The Songwriter

by Jensen, A. P.

  Trey couldn’t get the conversation with Gwen out of his mind. It pissed him off on every level. She was on tour with him for the first time as a lead singer and he was responsible for her. Okay, so Gabe wasn’t a horrible guy, but who knew how he’d treat Gwen? Even though he knew enough about Gwen to know she would try to hide it, he didn’t want to deal with the tears or the heartache. She was super private and no matter how angry or frightened she was of being onstage she was a pro. She was a star born in an introvert’s body, which made her all the more fascinating to him.

  Watching his best friend shimmy onstage each night wasn’t easy. The only relief he had during their performance was when he touched her. Their chemistry heat him up from the inside out and as soon as she walked offstage, she shut herself off from him. He wasn’t sure what was going on and his attempt to right what happened the night Gabe visited was an epic failure.

  He’d been in hell since she threw open her robe. She definitely wasn’t thin. She had thighs, hips and she was delectable. It took all his self-control to step away from her and walk off the bus that night. What made matters worse was the confidence she gained from doing the show each night- it was in her body language as she walked and talked, drawing the gaze of every man. She wasn’t beautiful like Natasha but she was attractive inside and out in a way Natasha could never be. Gwen’s brand of beauty would never fade.

  He wasn’t sure what Gwen wanted. She taunted him with her body and tossed Gabe in his face… Did she want him to be jealous? Couldn’t she see he was desperate for her? When women dared him to make a move, usually he didn’t have to be asked twice. This was a different situation though. Gwen was his best friend, employee and they would be on the road for months. Getting involved sexually was so not a good idea but…did she want him?

  He clenched his teeth as he looked at himself in the mirror. Each show deepened the intimacy between them and instead of letting it happen, Gwen was fighting it. What was wrong with her? He wasn’t sure what he wanted from Gwen but he felt more connected to her than he ever had with Natasha and he’d been with her (off and on) for almost fifteen years.

  Seeing Gwen blossom from someone who never sang in front of another living soul to the woman that overcame her worst fears every night and faced the crowd without showing an ounce of fear made him the proudest man in the world. He hadn’t made a move on Gwen, though. Every night, he was tempted to head to her bus to check on her and see if she was available, but he held back.

  Trey prowled his small master bedroom and kicked his jeans out of the way. What the hell did she want? Gabe? Trey ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He knew Gwen wanted him back. It was in the way she sang to him, the way she looked at him. You couldn’t fake that so why was she?

  “She’s driving me insane,” he muttered.

  He strode out of his trailer and passed the band who fell silent when he stormed by. He approached Gwen’s bus just as Barbie and Cassie knocked on the doors.

  “It’s locked,” Barbie said.

  Growling, Trey pulled out his set of keys and let the women set up all their equipment in the living area and strode to the bedroom door. They were going to have this out. He pushed open the door and stopped dead. Gwen was cuddled up with a half-naked Johnny Bentley. The only thing that stopped Trey from killing Johnny in his sleep was the fact that Gwen was still dressed. He didn’t know why Johnny, a rival country artist, was in Gwen’s trailer or why she was sleeping with him and he didn’t care.

  Gwen woke when she felt hard arms wrap around her. She blinked up at Trey and realized she was wrapped against him and he was yelling at someone behind her. She heard a dry reply and remembered where she was and with who.

  “Johnny’s a friend,” Gwen said sleepily.

  Trey looked down at her with such a murderous expression on his face that she would have been alarmed if she wasn’t so sleepy.

  “You were sleeping with him!” Trey blasted down at her.

  She tilted her chin. “So what?”

  “So what? Johnny’s the worst playboy in the business! Do you know anything about him?” Trey snapped.

  “Of course,” she said shortly and pushed away from him and faced Johnny who was sitting on the edge of the bed, yawning. “We’ve known each other for a while now.”

  “You dated Johnny Bentley?” Trey spat as if Johnny was a homeless man.

  “Johnny’s a sweetheart.”

