Strings

by Emma Lea

  “Are you okay with that Dr. Rousso?”

  Gabe nodded. “I am,” he said.

  “Excellent,” Derek said, a grin splitting his face. “So we are leaving tomorrow night for the Red Boot. Why Stevie wanted to do a gig in the middle of nowhere, I have no fucking idea, but she insisted. As did Nate.” Derek shook his head. “The bus leaves here at eight and will travel overnight. I’ll email you with the details.” He said this to Gabe before turning back to Nadine. “I know this is hard for you,” he said, his voice softening. “But stick with it. Things will sort themselves out, just don’t give up on them yet, okay?”

  Nadine nodded and Gabe watched with a puzzled expression. What the hell did Derek know that he didn’t? And why hadn’t Nadine told him?

  Nadine stood and walked around the desk to give Derek a hug. Gabe fought down the jealousy that rose up at the sight of her in his arms and took a deep breath. He knew their history. He knew that Nadine had worked with Derek for a long time before and that they were close friends. He also knew that she had agreed to be his girlfriend and now it looked like it wasn’t going to be a secret. Which he needed to talk to her about and find out why she had changed her mind and why the hell she hadn’t just come clean to Derek. If they were going to pretend to be in a relationship, why not just tell the man that they actually were in a relationship? It didn’t make sense to him but he wasn’t stupid enough to call her out on it in front of Derek. No, that was a conversation they needed to have in private. Hopefully while they were naked so that she couldn’t hide from him.

  Chapter Seven

  “Hey,” Gabe called to Nadine as she tried to escape the meeting without him.

  She slowed as she came to the elevator but didn’t turn around. Gabe clenched his jaw and lengthened his stride. He did not like her attempts at avoidance. Not from him. The elevator doors opened and she stepped in. He slid into the car just as the doors were closing. Nadine stood in the corner with her head down.

  Gabe crowded her and tucked a finger under her chin so that her face was tilted up to him.

  “You want to explain what just happened in there?” he asked gently.

  She searched his eyes before letting her shoulders relax. He hadn’t realized just how tightly she had been holding herself.

  “Are you angry with me?” she asked, her voice small.

  “No,” he said, sliding his hand along her jaw and into her hair so that he cupped the back of her head. “Confused, but not angry.”

  She sighed and leaned into his body. He welcomed her, craving the feel of her pressed against him.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “There’s nothing to apologize for,” he said. “I just need you to explain to me what’s going on.”

  She took a deep breath and pressed herself further against him. “I got scared,” she replied.

  “Scared how? Of what?”

  “When I got home today, Jace and Vanessa were waiting for me. They said they wanted to spend time with me but it felt like an intervention. And they are so nice all the time. I know you said that all the fighting and yelling wasn’t healthy but at least it was honest. This niceness is weird. I just know that they are going to make sure one of them is with me the whole time while we are on tour. They won’t leave me alone because they are too afraid of what I might do. It’s like being under a microscope with every single action analyzed and tested. I hate it.”

  The elevator doors whooshed open and Gabe guided her out into the lobby. They walked arm in arm across the floor and out the front doors. It was dark and Gabe instinctively turned Nadine towards where his car was parked.

  “So me pretending to be your boyfriend? What was that all about?”

  She shrugged as they walked. “I just thought that if everyone knew you and I were together then they wouldn’t crowd me so much.” She looked up at him. “And we could spend time together without anyone getting suspicious.”

  “Okay, I get that. But why the subterfuge? Why not come clean with Derek and tell him that we are actually seeing each other in real life?”

  She stopped and turned to him, looking up at him with big eyes. Her bangs were so long that they tangled with her eyelashes and Gabe raised a hand to brush them away.

  “I didn’t want to get you in trouble,” she said.

  Gabe bent his head and brushed a sweet kiss on her lips. “Thank you,” he murmured against her mouth as he kissed her again. “But you didn’t have to protect me.” He kissed her again. Her soft lips a siren call to him. Her concern for him was a little too intoxicating.

  She opened her mouth to him and he swept his tongue in, sliding against hers as the kiss deepened. He pulled her close, not caring that they were on a main street in full view of the world. He lost his mind whenever he was around her, whenever she touched him.

  The blaring horn of a passing car brought him back to his senses and he dragged his mouth away from her reluctantly with a groan.

  “Come on,” he said, “let’s go home.”

  “I can’t,” she said, stopping him.

  He turned back to her. “You can’t?”

  “We have a band meeting tonight and I need to pack. We have rehearsals tomorrow and then we have to get on the bus. I need to go home.”

  His shoulders slumped as he sighed. As much as he wanted to keep her all to himself, he couldn’t. She had a life and a career and a family all of which were separate from him. At least with this tour coming up he would get to see just what her life was really like and be there for her when she needed him.

  He pulled her into him, his arms snaking around her waist. He rested his forehead against hers. “I was hoping for a repeat of last night,” he said huskily.

  She smiled and tilted her head so that her nose rubbed along the side of his. “I think if we did that again so soon it would kill both of us.”

