“Jesus Christ, woman, get over here.” The words were a demand as John pulled me as close to him as he could get me. The plastic arm rest of the chair dug into my side, but I ignored it as John tried to give me some of his body heat by rubbing my opposite arm while keeping part of my body up tight against his.
“It’s just the come-down from adrenaline. I’ll be fine in a few.”
“When do you think the kid’s gonna get here?”
For the first time since we contacted Chevy and Kendra earlier, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. “Looks like they’ll be here about the time he’s able to start getting visitors.”
“I hope you plan on sticking around to see him too. Gabe’s not going to be very happy if the only woman waiting to see him when he wakes up is his long ago ex-girlfriend.”
“You know it’s not like that with them. They’re close and they are both Chevy’s parents,” I argued.
“Mel, I think you read too much into their friendship at some point.” He squirmed a bit in his seat, so I knew he at least understood one of the reasons I felt that way. “You should really talk to Gabe and let him explain a few things to you.”
“Why? So that I can eventually end up as crazy as Wen’s wife?” I asked.
“She was crazy long before he was ever a rock star,” John argued. “Besides, I think the only thing going on between you and Gabe is a series of really shitty miscommunications and misunderstandings.”
“That may be so, but I don’t think it’s the right time to hash all that out. He’s laid out in a hospital right now after just getting shot. The rest can wait.
“Nah, I think it’s the perfect time,” he countered.
“There you guys are!” Ev came running over to us and offered me the sweatshirt she held in her hands. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get here with this sooner,” she offered as she noticed John was trying to warm me up as my teeth continued to chatter a bit.
“You got here quicker than I expected,” I told her honestly. “Tim couldn’t have called you, but maybe fifteen minutes ago,” I glanced down at the time on my cell phone. “At most.”
“Actually, I went to go grab you one when I heard you hopped in the back of the ambulance with Gabe.” Ev shrugged. “Hospitals are always so cold.”
By the time Tim got back with coffee and hot chocolate, the drinks were barely lukewarm. He didn’t even offer up an explanation as to why it took so long. John had been busy texting someone, probably his wife, who I still hadn’t met yet. She had a child and was pregnant with another one, at their home in California, so she hadn’t been able to make it on tour with the guys. I shrugged it off and when a nurse came to get John to take him back to see Gabe, I pushed John and Tim to go first.
The men were in there less than ten minutes before coming back out. “Did they kick you out?” I asked.
“No, but I need you to do us a favor though,” John mentioned.
“What?”
“Can you go sit with Gabe until Chevy gets here? We have to both take a trip to the police station to give our official statements.”
“Wouldn’t they want my statement too though?”
“I don’t know. I guess they’ll get to you eventually too. Right now, we’ve been asked to come in,” John told me while waggling his cell phone in the air, as if to show me how they had been summoned.
“Okay,” I finally answered. “Where am I supposed to go?”
“Come on, I’ll walk you back,” John told me before putting his hand at the small of my back and guiding me in the direction of Gabe’s hospital room.
“All right, I gotta head out, buddy,” John called to Gabe when we entered, even though his eyes were closed.
“I told you that I didn’t want to talk to anyone until Mel was brought back.”
“Yeah, I know that.” John didn’t say anything else, instead he turned on his heels and left so quickly, you’d think someone had lit a fire under his ass.
I moved quietly across the floor and took up the seat that was beside Gabe’s bed. It was only then that he opened his eyes. “You’re here,” he whispered.
“I am. How are you feeling?”
“Like someone shot me,” was his quick answer. I couldn’t help the small smile that tipped my lips at the corners. Nor could I help the stinging of tears in my eyes, but I could at least hide that a bit better behind my hair that had fallen lose of the ponytail I’d been wearing all night. “My leg is throbbing. Shouldn’t it be pretty numbed up after surgery?”
“You’ve been out of surgery for a while. Everything is probably starting to wear off now.”
