by Lisa Suzanne
“We were best friends. I tried to be there for you.”
I nod and shift my gaze out his window. “I know you did.” I shrug both shoulders and lift my hands a little helplessly. “It was easier to start over. No one wanted to be around the sad girl who lost everything.”
He cups my chin with long fingertips, and it has the effect of forcing my gaze back to his. “I did. I always wanted to be around you. Before the scandal, after it, and every moment since.” His eyes flick to my lips.
A sense of confusion washes over me. Every moment since? What the hell does he mean by that?
“Right, Brooks?” someone yells, interrupting the intense, heated moment passing between us.
He doesn’t break our gaze to respond—not right away.
“Brooks!” the same person yells, and he finally turns toward the seat behind us.
“What?” His voice is lined with an edge of irritation, and I can’t help wondering if it’s because we were interrupted.
I don’t remember which one is Dane and which is Ollie, but one of them speaks. “I was just telling Dane you booked us a second appearance tomorrow night.” I presume that’s Ollie.
Gavin nods. “After we play the Greek, we’re doing a two-song appearance at a little dive bar called Lark.”
Dane huffs out a sigh, and Gavin rolls his eyes. He leans in a little closer to me but talks loud enough for the others to hear, and I can’t help when I inhale his scent as it moves a little closer into my space. “Dane hates appearances because they’re usually too small to set up his drums. The poor guy feels left out.”
“Fuck you, Brooks,” Dane sulks from the back, and Gavin chuckles while I giggle.
Rose turns around and gives me a look that I decode to mean we need to talk. And we do. I need to dissect this sudden lust I feel sitting beside a man who was only ever my friend back when he was a boy.
But he’s sure as hell no longer that boy, and I can’t stop the intense need to do something about it.
“I think there’s definitely something between us,” Rose says in the ladies’ room once we’re at the club while the men of Beyond Gold meet with the club manager.
I squint at her for a beat as I picture it. “Yeah,” I say, nodding. “I can definitely see you two together. I think it’s finally your time.”
“And you and Gavin? Hot as fucking fire, Dee.”
“But it’s Gav,” I say softly, a feeble argument that has no real ground after that car ride.
“So?” She’s looking at herself in the mirror, but her eyes edge over to me. “You’re not exactly the same person you were back in high school.”
“Fair enough.” I take a look at my own reflection. “But what about Chase?”
“What about him?” she asks. She turns toward me. “He showed up tonight with a date that he went home with. But Liam and Gavin? They’re here. They’re single. They invited us to come with them. They’re interested.”
I turn toward her, too. “So I’m just supposed to erase the feelings I’ve had for the last twelve years because of a couple of guys in a band?”
“I’ll give you a hundred dollars if you can look me in the eye and tell me that’s all Gavin is to you in this moment.”
I blow out a breath. I glance at the ground, and she clucks her tongue at me.
“Shut up,” I mutter. “Fine. I can’t say that, all right?”
I glance back up at her, and she’s positively gloating. I roll my eyes petulantly.
“I knew it!” She bounces on the balls of her feet and claps her hands together like a child.
I sigh. “It’s not like anything’s going to happen, Rose. It’s Gavin. The boy who was always there for me as a friend. Why would he possibly be interested in me when he can have any woman out there?” I ask, gesturing wildly toward the door to indicate any girl in the entire club.
“Babe, look at the facts. His arm? Around you the entire car ride. And when I turned around to communicate telepathically with you, he totally leaned in and took a deep breath when you were looking at me. You know what he was doing?”
I make a face. “Breathing? Something normal people tend to do.”
It’s her turn to roll her eyes. “He was smelling you. Men don’t sniff women they’re not into. Men don’t sniff their friends.”
“You’re making him sound like a dog. And speaking of dogs, he’s the lead singer of a band and he looks like that.” I can’t help when I sigh a little dreamily as I think about how much he’s changed in the last decade. “There’s no way he’s the relationship type.”
