“Then I wouldn’t be me, would I?” Gavin replied with a laugh.
“I’m not buying it,” Jackson said.
“What?”
“You’re not this guy, Gavin. It's so obvious you’re trying on a role, like an actor would. You’ve been playing the cokehead—careless, selfish, fighting inner-demons. That may be how you feel, but that’s not who you are. The act is wearing thin and you’re going to have to give it up.”
“Jesus Christ, everyone’s a shrink,” Gavin said.
“Come on, you know you’re going to give up this coke crap soon. It’s not doing what you want anymore, right?”
Gavin looked into his coffee mug, hesitating. “No, I suppose not.”
“This may sound absurd, but I want to help you quit.” Jackson laughed when he saw the look on Gavin’s face. “I know, I’m the one who got you started. But I didn’t think you’d go fucking crazy with it!”
“I didn’t either. But it helps me get through the day.”
“What’s so fucking awful right now? That hysteria about your mum has gone away. Now all you’ve got is the press going on about you being a cokehead. Stop being a cokehead and it’ll be done.”
“Add to that adulterer.”
“Isn’t there a rule about one-time with a stripper doesn’t count?” Jackson asked with a grin.
“Maybe there would be if it didn’t have the bonus media coverage to go with it.”
“Was she even worth it?”
“I didn’t even fuck her, to be honest. It would have happened. God only knows why, but I was keen to give it a go. In the end, I couldn’t perform.”
Jackson’s eyebrows bounced up with intrigue. “You’re saved, then!”
“No one will believe the truth of it, let alone Sophie.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
When Gavin returned to Dublin, he directed the taxi driver to the house that had just been vacated. It took him a moment to sort out what was going on, but he was able to flag down the taxi before it left the driveway.
On the way to the new house in Dalkey, Gavin asked to stop at a flower shop. He quickly purchased two dozen long stem red roses, hoping they would serve as a buffer.
Even the driver didn’t buy it. He let out a smoker’s cough of a laugh when he saw Gavin climbing into the back of the car.
“Wishful thinking, aye, laddie?” he said.
“You mind your own there,” Gavin said, but not unkindly.
When he was left off at the gates of his new home, Gavin lingered at the far end of the finely laid drive. The gates were open and under the pale sunlight, he saw a glorious view of the sea beyond the house. Taking a deep breath, he then trudged on and let himself in the front door.
Sophie was leaning against the deck railing, staring out at the water. He purposely crunched the plastic wrapping around the stems of the roses to announce his presence but she was slow to turn and look at him. When she finally did, he had partially covered himself with the flowers.
“Gavin,” she said.
He lowered the flowers and attempted a charming smile.
“Don’t be an ass,” she told him and he lost his smile.
He watched as she turned away from him again. Setting the roses down hastily, he joined her on the deck.
“So,” he started and faltered.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.
“We need to, Sophie. In all seriousness, we need to. You need to know—”
“I don’t want to hear lies or justifications or excuses.”
“Hear me out for second. Look at me.” He took a deep breath and waiting for her to look at him before continuing. “I didn’t have sex with her.”
She watched him for a long moment, searching his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”
“You have to ’cause it’s the truth. I swear to you. I got too close to doing something I shouldn’t but in the end, it didn’t happen.”
This time when she examined him, she seemed to relent. The hardness in her eyes let up and her body relaxed a degree.
“I’m so very sorry for this. For everything.”
“What do you want?”
He was taken aback by the question. “What do I want? I want you to forgive me.”
“Do you want to be married to me?”
“Yes, of course I do. Sophie, you’re all I want. I swear to you. I was so wasted at that club, I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Just tell—was she the only one? Or have there been more?”
“No, that was it.” Over the years, there had been countless temptations from women eager to give themselves to him. Most efforts were obvious and easy to resist. The women who were subtle and put an effort into real seduction had been harder to turn away. But he was proud of the fact that he had never been weak enough to do the wrong thing. Until now.
Again, she searched his eyes for the truth. “Okay,” she whispered.
It didn’t make any sense to him, but he knew better than to question it. Instead, he followed her inside and sat with her on the sofa. They didn’t speak but little by little, she let him pull her into his arms. They stayed there, quiet and entwined for a long while.
As Gavin held her, he thought of all he had jeopardized and who he had become. It shamed him to know that he had treated his wife with such disrespect. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he was less than a man.
At that moment, Sophie rested her head against his shoulder and sighed. The gesture brought him to tears for he knew that she had been pushed beyond her limits and yet she was still hanging on.
He held her tighter in return. “I’m going to stop. I’m all out and I won’t get any more.”
“Uh huh,” she said.
“Really, darlin’. It’s time to give it up.”
“Okay.”
There was no faith or hope in her voice and he hated himself all the more.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
“So, what of all the rumors about drug use?” Sean Reynolds asked without preamble.
