“Have you seen this man?” Gwen flashes her phone at the red-haired, buxom bartender in a leather bikini.
“No, but I’d like to.” She winks.
Gwen snatches her phone back with a scowl. “He is taken, okay? Happily so. Does no one have any respect for commitment?”
The bartender pouts her red, red lips at Gwen. “Do you need a drink, cutie?”
Gwen’s shoulders slump. “Oh my god, you have no idea.” It has been a day. She shakes her head. “But no. I really have to find him.”
The bartender’s face shifts from professionally flirtatious to honestly sympathetic. “Good luck. I hope you find him.”
Gwen thanks her and steps outside feeling both relief and dread. She’s glad to be out of there, but has no idea where to try next. Clementine might know, but spending time with her right now is not a good idea. Still, she’d want to know Grady is—
“Gah!” She runs face-first into a wall that appears out of nowhere. No. Not a wall. “Kevin. Where the hell did you—no, wait. You’re a wizard, right?” It’s the only explanation. How else could he know she was here? How else did he arrange for a car to be waiting outside?
“Is Clem...” Gwen nods at the darkly tinted windows of the black SUV.
Kevin shakes his head.
“Do you know where Grady is?” Kevin’s chin dips just slightly. Gwen gets in the car. “Just tell me,” she says to the back of Kevin’s head as they drive. “Tracking device? Are you the Terminator? You can trust me.”
Kevin is silent, and the car slows. Gwen taps her fingers on the armrest.
A deep, soothing voice says, “Miss Campbell asked me to keep an eye on Mr. Dawson. And you. She wanted to ensure your safety. I’m very good at what I do, Ms. Pasternak.”
“Oh.” Gwen squints. “That... makes more sense.” Then she adds, after another silent moment, “Thanks, Kevin.”
The car stops in front of a quaint little blue triangular building that’s right in the middle of the grand hotels and loud casinos, the billboards and clubs and insanity. It has stained glass windows, a carved front door, and a white cross on the gable. It’s a chapel.
“Oh, no.” Gwen bolts from the car, bangs open the heavy wooden doors, and yells, “Grady, don’t join a convent! Things aren’t that bad, I promise!”
Her voice echoes through the peaceful sanctuary. It is a real church, with an altar, prayer candles and even an organ. And in the back, sitting in the center of one of the long wooden pews, is Grady.
“Not becoming a nun,” Grady says when she sits next to him. “I don’t think they allow men.” He glances around the sanctuary. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure this church is Episcopalian.”
“It’s possible I jumped to the wrong conclusion.” She fidgets on the hard bench. Should she kneel or say a prayer? She’s never quite sure. At the events she’s attended for Flora’s family—weddings, baptisms, and funerals, the big three Catholic life events—it was easy enough to stay distracted by the activities, but this church is hushed and empty and filled with soft light.
“You a churchgoer?” Grady asks, hands clasped in his lap, head tilted up.
“Not in practice, no. My dad is an agnostic in his rare, more hopeful moments, and my mother worships at the altar of pragmatism.” She lifts her shoulders against the hard backrest. “Sometimes I wonder if they’re more dismayed that I married a woman or a practicing Catholic.”
Grady nods. “I don’t go much anymore. Went to that Buddhist church Nico’s parents go to? I liked that. Felt welcome.” He looks around thoughtfully. “I never really managed that whole good-Christian thing.”
Gwen isn’t exactly an expert on the subject, but, “Isn’t their whole thing forgiveness, though? Like you just have to ask, right?”
He doesn’t answer. Gwen wiggles. Should she light a candle or page through the waxy, thin pages of the Bible for something to quote at him?
“I think maybe,” she says, sliding a hand across the buffed, shining wood on the pew in front of them, “forgiveness is more about getting right with yourself and the person you wronged and less about eternal salvation.”
Grady looks at her. His face is anguished, his throat works, and his eyes are wet. “It’s been six years today.”