  Johnny grinned roguishly and rose, displaying his tattoos in all their glory. Cassie and Barbie filled the doorway and their mouths dropped.

  Barbie muttered, “Yeah, I’d definitely hit that. Twice.”

  “What is he doing here?” Trey demanded.

  “Gwen’s supposed to help me with my new album and since she’s on tour, here I am. You got a problem with that?” Johnny asked, crossing his arms.

  “Yeah, I do!” Trey said, the veins in his neck standing out.

  “You don’t get a say in this, Trey! You said whatever it takes to make it work with my clients.” Gwen said, losing patience with him.

  “How can he be a client when you’re sleeping with him? I won’t have it! This is my tour!”

  Gwen’s spine stiffened. “If Johnny goes, so do I.”

  “I cannot believe this,” Trey hissed. “Johnny and I go way back and I don’t need him on tour with us causing trouble.”

  “I’m here because of Gwen. Believe me, I wouldn’t be here otherwise,” Johnny put in.

  Johnny curved an arm around Gwen’s waist and pulled her up against him and kissed her neck.

  “You let him use you like this?” Trey roared.

  Gwen shrugged. Trey was so angry he was shaking. He stalked out of her room and they all heard the bus doors slam behind him. When Gwen jerked her head, Cassie closed the door to give them privacy. Gwen looked up at Johnny Bentley- rock star, womanizer and one of her best friends. They were songwriters before they were singers and that bonded them tighter than sex or blood.

  “You don’t know how happy I am to see you,” Gwen groaned into the hot skin of his chest.

  “I’m pretty sure I do. He’s temperamental, isn’t he?” Johnny said dryly.

  Gwen groaned. “Johnny, I don’t know how the hell I ended up agreeing to this.”

  “You never could say no to that asshole,” Johnny said in disgust.

  Gwen blanched. “I had to-”

  “No. You didn’t. I’m sure Trey thought up a lot of good reasons for you to sacrifice your life for his tour. I think he’s just being selfish.”

  “I agreed to this.”

  “With pressure.”

  “Yes, but he didn’t force me.” She wasn’t sure why she was defending Trey.

  “Whatever. He was right about something, though. Damn, you can sing. Everyone’s talking about it.”

  Gwen eyed him warily. “Everyone as in…?”

  “As in everyone in the biz. Everybody thought Trey would cancel the tour and replace Natasha with a mediocre singer. Your videos are viral, honey. I can’t wrap my mind around it. I know you rescheduled my time, but I thought I’d come and see how you’re doing myself.”

  She sank down on the bed and looked up at him. “It totally drains me but when I’m onstage… I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  He raised a brow. “Bit by the adrenaline bug?”

  “Before I go onstage every night I fall apart. It hasn’t gotten easier. Someone has to make me angry. That’s the only way I can walk onstage under my own steam.”

  “Because you don’t like people telling you that you can’t do something,” he surmised.

  She cupped his face when he knelt in front of her. “I missed you. You just get me.”

  “And you get me. I need help with my new album.”

  Johnny was a restless, wandering soul that only found true peace when he was on tour. Johnny and Trey were similar but despised each other. Johnny had a handful of friends, male and female, that he visited between tours to gain inspiration for h
is next album. Johnny visited Gwen, every couple of months. Their songwriting souls recognized one another and connected in a way they’d never found with anyone else.

  “Does Trey know?” he asked gently.

  Gwen paled. “No.”

  “Let’s leave it that way, shall we? You mind if I play with him a bit?”

  Remembering their earlier conversation and her humiliation, she shrugged. “Why not?”

  Johnny and Gwen walked up as Trey came backstage to do his wardrobe change. His eyes narrowed when he saw Johnny holding Gwen’s hand but he didn’t say a word. They chatted a good distance away until he went back onstage. Gwen listened to Trey weave humor and stories between songs and the crowd leaned forward, drawn to him.

  “He’s rusty,” Johnny muttered.