“Who said anything about relationships? I’m a little drunk and I’m going home with Liam. End of story.” With that, she spins dramatically on her heel and beelines for the door.
If there’s one thing that’s predictable about my best friend, it’s that she always gets the last word.
I follow behind like a lost puppy dog through the throng of people toward the back room where the band is waiting to be announced for their appearance. An energy pulses through the crowd, and I wonder what Gavin’s feeling as he waits behind a closed door to come out and sing in front of all these people.
The boy I knew once upon a time was on the shyer side. He’d occasionally play guitar, but never for big crowds. And he rarely sang in front of other people. When we drove to school together, we’d both sing along to the radio and he’d make up silly little songs for me, but he never really wanted the attention straight on him—unlike Chase, who thrived in the spotlight.
But we change as we grow, I suppose. As I nearly run into a woman wearing heels that are too tall and a shirt that’s too tight, I wonder if this is what he wants—women like that, who are clearly here for one thing. Women who will try to go home with him and who want him because of who he is on the outside.
If only they had any inkling of what he’s like on the inside.
Back when I knew him, at least, he was a good guy. And from what I’ve seen tonight, even though we’ve both grown up, he’s still the boy I knew on the inside. He’s as good as gold. Beyond it, in fact, and that’s what makes their band name all the more perfect.
The man guarding the back door recognizes us and lets us back in. When we walk into the room, we find the men of Beyond Gold sitting around a table laughing at something. They quiet when they spot us, and I hate the awkward, uncomfortable seconds that pass as I feel like maybe we’re the butt of some joke. Maybe it’s my own insecurities because I always feel like I’m the butt of a joke after what happened to my family, but silence falling over a laughing room the second I walk in never feels good.
“Find the restroom okay?” Gavin asks.
I nod as my eyes dart to the ground.
“What’d we miss?” Rose asks, plopping down right on Liam’s lap and helping herself to a sip of the drink sitting in front of him on the table.
“We go on in ten. Just finishing up some band business,” Ollie says, and I sense a pointedness to his tone that makes the former silence feel nearly comfortable.
“Why don’t we get out of your way so you can have at it?” I say, glancing over at Gavin. He shakes his head a little then nods toward the empty chair beside him. I sit demurely as I feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment.
“You’re welcome here. We don’t have any secrets,” Gavin says. He leans in toward me. “Except Ollie can sometimes be a big bag of dicks.”
I can’t help my giggle as Ollie rolls his eyes.
“All right, boys, let’s focus,” Rob, the manager, says. “You’re playing the two songs and then we’ve got thirty minutes for meet and greet. Take photos, schmooze, do what you need to do to make lifelong fans, and then we’ll head back to the hotel. We’ve got an early meeting in LA tomorrow, and this one’s important, so don’t get fucked up tonight.”
Liam laughs loudest. “Yes, Father,” he says, and the rest of the guys laugh along with him.
“I’m serious. Ashmark doesn’t fuck around and while you’ve had a measure of su
ccess, they’ll drop your asses faster than the speed of light if they want to.”
Liam rolls his eyes. “No they won’t. Ashton’s a cool guy. Besides, have you met Ethan? Back in the day, I hear he was pretty crazy.”
“Ashton?” I say softly to Gavin.
“Mark Ashton. Owner of Ashmark Records, our label.”
“Mark Ashton as in the lead singer of Vail?” I ask.
He nods, and I gasp a little. Mark Ashton is like the holy grail of rock stars. His band is one of the top bands in the world, and Beyond Gold is meeting with him tomorrow?
As much as I grew up with celebrities and the children of them, that’s not my life anymore—no matter how much I want it to be.
And this new information is pretty damn impressive.
Rob says some more things, but I’m having a hard time getting over the fact that the boys sitting around the table with me right now will be in Mark Ashton’s office tomorrow morning. “You’re on in three,” he finishes, and Gavin turns to me.