Gavin had braced himself for such a tact, so he wasn’t surprised even though the live audience seemed to be. They murmured collectively and then hushed. His appearance on the acerbic presenter’s show had been arranged by James just the day before. James had been at the band’s jam session and was delighted to see that Gavin was several days sober. The idea behind putting him on the show was to combat the cocaine and stripper stories that had dominated the tabloids. James had even begged Gavin to have Sophie join him, but Gavin was not only adamantly against drawing her into this but also unable to as she was in Prague for work.
“Lots of rumors out there,” Gavin agreed. Though he was too thin, he had cleaned up well for the show. A trip to a barber meant his short hair now had some style, with the sides and back at a close fade and the top a bit longer and tamed by gel. Even with jeans that were baggy on him, the rest of his ensemble of a dark blue fitted wool coat over blue-green striped v-neck sweater with brown leather belt and boots, negated his recent sloppy tabloid images.
“Yes, let’s talk about all those pesky cocaine rumors. Clear the air, if you will. Don’t your fans deserve that much?” Reynolds asked with a salacious grin.
Reynolds had a reputation for putting his guests in uncomfortable positions and now was no exception. Especially not since he had a personal stake in this. He’d been the radio DJ to play Rogue’s first demo and gotten in trouble with the station for it. Though he failed to air the more polished demo Gavin and Conor later asked him to play, he had taken every opportunity to tell the world he had discovered Rogue. When the band hadn’t backed him up on this claim, he’d grown bitter and traded his praise for barbs, especially as he gained his own platform with his chat show.
“What they deserve is to know that everything’s fine with me, everything’s fine with Rogue. In fact, we’re working on our new album now and it’s going really well.”
“The artful dodger, aye?” Reynolds asked. “But we all know yo
u’re here for damage control, don’t we? Let’s talk about Sammy-the-stripper.”
“Listen, that episode was not one of my proudest moments.” Gavin paused to let the sincerity of that statement sink in. “But, to be honest, haven’t we all at some point had a drink too many and gone a bit too far? Most go down to their local and only have a few witnesses, yeah? It can still be a bitch to get past all the good craic that comes out of making an arse out of yourself.”
There was a ripple of knowing laughter in the audience.
“My fuckups, if you’ll pardon the expression, are a bit more documented. But, really, aren’t I tame compared to the likes of that Justin Bieber kid? All that underage drinking and public pissing in buckets,” he said with a wink and a tsk.
Reynolds ignored the new round of laughter from the crowd and pressed on. “She claims you got on quite well, that you were intimate.”
“You all saw what that intimacy entailed,” Gavin said, chagrined. “Nothing more to it than that.”
“Interesting. Then what’s this about her claiming familiarity with a tattoo of yours?”
Gavin sensed a shift within the audience. There was a restlessness that suggested they were growing weary of Reynold’s dogged pursuit of this angle even after Gavin had, for the most part, won them over with the comparison of the average guy making mistakes after too much drink.
Deciding to take a risk to shut this down, Gavin said, “What, are you of the mind that the tattoo is some sort of smoking gun?” He laughed. “Plenty of people have seen it.”
“Why don’t you give us a look, then?” Reynolds said and the audience cheered in response.
“Right here?” Gavin asked.
“Yes, here and now. Give the audience what it asks for,” Reynolds said and succeeded in getting the crowd to rally for this request.
Gavin shook his head slightly and then stood up. He removed the mini microphone from his collar and then pulled off his coat, tossing it aside. He faced the camera and pulled his sweater and shirt up high for everyone to have a look. His torso was pale and thin, his ribs plain. And the tattoo on his chest now clearly read “Sophie.” The tattoo was intricate and beautiful, and without any of the raised redness that would indicate it had been recently drawn. There was a hum within the audience as they murmured to each other.
One of Jackson’s friends had volunteered to touch up his original tattoo when Gavin was in London, and he had readily agreed as he had wanted to make the original, unremarkable, ‘S’ tattoo into something more befitting its extraordinary namesake. Gavin hadn’t known then that the final version would be the key to getting back into the public’s good graces as most people would infer that the stripper had not truly been intimate with him since she had incorrectly identified his tattoo. The tone of the interview changed after that. Reynolds knew he had lost the audience’s will to interrogate Gavin, so he let Gavin dictate the topics. And besides Gavin’s mildly controversial claim that Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys had an “aggressively unremarkable voice,” he never strayed far from talking about Rogue, past, present, and future.
James congratulated him heartily afterwards, claiming he had never seen Sean Reynolds at such a loss of control over one of his guests.
Gavin knew it wasn’t his doing. The audience, his fans, were much like Sophie. They just had no stomach to see him in a negative way.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
When Sophie returned home from Prague, she was surprised to find Gavin sitting behind his desk in the room he had made into a writing space. His MacBook Pro was aglow but he was using a leather-bound book to write. She watched him unnoticed for a minute, examining him for signs of drug use.
After he had returned from London with apologies and promises to quit cocaine, she was numb. They had spent the following days tiptoeing around each other as he dealt with the crash of his sudden lack of cocaine. He was exhausted but couldn’t sleep, moody and anxious, all the while trying desperately to earn some forgiveness from her. Then work had taken her to Prague for two nights and she had been once again both relieved and worried to leave him.
