The Love, Lust and Lies Series
Chrissie Brooks
The clatter of plates and the sizzle of burgers were Chrissie Brooks’ daily soundtrack. New Jersey might have been her birthplace, but the Banger Dinner in the heart of New York was her stage. She’d traded suburban quiet for the city’s vibrant chaos, finding strange comfort in the relentless energy that hummed beneath the surface. There was Danny Brooks on the TV screen in the burger restaurant.
She’d seen him before, in concert, a fleeting glimpse
“Chrissie to Karen”
“Oh, him, sorry”
“You have seriously had the hots for decades, Danny Brooks, haven’t you?”
Yep, he’s so dreamy”
“We are going out tonight, Chrissie Meadows, I’ll be at yours at 7:30”
Later that evening
In the dimly lit frenzy of Cooper Looper nightclub. It was a Friday night. Karen had dragged her out, promising a night of dancing and forgetting the Monday blues. Chrissie, usually a creature of comfort, had been reluctant to go. But when she spotted Decade. And more importantly, Danny Brooks. Chrissie got excited and livened up.
He was electric on stage, a whirlwind of raw energy and undeniable charisma. His gravelly, powerful voice cut through the noise, captivating the crowds. Chrissie had always had a low-key crush on him, a silent appreciation of his brooding good looks and undeniable talent. He was, in her opinion, ridiculously hot.
Their eyes met across the crowded bar. When he saw her, something shifted. An almost imperceptible softening. That was his cue. He disentangled himself from the guys, his long legs eating up the distance between them. Chrissie, surprised and flustered, tried to appear nonchalant.
She knew she didn’t look like Deb. Deb, the mythical ex-girlfriend, the ghost that haunted Decade’s lyrics. Chrissie was slightly taller, with dark hair. But perhaps there was a superficial resemblance. Maybe that’s what had drawn Danny to her.
Whatever the reason, he’d started seeing her. Not like the string of nameless faces he’d been cycling through since Deb had left. Those had been fleeting encounters, fuelled by alcohol and a desperate need to fill the void. With Chrissie, it was different.
The guys in Decade thought he was finally moving on. “Good for him,” they’d muttered, relieved that the cloud of Deb was finally lifting. They were wrong. Deb was always there, lurking in the shadows of Danny’s mind, surfacing in his songs, a constant reminder of what he’d lost.
But Chrissie was… fun. He felt at ease with her, a sense of normalcy that had been missing from his life for far too long. She was good for him. She was a constant source of ego-boosting validation, genuinely enthusiastic about everything he wrote, every chord he strummed. He started to think, maybe, just maybe, he could fall for Chrissie. Perhaps he could finally bury Deb in the past.
He told all about Deb. He let Chrissie believe in the façade of the confident, successful rock star. He needed her belief.
Chrissie, in turn, revelled in the attention. She enjoyed the concerts, the after-parties, and the feeling of being someone special. She liked the way Danny looked at her, the way he touched her, the way he seemed to need her. She was happy. Genuinely happy, she was ecstatic when he asked her to marry her, and she said yes. When he whisked her off to Las Vegas to the little white Chapel and exchanged vows, she thought she was in heaven.
Little did either of them know that their carefully constructed reality was about to shatter. One night, Chrissie went to the Broadway show Starburst with Karen. Whilst Decade were on tour, after the show, they headed out onto West 43rd Street and Chrissie bumped straight into a young woman. The dread ran through her veins.
“Karen, that was Danny’s ex”
“it can’t be, you said she was back in England”
“I’m sure it was her”
She looked different; Her hair was shorter, chopped and styled in a sharp, unforgiving bob. Her eyes, the same shade of piercing green that Chrissie had seen in old photos, were fixed on her.
Chrissie swallowed hard, her heart pounding against her ribs. Standing there, paralysed by a premonition of impending doom. Danny’s world, and hers, was about to be rocked. Chrissie’s fragile bubble she had built around her life with Danny was about to burst, and she knew, with a chilling certainty, that nothing would ever be the same again.
Spin-off from Love lust and Lies
Thank You for Reading
Deborah C. Langley
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