  Gwen laughed. “You’re jealous.”

  The rivalry between Trey and Johnny wasn’t a secret. Trey was the reigning king of country and Johnny straddled the line between rock and country. Trey couldn’t stand it. Every now and then, Johnny won awards that Trey would have scooped up. Johnny liked to experiment and fuse genres and was infamous for his wild partying and women. Compared to Johnny, Trey was a straight-laced grandfather but the core of both men was good and loyal and Gwen loved them both.

  “Did I tell you Vicky Delaney gave me a key to her house?”

  Distracted, she looked up at him. “Why would Vicky Delaney give you a key to her house?”

  Gwen was from a small town in Montana and she knew it was Johnny’s new favorite vacation destination. He’d fallen in love with White Mist when a fellow small town girl from White Mist caught his attention. At eighteen Regan Lee Delaney jumped onstage with Johnny during a performance and Johnny fell head over heels for her. That lasted a hot weekend before he fell for a blonde with big boobs. Regan Lee didn’t take it personally and they’d been friends ever since. Regan Lee moved home after being estranged from her family for ten years and Johnny visited White Mist and fell in love with the simple lives of the locals.

  “Regan’s mom loves me,” Johnny bragged. “Regan still doesn’t trust me with my godson though. Can you believe that?”

  Gwen knew Johnny was trying to distract her and it was working. Angie’s brand of tough love worked but having someone talk about her hometown and the people there was the best distraction ever. It filled her with longing yet at the same time, it made her proud to be where she was.

  “What would you do with the baby? He’s what, barely a year old?” Gwen asked and knew she had less than two minutes to wrap up her conversation up and step onstage. Her heartbeat picked up.

  “He just turned one. I’m going to teach him to play the guitar. I’d probably take him with me to the café and the bar so he can listen while I play.”

  There was so much wrong with that sentence that she didn’t have time to address it. A woman in the front row waved a sign and Gwen’s heart stopped. She squealed and clutched Johnny’s arm.

  “That woman has a sign with my name on it!” Gwen gushed and pointed.

  Johnny read, “Go go Gwen.” He glanced at Gwen’s flushed face and for her sake added, “Catchy.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs and stomped her heels and clapped her hands. “My first sign!”

  “Whatever does it for you.”

  Johnny followed her beneath the stage and examined the elevator with a sniff before he slapped her ass and winked. “Get em babe.”

  Gwen appeared onstage with the biggest smile on her face. She didn’t even care that Trey kept looking offstage to shoot angry looks at Johnny. Gwen sang to Trey and tried not to slap or bite his hand when he touched her. It was a relief to turn away from him, walk to the edge of the stage and give the woman holding the sign a shout out. Trey’s banked anger filled the stage. Gwen ignored him and poured herself into the crowd and was satisfied when they jumped out of their seats to sing her lyrics back to her. When she dashed off the stage for her wardrobe change, Johnny’s eyes were alight as they ripped off her clothes and redressed her.

  “You were great and he hates me!” Johnny said gleefully.

  Gwen was on too much of a high to chide him. “The crowd is great tonight.”

  “You have a way with the women. Girl power or some shit. They see it in you,” Johnny said. “Natasha was fake. Fake boobs, fake ass-”

  Gwen giggled and threw her shoe at him. Johnny dodged and slapped her ass again when she shot past. Gwen sang Release the Dream and looked into the arena. It was becoming a familiar and beautiful sight- a room filled with people swaying, singing along with her and feeling the same emotion as her. These people knew her lyrics and emphasized with her plight in the song and Gwen ate up every moment. As a songwriter, she created in private and as a singer; she could now see the affect the song had on the public. It was magical and something she would cherish for the rest of her life.

  Trey came up beside her and she forced herself to look at him as he sang his lines.

