by Kaia Bennett
"How long was it going on?"
Gabriel blinked and thought about that. How long had what been going on, exactly? The sex had been just one day. But loving her had been longer forever, it felt like. If only he'd known before it was too late.
"It only happened once," he said quietly.
Well, if by once you mean, in one setting over the course of one day...
"Just once," he repeated.
Chase nodded, and Gabriel saw Chase's personal brand of sympathy eke through his neutral facial expression. "So... now what?"
Gabriel shrugged and turned his eyes towards the heavens. If there were stars out tonight he couldn't see them. Just as well. He wasn't in the mood to see anything beautiful, anyway. "It's over. It wasn't really anything to begin with," he said finally.
That should have been the end of it. Chase knew him well enough to catch on to this, and he could be relied on to hold his tongue, where Nuke might try to get him to talk it out.
"Do I look stupid to you, man?"
Gabe smiled and rolled his head towards Chase's direction. "Is that a trick question?"
Chase shook his head and Gabriel could see the wheels turning. He was actually going to say something else.
Huh. Interesting.
"I'm starting to get worried about you. You're acting like you did back in the day with Meredith. The first time around, when you finally ended things with Marta."
Gabriel had the presence of mind to stand up straight in alarm, and Chase was merciful enough to get to the point.
"I always knew. Maybe Nuke does too. But it wasn't my place to say anything about it. I kept an eye on you, I kept my mouth shut, and eventually you got your shit together. That's what you do, Gabe. You pull it together in the end. You figure out how to fix things before you fuck it up for good..."
Chase shook his head and took a place beside him on the brick wall. "It feels different this time, though. You should be closer to getting over this and moving on, but you're not. And now you've slept with her again and she's still with her boyfriend. So, what the fuck is going on with you two? You in love, or not?"
"It's not that simple. You should understand that, you've got a girl now. Next to food that's your most committed relationship."
Chase snorted and shrugged. "It's only as complicated as you make it. I'm no expert, but we want to be together. So, we are. End of story."
"Yeah," Gabe said, his voice dripping with bitterness. "That makes all the difference, doesn't it? Trish is sure she wants to be with you. You didn't ask her to make a life with you only to have her say she didn't mean for any of this to happen. You didn't think you were gonna get back together and wake up to find her trying to sneak out and go back to her boyfriend because she'd made a mistake."
A whoosh of air filtered out of Chase's mouth and billowed out in front of them. “Fuck, dude... that's..."
"Fucked up? Yeah, I thought so, too."
Silence stretched between them, each second of cold thoughts and cold wind serving to sober Gabriel up.
"So, that's it then? She goes back to pretending she's in love with The Warden, and you go back to silently sulking, writing songs about the one that got away?" Chase asked softly.
Gabriel didn't answer, if only because he was afraid of the answer and was too scared to say so. His ego was already beaten to a bloody pulp because of rejection, because of misplaced hope.
"Well?"
"I don't fucking know, Chase. It was never really up to me to begin with. Her boyfriend told her she had to stop being my friend. She came over to end things with me and one thing led to another. I thought we were getting back together, that she still loved me. She said she did."
"Because she does," Chase offered, leaving little room for argument.
"She used to. Not anymore. Not enough to leave him."
"Look, I'm no fan of Travis. You know this. But in the grand scheme of things, he hasn't done shit wrong. He's done exactly what you would have done if you were in his shoes, and Nicole has a heart. She wouldn't take hurting him lightly. Like how you were with Marta."
Gabriel turned to look at Chase then, shaking his head. "I think this is the most I've ever heard you speak in a straight shot."
"This was kind of important," he answered seriously. "Because you really need to stop fucking around, get off the fence, and make a decision."
"About?"
"Either you're going to hunt her down, club her over the head and drag her back to the cave—"
Gabriel immediately shook his head, got a little dizzy and stopped. "I can't do that. I can't... force her to make a choice. It's hard to explain..."
