The incident had further bonded the two boys without a word ever needing to be said. It was only with Conor’s persistent tutoring that Gavin passed the school year. In return, Conor’s loner tendencies then and up to the present were negated by Gavin’s effusive friendship, as he had always drawn Conor out of himself. They had each filled something missing for the other and been able to rely upon that for more than two decades. And then he had wrecked it all.
“But you’re right, CQ,” Felicity said, breaking through his reverie. “We’re still good mates.”
He smiled. With his friendship with Gavin still so fragile, her affirmation of their relationship meant a great deal.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Over the course of a week, the band put long days into working on the song that would be called “Through Your Eyes.” It had begun with Gavin goading Conor into describing the love he had with Colette, but Gavin had deftly co-opted the song into a way to exorcise the demons of knowing about Conor and Sophie with lyrics like:
Through your eyes I see
You found another to take comfort in
Only that person isn’t me
How satisfying was that sin?
Conor was in the uncomfortable position of feeling like he had no choice but to let Gavin have his way. Martin and Shay had the same powerlessness with it. The best case scenario was that this would count as catharsis.
Out of that same vein came a song called “I Remember When” that fondly reminisced about “taking walks on the Green, stealing looks in class” among other warm memories from Gavin and Sophie’s school days romance. But it took a dark turn in the last refrain, intoning, “I remember when I held your heart so tight blood dripped to the floor.”
It was into this atmosphere that Colette arrived to reunite with her fiancé. Conor insisted that they all go out to dinner, arguing that the break was more than deserved. He also hoped to make this an opportunity to reintroduce her to the band as none of them, especially Gavin, had the most favorable impression of her previous to this. Her tendency to create drama for the sake of sport was something from which they all recoiled.
~
Winding his way to the back of the trendy Temple Bar restaurant, Gavin located the private dining room. He stood a moment in the doorway, surveying the scene before him. The room’s lights were a soft yellow glow and there were fat candles running down the middle of a large rustic wood table. Several bottles of wine were set on the table for easy refills. The music was turned up enough to make everyone speak a bit too loudly for intimate conversation. Gavin decided that was a good thing.
With a deep breath, he attempted to seat himself next to James, the band’s manager, without calling attention to himself. James, a wiry redhead, had “discovered” Rogue when they weren’t even eighteen years old yet and were scraping together gigs at Dublin bars. He had talked a big game, throwing around music-world terminology to impress the boys into thinking he would deserve the percentage he was asking for in exchange for managing them. In truth, he hadn’t any more music experience than temping at a local radio station off and on for a few years. But his confidence, eagerness, and willingness to sweat got him the job with Rogue, and he had never looked back, propelling them to the kind of success he had boldly promised.
“Ah, and here you are,” James said to Gavin, as he turned away from his wife, Maddy.
Being the magnetic personality that he was, there was no way the others wouldn’t stop their chatter to greet him. They would also naturally expect Gavin to be his normal rousing self, eager to tell a story and command the room. He hadn’t brought that character tonight, however, and instead gave quick nods to the group and busied himself with pouring a glass of red wine.
He had purposely sat at the opposite end of the table from Conor and Colette. If he could have, he would have sat on the same side so as to avoid all chance of eye contact but Celia, Martin’s wife, had already taken that seat. She and Martin had been married forever and already had three boys. She favored a no-nonsense blonde pixie cut and had big blue eyes, an innocent look which belied her tendency to gossip and meddle. She was a good match, though, for Martin, who was on the stocky side and always had an affable demeanor but was one of those men who needed to go from his mother to a wife to get by.
There were nine of them in total, every guest there with their significant other except for Gavin. After nearly half his life being the one who had a partner by his side, he felt adrift.
“How are you, love? You poor thing. You managing?” Celia asked, her voice dripping with concern as she leaned across the table.
The question immediately put Gavin’s back up as he resented her condescending tone. ”Managing what?” he asked in return.
“Well, you know, without Sophie. And what with her showing up in the tabloids with those other men. Distasteful, if you ask me.”
“He’s fine, isn’t he? Don’t give him hassle,” Martin told his wife, and Gavin was grateful.
“Conor said you guys are making progress,” James said, nudging Gavin with his shoulder. “Atta boy.”
After another half-hour of benign chatter, along with two glasses of wine, Gavin sat back in his chair and relaxed. The mood in the room was light, the conversation free flowing. It left him with the opportunity to observe rather than participate.
He stared down the table at Colette, watching her carefree banter with Jessica, Shay’s girlfriend. He felt the urge to disrupt them, to pull Jessica free from engaging with Colette. Jessica was American with a mix of African and Asian heritage. Shay had been out to dinner with Conor at a New York sushi bar one night a few years back and she was their waitress. Conor had charmed her on Shay’s behalf, urging the two to get together. It had worked. After she finished her graphic design studies at NYU, she moved to Dublin to be with Shay and he found her a job with the Rogue organization working on the band’s social media platforms.
