With other songs, Gavin vented his frustrations. In “Lies (Baby, They’re All Lies),” he wrote about the lies we tell ourselves to get through the day, and was especially hard on himself. And with “‘Do It’ (Til It Hurts),” he employed a familiar tactic of allowing his lyrics to have two meanings—the surface level that appeared sexual in nature and the deeper level that had nothing to do with such things. In this song he goaded himself to keep doing what he was, which was basically beating his head against a wall. He was increasingly numb to the riches and adulation and fame they had achieved because it didn’t change the aching loss he felt with never having a resolution with his mother. But yet, he was paralyzed from doing anything about it, no matter how Sophie tried to convince him to be proactive in finding her.
With the response to Gone not as enthusiastic as the previous three albums had been, the tour was scaled back in comparison to previous years. They played arenas again, drawing primarily their dedicated fans rather than attracting new or casual ones. They ended the tour in Dublin, and at the after party Gavin sensed everyone’s relief to be done supporting an album that was, in all honesty, a downer. But he gamely played his expected role as the life of the party, keeping multiple conversations going and interacting with both friends and strangers in the animated, engaging way he had become known for.
It was still early in the evening when things took a life-changing turn for Gavin. He had just stepped out of the restroom when a man cornered him, introducing himself as Gary Paulson, a writer for the American magazine Vanity Fair.
“Good to see you,” Gavin said. “But I’m not doing any press at the moment.”
“Just a quick question. I'm doing a piece on the tenth anniversary of Rogue's first album and need a little backstory,” Paulson said.
“What is it?” Gavin asked obligingly.
“Can you tell me whether your mother is dead or alive?”
“What?” The air got thin and the lights bright, as if he had been sucker-punched.
“See, there’s no death record. So we’re looking into the details,” Paulson said. “Care to help me out?”
Gavin didn’t respond. Instead, he headed back to his group of friends in a daze.
“Aye, Gav,” Martin said, “tell these guys what you were saying about them songs. You know, the length of the lyrics.”
Gavin heard Martin’s entreaty but was slow to respond. Everything around him felt off. It seemed to take a massive effort just to blink and clear his throat. Then Paulson came into his line of sight and he needed the distraction that Martin had offered.
“The thing is,” Gavin said and the group collectively leaned forward to hear what he would say, “your average rock or pop song is around two to three hundred words. Then there’s Bob Dylan’s ‘Desolation Row.’ That one goes on for six-hundred and fifty words. That’s massive, right?” He was enjoying the telling of this now, the reporter gone from his thoughts. “And the bleedin’ song is over eleven minutes long!”
“I’ll murder you if you’re after a song that long,” Conor said and the group laughed.
“No, but here’s the interesting thing. There’s another song—a better song if you ask me—that is four-hundred and seventy-three words. Here’s the catch: it’s only four minutes, thirty-eight seconds.”
“Less than half as long, then,” Martin said.
“Well less. Done by The Killers with their brilliant song ‘This River is Wild.’ Imagine the lungs on that singer—Brandon Flowers is his name—to write a fucking novel as a rock song. Seriously, I never knew that many words could work in one song. But it does.”
The group went off trying to think of other lengthy songs, and Gavin saw that Paulson was still watching him.
“Is that guy a problem?” Shay asked, following Gavin’s gaze.
Instead of answering, Gavin heard a line from that Killers song in his head about always holding your head up high, “because it’s a long, long, long way down.” He got up and went to the bar, ordering a whiskey before locating one of Rogue’s security staff to have Paulson removed as an uninvited guest.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Though it was well past eight in the evening, Conor kept his sunglasses on to withstand the bright flashes coming from dozens of photographers crowding the red-carpet premier of Jackson Armstrong’s latest splashy romantic comedy. He obliged the frantic paparazzi for several minutes, turning ever so slightly from one side to another as they shouted his name familiarly.
Coming to London for this event had been a last-minute decision, one born out of post-tour restlessness. Rogue had been home less than a month and Conor had yet to make the transition from the touring routine to quiet home life. They had performed better than they ever had, turning each show into a thrilling display of their cohesion as a band. And Conor ached for the adrenaline rush of performing before a rowdy audience on a near nightly basis. Going to pubs and parties once home was no substitution. He needed a distraction and he wasn’t going to get it by working with his bandmates on a new album.
Gavin was sullenly lost in his own head, overcome by worries of when and how the story of his mother’s abandonment might surface. Ever since the end of the tour, he had been on edge, waiting for the bomb to drop. And with each passing day that nothing happened, his fear seemed only to grow rather than subside. There was little Conor could do to pull him out of his funk, and besides, he knew that if it was anyone’s job to do that, it was Sophie’s.
Martin was dedicated to making up for lost time with his wife and sons. Donal was now a rambunctious five-year-old and his baby brother Colm was almost three. Martin had arranged for the family to go away for a month to live in a cottage in a small town outside of Burgundy, France.
An opportunity had come up for Shay to score an independent movie soundtrack which he promptly accepted and was thus spending all his free time in New York.