Actually, to his mind it was quite simple. He'd gone as far as his conscience would let him that night in her hotel room. He'd already done the caveman thing, and he'd lost her trust because of it. He wasn't willing to violate any part of her again.
"Then, you have one option left...you have to stop torturing yourself, Gabe. Whatever happened, whatever went wrong in the past, you can't keep holding onto it. She had to stop waiting around for you. Now it's your turn."
Chase pushed himself off the wall and turned his eyes back towards the way they'd come. "A new year's on its way, man. Time for some things to change." Then he turned to Gabriel and asked, "You coming?"
Gabriel watched him take a few steps forward before he started to follow. His eyes were on those unseen stars. He didn't know why he kept searching for them. Maybe it was the symbolism of it all. Maybe it was time to turn his eyes away from the heavens and come back down to earth.
And just as he did so, just as he turned the corner with Chase, he ran into a slim body. His gaze caught pleasing features, shiny brown hair and dark eyes. Her body was clad in stilettos, dark skinny jeans, and a cropped leather jacket.
In the time it took him to register her appearance and apologize, she'd recognized him and so had her friends. Squealing and autographs rapidly followed; pictures and giggly flirting shortly after that. But the one he'd careened into, this one was the leader of the pack. While the others flitted back and forth between the two guitarists and wanted to know where the others were, this girl had all of her attention on Gabriel.
"So... what are you doing later?"
It wasn't the first time he'd heard those suggestive words, and it wouldn't be the last. He caught sight of Chase turning the corner with the other chattering girls. They called after her but she shooed them away. One lingering gaze and then Chase was gone, leaving only his words and a pretty girl behind.
It was going to be a new year soon. Change was coming, whether he embraced it or not.
And he was tired of being either empty or filled up with pain. He wanted a cure. He wanted to stop seeing the woman he would have to live without every time he closed his eyes. So he hailed a cab, he got in with a girl who looked nothing like Nicole Langley, and he pretended for as long as his body would let him that he was far from broken-hearted.
Chapter Sixteen
Four months later...
One finished album. One new book halfway complete. Life moved on, changed, inching towards a new milestone. Four months of moving on. Again.
But as always, there was unfinished business to attend to.
Nicole smoothed out her bridesmaid dress with shaking hands. She looked in the bedroom mirror, her eyes apprehensive, her brow furrowed. None of it had to do with the way the buttercream yellow of her dress complimented her skin, or the way the yellow rose in her hair sat cradled by loose curls. She wanted to smile, because honestly she looked beautiful, just as Jackie knew she would in this color. She looked like spring, like new beginnings... but the past was still coming for her nonetheless.
Travis walked into the bedroom then, mercifully interrupting her thoughts. He smoothed his black hair back from his forehead, and avoided her plaintive stare. His tie hung around his neck waiting to be done, but the rest of him was dressed to kill. Immediately she plastered a smile her face, a habit she'd cultivated since the day he
said that he would try, that he would stay with her in spite of himself because he knew his jealousy had helped push her into Gabriel’s arms. Still, he avoided looking at her when he went to the mirror, seemingly preoccupied with his tie, rather than with the stress of the coming day.
She'd grown accustomed to him being right next to her and yet light years away. She'd grown accustomed to winning him back slowly, one unsure smile and one wavering glance at a time. And she'd grown accustomed to not sleeping through the night, worrying about the next day, and trying to push thoughts of the last time she saw Gabriel from her mind. Even those silent thoughts felt like a betrayal. The way they would flush her skin with heat and make her fingers itch to call him, to fix everything that felt broken in her world, in her heart.
Call him again, that is. She'd already tried to call him, many times, but accepted long ago that she was a coward. She knew the sound of his voice would consume her. She wouldn't be able to bear the idea that he might turn her away, that he meant what he said. She couldn't bear the fact that she still cared so much about Travis. Breaking his heart broke hers in a way she hadn't expected it to, as if she'd confirmed she really did love him after all. Even though he now looked at her like she was a tightrope and the safety net had been snatched out from under him, she couldn’t bear to walk away.
