“Okay. Let me know if you change your mind. It might be nice to know who to avoid once this all blows over.” He nods at Gabby. “It was fun trespassing with you. I’ll catch you both later.”
Once he’s gone, I tighten my arms around Gabby and give her a kiss. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Yeah? I’m still confused about why this was necessary. I mean, I get why you’re holing up here, but why can’t I go to class today?”
Leading her by the hand into the living room, I sit on the couch and pull her down to snuggle against me. “Because they’ll get bored with waiting for me. And the ones who work for a magazine or paper have people figuring out who you are. Once they do, half those people will leave to stalk you at school. They’re shameless. They don’t care how hard they make your life or mine. All they want is a picture and quote for their story.”
She looks up at me, her brows pulled together. “Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s their job, right?”
I snort. “Yeah. Except they’ll take anything and everything and twist it to however sells the most magazines or gets the most clicks on their website. They don’t care if it’s true or not. So they’ll take the most unflattering pictures of you, or get your classmates to say terrible things about you, or something. It’s better if you’re here where they can’t get to you.”
“So, what? We’re just going to camp out in your house and hope they eventually go away? How long will that take?”
I sigh. “I’m sorry, Gabby. I really am. I didn’t expect this to happen.”
“Whatever. You told me you were worried about something like this the other night.”
Shrugging, I tilt my head back and forth. “Sort of. I mean, I figured if someone leaked pictures or a video of me then it’d make it to certain entertainment news places. But I didn’t expect this much of a reaction. And for them to already be bugging Ben. Who knows who else they’re calling? Who else they’ll be stalking, hoping for a picture or a statement?”
Her gaze is steady on mine. “You never answered my question. How long is this going to last?”
“I don’t know.” I want to tell her that it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks for some other story to become more important and for all this to blow over, to become a memory we can laugh about in a few months or a year. Assuming we’re still together then. But the conversation with my mom is still fresh in my mind. The lure of the stage, of performing again, and my own music this time, is strong. Yeah, this part sucks. But there’s so much more to it than this.
Do I tell Gabby what I’m thinking?
Or will that scare her off even more?
Instead I pull her into my lap, kissing her. “I’ve contacted our old security firm. And I’m meeting with the Dean of Students tomorrow to make a plan for all of us who’ll be most affected—you, me, Ben, maybe Beth. We’ll have to see how aggressive they get.”
She nods, her arms draped around my shoulders. “Okay. So I should be able to get to classes again in a day or two?”
“Yeah. That seems reasonable. But you might need to avoid the campus center and the cafeteria.”
Rolling her eyes, she clutches her chest in dramatic fashion. “Oh, the horror. No cafeteria food for a few days? How will I ever survive?”
I grin. “I know. It’s a major sacrifice. Can you give that up for me?”
Pulling herself closer again, she kisses my nose. “For you? Yeah.”
Her eyes are intent on mine, and the way she says that sounds like she’s talking about more than giving up the cafeteria, which we both know is no sacrifice.
I clear my throat. “I want you to stay here until things calm down.”
She opens her mouth, and I know she’s going to object. I can get her to stay one night, maybe two nights a week in addition to the weekend. But every night? I’m basically asking her to move in.
“Don’t say no,” I add before she can say anything. “Just think about it. I know it’s a lot, but things are only going to get crazier before they get better.” Especially if I start talking to managers and decide to take this somewhere. Then this’ll become life as we know it, and not a crazy blip on the radar.
But she nods. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”
“Good. Now, I’m sure I can think of a few fun ways for us to pass our unexpected day off.”
She gives me a wicked grin, turning so she straddles me and sinking into the kiss. I’ve never been more grateful to have Ben spend time with his girlfriend than I am right now.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gabby
The next morning we sleep in, which feels weird for a Tuesday. But when Jonathan wakes me, it’s with sweet kisses and his hands sliding over my body, his fingers teasing my nipples and questing down to find me slick and ready for him. He strokes me with his fingers—sliding inside, up and over and around my clit, repeating this over and over until I’m panting and desperate. Then he moves over me, rolls on a condom, and teases me for another second or two, grinning at my whine of frustration, before lining up and sinking into me in one smooth slide.
I gasp, arching my hips up to meet his, enjoying the stretch and friction when he grinds his pelvis against mine. One hand brings my leg up, bent at the knee and pushed back toward my chest, opening me more, letting him sink in deeper, so deep. This is one of his favorite things to do, and it’s quickly become one of mine.
Snaking my other leg around his hip, my foot resting on his muscular calf, I hang on as he sets the pace, rising to meet him as much as I can with each thrust. It doesn’t take long before I’m right there again, teetering on the edge of bliss.
“I can feel you clenching. You’re close aren’t you?” His voice is low and rough with sleep and lust.
I bite my lip and nod. He pushes my leg back harder, grinding into me with each powerful stroke, bending his head down to kiss me. With a wordless cry into his open mouth, he brings me to a shuddering orgasm.
His pace increases as I come, and he breaks the kiss, clutching my hand and staring into my eyes as my orgasm fades and his overtakes him. His green eyes glass over, but they never leave mine as I see and feel the pleasure explode through him, his muscles straining as he comes.