“Well, it sucks. I swear it feels worse than it did before.”
“They had to remove some bullet and bone fragments and repair a slight tear to your artery. It’s not going to feel great while that heals.”
“Thank you,” he mentioned before closing his eyes and grimacing.
“For what?”
“For helping me,” he explained.
“It’s my job.”
“But you hate me.”
I sighed then. “I don’t hate you, Gabe. I’m just angry and confused and well, angry. This isn’t really the time to have a conversation like this.”
“Why not? I’m not going anywhere. Stay, let’s get to the bottom of this so you don’t have to be angry anymore, and I don’t have to keep hoping for just a glimpse of your gorgeous face every day when I wake up.”
I stared at his lips a little too long, unable to respond, while I thought about just leaning in and kissing him there. Then I saw him wince as he shifted his body the tiniest bit in an effort to get comfortable. I reached over and hit his nurse call button for him and waited for her to come in. “Can I help you Mr. Northman?” The kind woman asked as she entered the room.
“He’s complaining about the pain in his leg,” I informed her when Gabe gave me a look that seemed to ask several questions all at once. He remained silent though.
“Let me have just a quick look beneath those bandages, and then I’ll get you something for the pain.”
“Actually, can we hold off on the pain meds for a bit? My son will be here soon, and I don’t want him to worry if I’m passed out again.”
The nurse offered up a knowing smile, but she quietly and politely scolded him for ignoring his own needs. “We can make sure that your son knows you’re well and that you just needed pain medication.” She went on to explain, as I had once done for Chevy, that he needed to stay ahead of the pain in order to keep his dosages of the meds as low as possible, and to avoid complications.
“I like her,” I told Gabe. The nurse turned her head and winked at me. As soon as I knew the room number, I’d texted it to Chevy. My phone pinged as the nurse was finally able to talk Gabe into taking the pain medication immediately versus later.
“Chevy’s here,” I told him as I read the text. “On his way up now.”
“We still need to talk, Mel.”
“I know.” There was a quick knock on the door before it opened and then Chevy and Kendra entered, both of them looking the worse for wear. “Your family is here now. I’m going to get back and see if I’m needed for anything else. I still need to give a statement to the police too.”
There was no hesitation on my part. I scurried to the door as quickly as I could. “Mel!” Gabe damn near roared my name, forcing me to turn and glance back at him. Chevy stood to one side while Kendra took up from the other side of the bed, her hand placed gently on Gabe’s shoulder. They looked like a real family standing there like that. “Promise me that you’ll come back as soon as you’re done with the police. We still have things to discuss.”
I couldn’t promise him that. In fact, I needed to book a flight back to John’s Creek, Georgia so that I could get all of my belongings out of Gabe’s house. Something John and Tim talked about earlier was just finally starting to sink in.
This tour was sunk for now. The guys were bound to be hemmed up with Gabe’s healing,
legal issues, and then there was Wen and his daughter to sort, plus Calista and their impending baby. That meant, once he was released, Gabe would be going home to Georgia and there was no way I was prepared for the awkwardness of living with him again, especially not after everything that had happened.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make as clean a get away from the hospital room as I had hoped. Instead, Kendra followed me out. “Melanie, we need to talk,” she called out to me.
I turned, unable to ignore her. “What is it?”
“Come on, let’s go somewhere less,” Kendra glanced around at the hospital floor, the elevators in front of us, and the nurse’s station behind. “Well, less hospital. These places make me feel crazy. I don’t know how you worked in them.”
“I don’t anymore,” I admitted, and the words sounded a lot like defeat, but felt more like the truth than anything I’d experienced in a while. There was a part of me that never wanted to go back to working in a hospital after the way I’d been thrown under the bus for things that were wildly beyond my control.
Eventually, we made our way to a little diner that we found a couple of blocks away. Once we had ordered food and drink, Kendra started in. “I’m still not sure why you called me. If Chevy needed me to be here, he would have called himself.”
