Regretting Gabriel

by Brooks, Anna

  The voice is close, and I look up when the question is yelled at me to find Meara’s head tilted at me. Nik, the guy Gabriel pointed at and told to not let me out of his sight, glances over at me.

  “Yeah. Fine. Just got a little warm.”

  “Want some water?”

  “Please.”

  She nods and fills a glass with ice, and then adds water. “Thank you,” I tell her when she hands it over. My hands are shaking, and before she lets it go, she asks again, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine. A little overwhelming.”

  “It can be, for sure.”

  She doesn’t walk away, and I hate that she’s looking at me like I’ll fall apart or something. “So I bet Liam is happy being on stage again,” I say just to take the attention off me.

  Her eyes fly to the other side of the bar, and her breath hitches, and I swear if her heart was on her sleeve, I’d see it breaking as we speak. But then she clears her throat and shimmies her shoulders a bit as if to shake it off, and she smiles. “Yeah. He sure is. Happy as a clam, back in his element, doing what he was meant to do, living his best fucking life. Ugh, oh. Looks like you’re wanted.”

  “What?” I ask at the sudden change of topic.

  She points behind me, and I laugh when I see Gabriel.

  “There she is!” He’s standing on a table with two shot glasses, his arms in the air. “Come here, woman.”

  The crowd magically parts for me and my legs turn to jelly with everyone’s eyes on me. “Go.” Meara gives me a little push, and I lurch forward and square my shoulders back since I really don’t have a choice. I forgot he did this.

  “Come on up, Cady.”

  My face is flushed, but from the looks of everyone else around me, they’re all drunk, so it doesn’t really matter. They probably won’t remember it in the morning, anyway. I start to climb up into the booth so I can get on the table when I feel a not familiar hand on my hip, and then suddenly Gabriel’s deep rumble right by my ear. “Hands off, motherfucker.” I whip my head to the right to see Gabriel crouched down. How did he do that so fast? He’s got both shot glasses gripped with the fingers of one hand now, and his arm flashes out to grab the guy by his shirt. With a shove, he tosses him to the side like he’s a pest.

  I gasp, and a few people have to get out of the way so the guy doesn’t land on them.

  “Here, baby.” My shock is directed away from the guy who touched me back to Gabriel. I place my hand in his, and he helps me up, then positions a shot glass in my fingers.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Gabriel yells, and the crowd quiets down. His toasts are always funny, usually dirty, and sometimes misogynistic, but he’s famous for them. He clears his throat and wraps an arm around my waist and yanks me to him. I collide with his chest and spill half of my shot. He raises his arm in the air, and everyone copies with a beer or a glass. “Here’s to the prettiest, here’s to the wittiest, here’s to the truest of true. Here’s to the neatest, here’s to the sweetest …” He turns and points his glass at me and winks. “Sugar, here’s to you.”

  The women ohh and ahh, and the guys either holler at him for being whipped or shout out that he’s gettin’ some tonight. The flash of a camera blinds me for a split second, and I have to grab on to him tighter so I don’t fall.

  I toss back what’s left of the alcohol because I need it for the amount of nervousness I feel and then screech when I’m tipped backward and he slams his mouth against mine. Another flash. I drop the glass and grab his shirt so I don’t fall. “God, you’re pretty.” He kisses my lips hard once more, then jumps down and holds his arms out for me. I put my hands in his, and he pulls me down, and when my feet hit the floor, he claims me with an arm around my waist. I like this playful side of him.

  “Well, that was a first.” Jamie laughs as he sits down next to Mercy. He slants his arm on her back and cups her butt.

  What is it with these guys and the whole claiming thing? Not that I don’t like it. Being in Gabe’s arms makes me feel safe, and he gives me a sense of security I’d never have if he wasn’t at my side.

  “Shut up, asshole.” Gabe flips him off but starts tugging me toward them.

  “My hands are all sticky. I’m going to go wash them.”

  “Hurry back.” He smacks my butt as I walk away, and when I turn the corner, I look over my shoulder to find him still watching me.