  He chuckled and kissed her. He just couldn’t get enough of her. She groaned and pulled away.

  “If you keep that up you’ll convince me to blow off the band and that would not be a good way for me to introduce you as my boyfriend. You’re supposed to be keeping me on the straight and narrow, not corrupting me.”

  He stopped her yabbering with another kiss. He didn’t care that he was supposed to be the good guy. He had been the good guy his whole life. Nadine made him want to walk on the wild side and push boundaries. Eventually his internal parent - or in this case the voice in his head was his sister - prevailed and he dragged his mouth away from her. She blinked up at him, her eyes a little glazed, her pupils blown wide, and he groaned. He liked the lust-drugged look on her. He wanted to see more of it, more of her. Instead he released his arms from around her and took her hand.

  “Where did you park?” he asked.

  She shook her head to clear it and turned them around. She had parked in the opposite direction to where he was parked. He didn’t care that he would have to walk twice as far, it meant he got a little extra time with her.

  Nadine stood on the porch outside her front door and took a deep breath. She really didn’t want to be here. She would much rather be with Gabe and doing all the naughty things that his kisses promised. But she had to do this. She had to face her band and discuss the logistics of the upcoming tour and the performance the following night.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t like the members of the band, she loved them. What made her pause before going inside was that she knew they would all look at her with those soft, pitying faces. They thought she was fragile. They thought she was going to break at any moment. They thought if they treated her like a normal person she was going to fly off the handle and mainline heroine or some such shit. Okay, maybe not that. But they definitely looked at her differently now. That was what was so addictive about Gabe. He knew everything about her - mostly - but he didn’t treat her like some spun-glass ornament. He was real with her and he didn’t pull his punches. That’s what she missed about Jace. He had never been so careful around her before and it fe
lt foreign. She hated it.

  A burst of laughter from inside had her yearning. She missed the easy camaraderie of the band before she had gone and fucked everything up. She didn’t think they were ever going to be able to forgive her for what she took from them. Her actions had derailed their first major success and because of her they had all had to disappear from the limelight when they should have been out there milking it. Was it any wonder that they looked at her like that? Was it any wonder that they tiptoed around her and bent over backwards to make sure she was happy? They were worried that she was going to do it again. That just as their stalled careers were poised to take-off, Nadine was going to turn around and fuck it all up again with her craziness.

  The door opened and Vanessa stuck her head out. “Hey,” she said, “what are you doing out here?”

  Nadine lifted her head and pulled back her shoulders. Pasting a bright smile on her face she just shook her head and stepped through the door. Nadine was determined not to ruin everything for the band this time. They deserved to find success even if she didn’t.

  Nadine walked into the living room where Jace, Stevie and Nate waited. Nate wasn’t technically part of the band but he was Stevie’s significant other and he had released a song with them. He was coming to the Red Boot with them to perform that song with the band. The more the merrier, right?

  Stevie jumped up and crossed the room to envelope her in a hug. Nadine and Stevie had always gotten on well even though she sometimes took on the mom role. Nadine had resisted it and it had been the cause of some of internal emotional turmoil - not that she would ever tell Stevie that. Growing up without a mom had made Nadine a little gun shy when it came to allowing someone else to take on that role in her life. She didn’t need another mom, what she really wanted was for her actual mom to still be with them. Nadine had so many questions for her, questions that would continue to go unanswered. Nobody really knew what went on inside another person’s head and those were the answers Nadine wanted. Like how did her mom first know that things weren’t right in her head?

  Nadine let Stevie hug her just long enough that it wasn’t rude when she stepped out of it. She smiled at her bandmate and friend. “You only just saw me last night,” she said, “What’s with the hug?”

  Stevie shrugged and through an arm around her, guiding her over to the couch. “I’m excited about the Red Boot. I love that place and I can’t wait to show you guys off there.”

  “Plus,” Nate said as Stevie sat down and then pulled Nadine down next to her, “last night was a-mazing! You guys fucking rocked.”

  Nadine smiled. Last night had been amazing and not just the gig. The whole adventure with Gabe after it was what had kept her mind most occupied. It almost felt like the gig at Dirty Moe’s had happened weeks ago.

  “So spill,” Stevie said, nudging her with her shoulder. “Who’s Gabe?”

  Nadine couldn’t stop the grin that spread across her face and Stevie squealed. She felt herself relaxing. The atmosphere in the house had been so sterile since she’d come home from rehab. Vanessa and Jace were convinced she needed peace and quiet and barely made a sound whenever they were all home. Having Stevie back in the house brought some life back into it and Nadine realized just how much she had been missing the noise.

  “He’s a guy I met,” Nadine said, not looking at Jace. She knew what she would see if she turned his way. He would be frowning at her and not in the angry way that she wished she would see again, but in a concerned fatherly way that made her want to slap him. “We’re seeing each other…dating.”

  Stevie squealed again, this time joined by Vanessa. Nadine felt bad that she hadn’t confided in Nessa sooner, but things between them had been strained.

