Chasing Alys Read online

  Contents

  Also by Morgana Bevan

  Chasing Alys Playlist

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Winning Nia Excerpt

  Also By Morgana Bevan

  Acknowledgments

  About Morgana Bevan

  Copyright © 2021 by Morgana Bevan

  All rights reserved.

  Chasing Alys is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are all products of the authors imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  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.

  ISBN: 978-1-9196091-0-2

  Cover Design by: Pretty Little Design Co.

  Editing by Kristen Susienka

  To Lacey, thank you for inspiring me.

  Also by Morgana Bevan

  True Platinum Series

  Chasing Alys - Ryan

  Winning Nia - James (February 2022)

  Enticing Mel - Dan (June 2022)

  Defying Ella - Jared (September 2022)

  * * *

  Kings of Screen Series

  Between Takes

  * * *

  Sign up for Morgana Bevan’s mailing list.

  Chasing Alys Playlist

  1 - She’s Only Happy When She’s Dancing - Bryan Adams

  2 - Love Walked In - Thunder

  3 - Inside of You - The Maine

  4 - Keep Holding On - Avril Lavigne

  5 - Take My Pain Away - Anarbor

  6 - Little Lies - Fleetwood Mac

  7 - Queen of Hearts - We the Kings

  8 - Rhiannon - Stevie Nicks

  9 - Shape of You - Ed Sheeran

  10 - Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar

  11 - Walk Me Home - P!nk

  12 - Without You - Parachute

  13 - Small Town - John Cougar

  14 - Boomerang - Ward Thomas

  15 - Jump - Van Halen

  16 - The Best Is yet to Come - Kids in Glass Houses

  17 - Brave - Sara Bareilles

  18 - Run - Matt Nathanson

  19 - Contender - Lacey

  20 - Can’t Shake You - Gloriana

  21 - Amazing - Matt Cardle

  22 - Gold Rush - Taylor Swift

  23 - Thnks Fr Th Mmrs - Fall Out Boy

  24 - Afterglow - All Time Low

  25 - Life Is a Highway - Tom Cochrane

  26 - Despacito - Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee

  27 - Rock You Like A Hurricane - Scorpions

  28 - This Kiss - Faith Hill

  29 - Beautiful Way - You Me At Six

  30 - Stand By You - Rachel Platten

  31 - If You Could See Me Now - The Script

  32 - Contagious - Boys Like Girls

  33 - Beats to Your Rhythm - The Shires

  34 - What If I Never Get Over You - Lady Antebellum

  35 - Some You Loved - Lewis Capaldi

  36 - Listen to Your Heart - Roxette

  37 - Life After You - Daughtry

  38 - Boxes - Goo Goo Dolls

  Chapter One

  My way of celebrating the end of a job would seem weird to most people. After eight months spending long, unsociable hours on set, most would head straight to the nearest bar. A good number of my colleagues did just that. But not me. I chose to dance.

  On that last day before break, I was bone tired and relieved to have some much-needed downtime until the end of January. I was looking at nearly two and a half months off work. Some would panic at that number, but this was TV. Periods of intense work and then a break for weeks defined the industry.

  Here we worked insane shifts, cranking out hours of drama, sacrificing a personal life outside the set. We embraced our time off, meticulously planned for it, and somehow, in the gap, we would always forget. We’d forget the hours and the stress, remembering nothing but the exhilaration and the banter shared with long-term colleagues, our second family.

  That all sounds ridiculous, I know. Still, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Nothing else could put me through my paces and give me such a strong sense of accomplishment. But every time a break came, I welcomed it the only way I knew how.

  While my colleagues got buzzed in a bar, I leaned into a different type of buzz – one that could just as easily lead to addiction: dancing. We’re talking complicated jump steps, turns and flips. My work schedule didn’t allow for much dance time through the year, so whenever I found myself in a lull, I’d head straight for a class or five.

  Cardiff city centre was home to many dance instructors and full of bars with decently sized dance floors to allow for almost any style of dance. I still had to trek out to the yacht club in Penarth for ballroom, but for salsa and swing dance, I could get my fix without leaving town. Tonight, I chose a swing dance class at the Old Ballroom to stretch my legs and celebrate the end of my latest project – a new private detective TV show – in style.

  The last few months had been challenging, but high-end drama always was. Thankfully, the show had been filmed entirely in Wales, between a studio in Cardiff and on location in West Wales. That meant less jet lag and logistics on my end, and for that I was grateful.

  Tomorrow I’d wake up too early, confused by my lack of alarm, but right now, I was determined to dance until my ankles gave out and my muscles ached.

