Page 82 of Tangled Up In You

Now, as she and Gavin squeezed themselves together in his reclined seat, they were well fed, bordering on drunk from the bottle of Dom Pérignon they’d shared, and content to cuddle with the door closed. Conor and Shay had gone to the lounge and bar and hadn’t been seen for more than an hour.

Sophie pressed her face into Gavin’s neck and smelled a foreign scent on his skin.

“You’re wearing cologne?” she asked lazily.

“It was in the WC. Had to give it a try. There’s women’s perfume in there too,” he replied. “You can always wash it off in the shower room if you don’t like it.”

Before she could lose her nerve, she asked him as casually as possible, “So, when you guys were in London … did anything happen?”

“Lots of things happened,” he said, and kissed the top of her head. “We got rave reviews from the record company on the album, we talked preliminary tour and video plans, we met celebrities like the actor Jackson Armstrong and saw the posh nightlife. And during all that, there was not one time that I so much as looked at another girl.”

Sophie laughed because he saw right through her attempt to check up on him. “Not even a glance?”

“No,” he said. “Marty, he was another story.”

“What does that mean? Did he cheat on her?”

“No. Absolutely not. He did not and he would not.”

“But?”

“But, he’s got an eye for the ladies. And I don’t blame him much. He said that Celia has even less sex drive since she got pregnant.”

That revelation went right by her in her champagne haze before sinking in. She pulled away from him and pressed her hand to his chest. “Pregnant? Is she really?”

Gavin laughed. “Seems so.”

“Oh my god. That’s so exciting!”

“You mean petrifying. They’re only kids themselves.”

“I know, but it will be so much fun to have a baby in the group!”

“Sure, yes. It’ll be great—for them.”

Sophie smiled and touched his cheek. “Don’t worry, Gavin, this doesn’t make me want to have a baby.”

He relaxed. “There’s plenty of time for all that. Let’s be young ourselves first, yeah?”

“Yeah, for sure.”

47

SOPHIE

Sophie knew that Christian, as the founding member and lead singer of the pop-punk band Scandal, had a solid career, including a rabid hometown fan base. But Gavin shared with her that the real reason he could afford to have his own home built on the sands of Sunshine Beach wasn’t due to respectable band earnings, but rather the gifting of the land to him from beloved grandparents. Christian preferred to let his fans think he had poured everything he had into the land instead of telling the truth, though, since admitting to having had a comfortable and easy childhood with a generous and wealthy family would have conflicted with the punk ideals he otherwise preached and lived.

Sophie had found it interesting that the two men had this sort of thing in common. Both chose to manipulate the public version of their pasts for their own reasons, though she wasn’t sure Gavin had revealed his own secrets to Christian.

As soon as they arrived at the house, Christian introduced his wife Patsy, a willowy blonde with a warm smile.

“It’s lovely to meet you,” Patsy said. “Now, I want to show you all to your rooms so you can have a bit of a rest, because I hear we’ve got a special treat this evening.”

The plan was to have all of Christian’s bandmates over, grill dinner on the deck, and then listen to the newly completed Rogue album.

“Screw the rest bit,” Christian said with a big smile. “The best cure for jet lag is ocean water. Get your togs on and let’s go for a swim!”

Sophie took this as a good sign that Christian wasn’t suffering from one of his “moods” as Gavin called them. That was another thing the two men had in common—the tendency to give into the darkness pulling at them. Gavin had mentioned it in passing, wanting to assure Sophie that no matter what state their host was in, they’d still be able to enjoy the visit.

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