Now she and Colette were gossiping about some actress whose hair was so brittle from bleaching that she had to wear a wig for most of her movies. While she talked, Colette casually played with the hair at the nape of Conor’s neck and Gavin was struck by the intimacy between them. He couldn’t fathom how it would be possible given she had only recently learned that Conor had slept with Sophie. How could a person recover from that so quickly?
Gavin had to admit that Colette and Conor made a striking couple. She was every inch a supermodel with long shapely legs, slim waist, and full breasts. Her niche in the modeling world alternated between that of the “voluptuous” one due to her curvaceous figure or the “ethnic” one due to her French Canadian mother and Greek father. Her olive skin and intense brown eyes photographed beautifully. She was ambitious and had risen quickly in the industry on her own merits, but even more so once she became an item with Conor.
As Gavin was wondering about the way Colette embraced the extra publicity, he saw Conor lean over and kiss her on her halter-top bared shoulder. The action sent a vision through his mind he wanted to get rid of so desperately that he stood up quickly enough that his chair fell back to the floor. Without a word, he walked out of the private room, trying to ignore the sudden silence and the feel of all those eyes on his back.
“Fuck this, fuck this,” he muttered to himself as his mind’s eye conjured an image of Conor kissing Sophie the way he had Colette.
As soon as Gavin was out of sight, everyone at the table turned and looked expectantly at Conor.
He shook his head slightly, as bewildered as everyone else.
“Maybe he’s off to the jax? Had to take a piss?” Shay suggested.
“Or maybe he had to get a fix?” Colette said with a self-satisfied smile.
“Honey, don’t,” Conor said quickly.
“I thought the same,” Celia said quietly.
~
Gavin needed only the time it took to get a whiskey from the bar to sort himself out. It allowed him to push away the unwelcome visions in his head while at the same time get com
fortably numb.
“Ah, good you’re back,” Conor said when Gavin retook his seat at the table. “I was telling Marty and Shay that I’m going to need a bit of a break for a few days.”
“Why’s that?” Gavin asked.
“Seems Colette arranged a quick trip for us to London starting tomorrow. We’ll only be gone two days.
“Three nights,” Colette corrected him.
“Three nights,” Conor repeated sheepishly.
“And four days,” she added.
Gavin took a deep breath, trying to bury the anger rising in his chest. They had just begun to tap into something special and now had to hit the brakes. He twisted the gold band of his wedding ring to the left, then to the right and back to the middle again as he took this in.
“Okay, then,” he said. “Marty, Shay—we can work at my place, yeah?”
“Can’t you wait for me?” Conor asked.
“We’ve been on break long enough.”
“Whose fault is that?” Colette asked.
Gavin looked at her for a long moment before turning his eyes back to Conor.
“I can do some guitar filler ‘til you’re back,” he said.
When Colette laughed derisively, all the men of the band shot her a look.
“What?” she asked, wide-eyed. “Everyone knows he doesn’t know one string from the other.”
“She’s had a bit much, Gavin,” Conor said quickly.
Gavin held up his hand. “Colette, darlin’, music aficionado that you are . . . you don’t think I know how to play guitar?”
She shrugged. “Let’s just say I’m not the only one who thinks you’re in over your head when you pick up a guitar.”
He couldn’t help but smile at the insinuation that Conor was the one feeding her this line of thought.
“That’s a familiar accusation,” he said. “Last time was a few months back. You know, when you were fucking Jackson.”
The room fell silent then as Gavin and Colette stared at each other.
Gavin and Sophie had had dinner with Jackson Armstrong and Colette back during their brief reunion in LA. Jackson was a wildly popular British romantic comedy actor and friend of the band. Their dinner took place just before Sophie broke down and admitted to having slept with Conor. The dinner had been contentious because even though Gavin had never cared for Colette, he loathed the idea of her being with Jackson instead of Conor. He hadn’t hidden his feelings on the matter. She had responded with digs at his musical ability.
Finally, Colette said, “Why don’t you run along and find your dealer, Gavin?”
“Fuck you.”
“Don’t you wish,” she replied.
“Jesus, you two, give it rest,” Conor said sharply.
Gavin stood up. “Great, Con. Go ahead and fuck off to London.” He quickly left the room again but this time headed out the front door of the restaurant.
Night had fallen which meant that the streets were filling with people bar-hopping before heading to a club. Gavin looked up at the sky and laughed in exasperation.
“Gav, don’t leave.”
He saw Conor before him and instead of replying he waved him off.
“Come on, man. Listen, she’s fucking mad at me but taking it out on you for some reason. I’m sorry she went after you like that,” Conor told him.
“She’s a piece of work.”
“Yeah, not exactly the reunion I was hoping for.”
After a moment, they both laughed softly at the understatement.
“You do know that she and I will never be friends,” Gavin said.
“I don’t fucking care, Gavin. As long as you and I are friends.”
Gavin took a step away from him. “I’m giving it all I got, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” Conor replied eagerly. “But, Gav . . . .”
“What?” Gavin said warily.
“Can you try not telling my fiancée to fuck off again?”