  I get to the bathroom and avoid making eye contact with anyone even though a bunch of people are saying things to me. I can’t understand most of them, but I manage to hear lucky bitch tossed around several times. As the door closes on me, I realize two women are already in the stalls talking. So much for a moment to myself. I go to the sink and turn the tap on and inhale a huge breath, needing to calm down.

  Too much is happening too fast.

  “God, he’s such a jerk.” A woman’s voice echoes from a stall.

  “Who?”

  The water running through my fingers turns warm.

  “Gabe.”

  My heart gallops in my chest, and I have to hold on to the basin so I don’t fall.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard stories. What’d he do?”

  “It’s what he didn’t do.”

  The second girl laughs. “Did he turn you down?”

  “If you can believe that. I mean, every time he’s home, he pays me a visit, and he has the balls to push me away and tell me he’s done with me in front of the guys like I’m a groupie.”

  “Damn, sorry I wasn’t there. I’d have told him off for you.”

  I squirt some soap in my hands and wash them quickly, urgency to get out of this claustrophobic space making me rush.

  “It was before that stupid ass toast, what the fuck was that? Did you see who he’s with? God, who is that? She’s so… plain. How can he want her over me?”

  That’s the question I ask myself. Maybe they’ll have the answers, so instead of leaving, I dry my already dry hands.

  I hear a faint laugh, and then a toilet flushes. “Who knows, maybe he’s ready to settle down and have kids, and he wanted an ugly woman who nobody else would want to screw while he was away.”

  “There’s no way that little… homely thing can give a guy like that what he needs. I mean, God. He fucked me so hard, the headboard literally broke the wall. I had to have my landlord fix it. No way would she be able to handle that.”

  “Damn.”

  “He was so good… totally the best I ever had, and I know I gave it to him good too. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have kept coming back.”

  The other one flushes now, which hopefully signifies the end of this torture because I’ve heard enough, and I want to leave, but I can’t move. It’s as if I’m rooted to the floor. Cemented in place. “You wanna get out of here?”

  “No way, I’m gonna make sure he knows what he’s missing.”

  Laugher echoes, and when they both stumble out of the stalls, I catch their eyes in the mirror. The brunette’s charcoal-lined eyes widen, but the blonde walks right up next to me and applies her bright red lipstick. She raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow, gives me a catty curl of her lip in the mirror, then pushes the door open without washing her hands. Gross.

  She just dismissed me. As if she knew I wasn’t a challenge for a girl like her. Which I’m not. Music blasts for a second, and then the door clicks shut behind them, and I’m immersed in silence once again.

  Shit.

  Gabriel had me blind to the reality of the world for a minute there. He made me forget how it really is outside the walls of my apartment. Being alone with him made me naïve. But I know how this works; I know how rock stars operate. My dad may have tried to shield me from the worst of it, but I was old enough to know what was happening. And I’m an idiot to think I’ll ever be enough for a man like Gabriel.

  Sure, when we’re alone together, it’d be great. But he’s on the road more than he’s home, and I couldn’t ever live with the fact that the guy I was committed to was sleeping aroun
d behind my back. That I mean so little to the man who means everything to me.

  Idiot.

  God, what was I thinking?

  I suck in a breath, painfully and with effort, and then reach for more paper towels to dab my eyes. It’s not like what they were saying wasn’t true. I’ve thought of nothing but that since he wouldn’t let me leave Gia’s. At least I thought that before he made love to me. I believed him, too, when he said all those sweet things. But dammit, I forgot.

  I forgot about the real world.

  Even though I feel nauseous, even though the hollow pit in my stomach is spinning, and even though the biggest insecurity I have was brought to light by a woman who has already slept with the man I’m in love with, I’m going to go back out there.

  It hurts, and it’s only going to get worse. She was the first catty bitch, but she won’t be the last. And as angry as I am, I’m hurt more. Confused.

