Page 46 of Tangled Up In You

Sophie raised her chin and maintained eye contact with the band manager. A small piece of her feared that if she let herself be defined as a distraction, Gavin might agree and their time would be cut even shorter. It was that instinct that led her to speak up, replying, “None taken,sweetheart.”

It got very quiet in the car.

Conor raised his eyebrows and she was about to apologize when she saw Gavin grinning. His reaction was a reminder that he had always liked when she came back at him.

“It’s really good to see you, Sophie,” Shay said, dispelling the tension. He had always been the peacemaker of the group.

Turning in her seat, Sophie smiled at him and returned the sentiment. Talk for the rest of the drive turned to more benign subjects. They fell into their old easy banter with one another as Sophie apologized to Martin for revealing the origin of the band’s name. He took it in stride and playfully made her promise she would never speak of it again. Even Conor loosened up and joined in, admitting that Martin had actually gotten off easy, as all anyone cared about was Gavin’s mysterious love story, not Martin’s moment of dumb luck in landing on the band name.

She should have known better than to be nervous about being a part of this group of boys again. They were all sweethearts.

The Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre’smain stage capacity was 16,000, but Rogue performed their soundcheck to the few dozen festival crew members going about their jobs and ignoring them. Sophie was the lone voice of support and Gavin played to her, much to Conor’s annoyance.

Afterward, they crammed into the backstage tents. For an area that was supposed to be exclusive, it was overrun with musicians, techies, PR people for the bands performing, PR people for the radio station, radio station personnel, and catering crews, as well as the odd groupie who slipped through.

Rogue had time to kill since they were performing as the third-to-last act for the evening, with just The White Stripes and Foo Fighters after them. It was a heady atmosphere with so many big names mingling.

While Gavin was careful to keep Sophie with him as he chatted with the other artists, she purposely took a passive role rather than engaging. It was an overwhelming but enlightening introduction to what had become his world. She loved how familiar he was with the other bands, using nicknames and easily slipping in and out of conversations with dozens of people. She also loved that nobody had anything but music on their minds. The intrigue of who she was had been lost on them.

Once they got word that Interpol was playing at one of the side stages, they braved the sun and the crush of the crowd, squeezing their way to the rail. When Conor saw that Sophie was using her hand as a shield against the bright afternoon light, he handed her his Oliver Spencer sunglasses.

“I want them back,” he said.

“But they look so cute on me,” she said playfully.

Conor raised his eyebrows and tried to hide a small smile. “Not better than on me.”

“No offense, darlin’, but he might be right. He is a pretty bastard!” Gavin said and the three of them laughed.

Once the band started, the crowd rushed forward and Gavin pulled Sophie in front of him, caging her between his arms, his hands on the barrier rail as he leaned his body into hers. She loved the posture as it was at once protective and possessive. Turning slightly, she looked back at him and touched his cheek. When he grinned back at her, she knew she had never stopped loving him. This, being here in his world, in his arms, was exactly where she wanted to be.

25

SOPHIE

The first thing Sophie noticed when she got home was the stillness. Her parents were due back from their latest excursion sometime that afternoon. The previous year, they’d sold their tech company for a small fortune and relocated permanently to this Malibu beach house. They had a non-compete clause with the sale of the business and had been enjoying their forced relaxation time by traveling extensively—this time to Namibia. The solitude this gave her was exactly what she needed after the whirlwind of the last forty-eight hours. God, had it only been forty-eight hours?

She had nearly lost her voice screaming for Rogue during their performance at the Weenie Roast. The intense energy from the crowd heightened hers, and she ended up having the time of her life.

The boys had performed aggressively, with crisp playing that popped in the electricity of the evening. Gavin was in good spirits and enjoying their set so much that it carried over to the audience. He was skilled at keeping a connection going with them, whether through guiding a call and response during their songs or with chatter between songs that went beyond the usual “thank you” most bandleaders automatically employed.

“The sun’s gone down,” Gavin said at one point and the crowd cheered blindly, apparently agreeing that it had gone dark. “So why the fuck is it still so hot?” He took off his black tee shirt and used it to wipe his face.

The screams at his show of skin were ear-piercing and Gavin laughed into the microphone. “You like what you see, yeah?” he asked playfully, and was rewarded with more cheers. “Scream a little louder, maybe you’ll get Conor to strip down.”

Conor raised his eyebrows as he looked at Gavin disapprovingly. When the crowd began to shout “Conor! Conor! Conor!” he responded by beginning the next song, whether his bandmates were ready or not.

“Sorry, ladies and gents,” Gavin said. He held his arms open wide for a moment, striking a pose. “You’ll have to settle for this.” He threw his sweaty tee shirt down by Shay’s drum kit and found his timing with the song.

After the show, they stayed on and watched the headliners. The first after-party took place at the venue and Sophie watched with increasing unease as Conor pursued—and was pursued by—various groupies. Seeing how comfortable he was with girls he just met, how quickly he progressed to pressing his body against theirs as he chatted them up, was a too-intimate view into what Gavin had very likely spent the last few years doing as well.

The party eventually moved back to the Chateau Marmont where a large group that included several young actors put on an impromptu ping-pong tournament in the courtyard. The hotly competitive, obnoxiously drunk group was still going when Sophie suggested she and Gavin leave at four in the morning. They spent the rest of the morning in bed together before James retrieved Gavin to prepare for an interview he and Conor would be doing with Rolling Stone magazine. Sophie and Gavin agreed to meet later that afternoon at the CBS studios in Los Angeles for Rogue’s taping of a performance on the Craig Kilborn Late Show. The free time meant she could go home to Malibu to clean up and get a change of clothes.

Now, she kicked off her sandals and padded across the gleaming hardwood floors of her parents’ house toward the marble and stainless-steel kitchen. She pulled a bottle of sparkling water from the Sub-Zero and took it with her through the wall of glass doors and out onto the deck.

The house was situated on the sand in exclusive Carbon Beach, an area that stretched a mile and a half from the Malibu Pier south toward Santa Monica. It was the least spectacular home in the wealthy enclave, but it was enviable nevertheless. Both of its stories had fourteen-foot ceilings and an abundance of windows to take advantage of the ocean views. Minimally but comfortably furnished, the style inside had a classic and clean feel, with sheer cream curtains at the windows that flowed with the salty breeze.

At times like this when there was no one else home, Sophie liked to settle onto one of the padded teak lounge chairs on the deck and let her mind drift. There was a thin layer of fog hugging the ocean, but the sun’s heat beat through it. She shaded her eyes with her hand against the glare, looking up and down the coastline, unsurprised to find the sand empty. Though all California beaches from the water line up to the high tide line are technically public land, the seventy-odd homeowners of this area had never been particularly inclined to provide access.

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