All of which conspired for Conor to now be attending a movie premier in London where he would be lucky to get five minutes of the star’s time. The media crush was intense and he was beginning to regret his decision to make a spectacle of himself when he felt a hand on his arm.
He turned with the expectation that it was a publicity person urging him along and was delighted to instead find himself face to face with Colette Devereaux.
She was as stunning as the last time he saw her some six month ago when she tagged along with Sophie to Rogue’s New York gig. They had shared one fiery night together and left it at that, partly because she was living with her photographer boyfriend at the time. She was also very young. Barely twenty-one if he remembered correctly. Now twenty-nine, he was beginning to feel age differences like that more acutely.
Tonight she was wearing a filmy cream dress with black lace trim that fell short against her thighs and strappy heels that made her slightly taller than him. With olive skin, rich brown eyes, and a wild mane of chestnut hair, she was a knockout. The addition of long legs, slim waist, and large breasts explained her rapid rise in modeling.
“Aren’t you a vision,” Conor murmured to her as he leaned in and gave her cheek a tender, lingering kiss.
“Good to see you, too,” she said with a smile.
They had inadvertently set off a vigorous round of new photographs that would catch their revealing body language as they stood close together, her hand still on his forearm.
“Are you going inside or straight to the party?” she asked.
“That depends.”
“On?”
“You,” he said as he pulled his sunglasses off to look her in the eyes.
Colette watched him for a moment, and he knew she was prolonging this to tease him.
“That simple, is it?” she finally asked with a small smile.
“It is,” he replied matter-of-factly.
They stood staring into each other’s eyes for a moment longer, oblivious to the cries of their names and the continued clicking of cameras.
“Then take me out of here,”
Colette finally said and Conor smiled in return.
It wasn’t until the next morning that Conor learned Colette had come to the movie premier at Jackson’s invitation. And it wasn’t Colette who revealed the news.
At just after nine-thirty, Jackson called Conor’s hotel room to find out what had happened to him.
“Mate, you missed a great party. Where’d you go?” Jackson asked.
“I, em, ran into a friend,” Conor said softly, eyeing Colette as she slept soundly next to him. They had spent a good part of the night exploring each other’s bodies, leaving little room for talk. Their chemistry was phenomenal. He had forgotten how much fun she was, and it made him wonder if she still had a boyfriend.
“I take it by the whisper that the girl is still there,” Jackson said with an amiable laugh. “Well, anyway, you weren’t the only no-show. I was expecting a girl—a woman—to come but, alas, I was disappointed.”
“I didn’t know movie stars got stood up,” Conor said with a laugh.
“No, you wouldn’t think so, would you? I’ll track her down yet.”
“So, who is the lovely?”
“She’s a model I’ve seen once or twice. Sophie probably knows her—Colette Devereaux.”
“Fuck me,” Conor muttered.
“What?”
“Seems we have a mutual friend.”
There was an uncomfortable silence on the line.
“I see. Well, there it is. No use getting upset about it,” Jackson finally said.
“I really had no idea, Jack. I guess I should have sorted it out, though.”
“No, there wasn’t anything to be sorted out. She’s slippery, Conor. At least with me she was. She couldn’t stand to think five minutes into the future. So, I didn’t really lose much.”
“Still . . . .”
“Fuck it, you know? There’s plenty more out there and it’s not like I went without last night.”
Conor laughed. “Well, you free tonight? Let’s grab a drink.”
“Perfect. Come ‘round about nine. Oh, and give Colette my regards,” Jackson said before hanging up.
Conor looked at Colette again. She lay on her side, facing him. Her thick hair fell like a blanket over her bare shoulder. There was no doubt that she was vibrant and beautiful, but Jackson’s call made Conor wonder what he was in for with her.
~
After a lazy, sex-fueled morning, Conor suggested he and Colette come up for air. Though their time together had been ridiculously satisfying, he realized they would have to leave the hotel room to actually have a conversation. They reluctantly dressed and wandered around Covent Garden, content to mingle with the tourists and admire the disparate mix of architecture of the Market Hall and Royal Opera House. As they window shopped at Burberry, Sandro, and Paul Smith, conversation was easy, and Conor enjoyed the feel of Colette holding onto his arm.
Late in the afternoon, they stopped at Champagne & Fromage on Wellington Street. The immaculate wine and cheese cafe looked like something out of a Hollywood set with its chalk-written menu on blackboards and contrasting olive-colored walls. Perfectly weathered wood tables were paired with rustic red metal chairs, and an enormous stainless steel wine glass rack hung from the ceiling. Conor felt like they could have been in the middle of Paris, especially with Colette’s perfect pronunciation of the Gallic offerings. The daughter of a Greek father and a French mother, she had been raised in Quebec before beginning to model at age sixteen.
