by Lisa Suzanne
He chuckles. “It’s good for your liver. And with the amount of drinking rock stars do, it’s nice to keep something healthy around. Plus I’m really working on my AARP membership and liking grapefruit is a requirement.”
I laugh. “Are you including yourself in the heavy amounts of drinking, or is this something you keep for your buddies?” I slide into the chair and unwrap my burrito.
“I have the occasional night of debauchery, but for the most part I’m the same guy you knew ten years ago.” He pours us each a glass of orange juice, and I find his words hard to believe.
“Would you have kissed me ten years ago?” I ask, and I don’t know where the sudden bold version of me comes from...but I like her. A lot.
I glance over at him as he puts away the orange juice, and then he stares down into the two glasses as he answers. “I wanted to kiss you every second of every day ten years ago. But I had to pretend I didn’t. For you.” He looks up at me, and I duck my head down as my cheeks burn and my stomach does a cartwheel.
The first verse of “Locked Up” repeats itself in my head, and I almost voice the question...but then I chicken out—even though he basically quoted the song in his candid response to my bold question.
He brings the juice over.
“I don’t know how I never saw it,” I finally say.
“We miss a lot when our eyes are closed.” He grabs the bag from the counter and sets it between us. “Chips and salsa,” he says, nodding toward the bag and somehow removing the awkwardness I feel in his response.
I can’t help but think how casual this is compared to the rooftop restaurant. Even as I draw the comparison, I realize how much more I fit into this setting versus the one where I always thought I belonged.
“So what did old Chase have to say for himself?” he asks, his voice full of false brightness.
I giggle. “Well, he said he was an idiot all those years ago and he wants me back.”
His face falls at my truth, and I suddenly feel horrible that the words fell out so bluntly. “And you said...”
“I said I need some time to process that and I left.” I take a bite of burrito and can’t help my moan of satisfaction.
Gavin readjusts in his seat. “You left?” he repeats.
“Yeah. Your text came through on my elevator ride down.”
He clears his throat. “Did...uh...”
My brows draw down as I wait for him to spit out his question.
“Did anything happen?” he finally asks.
I shake my head. “No. But something happened last night between you and me, and I’m thinking about it still this morning. Even at my first breakfast.”
“Do you want him back?”
I glance out the window at the beach, hoping to find the answer there. I don’t see it, and so I settle for more truth. “I don’t know. I spent the last ten years wanting him back, comparing every single man I dated to him, never wanting anybody else, thinking someday it would just work out. This morning should have been my every dream come true. But this rock star who used to be my best friend took me to his hotel room and challenged everything I believed for nearly half my life.”
I turn back to him and meet his surprised gaze.
Neither of us speaks over our burritos for a few beats, just staring across the table at one another. I wish I knew what he was thinking. I wish he’d say something to the daring confession I just made—but if he could make them with such honesty, so should I.
After all, after all this time...I don’t have anything else to lose.
He breaks our gaze when he stands, and then he stalks over to my side of the table, pulls me up from my chair, and crushes his lips to mine. One hand palms his face, the scruff there more grown in than last night and rough against my skin. My other fingers dive into his thick, dark, luscious hair. I tug and pull, the passion between us escalating.
His arms are around me, his fingertips digging into the bare flesh of my back exposed by the low cut of the sundress. His fingertips, his kiss, everything about him just sets me on absolute fucking fire. This is intense passion, and maybe it stems from having been such close friends all those years ago—or maybe this is the manifestation of Gavin’s own pining for the last decade.
His mouth batters mine, an angry assault of tongue against tongue. My chest buzzes with the excitement of it and the apex of my thighs aches with a pulsing, pounding need.
He grunts when I tug a little harder on his hair, digging his fingers a little harder into my flesh, and I moan with the utter thrill of it all as I lose myself to him, to this moment, to this thing I’ve wanted to happen again since last night.
And then, an unwelcome thought creeps in.
Would kissing Chase feel this passionate, this exciting after all this time?
I didn’t give him a chance to show me one way or the other...and I realize as my mind wanders back to him that I shouldn’t be kissing Gavin while I’m thinking of another man.
With total and utter reluctance, I move my hand from his hair and slow our kiss, giving him a final gentle peck before breaking away. His chest heaves with exertion like he just sprinted across the beach, and I find I’m panting, too.
“What?” he asks. I expect him to be annoyed or frustrated that I backed away first, but his expression is smooth in his single word.
I shake my head. “I just...this is a lot to process.”
“You can’t make declarations like you just did and think I’m not going to drop whatever the fuck I’m doing to kiss you.” His timbre is low and raspy, and it sends another shot of need right between my legs.
I didn’t feel that same ache there during breakfast with Chase. I feel like my answer should be simple. See where things go with Gavin and forget about the guy I’ve been in love with for the last fourteen years.
But life is never quite that simple.
I wish it could be, but this morning, Chase offered me everything I’ve wanted since one fateful night so long ago, and I’d be a fool not to at least explore the possibilities with him.
