Mind Over Matter (7 page)

There was silence between them for a few moments, until Travis spoke." Actually, that's not really true is it? You've gone above and beyond when it comes to Nicole tonight. And it's really appreciated. But I think she's going to be fine now and you can go home. Get some rest, or something."

Gabriel paused in sipping his drink.

So that's where this was going to go. Strange how he never thought this would be him. The guy on the outside, the third wheel. Despite every fact to the contrary, in his heart he knew his place was beside Nicole. He could no more leave than her sister could, or Trish, or anyone else that gave a damn about her and came to visit her while she got patched up and prepared to be sent home. But none of them were a threat in Travis' eyes. None of them had a history so deep you could catch glimpses of it in every touch and glance, every smile. None of them were mourning the loss of a certain place in her life, even as they tried to get used to a new one.

"I will," Gabriel said finally, "when she's released and the rest of the people that came to visit her leave, too."

"Are you trying not to understand me, or what?"

Gabriel felt his jaw clench, he felt his fingers flex around the cup, threatening to squeeze molten liquid all over his hand. "I know exactly what you're saying. Doesn't change anything. I'm not leaving until I make sure Nic is okay—"

"That's my job and I got it covered. I'm her boyfriend now, in case you hadn't picked up on that." As if he could fucking forget. "So thanks for making sure she got here safe, but I'm gonna take over now." He turned, indicating the conversation was now over.

But he didn't know Gabriel very well. His long stride cut Travis off and made him tense as he came to stand before him. "If I were anybody else, we wouldn't be doing this dance. You would have thanked me. You would have been content to know someone who cares about her was around when she needed him. Maybe you should focus on that instead of being a jealous dick. Nic's not too partial to that kind of guy. Thought you might appreciate the tip since you're acting like the type that doesn't want to hold onto his girlfriend."

"Do I look like I need your advice? I have her, you don’t."

That made Gabriel pause and suck in a breath. He tilted his head back, as if he'd taken that comment on the chin. And in so many ways he had. He could still remember that day in the movie theater, when he told Nicole he had no reason to be jealous of Travis. Because he had her.

Fucking ironic. Like fate was dancing around teasing him.

What now, motherfucka?!
It seemed to say.

Yeah. What now?

"Isn't that the point?" he asked quietly. Going for sincerity when what he really wanted to go for was Travis’ throat. "You have her now. She chose you. So maybe you should get over yourself and remember she wants to be friends with me. And only friends. I'm not twisting her arm. And I'm not coming between you two. Nothing is going on."

Travis seemed to give that some real thought. He stared straight into Gabriel's eyes, assessing, weighing, and measuring. Deconstructing him and his intentions with Nicole. It was almost as if Travis wanted to believe him. Gabriel could see this otherwise rational and chill guy entertain a future where he was no longer a threat. But then Travis blinked and a wall came down. He wasn’t going to be rational about this. Perhaps for good reason.

"I don't think in the hypothetical, man, not when it comes to this," Travis said finally. "You aren't anybody else to her. You're the guy who broke her heart, the one that I had to help her get over. And even though she can somehow manage to look past that and trust you, I'm not so forgiving. So, just do yourself a favor and back off. Bow out gracefully."

Gabriel felt fury and panic mingle together. Nicole wanted him around, but what would happen if Travis said he didn't approve?

Could he lose her a second time, this time for real? Could he even bear the thought of not having her in his life anymore?

He knew the answer to that question. He knew he couldn't. He couldn't give her up. It was selfish, and maybe it was wrong. But it was truth painted plain as the lines etched on his palms. As sure as his name was Gabriel Roberts, he was unable to let go of being near Nicole, even if he was just part of the supporting cast in her life. That hurt so badly to admit. He wanted so much more than this battle for scraps. He was so angry, felt so weak, he almost wanted to cry. Yet, he knew he wasn't weak. Maybe a little broken, maybe a little scared. But there was still fight in him, and Travis saw it when Gabriel took a step forward, lowered his voice, and spoke plain.

"Listen, I'm only going to say this once. And I'm going to say it nicely because I want you to understand I don't have any hard feelings. Yes, I used to date Nicole. And yes, I loved her very much. I still do, the way you love someone you used to be really close to in every way," he said, emphasizing the word “every” so his meaning wasn't lost on Travis. "But there’s nothing going on between us now other than friendship. If I wanted more than that, trust me I could put in a lot more effort than just taking her to the hospital, or giving her the occasional hug. I could be a complete dick, pull out all the stops, and see if I could take her from you. With everything I know about her, it wouldn't be as hard as you'd think."

Travis stiffened, looking like he was going to grab the nearest blunt object and beat him to death with it. Which is why he said the next part quickly and with as much hard-boiled sincerity as he could muster.

"That being said, I don't want to do that, and Nicole would put a stop to it because she cares about you. So, maybe you should have a little more faith in her. And just for the sake of a truce between us maybe – just
maybe
– you might not wanna come at me like this again. Kinda rubs me the wrong way and I would prefer to be a nice guy. I'd prefer that we got along."