Slowly but surely she'd begun to touch him again. He barely flinched when she touched his tie, guided him to face her, and started to tie it.
"You look so good," she said softly, smoothing the fabric against his chest. She wondered if her smile would ever curve without a hint of guilt, if she would ever fully meet his eyes and not find hurt and anger there.
"Thanks." He licked his lips, and she recognized the brief pause as he assessed whether to say his next words.
"You look beautiful, Nikki."
It was a double-edged sword. To compliment her was to tell the truth, to mend the cracks in their relationship. Yet, she could see the effort it took to say something nice to her, to go everyday weighing and measuring his words, knowing that saying nothing would hurt as much as calling her a lying bitch.
For weeks he barely said a word to her. She slept on the couch and watched the sun come up because she couldn't sleep. She made him breakfast he wouldn't eat, and cried herself into a ball when he left for work. She didn't deserve to cry in front of him, to pluck at his conscience when he was the only one truly free of guilt in all of this.
Unless you count falling in love with a girl he knew was in love with someone else heart and soul. Then pushing her to cut ties with him when you realized you couldn’t compete—
Immediately she bit her tongue, as if she actually said the words aloud. It was a thought that she hated, because it always came to her defense when she couldn’t take blaming and hating herself anymore.
Nicole felt more than saw the soft peck on her forehead. She heard herself say “thank you,” but before she could kiss him back Travis was turning away, his reflection walking out of the room. And she was relieved. The rush of air escaping her lungs was as inescapable as this day.
Just one more day. One last punishment. She would see him again and then it would all be over, right?
She blinked once. Twice. Then she put on her biggest, brightest smile. No tears today, not unless they were for her sister and Ian basking in their own happiness.
***
And across town, Gabriel, forever in sync with a girl he'd given up on moved over to let Nuke into the cab, the same thoughts racing through his head. Tension filled the seats, a quiet he knew was in deference to him. This was the first time in months Gabriel would come face to face with Nicole, though a day hadn't gone by where he hadn't thought of her and their last time together.
Last times...
He almost smiled at how backwards his mind could be. His thoughts were supposed to be brooding and tortured, but he couldn't help but replay the images of her, naked and slick with sweat, moaning his name, moaning for mercy. Even though his heart clenched at the realization he would never have that again, his body still had some catching up to do. He shifted in his seat subtly adjusting the cursed excitement he would have to pretend didn't exist. A cursory “hi” for the sake of Jackie was all he was willing to muster for her little sister.
This time it wasn't a hoax he'd imposed on himself. This time he was fucking done with her. And he was going to prove it.
The cab turned the corner, down a not-so-familiar street, and Gabriel pulled out his phone to briskly tap out the message: Waiting out front.
Nuke turned to him then and asked, "You gonna be okay with this?"
Gabe's jaw clenched involuntarily before he forced it to relax so he could smile congenially. "Why wouldn't I be?" Nuke gave him an unsure glance and Gabriel sighed in answer. "This day isn't about me or Nicole. This is about Jackie and Ian. I can deal for one day, for our good friends."
It sounded good. Convincing, even.
"So you bringing this chick has nothing to do with making Nicole jealous?" "Nope."
Gabriel's eyes were glued to the window, waiting for her to come out. Angie, he'd learned, took for-fucking-ever to get ready. Against his will he found himself comparing her to Nicole, who would risk bodily injury rather than keep him waiting for a night out...
Give me twenty minutes tops...