But I’m not quite ready to let Gavin go just yet, either.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I’m mostly the same guy I was back then, but a few things have changed. I go after what I want, and I stop at nothing to get it.”
He sits across from me and resumes eating his burrito like he didn’t just ravage me with his mouth. I’m still sucking in air and trying to compose myself as I question whether stopping was really the right thing, because right at this moment it feels like the exact wrong thing. I grab onto the back of the chair to try to steady myself, a fruitless endeavor in the same room with Gavin Brooks.
“And, just to be clear, what I want is you.” He stares across the table at me like he’s looking through me, and it’s a little intimidating. “It’s what I’ve wanted since I was fourteen.”
I finally pull out the chair and slide in, my cheeks burning with his revelation. “Why me?” I ask on a whisper.
He lifts a shoulder. “It’s always been you.” He takes another bite of burrito and chews slowly.
I blow out a breath, unsteady and unsure once again. “Why didn’t you tell me back then?” My voice shakes as I ask the question.
“We were friends first, and one day I realized I wanted more. But I was too late. You’d already fallen for Camden and I was stuck in second place. But being beside you as your friend was better than not being beside you at all. I knew if I told you, I’d lose you forever.”
“What makes you so sure that now is the right time? I mean, I just told you I came from breakfast with him.”
“Ten years gone.” He shrugs meaningfully. “I already lost you for ten years. I tried and tried to stay in your life until you forced me to do what I thought you wanted. I promised myself if you were at the reunion, I wouldn’t miss my chance this time. Besides, I’ve been sharing you with him since the day I realized I was in love with you. Why should that be any different now?”
My jaw fa
lls open. “In love with me?”
“Come on, Laney. Did you really think it was some childhood crush? Haven’t you heard ‘Locked Up’?”
My eyes widen. So it is about me. “When did you write that song?”
“I wrote it a few weeks after you and Chase broke up. I couldn’t get it out of my head how I felt so locked in on you but you never even knew it.”
“So you’re saying I’m the one who holds the key that will never set you free?” I ask, repeating the last two lines of the song.
He lifts a shoulder. “Yeah. That night you whispered to me how much you needed me and what a good guy I was and it was all I could do to hold you through the night without kissing you and confessing how I really felt. And then the scandal broke and you locked me out. That’s the real irony. You had me locked up and locked out at the same time.” He grabs a chip from the bag between us, totally calm and collected, like this isn’t the deepest conversation I’ve had with another person in the last...jeez, maybe in the last ten years.
“So why is this so easy for you now?” I ask.
“It’s funny you think this is easy for me. Do you have any idea how nervous I was to see you?”
I shake my head. “You didn’t seem nervous at all.”
He glances out the window. “Years of training to mask it, I guess.”
“Because of your career?” I surmise.
He nods.
“Do you get nervous to go on stage?”
He raises his brows and nods as he presses his lips together. “Every time.”
“Even at that bar last night?”
He nods. “Especially last night. It was only the second time you’ve ever seen me play live.”
“How do you know that?” I finally pick up my burrito and take a bite.
“Just a guess. Am I right?”
I nod. “I listen when Beyond Gold comes on the radio, and I’ve seen you in magazines. But it’s hard dredging up that time of my life.” I stare down at my food, not adding the fact that going to concerts is a luxury I can no longer financially afford.
“Is it hard sitting here with me now?” he asks softly.
My eyes return to his, and I shake my head before answering with my heart. “It’s the easiest, most natural thing in the world.”
A small smile of satisfaction plays at his lips. I can tell he wants to ask me how things went with Chase this morning, but after all his confessions, I feel like keeping him and Chase separate is best.
Besides, I can’t really lay it all out on the table the way I might’ve done ten years ago now that I know his real feelings for me.
“And how are your feelings now?” I ask, treading carefully. I want to know, but I’m terrified to know.
“You know those old friends that you don’t need to see or talk to every day but you sort of pick up right where you left off?”
I nod. I know exactly where he’s going with this because I feel that with him. Only things are more intense...and different, I suppose.
“Like that. Like nothing has changed. Like I picked up right where I left off with you even though I’ve had years of experiences to change or dilute things. Nothing has changed. Nothing is diluted. Maybe it’s stronger, if anything.”
“How’d your meeting at Ashmark go?” I ask, desperately needing to change the subject.
“Excellent.” He’s holding his cards close to the vest on this one, it seems, which is probably appropriate since I’m holding a few close cards of my own.
“Do they always conduct business on Sunday mornings?”
“Only if it’s of the utmost importance.” His eyes twinkle in amusement, and I can’t help my giggle.
“And this was?” I’m prodding, but I don’t know how else to get him to spill some details.
His eyes narrow at me, like he can’t really decide whether or not he should tell me. And then he does. “Ashmark is putting together a headlining tour for us.”
I drop my burrito. “Holy shit, Gavin! That’s awesome!”
He grins. “Yeah, it’s pretty fucking awesome. We’ve headlined a bunch of gigs, we’ve co-headlined a tour, and we’ve opened a shitload of shows, but we haven’t had our own headlining tour yet.”
I raise my brows with his impressive news. “So this is, like, a pretty big deal then.”