  How am I supposed to be okay with that? How am I supposed to accept the fact that being with Gabriel means there’s a possibility that everywhere we go, he’s slept with someone there?

  When we’re alone, it’s perfect. I’m not forced to think about any of the other stuff, but in public, it’s thrown in my face the very first time we go out together. I know how some of these women are. I’ve witnessed it from going on the road with my dad.

  They’re brutal. And they’ll fight dirty to get a little piece of a rock star. A piece of Gabe.

  “God.” My fingers tremble as I stare at my feet and wonder if I’m gonna have the strength to move them forward. My answer is given to me when the door opens because a group of women walk in together giggling, and I don’t have the capacity to deal with another incident like what just happened. Because there’s a good chance he’s fucked one of them, too.

  I keep my head down, hair shielding me, and go straight to the bar. Nik nods at me, clearly taking his duties of making sure I’m okay seriously. That was nice that Gabriel did that because he knew how it would be tonight, and he didn’t want me alone and vulnerable.

  But I can’t even look at him. I don’t know if Gabriel saw me come out or not, but just the thought of looking over there and seeing her with him is enough to weaken all my resolve. Meara pauses in front of me and tilts her head. “Girl. You sure you’re okay?”

  “No.” I tell her the truth. I was okay before, but now I’m not. If anyone can understand, it’d be her. I’ve never been in this position, and I don’t know what to do.

  “What happened?”

  “I get that there were others, but to hear them—”

  She interrupts me. “Oh God, did some stupid skank ass bitch talk shit to you?”

  “Not to me, no. I just overheard her saying things about her and Gabriel that I’d rather not repeat.”

  Her eyes scan the crowd behind me and stop on something… or someone. Then they narrow, and I don’t even want to ask her what she’s looking at. She shakes her head and gives me her attention. “He likes you. I’ve known him forever. He was never one to settle down, but he found you, and he likes you, and he just told everyone here that you were his. My advice? Ride it out. Suck up the insecurity of the other women because at the end of the day, they don’t mean shit. It’s hard… trust me, I know. God, it’s so goddamned hard, but if you let random groupie chicks get between you and him, you might as well break up with him now because it’s something you’ll have to deal with forever.” She shakes her head. “Sorry, I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, but I’m not one to sugarcoat anything. I know that doubt will always linger in the back of your mind, but you have to push it away and pretend it’s completely gone when he’s around. Wait for him to leave to fall apart.”

  Damn.

  Someone calls for a beer, and she tells me she’ll be right back. But then she stops and turns back to me. “I love him like a brother, and I don’t want to see him get screwed over either, so don’t string him along if you’re just gonna give up when your feelings get hurt.”

  Okay. Wow. I don’t really know how to take that.

  “Sounds like you’ve really got that guy hooked.”

  I snap my head up and narrow my eyes at the guy next to me, irritated that he interrupted my thoughts. “What?”

  He angles his head at the general vicinity of the stage. “The guitar player. That toast.”

  “Oh, he’s just being… himself.”

  “So you’re not together?”

  He claims we are, but are we, really? I’m not naïve enough to think whatever is between us right now is permanent. Could he care about me? Sure.

  There’s definitely a connection between us, but it’s easy to be all about another person when there are no outside distractions. And go figure that on our first night out together, I had a distraction thrown in my face. I’m thankful in a way, the lesson that we’ll never work is one that was better to learn sooner rather than later. Before I fall even faster.

  I look over to see Gabriel taking another shot. I know he’s a little drunk, and I think I might be, too because a part of me wants to make him jealous so he’ll feel what I do right now. He’ll never understand how mortifying it is to know you’ll never be special. That the time you spend together in bed doesn’t mean anything when it means everything to you.

  That stupid bitch from the bathroom with her stupid stripper shoes and her stupid fake hair and fake boobs is sitting on Mike’s lap. Gabriel’s across from them talking like it’s nothing. Like he didn’t fuck her and put a hole through her wall.

  God.

  It hurts more than it should.