“You two might want to head out so you don’t miss the songs.” He finishes the liquid in the cup in front of him, and I wonder what it is. What does a man like Gavin Brooks drink these days? Whiskey? Scotch? Something simpler, like tea and honey before taking the stage?
In high school, he drank beer—but that’s because we all drank beer back then. I’m sure his tastes have refined over the years.
I glance over at Rose, who now has one possessive arm tossed around Liam’s shoulders, and I stifle a giggle as I shake my head at her. She finally catches me eyeing her, and I nod toward the door. “Let’s go out so we can watch.”
She plants a kiss on Liam’s cheek and whispers something into his ear. His eyes widen a bit, and I’m curious what, exactly, she said. “Break a leg,” I say to Gavin, and he laughs.
“Thanks, Laney.”
I stand and lead the way to the door with a reluctant Rose following behind, and the energy pulsing through the crowd has only heightened in the minutes we’ve been in the back room.
“This is crazy!” Rose yells to me over the loud music blaring from the speakers and the raucous din of the people gathered. “Let’s try to get up close!”
I’m more of a hang-in-the-back kind of girl, but I know better than to try to talk Rose out of something she wants.
We’re more than a tad overdressed in this jeans and a t-shirt crowd with our designer gowns, but somehow it allows for success as we shimmy our way to the front of the crowd. People part to allow the girls in the dresses through, and suddenly we find ourselves standing about three people behind the front of the stage. The crowd is thick up here, and the tangy and distinct smell of weed burns my nostrils. Just because it’s legal in this state doesn’t mean it’s legal to smoke it in a bar, but apparently that doesn’t stop some people.
A man approaches the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, give a warm welcome to Beyond Gold!”
Screams and cheers erupt all around me. A spot on my back feels a little wet, like someone spilled a drink on me, and I try not to lament the cost of this dress versus the cleaning bill, which I’d never ask Rose to foot for me. Besides, karma was coming for me since I spilled all over Chase’s date’s dress earlier.
The boys...ahem, men...I was just sitting with in a back room walk onto the stage. Gavin moves with purpose toward the microphone and grips it with both hands, but before he says anything and before the music starts, he looks out over the crowd. He’s sexy like this, in his element like I’ve never really seen before save for Beyond Gold’s performance at the reunion, but there was so much going on there that I wasn’t really focused on Gavin.
He’s commanding, confident, and supremely charismatic on stage, and he hasn’t even opened his mouth yet.
His eyes find mine, a bit of surprise in his—maybe because we made it so close to the front in such a short amount of time. His lip curls into a little half-smile, and a little shiver runs down my spine...not from the drink that was spilled on me.
That lip curl—Jesus.
The woman in me can’t help but think how badly I want those lips on mine.
On my body.
Everywhere.
I can’t believe I’m having these thoughts about Gavin Brooks, but I also don’t want them to stop.
Some girl tugs on my arm like we’re old friends and starts gushing. “Oh my God! He’s so fucking hot!” She smells like rum, and the drink bouncing in her hand and sloshing over the rim of her cup is the firm sign that she’s drunk.
“Isn’t he?” I gush back, because what the hell else do you say to a drunk girl?
“I’m totally going home with him,” she says, and something unexpected inside me snaps a little.
Because no, she isn’t.
But I sure the hell am.
It isn’t just seeing him up there on stage, working the crowd and doing this amazing thing that he was seemingly born to do. It’s this weird connection I have to him, something we’ve always shared but I always attributed to friendship. But tonight?
I suddenly feel like I want more than just friendship.
Maybe it’s the champagne talking, or maybe hindsight really is twenty-twenty.
I never, not in a million years, thought I’d feel this way tonight about anyone other than Chase. It might’ve been the big dose of reality that hit me over the head when he showed up with someone else.
As I watch Gavin move across the stage with practiced ease, I feel like I could finally be ready to grow up and move forward. I feel like I’m ready to bury the past and figure out some way to start fresh, and that beginning might just come in the form of the talented man singing with conviction on the stage in front of me.