Gavin’s smile was pained as he ran his hand through his now short hair. He still hadn’t quite gotten used to not having long hair anymore. “Yeah. She knows how to get to me, doesn’t she?”
“I’ve never told her you can’t play guitar. Of course you can. And she knows you’re clean.” Conor shook his head as he thought a moment. “Maybe I was too optimistic in thinking we were over the past. Because she sure did make a mess of all this.”
“She’s always liked to stir the shit, man. That’s what I could never take. But you and Sophie always saw something else in her that I never understood.”
They lapsed into silence at the mention of Sophie’s name. Gavin saw a small group of teenagers eyeing them from a distance. They were clearly trying to get up the nerve to approach the singer and guitarist of one of the country’s most popular rock bands.
“When are you gonna call her, anyway?” Conor asked.
“Just don’t, Con. We are not going to be that way with each other.”
“I—“
“You don’t give me advice about Sophie,” Gavin insisted.
“Okay, fine.”
Gavin wanted to say never mind, forget it. Tell me what to do about Sophie. Tell me how I can get over the two of you breaking my heart. But instead he sighed and said, “I’ll see you when you get back. Say hi to the Queen for me.”
Conor smiled. “I will.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Conor ignored Colette’s giggles and jokes about how incapacitated she was as he helped her to the bedroom.
“I think I am seriously compromised, Mr. Quinn,” she said. She untied the halter top of her dress, letting the straps fall down her chest. “Whatever will you do with me?”
“You should probably worry about sleeping it off,” he muttered. He sat on the bed and started to untie his boots.
“Oh, Connie, are you really so mad at me?”
He glanced up, and then his gaze became fixed as she pulled down the dress completely, revealing naked olive skin and taut nipples. He wasn’t surprised to see she hadn’t bothered with panties. She was, by both nature and profession, comfortable being nude. And she was an expert at distracting him with seduction.
The sight of her naked body gave rise to a predictable reaction in him, even as he knew she was manipulating things. The game playing in their relationship had always carried through to their sex life. They often wrestled for control in bed, which made for a great deal of physicality rather than tenderness. Not that he was complaining.
Standing up, he moved close to her, cupping her full breasts in his greedy hands. He ran his thumb over a hardened nipple and slid his other hand into the hair at the nape of her neck, making her shiver involuntarily. With a firm tug, he pulled her head back and trailed his lips over the exposed skin of her throat. She had perfume of citrus and patchouli at her pulse points. Her skin was soft and satisfyingly responsive to his touch.
She wrapped her arms loosely around his neck and let out a soft moan, which he soon covered with his mouth as he kissed her deeply. They stood closely together, he fully clothed, and she completely nude. He ran his hand down the length of her spine and squeezed her backside, and she bit his lip hard in return.
“Get naked with me,” she told him and he gladly obeyed.
Afterward, Conor lay on his belly, gazing at her through half-closed eyes. She had spread her hair over the pillow and wore a pleased smile on her lips.
“You call me Connie again and I’m breaking up with you,” he said.
She turned on her side and looked at him. “That’s not very funny.”
“I guess not,” he admitted. “Neither was how you treated Gavin tonight. I’m still pissed off at that.”
“I could have said worse. You should be glad I held back.”
“Jesus, what were you going to say?” He winced in preparation for the answer he didn’t want to hear.
“When he had the nerve to bring up Jackson I felt like telling him that was about the same time his wife was fucking you. But I didn’t.”
“Colette, you better not—“
“I won’t, sweetie. I won’t. I’m saying I could have.”
“Ah, fuck,” he moaned, closing his eyes tightly. What had he gotten himself into with this woman?
“You know, I’m not feeling very protected by you,” she said.
“What does that mean?” he asked wearily, looking at her.
“A man tells me ‘fuck you’ and you do nothing? That’s pure male intimidation. You should have leapt to my defense.”
You were both acting like children, he wanted to say. Instead, he watched her with interest. As she was speaking she casually played with her hair, a clear disconnect between what she was claiming and how she really felt.
“You can obviously handle yourself, can’t you? After all, he’s the one that left.”
“True,” she said. Her eyes sparkled with satisfaction.
“Why do you antagonize him? What’s he done?”
“He’s always tried to keep me out of your precious little circle.”
“What does that mean?”
She made a show of sighing. “You have to admit you all—with your lifelong history together—you don’t exactly welcome others into your crowd. He, in particular, has always made it clear that I’m an outsider, that I’ll never really get between the two of you.”
Before he could assess her insinuation, she continued, “And, he was horrible to Sophie.”
“Thought your friendship with her was over.”
“It is—thanks to you.”
Conor turned on his side to face her. He touched her cheek gently. “Am I to get comments like that for the rest of our lives?”
“We haven’t even begun the rest of our lives, Conor. This is still fresh.”
There was hurt in her words but her eyes were unaffected. “You’re right. I’m sorry,” he said softly.
“What were you two talking about out there, anyway?” she asked, curling into his arms.
He held her close. “You, actually. Told him to back off,” he said quietly.
“Good boy,” she replied and patted him on the backside.
Playing At Love: A Rogue Series Novel Page 4