  “Do you think it’s a good idea to get involved with someone?” Jace asked.

  “Why?” Nadine shot back, her good mood deflating. “Because I’m crazy?”

  He jumped to his feet and Nadine had the fleeting hope that she had finally pierced the weird bubble that had been around him. But instead of yelling at her he jammed a hand through his hair and swore softly to himself. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I just meant that with the tour coming up and—”

  “He’s coming with us,” Nadine said, cutting Jace off. “Derek was going to tell you guys after the gig tomorrow night. Gabe is going to be coming on tour with us as an assistant.”

  “An assistant?”

  Nadine nodded. “Like a gofer.”

  Jace rolled his eyes. “So he’s unemployed?”

  “No,” Nadine retorted sarcastically. “He’s a…” God, they hadn’t even discussed his cover story. “He works in the business,” Nadine said. “He has some time off and he thought it would be fun to come on tour with me.”

  “And Derek agreed?”

  “It was Derek’s idea.” Nadine said, warming up to her theme. “He’s worked with other up and coming bands and he knows what touring is like. Derek thought he would be an asset to have with us since Marci can’t be there to hold our hands all the time.” Now she was just lying through her ass. God she hoped Gabe could pull this off.

  The house was quiet. Stevie and Nate had left hours ago and Jace and Vanessa had both gone to bed. Nadine had too, but she couldn’t sleep. She lay in her bed staring at the ceiling and wondering if her life would ever go back to normal. The normal before she managed to fuck everything up. The normal before they formed a band and went on that first tour.

  Was that what she really wanted, though? Being a studio musician had been good, great even, but she had always hungered for more. Performing had been a part of her life from the days when both her parents were alive. After they died and their aunt took them in, music had been forbidden. Especially the music that their parents had raised them on. Their aunt was all about the hymns and religious music and refused to have anything to do with the music that had corrupted and ultimately killed her sister - Nadine’s mother. Their aunt wouldn’t acknowledge that it was their mother’s mental illness that killed her. As far as she was concerned it was the music that caused the mental illness, so the music was to blame.

  Thankfully Jace had gotten them out of there as soon as he was old enough to request full custody. For a while there, the music had died with their parents but Jace had brought it back to them. It wasn’t the same as being surrounded by the band that they had grown up with - their parents’ weird folk band - but it was music and all of them needed it in their lives. All the memories of touring in that yellow school bus were too painful for them to even contemplate trying a similar life, so working in the studio had been a compromise. They got to be immersed in music without the performance.

  And then that all changed. For the better. The Court siblings hadn’t discussed the possible ramifications of taking on a life they had so far avoided. It had seemed right for them to embark on a new chapter in their lives. It was a different experience. Their band was a hell of a lot more stable than their parents’ band and they didn’t live like gypsies - not like when she was young. There was no reason for any of them to worry that it would bring up all those painful memories.

  Wasn’t that the thing with stress triggers, though? Could they ever really be predicted? Of course there were the obvious ones, like if their tour bus had been a yellow school bus or their band had been made up of more members than you could count on both hands. Music was definitely a trigger, but they didn’t play the same folksy, politically charged music that their parents played. Nadine supposed they should have considered that just the fact that they were on a bus on tour could have been a major trigger, but none of them had ever been given cause to worry. None of the siblings had ever suffered from any form of depression or anxiety since the deaths of their parents - apart from the initial stages of grief that is.

  It wasn’t until they were on tour and performing nearly every night that Nadine began to suspect that she was just like her mom. The euphoric high from being in front of a stadium led to the inevitable lows and that had scare
d her. The swinging pendulum of emotions had brought back memories of her mom and that had scared the life out of her. She had turned to alcohol and partying to keep the high going, fearing the lows…fearing the quietness of her bunk in the middle of the night when she was assaulted by memories of the mother she had worshiped. A mother who had taken everything away from her.

  Nadine sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She dropped her head in her hands and fought back the panic. It was nights like this that had caused her to go looking for a warm body to fill her bed. Someone she could lose herself in and not have to think. Right then, all she wanted was Gabe, his strong arms wrapped around her and his tangy scent in her nose. That was what she yearned for. It wasn’t even about the sex, although that always helped to quiet her mind. No, it was the man. There was something about Gabe that soothed her. His steadiness calmed her and helped her to move past the panic and the physiological manifestations of her anxiety.

  But Gabe wasn’t here. She had sent him away.

  Nadine stood and padded across the room to the door of her ensuite. Usually the door would be open and the connecting door to Vanessa’s room would be open too. Things had changed between her and her sister and this was one of them. There was a time when they would sleep in each other’s beds just because they needed the comfort. They had done it since they were little. Now there was a wall between them. A wall Nadine had built with her own destructive behavior.

  She held her hand up to the door and rested her palm and her forehead against the cool wood. Would Vanessa turn her away if she went into her room? There had been a time when all three siblings were inseparable. They had relied on each other for everything. Nadine and Vanessa had been especially close - almost like twins. It was different now.