Spectacularly Broken
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgment
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
Epilogue
Loose Id Titles by Sage C. Holloway
Sage C. Holloway
SPECTACULARLY BROKEN
Sage C. Holloway
www.loose-id.com
Spectacularly Broken
Copyright © March 2015 by Sage C. Holloway
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.
eISBN 9781623008659
Editor: Raven McKnight
Cover Artist: Dar Albert
Published in the United States of America
Loose Id LLC
PO Box 170549
San Francisco CA 941117-0549
www.loose-id.com
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning
This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id LLC’s e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.
* * * *
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Acknowledgment
My Facebook “focus group” for going along with all the nonsense.
Kevin F. for the medical fact-checking.
Claudio D. for always having time for questions and random shenanigans.
Amanda Z. for making my character chemistry more explosive with vinegar and baking soda.
Amber A. for never giving up on me, even when I kept letting out the parakeets.
Chapter One
There aren’t a whole lot of things more awkward than waking up after a night of hard partying to find your dad staring down at you. Especially if you’re on the floor of a thoroughly trashed living room, wearing nothing but a tablecloth, covered in bite marks and dried fluids, surrounded by five other guys in a similar state to yours and about twice that amount of empty Dom Perignon bottles.
Bonus points for the leftover lines of coke still sitting out on the coffee table.
“Fuck,” was the first thing I managed to force out of my dry throat. “Too early for this.”
My dad’s steely blue eyes bored into me.
“Lysander, we need to talk,” was all he said before stepping out of my field of vision.
I’ll freely admit that it wasn’t my best moment. As I tried to sit up very slowly, it occurred to me that I might have actually, for once, managed to get myself into trouble. That was impressive.
What was even more impressive was just how desperately shitty I was feeling. My teeth were fuzzy, and my mouth tasted absolutely disgusting. Every part of my body was sore. My ass was one massive bruise. The night had been wild, and I’d lost track of how much sex I’d had, but the count had to be well into the double digits.
The pounding in my head increased tenfold once I was in a sitting position. I realized too late that it was getting way too intense for my stomach to handle.
The carpet was ruined anyway.
* * * *
By the time I made my way downstairs, showered and dressed and trying to keep down a double dose of Tylenol, I had my strategy all planned out. There was no question I’d fucked up, but I figured there was a good reason people said the best defense was a good offense.
“You weren’t supposed to be back until Tuesday,” I therefore informed my father like it was all his fault and stepped toward the chair he was lounging in, reading
US Weekly.
He lowered the magazine and frowned. It looked theatrical. Everything my father does looks fucking theatrical because he’s a big screen actor, and he seems to think life is one big feel-good movie. Cast in the role of disappointed father: Joel Shepherd. Everything he does is fake. He doesn’t actually have a clue how to be a father; he just acts the part.
“Sit,” he said.
“No,” I replied crankily. The sunlight shining through the panorama window was bright enough to sear my retinas, and the resulting feeling was about as pleasant as having my eyes gouged out with a rusty spoon.
My father sighed. It was very cinematic. His perfectly shaped eyebrows drew together, and his face, which had just enough faint lines to indicate “character,” shadowed. He had a new haircut, I noticed, the blond strands styled into something that screamed mature glamour.
“Lysander, we have a problem,” he informed me instead of pressing the point.
“It’s probably more than one.”
“You think this is all one big joke, I suppose?” There was the glare I had expected from the start. I’d almost missed it.
“No, I don’t,” I muttered. My temples were throbbing, and goddamn, I felt miserable. If I threw up on him, I wasn’t going to be sorry. “Look, just say what you gotta say so I can go sleep some more.”
“That’s going to take a while. So sit.” He nodded pointedly at the couch.
“I don’t want to.”
“Why not?” he demanded to know.
“My ass hurts, okay?”
“Jesus help me.” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, his face slowly coloring. He looked almost as ill as I felt. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. You are completely off the rails, Lysander. You cannot keep going like this.”
I’d heard that plenty of times before, but usually from our housekeeper. The whole thing bored me to death. I’d get grounded and would promptly ignore that fact once my father left for his next project. I wasn’t sure why he bothered with the pretense.
“So send me to rehab,” I proposed carelessly.
“Is that what you want?” He studied me. “I’m already getting a funny feeling a stay at a pampering rehab facility isn’t going to help. Not with this.”
“Do you have a point?” I asked.
“Yes, I do. But I see now isn’t the time to make it.” He sighed again and waved me off. “Go sleep. We’ll talk about this later when I’ve had time to think.”
He didn’t need to say it twice before I was out the door and taking the stairs two at a time.
* * * *
I slept until five thirty, after which I mercifully felt almost human again. While I was used to hangovers, I had to admit this one had turned out especially grueling. No regrets, though—it had been a damn good night. I took another leisurely shower and texted my friends to make sure they had survived the fun as well. No doubt my father had instructed our housekeeper to rouse them and kick them out as soon as my head had hit the pillow. It had probably been awkward as hell.
I told Sawyer, Logan, and Grayson to check in and then struggled to remember the names of the other two guys we’d partied with. One had been Grayson’s friend, the other…Sawyer’s cousin? Sawyer’s cousin’s boyfriend? Sawyer’s cousin’s boyfriend’s personal assistant? I squinted at my phone’s lit-up screen, pondering. This certainly wasn’t the first time I’d forgotten the name of a guy I’d slept with, but it made it a little tricky to ask for a repeat.
Tell what’s-his-face he can hang with us again
, I finally texted Sawyer. Then, satisfied, I put my phone aside and went swimming.
* * * *
Despite his ominous announcement about “talking later,” my father spent the next three days doing everything but talking to me, which was typical. I hated being home when he was. His presence made my skin crawl after a couple of days, and I always breathed a sigh of relief when he left again. It didn’t exactly help that he had grounded me and taken the goddamn car keys.
Over the years I had perfected the technique of waiting it out and avoiding him. While he spent hours in the study, shouting on the phone—probably at his agent, who was a jackass—I caught up on movies I’d meant to watch ages ago, enjoyed myself in the pool, beat off, slept too much, got high on the roof above the study, and just generally fucked around without any purpose whatsoever.
In other words, it was business as usual in the Shepherd household.
On the morning of the fourth day, it was Sheri, our indomitable Puerto Rican housekeeper, who knocked on my door and woke me from some fucked-up dream about being trapped in a hospital. I was still sitting in bed trying to get it together by the time she flung clothes at me. Her dark eyes were twinkling with good humor, which made me even crankier. She was dressed in her customary uniform, her short black curls held back with a colorful bandanna. She accented her dark complexion with golden hoop earrings and different shades of metallic eye shadow. I usually got her a new color for her birthday, but right now I was considering how she might like a bucket of ice water instead.