Gwen scrunches her face in confusion. Six years since... She knows his first big breakout hit is coming up on six years now, but that can’t be it. What came before that was a mess of hard work tempered by hard partying, and for a while after that, too, until he got sober. Something bad, she knows by his shattered expression, something devastating.
She takes a stab. “Your grandmother?”
He presses his lips together, gives a shuddering breath, and confesses, “I had played a show that night, a back corner of a pool hall, but I was playing. Getting paid. I had just been signed to a label. I was all caught up in my moment, you know? All hyped up and high, and she called me. Left a message and said she was feeling ill and could I come home.” He drags a hand through his messy curls. “I didn’t. I was too busy getting wasted and bein’ full of myself.”
“Grady...” Gwen sets a hand on top of his hands, which are still folded as if in prayer.
“When I got home, she was…” He drops his head. “It was too late.”
“Grady, it wasn’t your fault. Even if you had been there—” It was a massive stroke, Nico told her when he filled her in on his first visit to Grady’s hometown in rural Tennessee. “Unless you were a nurse who knew exactly what to do, Grady. You can’t take on the burden of her death like that.”
He shakes his head and looks away. “I should have been there. At least she wouldn’t have been alone.” An elderly man shuffles into the sanctuary, lights a candle, and kneels in front of the flickering light. “That thing you said about forgiveness? She always forgave me. And I never deserved it. She forgave my mother. And my grandfather. She was a good person. Kind. Always gave and gave and let us hurt her over and over again and for what? To die alone in her trailer. At what point does it stop being forgiveness and start being a crucifixion?”
Gwen spares a glance at the cross, at the old man still on his knees. “I don’t know,” she admits. “But I do know that holding on to guilt like that will poison you from the inside out.” She gives his hands another squeeze. “You have to forgive yourself. For yourself. Because you’re a human being who makes mistakes. So am I. And so is Nico. I can certainly relate to being caught up in a moment and forgetting that the rest of the world keeps spinning on anyway.”
His mouth tips with a hint of a smile. “I always think maybe it won’t hit me so hard this year, and then it always does.”
“Well, next year maybe keep in mind that you don’t have to do this alone.” She pats his hands. “Our little family may be a patchwork of weirdos, but we’ve got each other’s backs, and that counts for something.”
Grady chuckles, slinging his arm behind Gwen’s on the pew. “Family. I like that.” He releases a relieved breath. “Clem brought me here because she thought I could use the distraction. But I’d really just like to go home now.”
Gwen tucks into his side. “Yeah, me too.”
The elderly man finishes his prayer, heaves himself up, and shuffles out; his candle is still burning.
“What happens when the three-legged race has gone off course and you both trip and fall in the mud?” Grady asks.
“You help each other up and you keep hobbling along out of love and stubbornness,” Gwen says. “Even when it’s hard. Even when it looks impossible. Otherwise you wind up at the finish line all by yourself.” She stands, tugs Grady to his feet with a grunt. “Shall we hobble?”
“I will if you will.”
25
Grady suggested one last trip to In-N-Out, but Gwen has well and truly purged In-N-Out from her system so they get salads and smoothies and eat them in the car that was waiting for t
hem, though Kevin has vanished once again. When they arrive at the hotel it’s well past midnight.
As the elevator doors slide closed, Gwen hesitates at the rows of buttons. Staying in Clementine’s suite again doesn’t feel right, not when she hasn’t talked to Flora, who is most certainly fast asleep.
Tomorrow. Talking, going home. Home—it took being away from Nashville to realize that she does think of it that way, because that’s where Flora is, that’s where her life is, and she misses it.
First, she needs to get Grady safely to his room. She’ll find somewhere to crash.
“What’s your floor?”
Grady mumbles an answer; his accent is so thick when he’s exhausted it’s as if he’s speaking through a mouthful of wool. She pushes the 8. He looks seconds away from falling asleep right here against the walls of the elevator; so his go-go-go energy does have a limit. When the elevator dings and the doors slide open, she yanks his arm and gets her shoulders under him. “Come on, Double Beef. Let’s get you to bed.”
