by Renee Fowler
“Did you send your assistant out after it?”
Trin let loose a loud peel of laughter. “Hell, no. Part of Mia’s job was to keep me out of trouble.”
“Then where did it all come from?”
“Why are you asking me this?”
“I told you, I’m curious.”
“I’m not going back to that, Gabe. It’s not something you have to worry about.”
“I know. I guess I just want to understand it better. I want to understand you better.”
She pushes the food around her plate for a moment. “I had a doctor who wrote me prescriptions, and before you ask, no I’m not going to rat him out. It was all on the up and up, technically. I gave him excuses, ya know? Maybe they weren’t very believable, but it’s the way that kind of thing works.”
“What excuses?”
“My back hurts. I’m anxious all the time, stuff like that. I guess I could’ve said anything. He was one of those kind of doctors, a pill pusher, and not one I’m ever going to see again either.”
“How’d you find this guy?” I ask, although I already have a very strong suspicion. I’m not sure if she remembers all the things she said the night of her breakdown, but I sure as hell do. Brent wants to make sure my back doesn’t hurt. At the time I assumed it nothing was more than incoherent ramblings.
Trin laughs nervously. “The way anyone finds them. They’re not hard to find. I bet you could scrounge up a few right here in Trenton if you tried.”
“It was Brent right?”
She lets out a long sigh. “Why won’t you leave this alone?”
“Am I right?”
“Yeah,” she admits with a frustrated huff. “But he’s not the one who got me hooked on that shit. I did that all on my own. He tried to get me help, but I was too stubborn to let it do me any good. I wasn’t ready to stop I guess.”
“What kind of help?”
“He checked me into rehab, twice. Two times, and both time I left and ran right back to it.”
“So his solution was to keep you addicted?”
“He didn’t… Gabe, he was trying to help me manage it. That’s all. He brought Mia in to replace my old assistant, who did run off and get me whatever I asked for, and god knows from where. I could’ve been taking anything. Brent was trying to keep me safe. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be dead.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do,” she says louder, clearly trying to reign in her anger. “I took too much one night, and he’s the one that found me. I overdosed. He drove me from the hospital to the rehab facility himself, and kept it out of the papers. He picked me back up a few weeks later, and after all that I still wasn’t ready to quit. It was just a matter of time before I really did kill myself. That’s the place I was in when Brent called that quack doctor.”
“So all it would take is one word from you, and he would have that doctor at your door though, am I right?”
“But I’m not going to say that word! You think there aren’t other people I could call right now if I wanted? Brent’s not the problem. I’m the one with the problem, but I’m finished with that. I’m never going to use again. Gabe, I know you’re worried. You have every right to worry. You have a daughter, and I don’t expect you to blindly trust me.”
“I trust you, Trin. He’s the one I don’t trust, and I don’t understand how you can’t see it.”
Her face fluctuates between anger and anguish. “I don’t want to fight with you, Gabe. Not about this. Not about anything, but Brent understands how important my sobriety is to me now. I explained it to him, and… Can you please drop this?” Trin gets up, crosses around to my side of the table, seats herself on my lap, and winds her arms around my neck. “Please? We’re not going to see each other for two whole days, and I want to have a nice night.”
My hand curls around her waist, and I pull her snug against me. “I want to have a nice night too. I want to have a nice rest of our lives together, but I’m worried about you, Trin.”
“Don't be. There is no way I would do something to screw this up again, and I understand that using again would ruin us. After the way I handled things, I am so fucking grateful that you would even give me a second chance. I’m not going to take it for granted, Gabe. I’m not going to take you for granted. I’m not going to ruin this. I love you.”
“I love you too, but that’s not what I’m worried about.”
“Can’t we just agree to disagree on this one little thing?”
I open my mouth, about to point out that this is not one little thing. The more I probe into Brent Gibson, the more I realize he is manipulative, controlling, and possibly dangerous, but I know Trin. She is stubborn to a fault. If anything, the more I harp on the issue, the less likely she will be to see reason. I need to keep digging. Eventually I’ll find something that proves my point.
“Okay,” I say, biting back a frustrated sigh. “I’ll drop it.”
Trin pressed her lips against mine in a long, lingering kiss. “Now be good and finish your dinner. I have a surprise for you.”
“What kind of surprise?”
“You’ll have to clear your plate to find out.”
That surprise turned out to be a pair of swimming trunks decorated in blue hearts. “Uh, thanks?”
“Hurry up and put them on. I want to go get into the hot tub.”
“First the apron, and now this. I’m starting to think you’re trying to humiliate me.”
“I think they’re cute, and you’re sexy enough you can pull them off. Plus no one is going to see except me.” Trin disappears into her closet, and comes back out with a thick robe belted around her waist. When I reach for the knot at her waist, she tsks and maneuvers away. “Patience is a virtue. I got you a robe too.”
“You need to stop buying me shit.”
Trin rolls her eyes as I shrug it on. “You need to stop telling me what to do. Online shopping is how I unwind from songwriting, and it makes me happy. I thought you wanted me to be happy, Gabe.”