“I just figured that Gabe doesn’t have a family of his own beyond Chevy, and you’re the next closest thing.”
“That’s not it, either.” Her words were laced with accusation as she spoke. “The band is Gabe’s family. They were already here for him. Let’s not lie to one another. Tell me what’s really going on here.” I sat silently for a few moments, contemplating. “Okay, then. While you work up the courage to spit out whatever has been brewing in that head of yours, I want you to listen to me. I know a thing or two about regrets. I searched for love when I had no business looking for it.
“As a result, I ended up with four children who all have different fathers. Some of them, I have a relationship with to this day. You’ve met Josh. I’m also friendly with Dakota’s father still. He made a stupid mistake that I couldn’t forgive, or maybe I’d still be with him. Ford’s dad was a jerk from the beginning and honestly, the only reason I went there was that he was the complete opposite of Gabe. Looking back, it’s easy to see what I did there. I needed someone to make me feel, in real time, as used up and uncared for as Gabe made me feel in the very end when I thought he had abandoned me.”
“He didn’t though,” I started to argue for him.
“I know his story, my own, and how they blended. Unlike Gabe, I’ve come to realize that the truth of our ending wasn’t even visible in our actions. It was the inaction that was the most telling. I tried to get ahold of him and do the right thing about his son, but not once did I ever board a plane, hire someone to find him, or go beyond the easiest possible path. I’m sure if Gabe were to really look hard enough, he’d see that the same was true for him. We had puppy love, just as our parents warned us. Could it have turned into something else if we’d made different decisions?” She shrugged her shoulders. “We’ll never know, and since I’m a completely different person now than I was then, I don’t honestly want to know anymore. I’m happy with my life.”
“Are you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It took me a long time to trust in Gabe. Before we left on this trip, there were times you two spent together, in private, and those where he was even putting on different clothing as you left the room with him.”
Kendra’s eyes widened then as she gasped, and quickly tried to cover the shock by placing her hands over her gaping mouth. “Are you serious right now? You thought I was cheating on Josh with Gabe?”
It was my turn to offer a somewhat guilty looking shrug. Then Kendra burst out laughing. “Oh my God! That’s so damn… Wow… I can’t believe… How long?” She was stumbling over her thoughts and doing it out loud when she finally seemed to realize something. “I know what you’re talking about now. Do you know what we were doing in that room?” She laughed again. “We were talking about you. He had something on his shirt, I pointed it out, and he changed as we were leaving. We weren’t even in there talking that long, Mel. Did you think he was a quick shot in the sack?”
It was my turn to laugh. “How would I have known?”
“To be honest? I thought maybe you guys had started fucking when Chevy was still in the hospital. I continued to think that until we had a conversation about you.”
“Really?” It was my turn to be stunned.
“Why is that so shocking, the two of you track one another if you enter the same space, and the chemistry when you’re near one another? Hell, girl, everyone else can see the sparks around the two of you. How could you think that he was into me?”
I told Kendra about my ex-husband and how I had always been a second choice, a place holder for the woman he really loved until it was appropriate that he could be with her. “I think it’s clouded my judgment a bit. At least, I thought so, and I tried to let it go, but then…”
“Then what?” I explained what I’d overheard from Gabe’s call to Chevy and Kendra shook her head and sighed.
“What a dumbass,” she grunted before taking a sip of the drink that had been delivered as I filled her in. “I don’t think he meant what you heard. Not in the way you think anyway. I’m pretty sure he’s been giving our son some pretty shitty advice where Opal is concerned. It comes from a good place. He feels guilty that he missed out on so much of Chevy’s life, and I think he feels that if he had tried harder with me that wouldn’t have happened. Opal isn’t pregnant though, and those two weren’t together that long.”
“So, you think he was just embellishing to get Chevy to make the opposite decision of the one he made?”
