“You’re right. You’re exactly right. I’ve fucked up.” Gavin didn’t shy away from making eye contact. “I let you down. I’m sorry, Seamus.”
Shay was silent. Gavin’s cocaine use had hit him hard. Seeing his friend, the person he revered and relied on, turn into a sketchy drug abuser was a huge blow. And even though Gavin looked healthy now and was saying the right things, it was hard to trust him. Shay had spent too many years being manipulated by his heroin-addicted brother to take Gavin’s word at face value now.
“You can rest assured that all that is done with,” Gavin continued.
“All that?” He wanted Gavin to finally admit to him he had been doing drugs, to give him that honesty.
“Coke. I’m done with it. I’m clean. Have been for over a month.”
“Glad to hear that,” Shay said, with only a hint of sarcasm. He was already starting to relent, his desire to forgive Gavin and move on forming fast.
“I know I’ve been a crap friend, Seamus. I’m aware of my shortcomings. And I’m committed to actually dealing with them now instead of running away.”
“Well, I know it’s been tough what you’ve had to go through. I do understand to an extent.”
Gavin smiled. “Thanks, man. Thing is, I can sort out the situation with my mother. I can deal with what a bastard I was to you and the others. But, something else has happened. And I—”
Shay leaned forward when he saw his friend’s eyes tear up. Gavin had never hidden the fact that he felt things deeply. It had made him an incredible songwriter and singer. But this was something more worrisome than strong emotions. All at once, Shay saw that his friend looked hollowed out and wrecked. But not by drugs. It was something more devastating. “What is it, Gav?”
Gavin opened his mouth, then stopped. “Fuck’s sake, I don’t want to even say it aloud.” He took a deep breath and Shay waited. “Sophie told me she slept with Conor. Once. She says.”
Shay looked away for a moment, then sat back.
“You don’t actually look surprised by it.”
“I don’t know what to think, Gav.”
But Gavin had been correct. Shay wasn’t surprised. He was an observer, a watcher. He was the opposite of Gavin in that he preferred to sit back and enjoy the gregariousness of others rather than try to be the spectacle. He had for years seen the way that Conor’s entire being changed when Sophie came into the room. It was obvious to him that an infatuation on Conor’s part had developed into something more in the recent past, but he hadn’t thought Sophie would ever reciprocate those feelings. She had always been desperately in love with Gavin. But he supposed that didn’t preclude her having an attraction to someone else. And who better than Conor?
“Where do things stand now?”
“Thing of it is,” Gavin said, shaking his head, “we had gotten together in LA and things were feeling good for the first time in so long. Then she tells me that a couple weeks ago they . . . .” He cleared his throat. “But, she says it was a one-time thing, that she wants to be with me.”
“You don’t believe her?”
He twisted his wedding ring to the left, then to the right and back to the middle again, a tic Shay recognized as restlessness. “I think I do. Problem is it feels like there’s more to it. I feel like an idiot now that I think about it, but it’s pretty obvious Conor’s been in love with her for a long time. And I can’t be sure that she didn’t fall in love with him.”
Shay took a sip of tea as he thought. “So the worst part is thinking that even though she wants to be with you, she may have had feelings for Conor?”
“It makes me sick to my stomach to think of it, Seamus. I mean, I know I fucked up with that stripper and she let it go, but for Christ’s sake it was nothing like this. Nothing.” Gavin picked up his mug and held it for a moment, staring down at the remnants before taking a drink. He had ordered himself a regular black coffee. “This is,” he continued, “a betrayal of the heart from my two best friends.”
“It is indeed,” Shay agreed. “But, you’ve got to decide what’s most important and what you’re willing to do to keep whatever that is alive.”
“What would you do?”
“I can’t say, Gavin. I don’t know how it really feels,” Shay said.
Gavin got lost in thought. They sat together quietly and Shay fought the urge to defy the no-smoking rule and light a cigarette.
Suddenly, Gavin pounded his fist on the table. His voice shook from a raw combination of hurt and anger. “Don’t you know I could fucking kill him?”
The coldness in Gavin’s eyes gave Shay pause. Gavin and Conor had been the closest of friends for so many years that it was hard to imagine them on the outs. Now Gavin was without both his wife and his best friend, and Shay didn’t know how he would handle that.
Shay ran his hands over his closely buzzed strawberry-blond hair. “Is this going to make you disappear off into coke again, then?”
Gavin’s eyes widened at the directness of the question. Then he laughed. “The thought has crossed my mind.”
“Well, don’t fucking do it,” Shay told him urgently.
“I’m trying really hard, Seamus. It’s no lie to say it’s not easy, though.”
Shay shook his head in frustration. The silence stretched out between them.
“For fuck’s sake,” Gavin finally said with a tortured moan, “we were writing love songs to the same woman. No wonder we were such a great songwriting team.”
“You still are.” Shay didn’t like Gavin’s use of the past tense.
Gavin closed his eyes and let his head drop. After a moment, he looked up and stared at the small piece of colorful artwork on the wall. It wasn’t clear whether a child had done it or if it had been made to look inexpert.