“I do.” I want her to be happy, and safe too, but she’s not safe with that dickwad manager in her life. Someone that goes to the length he went to rattle her is seriously dangerous. Just because I can’t prove it yet, doesn’t make it any less true.
Outside it’s freezing, but the water is hot. Trin is even hotter in a black two piece that makes her skin look like ivory in comparison. She doesn’t waste a bit of time, swinging a leg over mine as she plants her palms on my shoulders.
A small smile curves my lips as I ask a very obvious question. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“No one’s going to see. We’re all alone. It’s just you and me.”
Her bathing suit has ties, one at the swell of each hip, and one below her delicate shoulder blades. I unwrap her like a gift, a beautiful, soft present all for me. I press my lips to the spot between her breasts, feel her heart thump beneath my tongue.
“Did you really mean what you said before?” Her question is a panting breath of frost in the chilly air.
I taste the skin up her chest, along the center of her neck. I pretend to nip at her chin. “What?” I ask close to her mouth.
“That you wanted to have a nice rest of our lives together.”
“Of course I meant it. I mean what I say, especially to you, Trin.” I tell her the truth, all except for that one lie. I’m not going to just drop it, regarding Brent Gibson.
But that’s exactly what I end up doing several weeks later. A month past the fact, I’ve ran through every possible lead. There are no more angles I can come at the problem with. The case is still open, but only as a technicality. The detective working it has given up. Every print they were able to lift turned up nothing of consequence. On the surface, Brent is clean, and from what I can gather, happy enough to give Trin a wide berth. I guess he has other clients in Nashville he attends to.
He calls sporadically to check on her progress with the new music, which is coming along just fine sh
e tells him, and from what I can tell, it is. Plenty of afternoons I’ve come home to find Trin and her friend Nolan there together. He seems like a nice guy. I wonder if he’s met Brent. What does he think of him?
Why the hell can’t I let it die?
Without any real discussion, I am more or less living there, except for the nights I have Rose. I know it’s fast, probably too fast, but all of this feels right.
It still feels too early to introduce them though, not that Trin has been pushing the issue. She asks about Rose all the time, but has made no mention of meeting her in person yet, which I’m glad for. I want to spend the rest of my life with Trin, but maybe there are a few lingering doubts remaining. I love her, but I’d have to be an idiot not to hold some reservations, especially where it concerns my daughter.
How long do people usually wait for that sort of thing? Leah didn’t even wait a week, which was obviously way too soon. A month feels too soon as well. I guess I’ll play it by ear. I’ll know when the time is right.
That particular afternoon I get to hear Leah’s opinion on the matter when I go to drop off Rose at their new house. Roger has officially dumped his wife, and bought a place closer to the hospital for the three of them to share, along with his younger kids when he has them.
Instead of taking Rose at the door like usual, Leah holds it open for me to come in. “Can we talk for a minute?” she asks in a clipped tone.
“Yeah, sure.”
I can tell she’s pissed, but I have no idea about what. After one last hug and kiss for Rose, Leah sends her off to play with the ten year old who will be her stepsister before long. I don’t see Roger anywhere, but he usually makes himself scarce around me.
Fixing me with a sharp look, Leah grabs for a magazine off the nearby table. She flicks through the glossy pages angrily.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“Hold on a minute. Let me find it.”
Leah eventually locates what she’s looking for. She folds the spine of the magazine back and holds it up to my face accusingly. “Is this you? It is, isn’t it?”
The short byline is tagged with the headline: Is Trin SINclair finally moving on?
After her devastating breakup from fellow musician Kane Burke, the Sinful sensation has been camera shy in recent months, but it looks like she’s finally found a reason to move on. When breached for comment, former lover, and current close friend Kane said “I’m thrilled for Trin, who deserves all the happiness in the world.”
The picture beneath is small, a little blurry, but it’s obviously the two of us in her hot tub. What’s not so obvious is that the man in that picture is me. They only managed to capture the back of my head as she is smiling down at me from the perch of my lap. Someone must have taken this with a long range telescope.
“That could be anyone,” I say, not sounding as convincing as I’d like.
“But it’s not anyone. It’s you!”
I rub a hand across my forehead. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters! How long has this been going on for, Gabe?”
“I wasn’t cheating on you, if that’s what you’re implying.”
There is a vicious fire burning in her eyes. “How long, Gabe?”
“Will you relax? Jesus. It’s only been a month. How the hell could you even tell that was me? Were you studying it with a magnifying glass or something?”
“We were married. You think I can’t recognize your stupid head from the back?”
I can’t contain my laughter. “Why do you even care?”
“She is not coming anywhere near our daughter. Do you hear me?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask in a low voice. “What gives you the right-”
“I’m her mother!”
“And I’m her father, and I’m not dumb enough to introduce Rose to anyone after a measly month, unlike some people who couldn’t be bothered to wait a week.”
“Roger is a good man, and I’ve known him a long time.”
Laughing, I hold my hands up. “I’m not discussing this with you.”