Our first time together I didn’t understand why he got off so much on watching me come. But I do now. Knowing that I reduce him to this—twitching and moaning in pleasure—is a heady, powerful feeling. And I can’t get enough of it.
With the house empty, we take our time cleaning up, cuddling for a while before showering and eating a late breakfast. The security team is coming for a meeting at noon.
Despite our lazy morning, nervous energy crackles through the air once we’re both dressed for the day. Jonathan peeks through the curtain for the fifth or sixth time since we got up.
“Any change?” I ask from my place on the couch. I’ve called all my professors for today to let them know I won’t be in class. My orchestra conductor wasn’t happy. According to him, you need to be dead or dying to miss rehearsal. A mob of photographers and reporters camped out and ready to follow me around isn’t an adequate excuse. But Jonathan won’t let me leave before we have a plan in place for dealing with them and I have a bodyguard assigned to me. So, I’m stuck here until after the meeting with the security team at least.
Jonathan shakes his head. “No. Apparently we’ve gotten all we’re going to get for now.”
The “for now” sounds ominous. “Umm, is there a reason we should be worried more might come later?”
He gives me a shrug but doesn’t answer. Oookay. I watch him pace for a few minutes before going back to the book I have to read about Chinese culture for Anthropology.
With a sigh, he sits next to me, interrupting my reading again, so I close my book. He has his phone in his hand, but the screen is dark.
“Have you turned it on yet today?”
He presses his lips together and shakes his head. “Not yet. I was just working up the nerve to do it.”
Giving him an encoura
ging smile, I nudge his shoulder. “C’mon. How bad can it be?”
He gives me a look of disbelief and lets out a short laugh. “Oh, Gabby. You have no idea. Have you checked your phone today?”
I shake my head. “No. You told me not to, remember?”
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Hopefully they haven’t gotten your number yet.” With a deep sigh, he presses the button to turn his phone on. “Might as well find out what’s waiting for us. And if Blaine needs to call, he’ll be pissed he can’t get through to me.” He looks up at me. “You should probably check your phone too, just in case someone important has tried to check in with you. I don’t want your family to worry.”
“Good point.” Setting my book down on the coffee table, I get my phone from Jonathan’s bedroom where it’s been since I turned it off last night. When I get back in the living room, he’s sitting with his arms crossed, his mouth a hard line and his jaw clenching with his phone pressed to his ear. Since he pulls it away without talking, tapping the screen much harder than necessary, I figure he’s listening to voicemails. And apparently unwelcome ones.
“Bad news?”
His face clears as he looks up and shakes his head. “Not exactly. Just people coming out of the woodwork looking to get their cut.”
My mouth twists in a half smile. “Their cut of what? It’s just a YouTube video. And not even on your account. So you’re not even making money from the ads they show.”
His eyebrows lift. “Of whatever might come next.” Reaching out a hand for me, he shakes his head. “That was my old manager, who I never liked,” he says as I rejoin him on the couch. “He’s trying to sign me again, promising to take me further than I could’ve ever gone with my brothers. He said he always knew I had the most talent and could go the farthest.” He snorts and shakes his head. “He’s a fucking liar, though. If that were true, why didn’t he try to sign me on my own when no one was interested in Brash anymore because Colt’s voice changed? He’s just blowing smoke up my ass, telling me what he thinks I want to hear so I’ll work with him again. He thinks I’m his next golden ticket.”
Settling in with his arm around me, I still have my phone in my hand, but haven’t turned it on yet. “What are you going to do?”
“Delete his message and get through the rest of them.” He nods to my phone. “You should probably do the same. I’m sure you have a bunch of crappy voicemails and alerts to sift through so you can get back to the people who matter.”
I push the button, waiting for my phone to turn on while he listens to the next voicemail. This close to him, I can hear the sound of a woman’s voice coming from his phone. I don’t catch her name, but I hear the word manager. Instead of deleting the voicemail without listening further, like I expect from the way he’s talked about not wanting to be famous again, he listens to the whole thing, his expression thoughtful. When he moves on to the next one without missing a beat, I turn back to my phone, returning texts from my brother, sister, and parents that I’m fine, and that I’ll call them all later. I also go through a bunch of alerts from all my social media accounts. I’ve been tagged in posts of that video more times than I can count. After clicking on the first few, I just go to the notifications tab so the triple digit number in the little red bubble disappears.
And the number of missed calls and voicemails. Holy shit.
I don’t think I’ve gotten that many phone calls on this phone ever before, much less in a twenty-four hour period. With a deep breath, I start scrolling through, seeing if any of the calls are from numbers I recognize.
Some I do. Mostly friends and returned calls from professors that I left voicemails for yesterday. Abby, my sister-in-law, called, which is surprising. We get along fine, but she and I don’t talk all that much. I usually talk to Lance. Her voicemail is light and friendly. “Hey, Gabby. Just checking in to see if you need anything and how you’re holding up. I know Lance said you were turning off your phone for a while. I can’t blame you. We’ve been following things, and he has a Google alert set up for you, and it’s been going crazy. Anyway. We’re here if you need us, or if you need a place to hide out for a while.”
