Chapter 14
14
GAVIN
T he band was riding high after its most recent gig at The Basement. Just the other day, a local radio station played a bootleg copy of “Day’s Done.” They’d had a conversation with someone interested in managing them, and Rogue planned to head to London within a fortnight. Everything was moving in the right direction.
Gavin should have been happy. He should have been thrilled.
But he was neither of those things. Instead, he was in the backseat of Malachy’s car as he and Lynne drove Sophie to the airport. They were holding hands and Sophie was using the fingertips of her other hand to slowly trace a pattern onto his inner wrist. It was the comforting habit they’d established that first day he’d walked her home but it wasn’t working now.
Since that night on the beach at The Strand, they’d gone back to ignoring that their time was running out. They’d spent every possible moment together and tried to act like everything was fine.
But it wasn’t fine.
Gavin still couldn’t bear that Sophie would be leaving him. Especially not at this pivotal point in his life when he might very well be on the cusp of a thrilling future with his band. He’d been sleepless the last few nights, trying to come up with a way to convince her to stay. It was early this morning when he realized he had the answer.
In the rush to get all of Sophie’s things packed and loaded into Malachy’s Ford, he hadn’t had the chance to talk to her.
So, he took a deep breath and leaned into her now. “Sophie, I know the way we can stay together.”
She looked at him with watery eyes. Tears had pooled in her eyes since the moment he’d arrived at her house to go with her to the airport.
“Marry me,” he said. “Marry me and be my wife. Then we can have our own life together.”
She watched him for a moment before half-laughing, half-scoffing. The casual dismissal of what he’d said nearly broke him. She didn’t for one second take him seriously. She didn’t believe in them enough to take a leap. Not even when he’d just suggested he was so committed to her that he’d marry her. Instead, she’d rather give up.
She’d rather walk away.
She shook her head and gave him a sad smile. “Oh, Gavin,” she said before leaning in to kiss him.
“And that’ll be enough of that,” Malachy said, fixing them with a stare through the rearview mirror. “We’re here anyway.”
Gavin watched the airport departures come into view, and then the car was stopping and everyone was getting out, and he had absolutely no power, no say.
It was all happening without him. Sophie was gathering her bags and thanking Malachy and Lynne, giving them hugs, and then letting a valet take her bags so that she didn’t have to deal them. Because, of course, she could afford to do that.
And then she was turning back to him, still trying not to let the tears fall from her eyes.
“I’ll write to you,” she said. “I expect you to write back and tell me all about your adventures in London.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”
“Please.”
He met her eyes and saw a mixture of sadness and hope. There was nothing more he could offer her now that she was leaving, but he hated when she cried. So he nodded and pulled her to him one last time.
“I love you so much,” she murmured into his neck.
“Safe travels, darlin’,” he told her and felt her body trembling. He had to end this. He couldn’t draw out this goodbye any longer.
She’d made her choice to leave. It was time for him to move on and start the rest of his life without her. He pulled away, wiped her tears, and smiled weakly. “You’ll be grand, Sophie Kavanaugh.”
He kissed her once, lingering for a moment in the sweet taste of her, before turning and walking to stand beside the car. He didn’t look back. He just waited until she must have gone because that’s when both Malachy and Lynne patted him on the back and climbed back into the car.
Once home, Gavin went straight to his room and fell face down onto his bed. Sophie’s reaction to his marriage proposal ran through his mind on a loop. The rejection had been so swift that it made him question exactly what he’d been to her. She’d been his everything. If he’d been the same to her, how could she just walk away?
Then again, she wasn’t the only woman in his life to have done that.
He could feel the darkness coming on now, threatening to unleash the kind of depression he found hard to fight. It was a terrible place to be, but it was also seductive.
He wanted to give in to it. To wallow in the misery and pain.
When he heard a light tapping on his window, his first instinct was to ignore it. But it persisted, so he got up and opened the window to find Conor waiting.
Conor, his good friend who had always been there when it mattered most.
“She gone?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Gavin replied softly.
“Are you okay?”
Gavin shrugged.
“Come on, let’s go get drunk,” Conor urged with a smile.
Gavin grabbed his jacket and climbed out the window.
“Sounds about right.”