“She’s pregnant,” he said.
Shay met his eyes in surprise.
“Says it’s mine,” he said. “I can’t imagine she’d ever lie about that. But it muddies things even more.”
“Gavin, this makes a difference. If she’s pregnant and she wants to be with you, then don’t hesitate.”
“That’s what my mind tells me. But, fuck, Seamus, all of my heart aches with the thought that she loves him. There was love involved in this thing. How do I move forward?”
“Find a way. Find it.”
Gavin nodded without conviction, and Shay was left with the uneasy feeling that he was about to lose his friend again.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Conor could have punched in the access code at the gate at Gavin’s house, but he decided instead to buzz the intercom. It had been three days since the tabloids reported Gavin’s return to Dublin. Conor hadn’t been able to take the anticipation of the confrontation he expected any longer and decided to force the issue himself.
After several fruitless tries at the intercom, Conor pulled his car to the side of the stone wall and got out. He leaned against his car door and dialed Gavin’s cell.
The corresponding ring had a surround-sound to it, as he heard it in his own phone and in the air behind him. Turning, he saw that Gavin was returning from a run, clad in tracksuit bottoms, long-sleeve tee-shirt, and trainers. The idea of Gavin purposefully exercising was almost as shocking as the haggard look on his face.
“What the fuck do you want?” Gavin asked. He said it without malice, though, as he brushed past him to punch in the access code to the gate. “Sophie’s not here. She’s in LA.”
Conor knew that. She had called to warn him about Gavin finding out about them. He’d been dumbfounded, but hadn’t pressed her to explain why she had confessed.
“I want to talk to you, Gav,” he said.
Gavin didn’t reply and instead walked up the drive. Conor followed him, a step behind. They were halfway to the house when Gavin turned around to face him.
“Just have your say. Go ahead and be done with it,” he said.
“Here’s the thing,” Conor started, “I took advantage of a bad situation. She was weak and lo
nely. It was just once and I’ll always regret it.”
Gavin examined him for a moment. “No you won’t.”
“What?”
“You won’t regret it. Not really. You love her. For years, now, yeah?”
Conor started to shake his head to protest, then gave up. He put his hands on his hips and looked away. The light rain that had been falling was growing heavier.
“Gavin, I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t mean much to you, but I’m truly sorry.”
Gavin took a deep breath and looked up at the sky as the rain came down. He washed his hands over his face, clearing away the sweat from his run.
Conor waited, the only noise the patter of raindrops. Then he was startled as Gavin let out a groan that turned into an anguished roar.
“Every one of those songs we wrote together about her—you were able to add your own special fucking touch, weren’t you?”
“I, em, I don’t know.”
“Yeah, right,” Gavin said with disgust, shaking his head slowly. “Christ, I let you two have at it, didn’t I?”
“What?” Conor asked, thrown by Gavin’s change in direction.
“I’ve been jealous and protective of her since we were kids. Except with you. I let you two go off god knows how many times. I saw the way you cared for her and I let it go on.”
“I’m not sure—”
“I just about pushed her into your arms. I always told her I didn’t deserve her. I couldn’t be—I could never live up to the version of me she had in mind. I mean, what was she ever even doing with a fuckup like me?”
“You’ve got it wrong. The girl worships you. She made a mistake and that’s it.”
“Tell me something. She love you?” Gavin asked, again shifting from the topic Conor thought they had a handle on.
“No,” Conor said without hesitation.
“No?”
“No. We got to be mates, really good friends. But I was the one who wanted more. Not her, Declan.” He might lose his best friend over this. His band, too. But he would at least go out trying to help Sophie salvage what it was that she had always wanted—Gavin.
The rain had drenched them both and now Conor saw that Gavin was trembling from the wet and the cold. He had also retreated into his own thoughts. Conor was unnerved by Gavin’s lack of any real malice. He was almost apathetic about it all, which was worse than if he had taken it out on him physically. Several minutes passed and Conor realized Gavin wasn’t going to express anything else on the subject.
“You should go inside, dry off,” Conor said.
Gavin looked at him with confusion for a moment, then seemed to realize that he was soaked and it was getting colder by the minute. With a half-hearted wave, he turned and walked the rest of the way to the house, disappearing inside.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Gavin would have ignored Sophie’s call two days later if it hadn’t come in the middle of the night, startling him from sleep so that he answered it as a reflex. Sophie, her voice thick with tears and emotion, told him about having felt unwell for a day, collapsing in the street, and being rushed to the hospital. The pregnancy was ectopic, causing internal bleeding. There was no more baby.
Gavin had taken a beating in the tabloids once news got out that Sophie had been in the hospital and he hadn’t been at her side. Sophie hadn’t told him the complications of the ectopic pregnancy required surgery, but once he found out, he told her he would be there as soon as he could. She was eager to suggest this meant he was taking her back. When he couldn’t bring himself to agree to it being a reconciliation, she insisted she wanted to get on with life without him. He had taken the easy way out after that, letting her dictate their continued separation.