He nods slowly and drags his teeth over his bottom lip. It feels like an intimate invitation. “Yeah, it’s a really big deal.”
“What does it mean? Do you have any details yet?”
He shakes his head. “Mark wants to launch as soon as we can, but I’m not totally sure what that means just yet. It’s up to the booking agent to find us venues and map out a schedule, and we’ll go from there. We talked a bit about who might open for us and which cities we want to be sure to hit, and the booking agent has already started scoping things out.”
“How long will you be gone?”
He shrugs. “Could be anywhere from a few months to a year or more.”
“A year or more?” I repeat. My first thought is how that might affect whatever’s potentially starting between us, but I realize immediately after that it isn’t fair for me to have those kinds of thoughts, especially not when we’ve made zero commitments to one another. Hell, I’m still reeling over Chase’s confession this morning. It’s beyond unfair and selfish for me to think about how this will affect us when I’m currently torn between possibilities with two men.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “It’s exciting and terrifying at the same time.”
“Why terrifying?”
He licks his lips while he looks out the window, and I want to kiss him again. Despite the expert way he supposedly masks his nerves, I see it now. “Just putting life on hold for some indeterminate amount of time. I want this for Beyond Gold. I want the success. It’s the goal we’ve dreamed of for years. But at what potential expense? Of other things I’ve dreamed about for years, too?” He tilts his head as he looks at me, and I’m floored that he’s taking me into the equation whatsoever.
“Depends on what those dreams are, Gav. Anyone who’s worth your time would understand.”
The anxiety splashed in his eyes seems to ease at those words. We’re talking in codes, but I’m not totally sure I understand those codes.
It’s something to bear in mind as I try to figure out who I really belong with, though...just as it’s only fair to think about relocating my life to Denver if I decide to pursue things with Chase.
Strange how I went from zero possibilities to two in the matter of one night—and two completely different choices, but two that could potentially be perfect for me in each their own ways.
“Where did the name Beyond Gold come from?” I ask in some attempt to clear the tension in the air.
“Gold is an acronym for our names. Gavin, Ollie, Liam, and Dane. Beyond came from this being bigger than us—our music, I mean.” His eyes are full of passion as he talks about something that’s clearly close to his heart. “We wanted our music to reach far beyond the four of us. And our collective goal when we first started was to hit platinum, so we wanted to shoot beyond a gold record.”
“I love that,” I say. “How long did it take you to come up with that?”
“Dane was the one who figured out that our names spelled GOLD. It just clicked during a band meeting one day when Liam said he wanted to reach beyond gold and go for platinum.”
I have a million other questions—like when did Gavin and Liam meet the other two, and what venues have they played, and what’s their favorite city to rock, and what’s it really like being a rock star, and does he really bring a different woman to his hotel room every night as the tabloids suggest?
But we have time. We just reconnected, and we’ve already had talks that run deeper than the drivel that seemed so important back in high school.
He shoves the last bite of his burrito into his mouth, and I can’t help when my eyes move to his square jaw as he chews. How does he manage to make chewing look sexy
? Nine times out of ten, the way a man chews grosses me out.
Not Gavin, though. It’s the clench of his jaw, the little bit of stubble there that’s at once sexy and manly...things I never saw in him ten years ago. Things he most definitely is now.
“Want the grand tour?” he asks once I’ve motioned that I’m done eating.
And get the chance to see his bedroom? Hell. Yes.
Nearly every room in this house has a view, and as we walk up the stairs toward the bedrooms, even the hallway has windows that overlook the beach. He nods into the first room on the left. “This is Liam’s room.”
“You two live together?” I ask.
He nods. “Did you know we roomed together in college?”
I nod. “I remember that was the plan. UCLA, right?”
“Yeah.” He turns from Liam’s room and heads down the hallway. “That’s where we met Ollie and Dane. They were tossed together as random roommates freshman year, and they lived next door to us on our floor.”
“That’s some stroke of luck that all of you were musical,” I muse.
“Luck of our assignment. We were all music production majors at UCLA and they grouped our floor by major.” He nods into another bedroom. “This is the guest room.”
“Do Ollie and Dane live here, too?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Dane has his own place and Ollie lives with a few buddies from high school. We spend a lot of time here, though.”
“Do you ever want to live alone?”
“Only when Liam’s being a cockblock.”
I giggle, and he laughs.
“Technically it’s my place and he rents from me, but we’ve traveled a lot over the last three years, and with this upcoming tour it’ll probably be even more. It’s never made sense to me to have a big house to myself when I’m only here part of the year.” He stops outside a closed door and then opens it to let me in. “This is my room.”
The room is vast, with one wall entirely made up of glass doors that lead out onto a balcony overlooking the beach. The California King bed is the centerpiece with its white and beachy blue comforter, and there’s a sand-colored couch at the foot of the bed with a coffee table and plenty of space separating it from an expansive television on the wall. A recliner sits in the corner with the perfect view out the window. The walls are white and mostly empty, though, and I can’t help but think they’re in need of a woman’s decorative touch.