  I have another woman

  So much time has passed by,

  Baby, release me from your dreams

  At the close of the song Gwen sang:

  I need to move on with my life

  I can’t breathe

  I’ve built a cage of fantasies

  I need to release the dream of you and me

  I need to be free

  When the drummer started Breaking Out, Gwen clapped and did her usual routine of riling the crowd, flirting with the band members and generally doing everything she could to stay away from Trey. When she started backing towards the edge of the stage to make her exit, she was startled when Trey blocked her way and grabbed her arm.

  “What did you think of my partner, Gwen Harper?” Trey hollered.

  The resounding yells shook the ground and Gwen smiled and tried to tug out of Trey’s hold. He pulled her back to center stage and she felt a spear of panic. This wasn’t part of the act! Trey grabbed a stool and gallantly led her to it. She took the seat and stared at him, trying to ask him without words that the hell he was doing.

  “Since I’ve been an ass to Gwen, let’s see if I can make it up to her,” Trey said.

  Gwen smiled but she was so confused. Was he talking about figuratively or literally? In the song, the man was a douche bag that couldn’t give the woman what she wanted. Was that what he was trying to “make up” for? Trey didn’t move his eyes from hers as he stood beside her and played his guitar.

  Baby, you’re the best thing

  that’s happened to me

  You get me like no one else

  Those other women, they meant nothing

  What can I say to make you stay?

  Gwen was completely dumbstruck. The song he was singing wasn’t on any of his albums which meant he’d either just written it or he was making it up as he went along. Trey’s boot tapped as he strummed his guitar and she heard the women sighing as they watched him. When he finished, Trey kissed her on the lips and the women screamed. Trey bowed her off the stage and she walked over to Johnny who sniggered. Gwen saw Angie standing on the side and strode over to her.

  “What the hell was that?” Gwen demanded angrily.

  Angie looked at Gwen’s furious face, at Trey onstage and then Johnny who was grinning like a fool. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “Do I look like I knew about this?” Gwen growled between clenched teeth.

  Angie shrugged. “I manage Trey, I don’t control him. If you have a problem about what just happened, you take it up with him.”

  “Don’t worry, I will!”

  For the first time Gwen didn’t go to her bus to shower and sleep. Johnny accompanied her to the bus and chattered while she showered and changed. Gwen was too angry to say more than a few words. She wanted to strangle Trey. What the hell did he think he was doing, changing their act in the middle of the show? She sat on that stool like a dumbass, just listening to him sing to her, wondering where he was going with this and why.

  When Gwen stormed back to the arena
, the show was just letting out and Trey was doing interviews and mingling with fans along with Oliver, whose eyes popped when he caught sight of Johnny. Oliver forgot about his promotions and pushed his way over to Johnny. This caused the fans to redirect their focus on Gwen, who was suddenly engulfed in hugs and demands for autographs. At some point, she looked up and saw Trey watching her but there were at least twenty people between them and they lost each other, swept away by the enthusiastic crowd.

  It was midnight by the time she got away and there was still no sign of Trey. She actually had no idea what he did after the show. For all she knew, he could be with a woman or go to a bar with the fans. He wasn’t in his bus and Johnny finally dragged her to bed since she was pale with exhaustion.

  Chapter Seven

  Gwen woke before the sun was up, slipped out of Johnny’s arms and went to Trey’s bus but he wasn’t there. Frustrated, she headed to her sanctuary, only to find Trey already there. He mumbled under his breath and leaned over his guitar to make a note on a legal pad. Some sixth sense made him look up and for a moment they stared at each other through the glass door of the recording room. Gwen walked through the door and let it shut behind her, locking them in a room where they could yell as loud as they pleased without being heard.

  “What the hell were you doing last night?” Gwen said.

  Trey surveyed her while he plucked sweet chords on his guitar, which distracted her. “I was doing my show.”

  “Don’t play games, Trey. You know what I’m talking about. What was with that song?” she demanded, standing in front of him, tapping her slipper.

  “You don’t like it?”

  She glared. “That’s beside the point!”

  “I think the lyrics need help, but I think the core of the song is good. I wanted you to hear it.”

  “You changed our act. Why?”