Page 141 of Tangled Up In You

Gavin sensed a shift within the audience. There was a restlessness that suggested they were growing weary of Reynold’s dogged pursuit of this angle even after Gavin had, for the most part, won them over with the comparison of the average guy making mistakes after too much drink.

Deciding to take a risk to shut this down, Gavin said, “What, are you of the mind that the tattoo is some sort of smoking gun?” He laughed. “Plenty of people have seen it.”

“Why don’t you give us a look, then?” Reynolds said and the audience cheered in response.

“Right here?” Gavin asked.

“Yes, here and now. Give the audience what it asks for,” Reynolds said, and succeeded in getting the crowd to rally for this request.

Gavin shook his head slightly and then stood up. He removed the lavaliere mic from his collar and then pulled off his coat, tossing it aside. He faced the camera and pulled his sweater and shirt up high for everyone to have a look. His torso was pale and thin, his ribs plain. And the tattoo on his chest clearly read “Sophie.” The tattoo was intricate and beautiful, without any of the raised redness that would indicate it had been recently drawn. There was a hum in the audience as they murmured to each other.

One of Jackson’s friends had volunteered to touch up his original tattoo when Gavin was in London, and he had readily agreed as he had wanted to make the original, unremarkable, ‘S’ tattoo into something more befitting its extraordinary namesake. He hadn’t known then that the final version would be the key to getting back into the public’s good graces, as most people would infer that the stripper had not truly been intimate with him since she had incorrectly identified his tattoo. The tone of the interview changed after that. Reynolds knew he had lost the audience’s will to interrogate Gavin, so he let Gavin dictate the topics. And besides Gavin’s mildly controversial claim that Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys had an “aggressively unremarkable voice,” he never strayed far from talking about Rogue, past, present, and future.

James congratulated him heartily afterwards, claiming he had never seen Sean Reynolds at such a loss of control over one of his guests.

Gavin knew it wasn’t his doing. The audience, his fans, were much like Sophie. They just had no stomach to see him in a negative way.

86

SOPHIE

When Sophie returned home from Prague, she was surprised to find Gavin sitting behind his desk in the room he had made into a writing space. His MacBook Pro was aglow but he was using a leather-bound book to write. She watched him unnoticed for a minute, examining him for signs of drug use.

After he had returned from London with apologies and promises to quit cocaine, she was numb. They had spent the following days tiptoeing around each other as he dealt with the crash of his sudden lack of cocaine. He was exhausted but couldn’t sleep, moody and anxious, all the while trying desperately to earn some forgiveness from her. Then work had taken her to Prague for two nights and she had been once again both relieved and worried to leave him.

But now he seemed clear-eyed and alert, and she didn’t want to disrupt the focus he had on writing. It was something she hadn’t seen him do in such a long time.

“Darlin’, you’re home,” he said, stopping her as she turned to leave.

“I didn’t want to interrupt you,” she said.

He stood, held his hand out to her and she went to him. As he pulled her into his arms, she took in a deep, shaky breath. He smelled of soap and his skin was warm. She relaxed into his embrace, grateful to feel the kind of comfort and intimacy with him she had gone too long without.

That good feelingwas gone the instant she woke from a deep sleep at two forty-three in the morning with a feeling that something was wrong. Gavin was not in bed with her. They had gone to bed together having spent the afternoon and evening reconnecting, easing into the familiar, easy relationship they had always enjoyed.

Until now. The house was silent, still. She knew without exploring other rooms that he had gone.

It didn’t take longto get to Jacob’s club. It was well after hours, but there were still enough people inside that the sounds of a party spilled out into the street.

She pulled her jacket tighter around her, took a deep breath, and pushed the front door open. She was assaulted by blaring electronica and cigarette smoke. As she made her way to the back of the club, she struggled to identify Gavin in the crowd.

She naturally looked for him in the center of the largest group, but instead found him off to the side, sitting on top of a table. A dark-haired woman stood between his legs, entirely capturing his attention. He was leaning back on his hands as they talked, not the aggressor but not doing anything to dissuade Julia O’Flaherty from toying with the rip on the thigh of his jeans. The recognition of her husband’s old lover came as the same reeling sensation she’d had all those years ago when she understood she had been made their fool. Then, it was because he had been clumsily trying to hide the fact that he had never really ended things with Julia, even as he had made Sophie his fiancée. Now, it was because he had apparently been lured by Julia out here in the middle of the night.

Sophie should have been devastated to find him like this, with her. They had been trying so hard to reestablish something real, something hopeful, only for him to casually destroy it all. What she felt instead of devastation was an odd kind of relief. Because now she—at last—had the final excuse she needed to give up on him.

Before she could assert herself, Julia glanced her way. Without missing a beat, she said, “Oh look, it’s your wife come to fetch you.”

Gavin’s brows came together in confusion. But when he saw Sophie, he hurriedly sat up, got to his feet, and brushed past Julia.

“Sophie, I?—”

“Thanks for making it easy in the end,” she told him calmly.

“What? No, you don’t mean that,” he said, following her as she headed for the door.

Out in the street, it had started raining, and she had never been so cold. She stopped and turned on him, needing to confront him. “You left our bed to be with her?”

“No, that’s not what happened. I didn’t come here for her. She’s just been around lately, hanging with this group.”

---