  The venue had three rooms split across two levels, with the bar taking over most of the space up front. In the back was my heaven, a dance floor with a vaulted ceiling. It promised a full two stories of head height with a balcony overlooking the dance floor. Some beginners found that aspect intimidating – worrying about strangers watching them dance from up there – but I’d never cared. Stick a spotlight on me and that would change, but to anyone watching, I’d be nothing but a red-haired blur in a sea of colour.

  “I’m so glad you suggested this, Alys.” My best friend Emily laughed as I rushed her in a quick tuck spin around the edge of the dance floor.

  “And you thought it would be too hard.” I pulled her back in for a basic six-step, smiling at the spark in her eyes. I expected she saw a similar light in mine.

  “With good bloody reason! I’ve seen you dance. Everything you do looks difficult to my untrained eyes.”

  She’d failed to connect the dots between my years of dance training and the difficulty of the moves I favoured. Of course it looked complicated to someone who’d bailed out of ballet after a year.

  To Emily, dance was just dance; sometimes it was fun, an
d sometimes it was downright torture. For me, it was a challenge and a comfort. I hated the shows as a kid, hated being the centre of attention, but with little else to do in a small village, I’d forced myself through them. At some point, my teacher’s drive for perfection seeped beneath my skin. Dance stopped being a set of steps I had to learn and started becoming a technique I wanted to perfect and enjoy.

  When the steps were easy, I struggled to stay present, and disappearing into my head quickly became a problem. Little thoughts and doubts rushed in when I wasn’t engaged – which is why I found swing dancing most exhilarating. It was all about detail and gave me plenty of challenges. It encouraged me to try new combinations and tricks, sometimes dangerous lifts. My partners loved me because I would happily volunteer while they practised something new.

  Despite my fear of heights, being flipped over some guy’s arm or shoulder gave me a thrill. I guess the ground was rather close and the life-threatening damage limited. I wasn’t scared of landing wrong. It had happened many times, but I always got up, took a moment to let the sting fade, and tried again.

  There was something addictive about it – the challenge of learning something new, the rush of endorphins when I figured it out.

  Tonight, all around us couples and friends worked through the basic principles of swing dance – rock steps, twirls and finding a beat. More experienced dancers, dressed in the vintage styles from the 1930s and 1940s, took things up a notch with more complicated moves. Colourful skirts flew up as they spun and dipped in sensible Mary Janes and brogues. A couple of girls had turned up in high heels and promptly kicked them off in favour of dancing barefoot (not advisable, but better than a sprained ankle or worse).

  I’d meant to go home to change before the beginners’ class, but the furniture collection on set had been delayed, which knocked on the shipping container pickup, and I ended up running late. Luckily, I’d anticipated it and packed a skater dress and my usual swing dance shoes: wide-heeled brogues.

  The steps were easy, but it felt like I was stretching muscles I hadn’t used in more than eight months – and oh boy, had I missed it. Stopping was going to be difficult. Laughter filled the air, and the ornate hall hidden in the back of the bar vibrated with the roar of brass instruments. It fuelled some unstoppable fire inside me, burning off the stress of today’s production shutdown.

  “Okay. Nice work, guys,” the instructor called, talking the small group of beginners through their next steps. “Now we’re going to try something new. We’re going to rock step, walk, walk and kick. Watch again and try it yourselves.”

  I’d lucked out tonight as my usual instructor was running the beginners’ workshop. I’d been begging Emily to try swing for years, but she’d always made some excuse or another. To my surprise, she’d rushed to say yes when I invited her this time.

  With an all-levels practice session planned for after the class, I got to introduce Emily to swing dance and work out some frustrations on the dance floor with my regular dance partners.

  “Where’s Oliver tonight?” I asked as I walked her through the new steps at half pace.

  Had I not been standing so close, I would’ve missed the slight dulling of the excited light in her eyes. That’s weird.

  She shrugged, avoiding my gaze. “I asked him, but he had to work late.”

  Oliver was her boyfriend of three years. She was convinced he was the one, her first and final love. Growing up, Emily had been reserved with her heart – not so surprising, given that she had the perfect cautionary tale as an example: me. She’d nursed me through every heartbreak, every failed date, every ghosting. I’d thought I’d been lucky to have her through it all, but sometimes I worried that my bad luck would rub off on her. Before she’d met Oliver, there had been days when she’d ignore guys and turn them down flat if they asked her out. The bottom line was: love and I didn’t really see eye to eye, and I’d had more than my fair share of failures. Yet thankfully, since dating Oliver, Emily seemed to have been doing just fine avoiding my large footsteps on the road to heartache.