Everyone in this room wants Gavin, and I never thought I’d say this...but that includes me.
But he didn’t invite everyone in this room back to his hotel for drinks after this performance.
He invited me, and I intend to accept that invitation...and maybe any others he chooses to extend tonight.
CHAPTER NINE
“Where are you staying?” I ask once we’re back in the car after the appearance is over and we’ve already celebrated their awesome performance.
“I don’t know. Some place close to Ashmark. Rob always checks us into hotels when we have an early meeting. It’s easier than trying to round up the four of us from our own places.” He’s sitting closer to me than he did on the way toward the club, our thighs pressed warmly together. I don’t dare move mine, and neither does he.
“How early is the meeting?”
“Ten.”
“I wouldn’t call that early, exactly.”
He laughs. “Well, you’re not a rock star, either.”
“What’s a typical day like for you?”
He lifts a shoulder. “A lot like anyone else’s, I suppose.”
I huff out a laugh. “Doubtful.”
“Tell me what yours is like, then.”
“During the school year, I’m out the door by six-thirty and at school by seven. I make sure I have everything ready for the day, plan for the next day or week, grade papers, that sort of thing. School starts at eight-thirty. I teach all day and get a little break for specials and lunch. After school, I either tutor or go to meetings, and then I head home sometime after four. I make dinner for myself and Porter, and then I grade papers or read until it’s time to go to bed.”
His gaze is fixed on me as I talk, like he’s studying and memorizing every word I’m speaking. “Your brother Porter?” he asks.
“Yeah. We live together in a little apartment that’s halfway between my school and the hospital where he works.”
He nods thoughtfully. “How’s Porter these days?”
“Good. Brings home some annoying girls, that’s for sure,” I mutter, and Gavin laughs.
“How about Theo?”
I’m vaguely surprised he remembers my brothers’ names after ten years, but that just shows how entrenched we were in each other’s lives. I’m br
iefly transported back to family barbecues and pool parties, nights when our parents played pinochle together and we camped out in Theo’s room watching some movie. “He lives in Chicago and practices medicine. He’s the only one who got his college trust fund money, and he pulled away from my family faster than the blink of an eye after everything went down.”
“Shame he didn’t stick around to help you and Porter.”
I lift a shoulder. “He flies us out to Chicago for Christmas every year. It’s his own weird way of acting like he’s helping so it doesn’t feel like charity.”
Gavin presses his lips together like he’s trying to stop himself from making a comment.
“Enough about me. How are your sisters?”
“They’re fine. Mila is married and doing the stay-at-home-mom thing with three kids, and Joss is an attorney. She’s been dating a guy for a few months.”
“And your parents?” I ask.
His eyes take on a ghostly shadow, but he masks it quickly. “Fine.”
Something tells me all is not fine, but he doesn’t seem to be in the mood to discuss it, so I don’t press.
“What are your parents up to?” he asks.
“Should be retired and living the good life, but my mom works retail and my dad was lucky enough to score a position as a researcher at a law firm.” I glance out the window beside Gavin because his eyes are suddenly boring into me in this intense way that feels slightly overwhelming. “I don’t talk to them much these days.”
“Because of what happened?”
I lift a shoulder. “In part, I guess. Because of life. I’m busy. They’re busy.”
He nods slowly. “I get it,” he says, but he doesn’t really look like he does get it.
It’s only then I realize how feeble my excuse must sound. Gavin travels the globe playing music and seemingly maintains a good relationship with his family, and I live a half hour from my parents and can’t be bothered to pick up the phone. The truth of the matter is that I don’t want to pick up the phone.
I should’ve been able to depend on my parents. Maybe it sounds selfish or spoiled, but they’re the ones who made me that way. Instead of supporting our family in an honest way, my father blew all our money by being stupid, and my mom had to have known what he was doing—otherwise, why would she have stayed with him in the aftermath?