIDI MCLAUGHLIN

  © 2018

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  The right of Heidi McLaughlin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000. This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  COVER DESIGN: Okay Creations.

  EDITING: My Brothers Editor

  Ultra Editing Co.

  Traci Blackwood

  Models: Blake Sevani | Madison Rae

  Photography: RPLUSMPHOTO

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. Jamie

  2. Ajay

  3. Ajay

  4. Jamie

  5. Ajay

  6. Jaime

  7. Ajay

  8. Jamie

  9. Ajay

  10. Jaime

  11. Ajay

  12. Jamie

  13. Ajay

  14. Jamie

  15. Ajay

  16. Jamie

  17. Ajay

  18. Jamie

  19. Ajay

  20. Jamie

  21. Ajay

  22. Jamie

  23. Ajay

  24. Jamie

  25. Ajay

  26. Jamie

  27. Ajay

  28. Jamie

  29. Ajay

  30. Jamie

  31. Ajay

  32. Jamie

  33. Jamie

  34. Ajay

  Epilogue

  Shattered Stars by Shari J. Ryan

  Acknowledgments

  About Heidi McLaughlin

  Also by Heidi McLaughlin

  1

  Jamie

  I don’t know how many times I’ve wiped the bar down, scrubbed water stains that I know won’t come off, restocked the already stocked bottles of beer, washed, dried and polished pint glasses, and watched the minute hand on the clock move painfully slowly. This is what a night at Bailey’s Bar and Grill looks like when there’s a huge concert happening in the big city; Bailey, North Carolina becomes a ghost town. Its population of seven hundred dispersed into caravans of buses, cars, and trucks, traveling south into Wilmington for a night of debauchery. Okay, maybe not a full night of corruption, but definitely a little wickedness. When we small town folks get out in the wild, we let our hair down. Sometimes a little too much. Sure as shit, a few of my friends will be arrested tonight, likely for public drunkenness or trying to start a fight because someone looked at them wrong. Not me though, this is one concert I was okay with missing.

  The door opens with a loud bang taking my attention away from the slow-moving clock. My part-time boyfriend, Logan, is standing there with his hand on the door. He’s not supposed to be here. He was roped into going to the aforementioned concert with my two best friends, Dhara and Fletcher, but here he is looking pissed and with a quick tilt of my head, I see that it’s raining. However, that doesn’t explain why he’s here. He takes two steps in before Dhara and Fletcher come storming past him.

  “Shouldn’t you be at the concert?” I ask the three of them as they sit at the bar. Each of them sighs dramatically, except Dhara. She takes everything to the extreme and puts her head down on the bar top.

  “Someone forgot the tickets,” Logan says as I slide a pint of his favorite ale toward him. Dhara cries, Logan shakes his head and Fletcher mumbles something about how he’s waited years for this concert.

  “Well, I’m sorry I made a mistake,” Dhara says through sobs. She’s now staring at Fletch, who’s refusing to look at her.

  “Hey, I thought they were in your purse? You’ve been carrying them around for months.”

  She looks at me. Her mascara has smeared onto her cheeks, her eyes are bloodshot, and her nose looks like Rudolph’s. “They are, but I swapped purses before we left and forgot to pull them out of the inside pocket.”

  “Oh.” I know my mouth forms into a little O. I’ve been told I do this often when I don’t agree with what someone has said or have nothing concrete to add to the conversation. I glance at the guys. Fletcher’s clearly pissed while Logan is staring at his empty glass.

  “Oh? That’s all you have to say to her?” Fletcher barks out. “For months we’ve been waiting –”

  “You don’t think I know that, Fletch? I’ve been waiting to see Liam Page for years. Years! And this was my one chance. The one and only time 4225 West comes to Wilmington and I forgot the tickets. How do you think I feel? I am in love with that rock God!”

  Fletcher rolls his eyes. Dhara’s right, she’s been in love with Liam Page since forever. The sad fact is, she still has posters of him up on her bedroom walls, which probably explains why she doesn’t have a steady boyfriend. Although, I shouldn’t criticize. Even though Logan and I have been seeing each other for about a year or so, it’s an every other weekend kind of thing. He wants to get serious. I don’t. He wants to be a father figure to my daughter. I’m afraid he’s going to run. The last person I was in love with ran. He ran so damn fast and far that I could barely catch him when I had to. So yeah, I’m okay with an every other weekend arrangement.

  “Look, mistakes happen. There will be another show.” All three of them look at me and suddenly I feel about two feet tall. Clearly, this wasn’t the right thing to say.

  “Do you know how much those tickets cost me?” Dhara asks. I nod because we’ve had many conversations about it.

  “Do you know what it’s like to drive hours, listening to every song from this band, to stand in line for a couple more hours in the pouring rain, only to get to the front and have her…” Logan points directly at Dhara, who starts crying again, “…rummage frantically through her purse? She could’ve done that at any time while we were standing there, on the drive over or when I asked her if she had the tickets. There was time to go back, but no, she was so confident that she had them — adamant, really — and told me to not worry.”