He knew he should have caught the first plane to Los Angeles and forced his way into her recovery. He should have grieved the loss by her side. He should have been a better, stronger man than he was.
Instead, he kept quiet, kept out of sight, and stewed in his own grief, ignoring all phone calls, texts, and emails. Julia had showed up at his house, leaning on the intercom at the gate for an obnoxiously long time while Gavin willed her to go away. Though he knew Sophie had harbored suspicions, he hadn’t crossed any lines with Julia. He hadn’t thought of her as anything other than a friend since before he and Sophie were engaged. But her continued presence after all that had happened with the breakup of his marriage seemed wrong. He wanted to move on from the chaos wrought by his bad choices—the cocaine, the running away from his problems, hurting the ones he loved.
Moving on meant cutting ties with Julia, too. If he was honest with himself, he could see that she had ached for them to slip into their old intimacy for years now. His current situation provided just the opening she’d want to exploit. That was the last complication he needed. He texted her to say their friendship wasn’t a good idea anymore.
She replied with “selfish poncy southside bastard” as a confirmation that they were done. And he was relieved.
For several weeks he couldn’t write a thing. He felt blank, useless. His wife was in America moving on without him. He couldn’t speak with his bandmates or anyone else. The confidence he had always carried with such ease had fallen away. The temptation to give in and call one of his former party buddies to do a little cocaine pulled at him, but he resisted.
~
When Gavin finally got sick of himself, he set about organizing two projects. First, he arranged to have a treadmill and a free weights set installed in the spare bedroom where Sophie’s Pilates machine and yoga materials were gathering dust. He took to blasting music while doing sprints and formed a routine of reps for the various weights. It was the first time he had done any kind of consistent exercise and he finally understood what Conor got out of it. Funny, he thought one morning as he set up his bench press, that he had come around to it at the exact point when he wasn’t on good terms with Conor to bond with him over it.
He also reached out to a respected vocal coach and had thrice weekly sessions with him at the house. The time spent on improving his posture, breathing, and vocal range was hugely beneficial to his self-confidence. The focus on his singing unleashed introspective journaling and sketches of songs, offering him the outlet he so needed.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Gavin was pushing himself, and felt the burning in his thighs as a result. The treadmill was at a five percent incline and the speed was at seven point five. Even breaths were starting to slip away but he kept going, willing himself to get lost in Arctic Monkey’s brilliant album AM. Singer Alex Turner was a friend and hadn’t taken the least offense to Gavin’s dig at his voice when on the Sean Reynolds chat show. Their friendship was based on playful slagging like this, though it was usually done privately.
As he swiped at the sweat dripping down his forehead and temples, a flash of the previous night’s dream came to him. It was fleeting, though, and he struggled to grasp what it had been. But with each increasingly heavy footfall the image repeated in his mind. He finally pulled the emergency stop cord on the machine, took several gulps of water, and headed to his writing room.
He woke the MacBook Pro and opened a search engine. But his fingers hesitated over the keyboard. Suddenly, he felt ridiculous. This dream had sent him chasing after . . . what?
Something about the rose in his mother’s hair. But what did it have to do with anything? He couldn’t remember her ever having worn flowers in her hair, though she had loved to garden and bring fresh flowers inside.
He meditated on the particular connection between roses and his mother for several minutes. That soon led to another excavated memory, that of his normally non-demonstrative father calling his mother “my little rose” when he thought the children were out of earshot.
“Rose,” Gavin said aloud.
He then typed into the search engine “Rose McManus.”
The results were nothing he connected with. He then typed in “Rose” with his mother’s maiden name and found even fewer hit
s. He thought for a moment more and then typed in “my little rose” and “flowers.”
When the screen refreshed, there was only one hit. It was for a phone directory listing of “My Little Rose Flower Shop” in County Wexford. The exact town was called Rosslare Strand, a place he had never been. Gavin remembered that she had often spoken about the garden she could have if only they lived in sunnier southern Ireland. A town like Rosslare, in the southeastern part of the country, was exactly where she could grow those treasured flowers.
He knew this was where he would find his mother.
The mother who had abandoned her family after the car crash that had killed his baby sister. The mother who by running away had motivated her youngest son to funnel his anger and sadness and wounded sensitivity into becoming one of the most famous rock singers of his time.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
The small village of Rosslare was a seaside resort, attracting local tourism to its swimming beaches and golf courses. Gavin drove through the town proper, noting the abundance of cheery yellow-painted buildings edging around the coast before finding his way to the outskirts. It was late afternoon when he pulled the Mercedes to a stop in front of the address listed for the My Little Rose Flower Shop. It had only taken two hours to drive south to this spot. His mother had been an easy drive away all this time.
The flower shop was a private home with every bit of land surrounding it used for gardening, either in planters, neat rows in the earth, or in a greenhouse. Though there was a small plaque noting that the home also housed the business of My Little Rose Flower Shop, it was clear that whatever was sold was secondary to the pleasure of gardening.
Gavin took a deep breath and told himself to get out of the car and approach the front door. But he stayed quite still, comfortably ensconced in the rich leather of the driver’s seat, his thoughts drifting.
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