His room is nice, not lap-of-luxury nice, but upscale-hotel nice with a pristine queen-size bed and a large bathroom, all clean and crisp and modern.
“No penthouse suite?” she asks, depositing Grady on the bed.
He stretches and smiles and purrs, “I’m a simple man with simple needs.”
Gwen unties his boots, tugs one off, and thumps it on the floor. “So you say that stuff, and people take their panties right off, just like that. Amazing.” She thumps the other boot to the floor. He laughs and winks, then rolls to his side. “Okay, you.” Gwen says, as seriously as she can manage right now. “Stay here. Sleep. We’ll take off and make things right in the morning.”
She turns to the door and Grady mumbles, “Where’re ya sleepin’?”
Gwen waves off his concern. “If they don’t have anything here, I’ll find one of those pay-by-the hour joints.” She crosses her fingers in the air. “Here’s hoping they have a dungeon-themed one.”
Grady sleepily pats the bed next to him. “Get on in here.”
“Okay, but no funny business.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Grady drawls.
In the bathroom she strips to her tank top and underwear, removes the bandage covering her ribs to start the airing-out and healing phase, according to the care sheet, and cleans the tender tattoo. She cleans up with the hotel-provided toiletries, then insists Grady do the same, shoving him from the bed with all her remaining strength and energy.
She’s drifting and sluggish when Grady falls back into bed and cuddles close, arms and legs flung over her. She feels as if she’s being snuggled by a hot-blooded giant squid.
“I usually sleep naked.” His chin is set on the top of her head. “But I kept on a shirt and underwear.”
Gwen wheezes out from beneath him, “I appreciate you staying partially clothed for me, Grady.”
He chuckles and rubs his fuzzy legs against hers.
“You’re crushing me, you big lug; roll over,” she whines.
He does. Then tosses and turns and flails and huffs like a squid flopping around on the shore. She sighs and flips over, winds her arms around his chest, and curls her body against the shape of his. He stills, huge and tall and thick in her arms.
“I feel like a human backpack,” she says against his too-warm skin. She wiggles and shifts closer. It’s just not right, all hard flat planes and bulging muscles. “Are you actually sculpted from marble? You’re too hard for cuddling.”
He laughs and flexes his pecs under her hands. “I haven’t had any complaints.”
“This is me complaining.” She moves her hands down around his ribs. That’s not any better. She yearns for Flora’s soft, giving curves.
He twists around a bit to look at her. “This really doesn’t do anything at all for you?”
It’s late enough that she decides to indulge his obvious fishing, and she’s spent long enough in this industry to recognize that the need for external validation is vital to the process of an artist. She yawns first, waits for him to turn back around and stew for minute. “It’s like a pair of six-inch, platform, spiked Louboutin stilettos. Fun to look at, but not really something I want to put on and break my ankle with.”
He mulls this over. “I’m confused. What part of you is your ankle in this scenario?” Grady asks with a yawn of his own.
“Oh, I think you know.”
They go quiet, the mismatched pair of them thrown together in the dark, but Gwen is really glad she’s not alone tonight, and she knows Grady feels the same way when he relaxes against her and breathes slowly and peacefully. He’ll be okay. They both will.
When she stirs awake, it’s to sunlight breaching the cracks in the heavy curtain. Grady is still in her arms, and she has the unsettling realization that someone has been staring at her while she struggles to consciousness.
“Go away, Cheese; it’s not food time,” she snuffles against Grady’s broad back. He groans and stretches and mumbles, “Cheese?”
A new voice says, “There’s a reason you two aren’t allowed to hang out alone.” Arms crossed, one impeccable eyebrow raised, lips twisted, hair artfully tousled, and dressed to the nines in Alexander Wang black-on-black tropical-printed board shorts, a slim-fit, black and white chino and matching black lapel jacket, black boots, and a black and white scarf to tie it all together: “Nico,” Gwen says.
“Nico?” Grady is up in a flash. “You came?”