It was in that shop, with its pungent aromas of cheeses from various regions of France that Colette said something that would one day prove to be prophetic. They had been playfully questioning each other for details of their lives, easing into the idea that they were going to be something more than a one-night stand this time. Colette confessed to having recently broken off her live-in relationship and enjoying the freedom it gave her. They were well into their bottle of champagne when she asked about his history with women.
“What about them?”
“I know—everyone knows—all about the models and actresses you’ve dated.”
He laughed. “Why do you say ‘dated’ with such suspicion?”
“You do have a reputation for liking, let’s call it, volume and variety.”
Sipping his champagne, he gave that thought. “I enjoy women,” he conceded.
“What was your most serious relationship?”
He smiled at her bluntness. “I suppose that was with a woman I lived with for a short time.”
“Were you in love?”
He didn’t need to think about it but he hesitated as if he did. “No. I wasn’t very fair to her in that sense.”
Colette shrugged and took a bite of a crostini topped with figs and melted Fourme d’Ambert cheese.
“It happens,” she said. “Most of the time people come together wanting different things and pretending that’s not the case.”
This declaration struck him as something relatively deep, especially coming from a twenty-one-year old model. “You’re probably right.”
“So, have you ever been in love?”
“Yes,” he replied, this time without hesitation and regretted it.
“Who with?” she asked, intrigued.
“Someone who was unavailable to me.”
“You were never with her?”
“No.”
“But yet you fell in love? That’s sort of sad.”
Now, he was the one to shrug. “It happens.”
She watched him for a moment, seeing something he couldn’t hide. “Oh, you poor thing,” she said. “You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?”
“No, not at all,” he said quickly.
A knowing smile came to her lips. “Then you and I are a good match—we both don’t want anything serious and we both could use some fun and distraction,” she declared.
He shook off the thoughts of Sophie this conversation had raised and focused on the beautiful young woman before him. “A good match. So that means we’ll be seeing each other again?”
She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. It wouldn’t do to seem too eager. “We can be friends. I’m not interested in anything more.”
A small smile came to his lips at this bit of game-playing. The paparazzi attention they had already garnered was on a Gavin and Sophie level. He could foresee it only getting more intense if they continued on. Normally, he’d try to minimize the kind of drama being involved with someone like Colette seemed to promise, but both the timing of being between albums and the desire for simple “fun and distraction,” as she called it, was hard to resist.
“I would love your friendship, honey,” he told her, not realizing the wild course this decision would take him on over the next three years.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
As soon as Conor was in a taxi and on his way from JFK Airport into the city, he pulled out his cell phone and called Colette. He hadn’t seen her since their London tryst a couple weeks back, though they had spoken several times and texted frequently. Colette had managed to not so subtly mention the many friends and male suitors she partied with in between shoots and other work, clearly hoping to elicit a jealous reaction even as she continued to insist she just wanted to be friends with him. Conor took it in stride, amused more than anything else.
“How are you this lovely day, honey?” Conor asked when Colette answered. He gazed out the window and saw clear blue skies dotted with plump white clouds. It was going to be a warm summer day.
“Hi Conor,” she replied. “Is it nice in Dublin, too? It’s amazing here.”
“I can see that. I’m in a taxi on my way into the city. Wondered if you wanted to get together.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. “You’re here? In New York?”
Conor laughed. “I would have thought it’d be a happier surprise than that.”
“Well, I hope you didn’t come all the way here to see me. You know that’s not where we are with this, right?”
“I know, I know. N
o, I’m here to see Shay. He’s working on a movie soundtrack and I thought I’d give a visit. But, since I’m here . . . .”
“Oh, okay,” she said, relaxing. “Um . . . I’m meeting a friend later this afternoon, but you can come over now if you want.”
Conor readily accepted her invitation and took down her West Village address. After hanging up, he settled into the backseat and watched the urban scenery.
~
Colette lived in a small brownstone on leafy Barrow Street. Though she had purposely made him wait after their initial intercom exchange, she couldn’t conceal the delight on her face when she finally opened the door. He suspected she purposely kept her appearance casual, not wanting to seem too eager for his arrival. She wore distressed cut-off jeans and a plain white tank top with several contrasting bead necklaces. Her long chestnut hair fell wavy down her back and she wore little makeup. None of which mattered. She was a natural beauty.
She was looking at him expectantly, so he dropped the small canvas weekend bag he had brought, wrapped his arm around her slim waist, pulled her body to his and kissed her deeply. In return, she grabbed his backside and pressed her chest to his. This was going exactly as he had envisioned during the taxi ride over.
“We’d better go in,” she said after they traded several more increasingly passionate kisses.
Inside, she led him straight to her bedroom but he got a quick glance around on the way. It was enough to see that the brick building’s original character had been covered over in the name of modernization, which paradoxically left the apartment a dull blank slate that her furnishings did nothing to alleviate. In addition to a red fabric sofa, there was a black leather chair, and a black lacquered coffee table sitting on bare white oak floors. Artwork leaned unhung at the base of the white walls, a testament to the nomadic lifestyle she led as an up and coming model.
Tangled Up In You: A Rogue Series Novel Page 20