  “Eat a Snickers man, she made a mistake,” Fletch says, coming to Dhara’s rescue. I know he’s pissed, but I also know that he’s in love with her and has been since high school. She doesn’t see it. He’s her best friend. Her go to when life is… well, anything: Happy or sad, she tells him everything, and he listens, never passing judgement. Sometimes I feel sorry for him, but he won’t tell her how he feels. He’s afraid to ruin what they have.

  “I did, and I’m sorry. No one wanted to see them more than I did. I’ll make it up to you, Logan.” When the tickets went on sale, she automatically bought three. Normally, I would’ve gone but the opening act… I’m not a fan. I waited until the last minute before I told her I couldn’t go and begged Logan to take the extra ticket to the sold-out show.

  Logan shakes his head and sighs. I pull the tap after placing a clean pint glass on the tray and hand him another beer. He’ll stay with me tonight because my daughter, Evelyn, is with my parents. Logan and Evelyn know each other, and we do what’s considered “family things” together. When we’re out, people refer to him as her father and he doesn’t bat an eyelash. I’m the one who will lay awake at night, running scenarios through my head, plotting out how Logan is going to leave one day.

  Honestly, I’m not sure how or why he puts up with me. I’m honest with him about my past… to a point. He knows I was hurt, and deeply. He d
oesn’t know by whom, yet often suspects it’s Evelyn’s father. I’ve never had the courage to correct Logan or tell him about my past. Those are days I want to keep buried forever.

  After an hour, the activity in the bar starts to pick up. Normally, we have a band playing. We alternate between country and rock, giving everyone something to listen to. Tonight though, it’s quiet and when the jukebox isn’t playing, there’s a lull. You can hear people talking, telling their friends about their day or as is the case tonight, complaining about missing the concert.

  “I can’t believe our seats are empty right now,” Dhara sighs. I finally gave her and Fletcher something to drink and ordered them up some food. The three of them seem content to sit at the bar while I work. At least they aren’t trying to kill each other, and for the most part, Dhara’s tears have stopped.

  That is until her favorite song comes on and her tears start flowing again. She’s on the dance floor, swaying. People are watching, some are pointing. My best friend is having a colossal meltdown over a missed concert. Fletcher finally goes to her, bringing her back to the bar.

  “Dhara, it’s only a concert. There will be others,” I say to her.

  “But, I’m in love with the lead singer.”

  “Dhara, singers are just…” I stop myself from finishing my statement. It’s pointless to remind her because her head is in the clouds right now. In a few days, after reality is done slapping her in the face, she’ll realize how over dramatic she was during this whole thing and hopefully learn a lesson. What that lesson is, I’m not sure. But knowing her, she’ll find a way to turn this into something positive.

  “Singers are what?” Logan asks.

  “Nothing,” I say quickly.

  Fletcher leans forward so he can see down the bar. “Jamie prefers drummers,” he says, winking at me. It takes everything in me to not pummel his face into the wooden top. He’s an ass.

  “Is that so?”

  “Yep, something about them banging harder.”

  My hand comes to my face just as my eyes close. Of all the things to say, he has to be crass. I finally look at him and tell him to shut the fuck up before I go to the other end of the bar and help some new customers. I stay down there as long as possible. I’m far too angry to deal with Fletcher and know Logan will have something to say. He’ll want to know more, ask if he should take drum lessons or pretend to play imaginary drums with a knife and fork all because of Fletcher’s big stupid mouth.

  When two a.m. rolls around, I breathe a sigh of relief. The cook out back turns the music up loud just as I lock the door to the bar. Fletch is taking Dhara home and will probably end up crashing on her couch just in case she needs him in the middle of the night, and Logan is waiting for me in the parking lot. If he didn’t live so far away, I’d tell him to go home, that it’s been a long night and I just want to sleep. However, he would be hurt and that’s the last thing I want to do.

  Thankfully, the small crowd means that clean-up is easy. I kept the bar fairly stocked through the night and made sure my dirty glasses didn’t stack up. With the bottles taken to recycle, the floor mopped, the only thing left to do is turn out the lights. I tell the guys out back that I’m leaving, and one offers to walk me out. I decline, knowing Logan is waiting.

  Outside, he’s leaning against his car with his eyes held steady on the bar. He makes me feel safe, secure. I know that when I’m with him, his training as a Marine is never far from his mind. Six months ago, he was injured, hurt in a training accident. It’s been nice having him around more, but that’ll end when he returns to active duty.

  He stands tall when I approach. He’s just over six feet with dirty blond hair and green eyes. Even though he’s no longer required to, he keeps his hair short. Logan goes to the passenger side of his car and opens the door for me. He waits until I’m situated before closing it and walking to the other side.

  “I found a playlist that you might like.” He presses his phone a few times and a cacophony of drummers beat through the speakers. Fletcher will die tomorrow. I will torture the shit out of him, pulling each and every finger nail off with pliers. He shouldn’t have said anything, and I don’t have the heart to tell Logan that I don’t want to listen.

