Chapter 64
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Cleo
We arrived early, but there were already lines outside the front door of the weathered gray shingled bar.
Maya made a move to join the line, but my mom stopped her and steered us to the back entrance.
Maya grabbed my hand and let out a little squeal. “I’m so excited! I’ve never been a VIP before. We get to hang out in the green room.”
I laughed. “Don’t expect too much. It’s usually just an old sofa in a grotty room that smells like sweat, smoke, and stale beer.”
We hung back while my mom talked to the security guy manning the door.
“Your mom is so cool,” Maya said wistfully.
I nodded in agreement. My mom had always been cool. Her long dark hair hung down her back and tonight she wore a plain white T-shirt, vintage denim, and turquoise rings on her fingers. Poised and confident, she’d done this hundreds of times, so she knew the drill.
A few minutes later we were ushered down a wood-clad hallway past a few journalists and a photographer to a room that lived up to my description.
Truthfully, I would have preferred a seat at the bar, but if my mom’s cryptic conversation with Sean on the drive over was any indication, Gabriel wasn’t as chilled as he’d let on.
My mom gave me a little nudge toward Gabriel, who was slumped in the corner of a battered leather sofa running his hands through his hair. She joined Sean and the Rogues while Maya made a beeline for Eddie.
I took the seat Devin vacated next to Gabriel and bumped my shoulder against his. “Hey. What’s going on in that big, beautiful brain of yours?”
He grabbed my hand like it was his lifeline. “I don’t think I can do this. They all want to hear the old stuff. They’re all expecting the old Gabriel. What if I can’t live up to that? What if they hate the new music?”
I rubbed my thumb over his knuckles. He looked so tortured, so miserable that I was tempted to tell him that he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to. But I refrained. He needed to do this for himself. “First of all, who is they ?”
“The fans who showed up for a meet and greet. The journalists. Everyone.”
I knew nothing about a meet and greet or that journalists would even be here, but I guess his PR team set it up.
Gabriel had done this so many times before, and he’d always been comfortable and relaxed and generous with his fans, but I had to keep reminding myself that this was all new for him. I couldn’t blame him for feeling overwhelmed.
I wracked my brain for the right words.
“You don’t owe anyone anything,” I started.
“All that matters is that you believe in your new music.
This Gabriel. The man you are now. The musician who had to learn how to play guitar from scratch.
Who works tirelessly to hone his craft. Who loses sleep to chase the chords and melodies in his head and writes lyrics that are so profound and so poetic that everyone who hears them will be emotionally moved.
“ You are enough. Just as you are. Right here and right now. So, kick all the expectations and the noise right out of your head and let the music flow right through you. Go out there and make that room your sacred space and I can guarantee you that as soon as you start playing, everything else will fade away. Because you are the music, Gabriel.”
When I was done with my long-winded speech, Gabriel was staring at me like he’d never seen me before.
“What?” I said, suddenly self-conscious.
He shook his head. “You.”
That was all he said, just You .
He angled his body toward me and studied my face with so much intensity that it was all I could do to hold his gaze. His brows knitted. “How did I ever live without you?” he wondered.
“I’ve been asking myself that same question for weeks now.” I arched my brows at him. “You didn’t do such a great job of it though, did you?”
He threw his head back and laughed. “God, I love you,” he said, still laughing.
I shook my head and sighed. There he went again. Those words just rolled off his tongue so easily. A little too easily if you asked me.
But I didn’t have a chance to respond because it was time for them to go on and I wanted to be right up front to watch the magic happen.
I had complete faith that it would because when he stood up from the sofa, his entire demeanor had changed. He looked confident and determined.
He clapped his hands together. “Let’s go out there and give it everything we’ve got.”
Gabriel was ready to go.
My mom sat with Sean at one of the tables along the perimeter, and Maya and I squeezed into a spot front and center. We were packed in like sardines, but the energy and anticipation were palpable as the guys took the stage.
When Gabriel stepped into the spotlight with his blond Telecaster, it felt like the first time I ever saw him.
Except that this time the crowd was bigger, and girls were screaming his name.
He strummed his guitar and they screamed louder.
There were a lot of shrieks of oh my god!
and I love you, Gabriel! and one girl behind us, oh my god, he’s even hotter in real life, I want to have his baby .
Who said things like that? Gabriel’s fans, that’s who.
It was those pouty lips of his and those damn cheekbones that could cut glass. The disheveled hair and those big, dumb boots that had lost their laces again. Or maybe it was just him. He had a certain aura about him that drew people in like a magnetic force field.