“I do not want Rose anywhere near her. Do you hear me, Gabe? Not now, and not in the future.”
My mouth gapes. “What did she ever do to you that was so awful? She used to be your friend, Leah.”
“What kind of role model would she be to Rose?”
“What about when Rose gets older and realizes her stepdad got divorced only a few months before her brother or sister came along? That’s a real fine example you’re setting for our daughter.”
Leah scowls at me. I sincerely doubt this is coming from a place of concern for Rose. I’m not sure if her dislike of Trin stems from jealousy, or something else, but I’ve heard plenty about it over the years. I think half the reason Leah bought all those stupid gossip magazines in the first place was to troll for news about her former best friend.
“Trin is a good person too,” I say, biting back my frustration at her immature fit of anger. “You can’t believe all that stuff you read.” I choose not to point out that maybe some of it was true, but Trin is different now. “I’m not introducing Rose to Trin, or anyone else for that matter yet. I figure she’s had enough to deal with recently. With the divorce, and a new place. All these new people in her life. I’m not going to heap anything else on right now.”
“How is this supposed to make me feel?” Leah asks, suddenly tearful instead of pissed off. “Have you ever stopped to think about that?”
Holding back my bitter laughter is impossible. “It can’t feel any worse than me dropping my daughter off here to you and the man you cheated on me with, but we both know you never stopped for one second to consider how I’d feel about that.”
In a flash, her anger is back. “Whatever. I should’ve known you wouldn’t listen to reason. When our daughter gets older and starts dressing like a stripper, it won’t be my fault.”
“I’m taking off,” I say, backing towards the door. I know better than anyone that trying to reason with Leah is pointless. “I’ll see you on Friday.”
Chapter 26
Trin
“It doesn’t sound dancey enough,” I say.
“It will with the other instruments behind you,” Nolan assures me.
This is the part that he really excels at, envisioning the big picture. All I hear is my own voice, his chiming in on accompaniment, and the tenor of our two guitars mingling.
I can tell the moment Gabe lets himself in that something is wrong. The lines of his face are harder than usual, his shoulders stiff as he stalks into the living room. Nolan pauses what he’s doing to say hi in his usual, friendly manner, and on the surface Gabe is equally friendly, but something’s not right.
As soon as Gabe disappears, Nolan picks up right where we left off. We go for another half an hour, but then it’s time for him to head home to his family. “Let me sit down with this, and maybe we can grab another person or two so you can hear the whole thing in action next week. How does that sound?”
I nod quickly. Hopefully he’s not planning on dragging Conner over here, but both of my sisters can play a variety of instruments, plus Nolan has a few friends he can call. In either case, I trust that Nolan will be able to turn the simple poem I wrote into something great.
After he’s gone, I find Gabe in the kitchen. He’s clutching an unopened bottle of water in his hand, and staring out the french doors that lead out onto the back deck. I slide my arms around his torso, and press my cheek against his shoulder, hugging him from behind. Sometimes he’s a little moody after dropping Rose off, but this seems different somehow. “Are you okay?”
“Just some nonsense with Leah.” He lets out a downtrodden laugh, and turns around to face me.
“What happened?” I ask. When he tells me, my heart starts to beat faster. “Which magazine was it?”
Gabe shrugs.
I go grab my laptop, and it doesn’t take long for me to find the short article and offending picture. “I had no idea
they would be able to get a shot like this out there. Some asshole must have climbed in a tree or something. How big of a fence do I need to build?”
Gabe laughs again. “It could be worse.”
It still might be, he just doesn’t realize it yet. If they were able to snap that relatively tame photo, I have no doubt they got others. I’ve done a lot more than sit on Gabe’s lap out in that hot tub. “I need to call Brent.”
He huffs. “What does he have to do with this?”
“He needs to track down this photographer before they sell the rest of those pictures.”
Gabe’s mouth gapes and his eyes go huge. “Shit.”
“It’ll be okay,” I say, although I’m not entirely sure of that yet. I pick up my cell, dial Brent, and wander back through the kitchen.
“Hey, doll. I haven’t heard from you in a bit.”
“Did you see Weekly Variety yet?” I ask, choosing to skip past pleasantries.
“It’s already taken care of.”
I let out a long, relieved sigh.
“Those were some pretty racy pictures, Trin.” He chuckles. “Cost us fifty g’s to make the rest of them go away. If your little friend wants to remain anonymous, you two are going to need to be a bit more careful than that.”
“Thank you, Brent. You’re a lifesaver.”
“Just doing my job. Speaking of which, we’ll want to get you out into the public eye a bit more leading up to the launch.”
“I know,” I say quietly.
“But they’ll be time for that later. How are the new songs coming?”
“Good. They’re humming along. I should have something for you soon, but I’m a little busy right now. I was just worried about the rest of those getting out.”
“You worry about making new music, and let me handle the rest.”
“Thank you again.”
“Don’t mention it.”
We say goodbye, and hang up. “He already took care of everything,” I tell Gabe.
“That’s a relief.” He settles his hands on my hips, and kisses my forehead.