by Sian Ceinwen
Gabriel walked up behind her as she dropped her phone onto the counter in front of the mirror. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the top of her head. Ariana stared at their reflections in the mirror. She was taken aback by the way they looked.
Their eyes were red-rimmed from crying. Ariana’s lips were puffy from Gabriel’s rough kisses, her hair was a tangled mess, and they were both covered in dust from the floor underneath the stage. Ariana wondered what Cooper thought of their appearance when he saw them.
“They’re going to send you down there in your stage clothes?” Ariana asked Gabriel, indicating to the dust on their clothes.
“Yeah, you might not have noticed, but the tunnel on the way in has been swept so I won’t get any dust on my clothes, and once I’m in there, I can walk to the platform,” he told her.
“You’re not exactly meant to be rolling around down there, you know,” he pointed out.
“Try and refrain from it tonight,” Ariana laughed.
“I’ll do my best,” he grinned, “do you want the first shower?”
“No, you go first. You’ve got to get ready for the concert, and then I won’t have to rush in the shower,” she said, smiling cheekily at him.
“Okay, fair enough,” he squeezed her tightly and then released her to go have a shower.
Ariana sat down on the overstuffed sofa where she’d left her laptop. She began writing an addition to her novel but stopped quickly and sighed. It had been so full-on this afternoon with Gabriel. She still felt shaky and on the edge of tears. It was incredibly overwhelming being on tour with him, and she hated that, because of her own issues, she was screwing so many things up.
She’d spent so long protecting herself, so sure that he would break her heart, but for the first time, she wondered if she would break his. At the end of the day, she didn’t know if she was strong enough within herself to be Gabriel Knight’s girlfriend, and that was a hard realization.
She heard the shower switch off, and a few seconds later, Gabriel appeared back in the room with a towel slung low around his hips. Ariana’s breath caught in her throat; he was heartbreakingly beautiful to look at.
All of her internal arguments flew out of her head, and she thought that she could never walk away from him, she wasn’t strong enough. It took all her strength not to throw herself at him right now. She’d spent months with him that he’d become her daily drug. She was sure she would go through withdrawals if she spent too long away from him now.
“Shower’s free,” he announced and walked over to the bag he’d brought with his stage clothes.
“Thanks,” Ariana replied.
She walked into the bathroom; it was warm, and the mirror was fogged up with steam. She stripped off her clothes and tied up her hair so it wouldn’t get wet since there was no hairdryer here. Ariana turned on the shower and stepped into the hot spray.
It felt amazing on her body, and she stood there, allowing her body to relax and her mind to drift. For once, she wasn’t thinking about Gabriel or the tour or any other issues. She just felt so calm and peaceful as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
Ariana took her time in the shower and grabbed a thick, soft green towel that was hanging on the rail by the shower and wrapped it around her body. She walked out of the bathroom in time to see Gabriel, fully dressed, and putting his shoes on.
“I have to go see Cooper,” he said with a tight smile.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. He just said he wants to talk to me before the show, and before everyone else gets here,” Gabriel shrugged, but Ariana could tell he was concerned.
“Will you be okay?” She asked.
“There won’t be any problems; he’s pissed about this afternoon, though. From what I understand, we caused quite the drama. The record company was breathing down Cooper’s neck all afternoon. As soon as they realized we hadn’t arrived at the hotel like they’d expected, we started a panic,” Gabriel walked over and gave Ariana a quick kiss, “I’ll see you later, gorgeous.”
Ariana watched him walk out of the room with a heavy heart. He’d wanted to surprise her with his discovery, and it had gotten him in trouble. It felt like he had a perfect life, but she was always messing things up for him, the normal girl he’d fallen for that was getting in the way all the time. She walked over to her clothes, then shook them out to get some of the dust off them. Unlike Gabriel, she hadn’t brought a spare change of clothes with her because she had expected to head back to the hotel in between the soundcheck and the concert.
Ariana got dressed and decided to head out to the main backstage area. She wasn’t in the mood to write anymore, and she wanted to talk to Heather and find out exactly how much trouble they were in.
She walked down the deserted corridor towards the main backstage area. She stopped outside the door to Harrison’s dressing room and knocked quietly in case they’d already arrived. Nobody answered, so Ariana kept walking. She passed a few roadies as she entered the main backstage area but didn’t see anyone from the band. She could only assume they were stuck in traffic heading here or something; it happened on occasion.
Ariana decided to have a look at the new stage set-up. She walked over to the steps leading up to the stage and halted at the sound of her name when she got to the top. It was a bad idea to eavesdrop, but it was too hard not to. Gabriel and Cooper were in the midst of a heated argument, and it seemed to be about her.
She should walk away now; it was meant to be a private discussion between the two men, and if Cooper had wanted her there, he would have invited her to come along. Ariana was frozen in place, though, unable or unwilling to move.
“It was irresponsible, Gabriel,” Cooper’s angry voice told him.
“I apologized for that,” Gabriel was trying to remain calm, “I’m still entitled to do what I want with my life, though.”
“You’re not, though, Gabriel. Your job is your life; you owe it to your fans and the record company to do the right thing by them.”