“Yeah, I really do. Now, the rest of what happened, I can’t particularly blame you for feeling the way you do. Not sure I’d be so quick to forgive his responses either, but then again, you let your past cloud your judgement. I think his response was a similar page ripped out of the same book. You know?”
We ate in silence for a while and then Kendra took my hands and held them in hers on top of the table. “There are two things that Gabe talks to me about, on the rare occasion that we talk since he left Georgia. Chevy and you. We are co-parenting a child who has already become an adult, at least in the eyes of the law. That’s it. We’re barely friends. I wish you had talked to me about that before. I would have set the record straight rather than you thinking I was a cheater and a shitty friend.”
“Sorry,” I apologized, but Kendra waved the apology away.
“Don’t do that. I can totally see where you would have gotten that idea, and for the record, I’m sorry that I was ever in any position with Gabe that would make you feel that way. Let me ask you something though.” I nodded my head before she continued. “If Gabe had been shot somewhere else, if the situation had been more dire, how would you have felt? What if you weren’t given another day? Would you take a second chance if it fell in your lap? I know he needs to earn your trust, but what if he did?”
“I don’t know.”
“Figure it out, Mel. Life is short, and if that bullet had been a couple inches in the other direction, you might have lost your chance at happiness with a man who is head over heels in love with you, whether he’s manned up and expressed that yet or not. It’s obvious.”
Was it obvious? Did it matter? I didn’t honestly know, but there was a weight removed from my shoulders after talking to Kendra that made me wonder if it would help to actually hear Gabe out before making a final decision.
19 – Hurts Like Hell
“Getting shot hurts but having the woman you’ve fallen for walk out on you when you’re laid up in the hospital hurts like hell,” I told Chevy the next time I woke up. It didn’t take long after Mel left, and Kendra followed her, that the pain meds finally took me down. “How long was I out?” Neither woman was back yet, so I was hoping that I’d only had a quick c
at nap and that Kendra would bring Mel back any moment.
My son sighed heavily. “It’s been about three hours.”
“She’s not coming back,” I whispered.
“Who?” My son asked. I gave him a ‘who do you think?’ look that made him chuckle. “Right. Well, Mom went to a hotel to get some sleep. She didn’t think it would send the right message if she was sitting vigil by your bedside throughout the night.” I nodded in confirmation. After what Mel heard me say to my son, that was a smart move.
“Mom also told me about your groupie fuck up. Seems like you deserve a bit of hell for that, especially after having Mel overhear what she did.” How could you ever think that Mel would do something like that?” Chevy scrunched up his nose. “And with Lonny of all people.”
Mel’s voice rang out from the door. “That’s a question that I’d like an answer to.”
“Tell you what, I’m going to go get some sleep too, and let the adults talk.” My son stood and turned to Mel, “I’d really love it if you were still here when I come back in a couple of hours. I don’t want to leave my dad alone.”
Mel nodded, so that was something. I’d have to thank Chevy later for running interference. She took the seat my son vacated but kept her body and hands away from the bed so that she wasn’t easily reachable.
“Mel, I’m so sorry for how I reacted. So damn sorry. I told you that this life was not always a pretty place to exist. The people in it, no matter their damn ages, play these games because they can, because nothing feels permanent, and because they’re idiots. It’s something I’ve gotten used to over the years.”
“So, whenever you have caught a hookup with someone else in the past, it’s been your routine to go and do the same to them?”
“No. Not at all. There has never been a woman who triggered my jealousy before. There have been many who thought to gain more attention from me by acting out though. It never worked in their favor, not with me anyway, and still they did it because somewhere along the line, that type of manipulation became habit for them. Just as seeing it became habit for me. I can’t honestly tell you what I was thinking in that moment, because the truest answer is that I wasn’t thinking things through. I remember feeling, “Not her too”. Then there was the self-loathing because I had pushed you to that action because of what you heard me tell Chevy.
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