His mind drifted back to the night he came to visit her and celebrate the band’s new record deal. She'd gotten ready with time to spare, and as usual, never looked less than stellar. He knew today would be no exception. So his response to Nuke's question was obviously a lie. Angie was there to remind him the torch he still carried could be dimmed. Angie was there to bring him back to reality when he knew seeing Nicole again could tear him apart. Especially since he knew through Chase — by way of Trish — that she was still with Travis. If Trish had figured out Nicole and Gabriel had slept together, he had yet to hear about it. And the rest of the guys, save Nuke and Chase, were as clueless about Nicole as they had been when he'd cheated on Marta.
Just as well. He was tired of the sidelong glances, the masked pity. He'd swallowed bitterness this go-round, not the remorse and guilt of the past. This time he'd done everything right, and all he'd gotten to show for it was one unforgettable day and a pretty girl who meant nothing to him, coming down the steps of her apartment building. She smiled and waved at him, her lean curves and dark hair set off by a subtle tan and a wine colored strapless dress. Another model, another gorgeous girl who would serve as a Band-Aid for a while until he got bored. Then he'd move on to the next one. That was his fate, and this time he'd accept it with an insatiable appetite, like any rock star worth his salt.
"Hey, sweetie!" Angie enthused. She slid into the cab in a huff, the smell of her perfume following her. Something citrus-like, with a hint of flower. Nothing like the lilacs that lingered on his pillows long after Nicole had gone.
"Hi, Nuke," she offered in passing, but before Nuke could respond in full, her focus was on Gabriel's mouth. When she kissed him, her lips lingered, claiming all of his attention. It was the antithesis of Nicole's approach. Nicole... who would always be mindful of the guys, who was always more than just a girlfriend, or friend with benefits. She'd always been an honorary part of the gang. And her kisses put fire in his veins. She always made him want more than he could get in that moment, made the anticipation for the time he could get her alone almost unbearable.
He welcomed Angie's safe brand of sexuality. He could put up a wall and she'd never have the right tools to scale it. She'd never be anything like Nicole.
From the corner of his eye he could sense Nuke's disapproving glare, but this time he ignored it with a smile on his face. He didn't have time to care anymore. He'd taken Chase's advice and decided once and for all to move on.
Now all he had to do was prove that he had by getting through the day ahead...
Chapter Seventeen
Nicole watched Trish's reflection watching her as she smoothed out her dress for what had to be the
twelfth time.
"You look great, you know? So, why are you being so fussy?"
"I'm not being fussy," Nicole argued absently. She was rubbing a hand over the stubborn flesh of her lower abdomen. There would never be enough crunches in the world to make it completely flat like Trish's, would there?
"I'm just going to skip ahead to the part where I ask you if you talked to him yet, since that's obviously what all the fidgety-ness is all about."
Nicole actually gave Trish a look that managed to beg and warn her all at once to shut the hell up. "This is Jackie's day. I'm not going to turn this into another opportunity to have an angsty conversation about Gabriel." She turned back to the mirror and rifled through her purse for her lipstick. "Frankly, it's really old and tired. There's more to life than him and the brief period we were together."
Trish's audible sigh ruffled her feathers, but neither of them said anything else about Gabriel. For better or worse, she was right. It had gotten old. The pining and nervousness, her friends wondering what they were thinking when they broke up, and watching their every interaction for signs they would realign themselves on a path to love and reconciliation. All of it was just silly and childish after nearly two years worth of time apart.
Unless you count that one night...
She was too tired to push away the memories. So she closed her eyes and let the images come unbidden. For just a moment...
She was on top of him, dancing to a beat only they could feel and hear. His breath was in her ear as he pressed her down beneath his weight, and thrust all of his passion into her. The sound of his moan was desperate and clear, as if he were falling apart and she was the only thing that would piece him back together when he came. She could feel his sheets twisting in her fingers and between her teeth as she willingly screamed for him the way he ordered her to. The taste and smell of sweat, the exhale and shudder of their breaths were caught in their raw throats. And then there was the touch of his skin under her fingertips, and the way his fingers interlocked with hers, like his eyes did as she fell, and fell, and fell...