“I wasn’t going to miss the concert!” Gabriel exclaimed, seeming exasperated.
“No, but a lot of people who needed to be here preparing for the concert were out looking for you instead,” Cooper growled at him.
Ariana moved forward a few inches so that she could see the men glaring at each other; they looked like two gunfighters at midday. Gabriel’s hands were clenched in fists at his side, and his jaw was set in a way that Ariana knew meant that he was not going to give in. Cooper looked infuriated, angrier than Ariana had ever seen him, and she would not have wanted to be the one on the receiving end of that look.
“Once again, I’ve already apologized for that,” Gabriel said, “it won’t happen again, don’t worry.”
“You still won’t tell me where you were with her?” Cooper growled.
“No, it’s not really any of your business,” Gabriel shrugged.
“You are my damn business, Gabriel, and you’re being a royal pain in my ass right now.”
“I’m sorry for that, I’m not trying to be a pain in your ass, Cooper,” Gabriel attempted to joke.
“It’s that bloody girl, Ariana. Why the hell did you bring her on tour?”
Ariana felt like she couldn’t breathe. She had always thought that Cooper didn’t like her, and here was her proof. It hurt knowing that there was someone who didn’t like her even though he barely knew her, but Ariana knew that he was a businessman, and she was bad for business. She waited breathlessly for Gabriel’s response.
“We’d just started dating, and I was about to leave for months. So I invited her to come along,” Gabriel shrugged.
“I still don’t understand why, though, Gabriel. Surely you knew that it was going to cause issues?” Cooper began pacing in frustration.
“I like having her around,” Gabriel replied simply, and Ariana smiled.
“You know she can’t stay on tour forever, though?” Cooper stopped pacing to look Gabriel d
irectly in the eyes.
“I don’t know that at all. She can stay on tour as long as she wants to be here as far as I’m concerned,” Gabriel glared.
“They’re all the same, Gabriel. You can’t let yourself get attached. You have to remain objective,” Cooper said.
“You’re crossing a line, Cooper,” Gabriel warned.
“Fine,” Cooper said, raising his hands in defeat, “just know this, you and Ariana have an expiry date. Maybe you don’t realize it, but it’s there.”
“It’ll be fine, Coop. I’ve got it under control,” Gabriel said, brushing off his ominous words.
“You’d better,” Cooper looked at his watch, “anyway, we’d better go, it’s getting late. I’m glad we had this chat.”
Ariana felt tears streaming down her face as they started walking towards her. She choked back a sob, turned, and ran back in the direction she had come from. There were more people around now, but she kept her head down, and they ignored her.
She heard voices coming from Harrison’s dressing room as she passed it, but she couldn’t face anybody right now, and if anyone saw her in this state, there would be too many awkward questions.
She reached the safety of Gabriel’s dressing room and allowed herself to give in to the sobs as her body shook. The thing that upset her the most wasn’t that Cooper thought those things, it was that she agreed with him.
She was so selfish being on tour with them. Yes, she loved Gabriel with every fiber of her being, but it wasn’t enough. Her emotions were a mess, and she kept screwing everything up, screwing him up.
Ariana didn’t like the person she saw in the mirror anymore. She was moody and needy and causing so much drama in Gabriel’s life. She couldn’t do it anymore. Cooper’s expiry date was rushing towards them faster than she could ever have expected, and it broke her heart to know that she would break Gabriel’s.
Ariana saw the door handle turning and rushed to the bathroom. She splashed her face with water and quickly wiped the tears from her eyes. She knew that he would guess that she’d been crying, but that was nothing new these days. She patted her face dry with the towel and walked back out into the room.
“Are you okay?” Gabriel asked her, and Ariana could see that he was still tense after the confrontation with Cooper.
“Yeah, I’m fine. How was Cooper?” She asked.
“Ugh, I don’t even want to talk about it.”
Gabriel strode over to her and wrapped his arms around her. He held her close, as though making sure that she was real, and she relaxed into his arms, sighing deeply. It felt so good to be with him in these moments that she could easily forget everything around her and give in to her desire to stay with him forever.
The Eleventh Song
After overhearing the conversation between Cooper and Gabriel that day, Ariana had begun to withdraw into herself. She spent a lot of time writing, but at the same time, she couldn’t face everyone. Even as she went through the motions, going out to dinners, watching concerts, and playing pool the same as before, she felt apart from everyone.
It was as though she was an outsider looking in. Nobody treated her any differently, but she constantly wondered what was behind their words. She was paranoid that everyone else knew, like Cooper, that she was bad for Gabriel.
It made her interactions with people strained, which, in turn, made her feel like more of an outsider. There were still times that she hung out with Heather and was able to relax, but they were getting fewer and farther between.
Then there was Gabriel. When Ariana was alone with him, and she allowed herself to forget everything else, it was like it always had been—pure magic. Every now and again, she would allow herself to fantasize about a future with him, one where she was secure enough in herself to be his girlfriend publicly.
It was a life where she could be blasé about Gabriel’s interactions with the fans, and she could laugh it off the way Heather did on the rare occasions that fans got too friendly with Harrison. In reality, though, she knew it would never happen. She wasn’t Heather, and she had come into this too fresh, too young, and too insecure for it to work.