Maya gave me a look of horror that said, How do you even deal with this?
I pursed my lips and held up my hands. Trust me, it’s not easy.
I was a green-eyed jealous lover but for all intents and purposes, he was still mine, at least for tonight, and none of these girls would get their hands on my man so I took some comfort in that.
“Thank you all for coming out tonight,” he said into the mic.
“First time for me.” He laughed at himself.
“Sounds weird, right? Allegedly, I’ve been doing this for a long time.
I got my big break at a little café in the East Village.
Used to play there every Monday night. Or so I’ve been told.
I don’t remember much about it. Too many drugs.
Too much wine.” He lifted his glass and drank.
“Typical rock star. But being here tonight surrounded by my favorite people feels a lot like being home.” He swept his arm across the stage, gesturing to the guys in the band and then the audience.
“And for someone who has been trying to find their way back home for a long, long time, that’s an incredible feeling. ”
Applause. Cheers from the crowd.
After he introduced the band, he strummed his guitar. “We’re going to play some new music tonight but let’s start out with a little bit of soul. Not sure who wrote this song, but I heard Lorraine Ellison’s version a few weeks ago and it hit me right here.” He pounded his fist against his chest.
“You ever lose your mind over someone? Can’t eat, can’t sleep, see their face every time you close your eyes…” He nodded as a guy yelled, yeah, man. “Haven’t we all. That’s what love does to you. Makes you lose your everlovin’ mind,” he screamed into the mic.
The crowd went wild. Pretty sure he could say or do anything, and they’d still go mad for him. What a superpower.
“This song is called ‘You Don’t Know Nothing About Love.’”
The bass locked in with the kick drums, driving the beat, and when Gabriel started singing a bluesy, soul version of a song I’d never heard before, I died.
He went from a low, growly rasp, like sandpaper and velvet that shot straight to my core to a high-pitched sexy scream that blew the roof off the building. He held the notes for so long, jaw quivering, that all the little hairs raised on the back of my neck.
My whole body was thrumming, vibrating as his voice reached deep inside me and bulldozed straight through to my heart. I moved with the undulating crush of the crowd, carried away by the sheer joy of seeing Gabriel in his element again, doing the thing he loved, and leaving it all on the stage.
He was still an incredible performer who fed off the energy of the crowd and tonight he was on fire.
Sweat dripped down his face and plastered his hair to his head.
As the night wore on, the buttons of his shirt magically came undone until his shirt was hanging wide open and his bare chest was on display, eliciting more screams from the girls behind me.
I wanted to catapult myself right into his arms. I wanted to lick his abs and taste his salty sweat on my tongue.
After playing for almost two hours, he wiped the sweat off his face with the hem of his shirt before leaning into the mic.
“Last song of the night. Don’t forget to tip your bartenders and be sure to tell the special people in your life that you love them.
This song is for my special someone. My muse.
My first love. My last kiss. My soul’s desire.
And quite literally the girl of my dreams. This song is called, ‘We Dream in Starlight.’”
He lowered his head and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he started strumming his guitar, playing solo with the spotlight trained on him. The room was hushed as if everyone was holding their breath.
My heart ricocheted off the walls of my chest when he started singing, his voice ethereal. Haunting. Soul-deep. Like a long-lost dream I never wanted to wake up from.
Everything else faded away, leaving just us. Twin flames who had ignited each other’s souls.
We dream in starlight/we speak in tongues/your sweet wine teardrops ink my skin …
My heart soared with his voice. Cracked down the middle when he pleaded and yearned for the lover who got away.
And if you asked me to kneel/I would fall to my knees/ kiss your feet, kiss your hands/caress your skin with my lips…
The song was quintessential Gabriel. A mix of poetry and madness. Sensuous and deeply romantic with an undercurrent of anger, regret, and melancholy.
But when I reach for you, you’re gone…oh, ohhh, ohhhh where’d you go, lover…LOOOOVER, he screamed.
Tonight I’ll wait on my knees/ for a sweet dream that never ends … never ends…never ends.
He finished on a drawn-out sigh. After a beat of complete silence followed by a collective sigh from everyone in the room, the crowd erupted in applause.
I didn’t even stop to think. I jumped onto the stage and threw my arms around him. His mouth was on mine, and we were kissing, and kissing, and kissing.
When we finally came up for air, I pulled back on a sob. “That was so beautiful.”
“You really loved that song, huh?”
“I really loved that song.”
Gabriel was the musician of my life, and his music was the soundtrack for everything great and good and beautiful and tragic that defined our love.
I knew I loved him. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t say them. Something was still holding me back.