  “It’s fine. He said he’d come next time.” Her smile didn’t reach her green eyes, and it was anything but reassuring.

  Or maybe not…

  “Who needs the gym when you can do this, huh?” she said, trying to distract me.

  For now, I let her get away with whatever bothered her. She’d share when she was ready. And if she let it fester too long, I knew she’d just start blubbering in front of me and out herself. I’d rather she talked before she got to that point, but I could wait.

  “Right! Best workout there is.”

  “How was the shut down?” Emily asked, puffing slightly from the new combination.

  My temples tightened as the day’s rush forced its way back into my mind. “It was the same old, really. Too much to do and far too little time to achieve it.”

  “Did your printer man follow his usual MO?”

  “Oh, yeah! He rocked up before noon while I was frantically trying to get the paperwork in order.” I could chuckle over it now, but the sight of Joe coming for my printer while I tried to finish the last of my shutdown duties would always feature in my stress nightmares.

  Emily grinned. “And you chased him off, I bet. When is that guy going to learn not to mess with you?”

  “Honestly, I think he enjoys messing with us. Anyway”—I shrugged, pushing the annoying man out of my thoughts—“the shipping containers were late being collected, which is why I was late here, but we got it all done and shut down. Mystery Lines is officially wrapped.”

  “Until next time.”

  “If there’s a next time.” It wasn’t my job to speculate on whether the shows I worked on would get renewed. As a production coordinator, I just kept the cogs turning in huge high-end dramas and left those kinds of worries to the producers.

  “What’s next?” Emily asked as I spun her.

  “Sleep. So much sleep.”

  Emily laughed. “I hope you’re not going to sleep for two months. We have so much catching up to do.”

  “I’m sure I can squeeze you in between naps.”

  She snorted. “You’d better.”

  The class passed far too quickly for my liking, but at the end of the hour, Emily seemed more than ready to put up her feet. A sheen of sweat glistened on her pale skin, but her short dark hair still looked immaculate. My long auburn hair, meanwhile, stuck to my neck, while my blue eyes probably looked far too big and excited for my small face. Maybe I should consider a pixie cut too…

  My foot tapped against the wooden floor, the sound lost to the chatter of the other dancers. Sweaty mess or not, my entire body itched to jump straight into another dance.

  “Do you mind if we stay for the social?” I asked. “I’m not ready to stop yet.”

  “Of course. I’ll just grab us some drinks and find a corner to watch. I’ll have the camera ready,” she said before abandoning me for the bar.

  I turned to the floor once again, which the more experienced dancers had now flooded, taking over the sound system. I had a second to catch my breath before someone caught my hand and dragged me towards them.

  Eric’s grinning face filled my vision as he pulled me into his arms.

  “Well, if it isn’t the Alys Morgan. I was starting to think you’d moved away. It’s been ages, babes!” he cried, his voice ringing out over the jazz music filling the space to the rafters.

  Eric and I had started swing dancing around the same time, and in those early days we’d spent my rare weekends off in the summers at the park practising with a couple of other dancers. Those days were long gone now and, aside from a social here and there, I hardly saw any of them anymore.

  “I know! Work’s been keeping me busy. How have you been?”

  We fell into a comfortable rhythm while we caught up on life and the drama I’d missed. Dance friends hooking up, breaking up, getting married, getting divorced, promotions and career changes. They’d all been busy, and here was me,
unable to hold a relationship or do anything but work. But if I was being truly honest with myself, I loved my job and I’d lost interest in the whole relationship thing years ago. I didn’t really feel like I was missing out.

  I mean, sure, I’d love to have someone to cuddle up with. But I had so little time, and wasting it on some guy because I suffered from FOMO was not my idea of fun. One-night stands had filled a void for a while, but at twenty-six, I was bored. They either got clingy fast or their girlfriends called far too early in the morning. It felt like I’d swallowed a homing beacon for cheaters, and it was not a welcome realisation.

  Before I could get too stuck in those unhelpful thoughts, the song changed and Eric moved us to a quieter part of the floor, switching up the pace. Before long, we’d graduated to flips, and my heart raced as the adrenaline coursed through me. Each time I’d land a flip or jump, we’d laugh like two fools, enjoying our success. We started easy, allowing ourselves to remember how the other worked, but basic lifts quickly turned into Charleston flips and advanced to even more complicated air steps.

  My demons were well and truly locked in their boxes, and I was having more fun than I’d had in months. In fact, I was so caught up in the buzz that when our hands slipped, I didn’t notice until my head hit the floor. The air exploded from my lungs and for a moment, I couldn’t drag it back in as the pain radiated out, winding me.