Ariana had begun to spend more time in her own hotel room rather than staying in Gabriel’s suite all the time. She spent her nights with him, but often, during the days, she would hide out in her own space.
She had been sitting on the bed in her hotel room in San Francisco when she was interrupted from her writing by a knock at the door. She had told Gabriel that she had a headache and excused herself from a day out where everyone had planned to go to the San Francisco Zoo.
It was a big deal because the record company had hired out the entire zoo to celebrate how well the tour was going, and Gabriel had begged her to go, but Ariana wasn’t feeling up to a full day of socializing with people.
She glanced at the clock and saw that it had only just gone past eleven o’clock, so there was no way that they were back from the zoo yet. Gabriel had texted her a picture of the sloths not long ago, so she knew they were definitely still there.
It was probably just the maid service coming to check the room. Ariana sighed and put her writing aside, got up from the bed, and walked over to the door as her visitor knocked again. She opened the door to find to her surprise that Sebastian was standing on the other side.
“Seb? What are you doing here?”
He had recently had his black hair chopped off into a much shorter style that suited him really well. He was wearing a pair of faded denim jeans and a tight, black T-shirt that showed off his muscular arms.
Ariana thought that he looked every part the rebel rock star that he made himself out to be. Right now, though, he was frowning at her in a way that made Ariana feel as though she was in trouble, and she wondered what his reason was for skipping out on the zoo trip.
“Can I come in?” Sebastian asked her without any kind of greeting.
“Sure, make yourself at home,” she said as she moved out of the doorway so that he could enter the room.
“Thanks,” Sebastian said.
He walked into the room, pulled out the chair that was sitting at the desk in the corner of the room, and spun himself around to sit on it backward, facing Ariana.
He folded his arms across the back of the chair and watched her as she closed the door to the room and walked towards him.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” Ariana offered, unnerved by Sebastian’s presence in her hotel room.
“I’m fine,” he said.
Ariana opened the refrigerator and got out a bottle of water just for something to do. Sebastian was great fun to talk to, and she had gone to him for advice in the past, but this was the first time that she’d spent any real time alone with him in such an intimate setting. She felt unsettled and didn’t know how to take this intrusion into her personal space.
“So,” Ariana began as she took a seat in an armchair near Sebastian, “is there anything that I can help you with?”
“Absolutely, there is something you could help me with,” Sebastian raised his eyebrows at her and grinned wickedly.
“Don’t be a douche,” Ariana poked her tongue out at him.
“Well, don’t stick your tongue out if you’re not going to use it,” Sebastian said, still grinning.
Ariana couldn’t stop herself from blushing, and she realized why she didn’t spend a lot of time alone with Sebastian. He had such a flirtatious personality, and she never knew how to respond to him.
Everything he said was in jest, but all Ariana could do was blush and do her best to change the subject. She was pretty certain that part of the reason Sebastian said the things he did to her was just to laugh at how uncomfortable it made her.
“Did you come here for a reason or just to make fun of me?” She asked him.
“Well, if you do insist on getting to the point,” Sebastian shrugged, “I came here to find out why you’re being such a bitch.”
“Jeez, don’t sugar coat it or anything,” Ariana said,
dodging the question.
“You know me, Ariana, I don’t mince words. You’ve been acting like a bitch lately, and I’m fed up with it. God knows why Gabriel’s putting up with it except that you’ve got him pussy-whipped.”
He didn’t say it in an entirely nasty way, but there was an edge to his words. Ariana wondered what people had been saying behind her back. She didn’t mind people calling her names, but she hated to think of people making fun of Gabriel because of their relationship. Here she was, yet again faced with further proof that she was bad for him.
“How have I been ‘acting like a bitch’?” Ariana asked him, genuinely curious as to which behaviors he had taken offense to. She’d been trying her best to stay out of everyone’s way.
“You’re ditching us all the time, lately. When you come to the shows, you pretty much ignore everyone or stay in Gabriel’s dressing room. Even today, you decided you were too good to come to the zoo with everyone else,” Sebastian frowned at her.
“I wasn’t feeling well enough to go to the zoo today,” she said, and it was almost the truth, “as for the other stuff, I don’t know. I’m not doing it intentionally.”
She couldn’t think of anything more to say or how much she even wanted to say. Whatever she told Sebastian, he would run and tell Gabriel, she was sure of it. So she didn’t want to say anything to him that she wouldn’t say to Gabriel himself.
“Well, see, I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. That’s why I came to talk to you. I’m not one to talk behind someone’s back when you can get the information straight from the horse’s mouth,” Sebastian smiled at her.
Ariana was reminded of why she did trust his opinion. He was a straight shooter, and he always gave good advice. Sebastian saw the world in black and white, which was great for someone like Ariana, who was incredibly indecisive.
“I know I’ve been a bit stand-offish, but I’ve been feeling kind of left out lately,” Ariana sighed, “I don’t think people like me.”
She didn’t clarify that by ‘people’ she meant ‘Cooper’ and that by ‘don’t think,’ she meant ‘know.’