Smiling, I text her a quick thanks, not wanting to take the time to call back right now.
“Who was that?”
I lift my head to meet Jonathan’s eyes. “My sister-in-law. She wanted to check in, and said I could hide out there if I need to.”
Irritation flashes across his face. “I thought we agreed you’d stay here with me. Where I can protect you.”
I roll my eyes at him. “You’re not the only one who wants to protect me. My very overprotective older brother from Texas might have some words with you about that.” He opens his mouth to say something, but I keep going, not letting him get a word in. I have lots of practice doing that. They don’t call me Gabby just because it’s short for Gabrielle. “I didn’t say I was going over there, by the way. Just that my brother is here and has a vested interest in my well-being. If you’re going to go all alpha male, he’ll give you a run for your money.”
He pulls me closer. “I just want to keep you safe. This is my fault, and it’s my responsibility to make sure your life isn’t turned upside down any more than it has been already.”
Laughing, I wrap my arms around him. “I told you last night that I didn’t want you to apologize anymore.”
“I didn’t!” he protests.
“Close enough. I told you that I’d stay here for now, but I’m not moving out of the dorm. You said they’ll probably move on in a week or two, so this should all blow over soon, right?”
His eyes drop to where his fingers play with the hem of my shirt, and I move so I’m in his eyeline again. “Right?” The voicemail from the female manager comes to mind. I don’t think he deleted that one. Does that mean he’s considering whatever she had to say?
“Um, yeah. That’s what I said.”
“Why don’t I find that reassuring?”
He sighs, his fingers squeezing where they rest on my hip and thigh. “What if … it didn’t blow over?”
“What do you mean?”
He finally meets my eyes, and his are deep pools of green, the same color they turn when he looks at me before devouring me. Only this time we’re not getting naked. “What if—“ He runs a hand through his hair and lets out a grunt. “I’ve been getting voicemails from managers—other managers, not just my old asshole manager—wanting to represent me to interested labels. I’ve also been contacted directly by some labels wanting to sign me, apparently hoping I’m naive enough to give a verbal agreement without looking over a contract and having it reviewed by a manager and an attorney.” He shakes his head. “But that’s not the point. The point is, that I could make something out of this. Get a chance to perform again. My music this time, not canned, formulaic stuff from so-called hit-makers.”
I search his face, not entirely surprised, but not sure what to think. On the one hand, it sounds like a dream come true for him. On the other hand … “I thought you hated the fame thing?”
Ducking his head again, he fiddles with some fuzz on the couch. “Yeah. That part sucks. But you get used to it. There’s not as much freedom as there is when you’re not famous. Like you can’t just decide to go to the grocery store whenever or the taco stand down the road without causing a scene. But there are certain perks.” He meets my eyes again, a mischievous twinkle in his eye and a crooked grin on his lips.
My own mouth pulls to the side, mimicking his. “Perks?”
“Mmhmm. Money, for one. It opens a lot of doors.” He kisses me, his tongue dipping into my mouth for a taste before pulling away.
“Yeah, I can see that being a good thing.”
His hands flex on my hips again. “You could come with me.”
My eyebrows climb my forehead. “Come with you? Where are you going?”
He shrugs. “I’d probably have to go back to California for a while. There’d be tours. The label makes money off album sales. I’d make
money on tour. It’d be a crazy few years, but I’d be set for life if I can ride this out. Then maybe become one of those hit-makers who churn out songs for other people to sing.”
“You’d want to give up performing for that?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe I’d get tired of it after a while.”
I snort. “Yeah. Somehow I doubt that. I saw you play on Saturday.”
His grin turns shy. “What does that mean?”
Now I kiss him. When I try to pull back, he follows, not willing to let go of the kiss, but I break it off anyway. “Remember how you told me that I turn into someone else, something more, when I play? That’s true of you too. You’re a performer. You might be a songwriter too, but deep down, it’s the performing that stirs your blood and makes you want to get up in the morning. That’s what drives you.”
He stares at me, his eyes examining mine for long minutes, his smile gone now. Then he pulls my face to his, crashing our lips together in a consuming kiss. His teeth nip at my lower lip before he slides his tongue across the sting, soothing it before sweeping inside my mouth. I open wider for him, deepening the kiss, clinging to his neck and shoulders, pressing myself closer to him.
When he eventually breaks the kiss, his chest rising and falling rapidly, he presses my forehead to his. “Thank you, Gabby.”
“For?”
A smile crosses his face. “For getting it. For getting me. I don’t think I’ve ever been with someone who’s gotten me like you do.”
“My pleasure.” And it is. Because the same is true for me. No one has ever gotten me like he does. Which makes his suggestion that I go with him wherever he ends up both electrifying and terrifying.
And I have no idea what I’m going to do.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jonathan
On Wednesday morning, I say goodbye to Gabby with great reluctance when she leaves to go to class.
Double Exposition (Songs and Sonatas Book 1) Page 13