But now he seemed clear-eyed and alert, and she didn’t want to disrupt the focus he had on writing. It was something she hadn’t seen him do in such a long time.
“Darlin’, you’re home,” he said, stopping her as she turned to leave.
“I didn’t want to interrupt you,” she said.
He stood up and held his hand out to her and she went to him. As he pulled her into his arms, she took in a deep, shaky breath. He smelled of soap and his skin was warm. She relaxed into his embrace, grateful to feel the kind of comfort and intimacy with him she had gone too long without.
~
Sophie woke from a deep sleep with a feeling that something was wrong. It was two forty-three in the morning and Gavin was not in bed with her. For each of the last four days, they had gone to bed together and woken together. They had spent time reconnecting, easing into the familiar, easy relationship they had always enjoyed.
Until now. The house was silent, still. She knew without exploring other rooms he had gone.
~
It was after three o’clock when Sophie pulled the Mercedes to a stop in front of Jacob’s club. It was well after hours, but there were still enough people inside that the sounds of a party spilled out into the street.
Sophie pulled her jacket tighter around her, took a deep breath, and pushed the front door open. She was assaulted by blaring electronica and cigarette smoke. As she made her way to the back of the club, she struggled to identify Gavin in the crowd.
She naturally looked for him in the center of the largest group, but instead found him off to the side, sitting on top of a table. A dark-haired woman stood between his legs, entirely capturing his attention. He was leaning back on his hands as they talked, not the aggressor but not doing anything to dissuade Julia O’Flaherty from toying with the rip on the thigh of his jeans. The recognition of her husband’s old lover came as the same reeling sensation she had had all those years ago when she understood she had been made their fool. Then, it was because he had been clumsily trying to hide the fact that he had never really ended things with Julia, even as he had made Sophie his fiancée. Now, it was because he had apparently been lured by Julia out here in the middle of the night. They had spent the last several days establishing something real, something hopeful, only for him to casually destroy it all.
Sophie should have been devastated to find him like this, with her. Instead, an odd kind of relief flooded her from head to toe. Because now she—at last—had the final excuse she needed to give up on him.
Before Sophie could assert herself, Julia glanced her way. Without missing a beat, she said, “Oh look, it’s your wife come to fetch you.”
Gavin’s brows came together in confusion. But when he saw Sophie, he hurriedly sat up, got to his feet, and brushed past Julia.
“Sophie, I—”
“Thanks for making it easy in the end,” she told him calmly.
“What? No, you don’t mean that,” he said, following her as she headed for the door
Out in the street, it was raining and she had never been so cold. “You leave our bed to be with her?”
“No, that’s not it. She’s just been around lately, hanging with this group.”
“And I bet she doesn’t make you feel guilty for doing drugs like I do, right?”
Gavin looked away but it didn’t stop him from saying, “She doesn’t judge that.”
Sophie wanted to punch him. She wanted unleash her anger, but all she could muster was, “That must be very attractive to you right now.”
He turned his gaze back to her. “I’ve done nothing with her, I swear to you.”
“I am done believing anything you say, Gavin. I have been a complete idiot for far too long.” She laughed bitterly as she thought of her own behavior over the last few months. “I kept thinking if I just hung on, I could be the thing you need to get through all of this. I
must have been delusional. But I’m done now. I don’t want to beat my head against a wall anymore. I don’t want to do it ‘til it hurts.”
He looked stricken. That was exactly the reaction she hoped for in mocking his song lyrics. But now she just wanted to get out of the rain and go home.
The stupid key fob wouldn’t respond to her attempt to unlock the door, however, even as she pressed it over and over again.
He put his hand on her wrist to stop her, then took the fob from her. With one push, he unlocked the door. She had been pressing the “lock” button in her attempt to leave and she wanted to both cry and laugh at this bit of self-sabotage that so perfectly mirrored her life with Gavin.
They stood at the door of the car, the rain soaking them. Her body shook uncontrollably even as she hugged her arms tight around her chest.
“I’ll let you go, if that’s what you want,” he said softly. “I’ll give you a divorce. Whatever you want.”
They had never spoken of divorce before. A life without each other had never been within the realm of possibilities.
“Is this what you’ve been trying to do all along?” She tried for eye contact but he looked away. “You’ve been trying to get me to leave you? So, what? So you can be alone with your drugs?”
“Sophie, you’ve always known me so well. How can you not understand me now?”
His pain was so raw that it triggered her years-long habit of wanting to be the one to fix him, even after just telling him she had been delusional to keep hanging on to this pattern. She reached out to touch him but he jerked away.
“Tell me,” she said. “Talk to me.”
“Don’t you see?” he asked. “I don’t deserve you. I don’t.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe that. I won’t give up on you, baby.”
There was relief in his eyes but it quickly gave way to something else. Something dark. She thought it was self-loathing, but what he said next deflected that hatred to her.
“You’re so weak,” he said softly, and her stomach dropped at the cruelty of his words. “I didn’t marry this girl.”
Tangled Up In You: A Rogue Series Novel Page 29