  She leans in toward Gabriel, and he does the same. What the hell? She grabs the beer bottle from his hand, and I watch in slow motion as she brings it to her mouth, flicking her tongue out and pours some of his beer down her throat.

  He shakes his head with a grin and takes the bottle from her, then he fucking drinks from it.

  Drinks from it.

  The same bottle the skank just had her mouth on. I literally gag. How could he do that right in front of me? How is he not looking for me? It’s the perfect foreshadowing and gives me all the answers I need.

  I finally answer the guy next to me because Meara’s right. I shouldn’t string him along, and I won’t. I can’t do this. “No. We’re not.”

  “Can I buy you a drink, then?” He’s a cute guy, not quite six feet tall with sandy brown hair and brown eyes smiling at me, but I ignore him and push away from the bar. Slipping through the crowd, I head to the back. Convenient how Gabriel couldn’t take his eyes off me earlier, but now he has no clue that I’m about to leave. I rush down the hall and push the door open and make sure it’s closed behind me before I rest my hands on my knees and dry heave.

  I’m not built to be with a man like him.

  I was raised by one and loved him with more than my whole heart, but it’s not the same as being in love with a rock star.

  “Woman, what the fuck?” I scream when Nik’s voice appears out of nowhere.

  When I raise my head, the sharp angles of his jaw soften. It’s like he knows.

  “I need to leave. I can’t… I can’t be in there.”

  “How far do you live?”

  “About ten, fifteen minutes walking.”

  He nods and takes a key out of his pocket, then bleeps the lock to a tinted black Impala that automatically starts. “Come on. Car’s not much warmer, but I’ll get you there safer and faster.”

  I follow him, and he opens the passenger door for me and jogs around to his side, and then drops the key fob in the cup holder. “Address?”

  “The apartments on Lake View Road.”

  He accelerates, and I look out the window, fighting back the tears that are destined to fall. My jaw tenses from the bitter cold. My heart thunders in my chest, and my fingers tremble because I absolutely hate being in a car more than anything in my life, but it’s a necessity right now. It’s silent for a couple of minutes, and then he clears his throat.

  “You’
re allowed to feel.”

  “What?”

  “Being with one of them.” He throws a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the direction we just came from. “You’re allowed to feel all that shit. Don’t listen to Meara about pushing everything away and pretending.” I turn to look at him, and he glances over and offers me a small smile. “She has a tendency to put Liam before herself and hold everything in. Your job in a relationship isn’t to sacrifice your happiness for the other person’s. That’s what she’s done forever, and it’s all about to explode in her face. Do not live in a constant state of worry and fake happiness. You need to talk to him.” He pulls up to the curb, and I put my hand on the handle.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll wait for him to come and ask me, but I’m gonna tell him I took you home. I’m not gonna make him freak out.”

  “Okay. Thanks again.”

  Hurrying up the walkway, I take my single house key out of my back pocket and fumble with the lock before I’m able to get inside.

  I slam the door and run to my bedroom, strip my clothes off, pull on an oversized T-shirt, then crawl under the covers. My teeth chatter, and my entire body shakes as it begins to warm again. And once I can feel my face, I realize hot tears are still silently rolling down my cheeks.

  I can’t fight it anymore and sob into my pillow as if someone I loved just died. In a way, I guess he did because the fantasy I had of him was debunked tonight, and I’ll never have back the innocent crush or get butterflies just thinking about him.

  Now when I think about him, I’ll think of him and her. How when someone like her is around, I don’t matter anymore. And that shit hurts.

  My quilt is suddenly yanked off me, and I scurry back, my head bouncing off the wall. Shit. I forgot to lock the door behind me.

  “What the fuck?” Gabriel yells. “What the fuck, Cady? I was worried outta my goddamned mind when I couldn’t find you, Jesus fucking Christ.” He lunges for me and tugs me to him. My face collides with his chest, and he cradles me there. My arms have no choice but to wind around him. “What were you thinking, just leaving without saying anything?” I try to shove him off, but he won’t let me. “No way. I need to hold you a little longer.”