Chapter 6 Gabi #2
“A song is never just a song,” he says. “Every song brings out some sort of emotion in us. And I have a feeling that song was a lot of emotions all wrapped up into one.”
“You have no clue.”
“I don’t. I want to, but I don’t have to know. You’re right. We’re basically strangers. But so you know, I can listen with the best of them.”
I have a feeling he’s not tooting his own horn with that one.
The man seemingly is amazing at everything he does.
And it’s not that I don’t trust him. It’s that saying these words to anyone is hard.
Hannah and Shelby are the only two who know, and even then I didn’t tell them until after the divorce was underway.
I was ashamed. Mad. Sad. The same emotions I’m feeling right now.
But I don’t want to ever relive this again. I want this to be a full exorcism. And I have a feeling the only way to truly purge all of this is to say the words out loud. Even if it’s to a man I just met.
“He never let me sing.”
There. I said it. Not loud, but the words are out there. Though I’m not sure if Maddox heard me judging by the confused look on his face.
“Did I hear you right? I know it’s loud in here, and someone is doing a horrible version of a horrible song, but did you say—”
I nod, actually wanting to say it again. “He didn’t like it when I sang. So I stopped. Tonight was the first time I’ve sang in seven years.”
His eyes go wide. “Seven years?”
I nod, then cringe at the way Justin’s words could deflate me in an instant.
Killing my confidence, and my joy. I knew Justin was never the biggest fan of my singing.
He never came to any of my choir shows or musicals in high school.
If it was karaoke night when we went out with friends, he’d always have some sort of remark when I said I wanted to sing.
But that moment? When he walked in the door and said “I just wanted to come home from the office and have some peace and quiet. Not have to listen to this fucking racket that’s barely even words.
” It was the worst thing he’d ever said about my voice.
I knew then—and now—I’m not Nashville's next big star, but to hear my singing being called “a racket” doesn't exactly make a person feel good.
That was the last day I sang with even the possibility of anyone hearing me.
I didn’t want to sing in the house for fear that it would start a stupid fight, and at the time, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal to give it up to preserve the peace.
I wouldn’t even sing in the shower. And then, as the years went on, I stopped all together.
In the grand scheme of the mental fuckery Justin put me through, me not singing is probably ranked around nine or ten on the list. But, it’s a prime example of how he treated me and how so many things in our marriage got put on me to “fix” when I didn’t break them.
He had the formula nailed down: He didn’t like something; he complained and picked fights about it; I swallowed it and sucked it up for the sake of squashing the fight.
Rinse. Repeat. Suffer.
But not anymore.
Seven years ago, I was listening to my favorite song. I was minding my business. Cleaning. Meal prepping. Doing my best to enjoy chores that I did as a wife.
Little did I know it was going to be my last day singing.
That is until tonight.
Tonight, I didn’t just take my song back. I took back a part of myself that was long forgotten about.
“What… huh. ” Maddox takes a few deep breaths, which I find pretty endearing. “Can I ask a follow-up question?”
His delivery makes me smile. “As many as you’d like.”
“Okay, for starters, is your ex-husband a fucking tool?”
Laughing through the tears. Exactly what I needed. “Yes. He is. Though in my defense, he wasn’t when I met him. Then again, we were sixteen so what did I know?”
“We’re all tools at sixteen, myself included, but that’s neither here nor there. But now, my second question is a series of questions.”
How he’s taking a pretty depressing statement and turning it into something that’s making me smile is quite impressive. “Fire away.”
“First of all, why? Follow ups to that are: had he heard you sing? Were you too good? Too powerful? Did he want to sing, couldn’t, and was jealous of your talent? Did he have an ear worm where things that sounded good he thought sounded bad? Did he hate fun and joy?”
“Is that all?” I say with a smile.
“Probably not, but yes for now.”
“Well, the answers that I know are, yes, many times, and he hated it. Called it a racket. Rolled his eyes whenever I did it. Don’t know if he thought I was good or not. He couldn’t carry a tune, so maybe. And no clue about the ear worm, but it’s not a bad theory.”
“I’m baffled,” Maddox says, shaking his head before bringing his eyes back to mine. “If you were my wife, we’d be having concerts every day.”
“You’re sweet,” I say as the tears finally come to a stop.
“Can I ask one more question that I think I know the answer to?”
“Of course.”
“What we just sang? That was the song, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” I say with a nod, pushing back the last tear I refuse to shed.
“What a fucking asshole.” Maddox says.
“He was,” I say. “But even when he posts shitty things like he did tonight, I remind myself that we’re no longer married and he’s out of my life.”
Maddox smiles. “He is. And as I see it, you got the last laugh. Because what you did up there? Now knowing the story about it? You gave a lyrical fuck you to him while simultaneously taking yourself, and your life back. And that’s fucking badass.”
“I don’t know if badass was what I was going for, but I’ll take it,” I say.
I’m done crying. My breathing is back to normal.
But yet, I can’t make myself leave the comfort of Maddox’s lap.
“Even with the unexpected emotional roller coaster I went on, I will admit, this was fun. Tonight. Singing. Being on stage. Hanging out with you and your teammates. You’ve made this night unforgettable. Thank you, Maddox.”
“You’re very welcome, Gabrielle.”
A hush falls between us, and even though the bar is still loud as hell, somehow, in this little corner we’ve carved out for ourselves, it’s silent.
I feel every inch of him around me. His hands on my back.
His thighs holding me up. His heart beating underneath my hand on his chest. I don’t know if I ever had a moment with Justin that felt so connected.
That in a room full of people, we’re the only ones here, and I don’t care if everyone or no one is looking at us.
I don’t know what this feeling is. This pull. This connection. But I do know one thing: I want to kiss him. Or him to kiss me. Either way, I want to taste his lips and know what it feels like to have that kind of connection with someone. Maybe for the first time in my life.
I wanted this earlier, too. Before Justin’s social media tantrum, I’d almost talked myself into it. Well, Shelby and Hannah did, but that’s basically the same thing. In fact, Shelby tried to convince me to sleep with him tonight, but that’s too much.
Right?
Would he even? Sure, the look he’s sending me right now is that he wants to kiss me too.
I think. I don’t know. It’s been years since someone has looked at me with any sort of desire or want, and the only person who has ever looked at me like that quit looking at me this way a long time ago.
And even then, it wasn’t like this. It didn’t make my body heat.
It didn’t make me bite my lip because of the way his hand is slowly trailing up and down my spine.
It’s not making my body clench, because I’m pretty sure Maddox is hard.
For me. Maddox is hard for me. A thirty-five-year-old divorcée who has only ever had sex with one man in her life and almost forgets how to do it because of how long it’s been.
Oh God, I’ve only had sex with one man…
I’m generally not the kind of person who thinks the worst of situations, but for some reason right now, it’s all I can think of. What if my plane crashes on the way home tomorrow? There are so many things I haven’t done.
I’ve never visited Paris. I haven’t ice skated at Rockefeller Center or gotten the chance to watch my favorite musical on Broadway. And worst of all, I’d have died only ever having fucked Justin.
Fuck. No.
I refuse to hypothetically die and Justin’s mediocre dick be the last thing I fucked.
And Maddox, based on the way I saw numerous women look at him tonight, knows his way around a bedroom.
He must be better than Justin, right? If what I’m feeling beneath me says anything, he’s going to be bigger.
And you know what, the rest will figure itself out.
Now I need him to say yes.
“Maddox?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you mean it when you said that you didn’t have to go back and celebrate with your teammates?”
He nods, a boyish smirk forming on his face. “I don’t. What did you have in mind?”