  Instead, I find myself tapping along and remembering a time when I used to sit on a milk crate, watching my friend’s garage band. The drummer was… well he was trouble. The kind of trouble that you never forget. The kind that you want… you crave… despite your mama’s warnings against it. I found that kind of trouble before. That was the only time I had ever been truly in love and vowed to never love again. The pain far outweighed any happiness and I definitely learned my lesson. It’s a hard pill to swallow knowing you’ll always be a second or third priority in their lives, and that’s if you’re lucky. The drums always come first, followed closely by the band. You’re technically just background noise, offering undying support and a place for them to lay their head at night. Nothing more.

  And always so much less.

  2

  Ajay

  There needs to be a handbook on how to cope with tour life. Something to guide starving artists on the ins and outs of road survival and how to deal with the lack of home cooked meals, decent showers, and a goodnight’s sleep, which are a few of my gripes. Not to mention a shortage of clean clothes. I miss the comforts of my lonely apartment. The ability to sleep, do my laundry whenever I please, go to the bathroom without hearing my friends talk about why it’s taking me so long, making something that isn’t Ramen noodles or filled with grease are high on my priority list. Not that I’m any kind of an actual chef, but I do like to take care of myself. For the most part, my place is quiet with the exception of when my neighbors have a party, but I’ll take that over the big rigs traveling down the highway going fifteen to twenty over the speed limit, shaking the bus as they go by and blaring their horns in some sort of solidarity to their comrades on the other side of the road. Of course, this is how things are until Sinful Distraction hits it big.

  Right now, we’re opening for 4225 West and I have never been so grateful in my entire life for the experience. The rush I get every time I step onto the stage is indescribable. The thundering vibration from the fans screaming our name, over and over, sends chills down my spine. And when I pull my drumsticks out, and the wood nestles between my fingers, I’m transported. Nothing else exists except me, my kit, and the people surrounding me. We become one. And for an hour we play our hearts out to a mostly full venue. I wouldn’t change anything right now other than the fact that I’d really love to fly on 4225 West’s private jet and stay in their fancy hotels instead of living on this damn bus.

  For the most part, our stops are somewhat close. After our performance, the tour company makes sure our dressing room is stocked full of food. Often, we’re taking anything left over with us because most of the time the food is decent. We relax a bit, eat as much as we can, chat with a few of the roadies and some of the fans who managed to get backstage passes, and watch our biggest supporters perform. The tour is a family affair with 4225 West’s family tagging along. Quinn’s mother hovers over us, making sure we’re not drinking too much, insisting we take our vitamins, and giving death glares to any women who try and get close. Keane’s daughter is also on tour with us, however she’s traveling with Liam’s daughter by plane. I don’t know how she got so lucky, but there are times when I want to point out that Harrison’s my mentor and I need some quality time with him. Still, when it comes time to leave, my steps are slow, and I feel like a geriatric when I have to climb the steps to the bus.

  Maybe it’s because the décor never changes. The wood paneling starts to become muted in color, the shine it had when we boarded the first time is long gone. The chairs have all lost their comfort from the constant sitting we do in them, becoming lumpy and misshapen. Our shower is small, and the water is often cold. Elle made a schedule for us to follow but honestly most of us wait until we get to the venue, hoping we have a chance to sneak
into the locker rooms. Our sleeping quarters aren’t much better, although I’ve always wanted to sleep on a bunk bed. Now that I have, I can cross it off my “never want to do this again” bucket list. Keane is my roommate and for the most part, things are great. He’s quiet, doesn’t snore and really keeps to himself. I know he worries about his daughter, but I’d gladly take her place if given the chance. That girl is living the life right now with the Page entourage.

  There are a few people standing outside when we exit the building. This still shocks me, especially considering who we opened for. Like why wouldn’t they be inside experiencing that show instead of waiting for us? Elle tells us to embrace it, to give the fans what they want, which are stinky hugs and selfies for their social media. The fans form two lines on either side of the door. Some have signs, while others have their phones out likely taking pictures as we walk toward them. Names are called and declarations of love are made, something Liam Page warned us about ahead of time. His motto is to thank them and never return the sentiment. He said what we feel for them isn’t what they’re feeling for us. We are grateful, humbled and in debt to them, and they see us as a fantasy, someone they long to be or be with. He says the line needs to be clear from the beginning.

  Oh, and we’re never ever to get involved with a fan. That’s something JD Davis pounds into our heads before every show. According to Liam, JD used to be the worst of the worst when it came to fan hook-ups, and we’re to heed the word of the famous Brit. Not that we could do anything if we wanted. Elle is fierce and no one gets past her. She’s like a shark and can sense when someone is “up to no good”, as she calls it. So even if we, with the exception of Quinn, wanted to find some adult entertainment while on the road, Elle would slam that door shut so fast it would make our heads spin. She’s strict but with good reason. Quinn said once that his dad and the band went through some shit with their former manager, most of it public if I wanted to search through the confines of the internet, and that was the main reason Elle chose the business. He said his sister would make sure nothing ever happened to any of us. Thing is, I believe him.