Nico’s face softens into his Grady look. “Of course I came. Did you really think you were getting rid of me that easily?” Grady comes closer, and Nico brushes a spiraled lock of hair from his face. “I’m sorry it took me so long. There were storms over Dallas, and I got stuck on the tarmac with a dead phone. I barely made my connection, and the clusterfuck of morons known as the United gate at JFK could not get its shit together, and I may be banned outright from Charlotte-Douglas International, can you believe they flag you as a security risk and hold you in a room with no phone signal or Wi-Fi just for threatening one person with shoving that goddam intercom up their—” He opens his arms for Grady; his look of annoyance slips away the moment they touch. “Anyway, I’m here.”
Grady sighs, crowds into Nico’s space, and tucks himself into Nico’s body. Much better. They look like a perfect fit. “God, I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Nico sinks one hand into Grady’s hair, strokes the nape of his neck with the other, breathes him in, and closes his eyes. “I’m so sorry. About the apartment, and taking off, and not being here yesterday. I tried to so hard to make it, because I know how difficult it is for you. You shouldn’t have been alone.”
Grady sniffs and holds him tighter. “It’s okay. We’re okay. I’m sorry, too.”
Still ensnared in the sheets and duvet and barely awake, Gwen presses her hands to her cheeks. “Aww, you guys,” she coos.
Grady lifts his head from Nico’s neck to smile at Gwen. “I wasn’t alone, though.”
“Mmm,” Nico says. “And how much trouble did she get you into?”
“None,” Gwen says, defensive. Here she kept Grady safe and sound, searched all over Nashville and Las Vegas while he was off burying himself in work and what thanks does she get? None.
But then Grady smirks and says, “Kind of a lot.”
“Grady.” Gwen throws a pillow at him. “You’re such a tattletale, gosh.”
He bends to whisper something in Nico’s ear, and Gwen doesn’t miss the way his lips drag and linger on the shell of it, or the way Nico’s breath catches and his eyes roll back. When Nico lifts Grady’s shirt and traces around the tattoos with reverent fingers, Gwen takes that as her cue to extricate herself from the bed, put on some pants and go fetch her luggage.
“‘Kay, you guys have fun and make sure to change the sheets when you’re finished.”
“Wait.” Nico tugs Grady’s shir
t down. Then he goes to the case he always has nearby. “You have trouble of your own, Gwen. Thought you might want to know about this.”
Gwen catches the magazine and folded-up papers he tosses her way: screen grabs from a few entertainment websites printed out in black and white.
Is This Clementine Campbell’s Girlfriend? Our source says, “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
Clementine and Gal Pal Definitely More Than Pals Sunning On Vegas Pool Deck.
Our exclusive source and close confidant of both says: Clementine’s married girlfriend “would cheat for sure. She was always touching her. There’s been an energy between them from the very beginning.”
There are pictures: of her rubbing sunscreen on Clementine’s bare back, which looks far steamier in a fuzzy long-range picture than it actually was; a picture of them from the back at the store in the Venetian, with their hands clasped and Clementine curled in close, her lips on Gwen’s cheek; and most damning of all, the two of them grinding together at the VIP club at the Bellagio just last night. “I don’t—” Frantic and confused, she flaps the magazine and printouts in the air. “What is this? This isn’t—Nico, I didn’t, I swear.”
Nico holds both hands up. “Hey, I am well aware of the slander of tabloids. I get it.” He gives her a sympathetic look. “I’m just not sure Flora is going to.”
“Oh god.” Gwen grips the short strands of her sleep-spiky hair in both hands. “Shit, this not good. I’m—” What else? Who else can she possibly go to right now? “I need to talk to Clementine.”
There’s an energy between them.
Always touching her.
She’d cheat for sure. For sure.
Of course I was always touching Clementine, Gwen fumes, shifting from foot to foot as she waits for the elevator. It’s part of my job. And then it clicks. Of course. Of fucking course. The elevator arrives, and on the ride to Clementine’s private top-floor suite, Gwen jabs out a text message to Spencer. It has to be him. But why? She liked him, she defended him. She gave him a chance that he clearly didn’t deserve.
Burning Tracks (Book Two: Spotlight Series) Page 14