Travis looked satisfyingly upset at the prospect of rubbing Gabriel the wrong way. For all Gabriel's nice guy, cool guy vibe, there was something under the surface — especially when it came to Nicole — that clearly labeled him as someone not to fuck with. Gabriel in this respect was confident, and Travis was astute enough to assess who would win a fight between them. They both knew it wouldn't be Travis. But in the event of a fight, Nicole's loyalties would lie with her boyfriend. So for the moment there was a strange truce.

"I don't see that happening,” Travis said flatly. “I don't think I can get along with someone who’d steal my girlfriend the second my back is turned. Or, are you going to stand there and pretend you don't still want her back?"

Before he could answer, Travis turned and strode back to Nicole's room. And Gabriel was left with the echoing answer to that question, the hopeless truth about whether he would try and take her back if Nicole gave him even the slightest hint that she wanted him to. A truth that made Travis the winner of this battle.

In a heartbeat.

Chapter Seven

Nicole giggled. "How many times do I have to tell you? I'm fine!"

Travis leaned in again, kissing Nicole's cheek and stroking hair from her face. He sat on the edge of the bed beside her, tempting them both with the idea of staying with her for the day instead of rushing off to work.

"You sure?" he asked sweetly, a full smile with only a slight hint of naughtiness curving his soft lips. "I can take off again if you want. Cook for you, feed you grapes..."

Nicole sighed around a laugh when Travis' mouth grazed the sensitive skin of her neck. It was a tempting offer, no question about that. It was nearly a week after the accident and already she felt like she was back to her old self. It didn't hurt that her boyfriend had been there to help her, making her equal parts guilty that he felt the need to dote on her, and grateful that he was there and seemed to have relaxed some since the rush to the hospital.

He was definitely tense and rattled at first, and she'd been scared it had been because of something he wasn't saying. Had he seen what was inside the box? Had he had some sort of weird talk with Gabriel? It would have explained the similar tension Gabriel had displayed before he kissed her cheek and said goodbye that night. But, to her profound relief, Travis hadn't mentioned anything about the box. So, she'd gotten lucky again. Lucky she had Travis.

Lucky Gabriel was there, too...

Nicole pushed Travis away and gave him a sweet kiss on his lips, nearly chaste, if not for the slight rumble in Travis' throat, the snake of his tongue against her upper lip.

"You have to go to work. I'm just a poor writer with limited income and you've already done so much for me."

"I could do more," he whispered, but he pulled away, the siren call of hourly income summoning him to the office.

"When you get home from work, you can do as much as you want," she whispered back. "But you have to go before you're late, and I should try and work today, too." She eyed her laptop with exasperated longing. She had some serious catching up to do with her latest project.

Travis sighed, but gave her a good-natured grin. "I'll take you up on that. And if you need anything, anything at all, call me. Okay?"

Nicole bit her lip and nodded. The softness in his eyes had taken on a slight edge, an edge reminiscent of the one he'd had when in close proximity to Gabriel that night. Call
him
. Not Gabriel. That's what that look and those words meant, even if he was too nice to say them.

He started to rise, but she grabbed him by the tie, pulled him to her. Her fingers did a slow crawl up the fabric, and her lips danced over his. "Mmm," he groaned, the sound pained and hungry. "You're not making this easy, baby..."

When he pulled away, she found herself staring into the comforting blaze of his blue eyes. Her fingers stroked up his neck, the strong angle of his jaw. "I love you," she said softly. Suddenly.

No warning. Just the slightest hesitation as the words escaped her mouth. Wonder and the weight of the phrase slackened her jaw. It felt like forever since she'd spoken those words to a man.

"What?" he mouthed, the sound little more than a sigh, a whispered exclamation.

The sound was like an echo from the past, calling her back to the way it felt when Gabriel said those words, and to her awestruck reaction.

What did you just say...?

She swallowed, shrugged slightly and shook her head. When he smiled, she felt so overwhelmed that her eyes began to tear. "I... I'm sorry you had to wait so long for me to say it back, T."

His smile broadened. His eyes searched hers. "It's okay. It was worth the wait. Just say it again..."

This time when she said the words they were in between full kisses, sighs for breath. "I love you."

There. Already it was becoming easier to speak the truth. Already it was becoming easier not to be afraid.

***

"...anyway, just wanted to check in. Hope you're feeling better, and I'll talk to you later," Gabriel said. He bit his tongue before he let the word "sweetheart" escape his lips and then hung up the phone.

He leaned his head back against the wall, feeling his stomach churn. Whether that queasiness was because it had been a day since he heard from her, or if he was bothered by how acutely he was suffering from not hearing from her, he couldn't say. It was a morbid sense of dread, a silent countdown that had started the moment Travis confronted him. It made him start wondering if one day he would call and it would be the last time he’d be able to talk to her. It seemed to catapult his desire for her to nearly obsessive proportions... if he hadn't already been there before.

He couldn't get his mind off her and it terrified him. He went to bed thinking about her lying in a puddle of her own blood, fear of time and mortality choking down the impulse to sleep. He'd wander around his apartment — soon to be old apartment — and run his fingers over his packed things, music blaring in his ears to drown out the sound of his own relentless thoughts. He'd find himself playing the restless artist game as he attempted to wear himself out with productivity. Pick up the guitar, strum quietly, set it down, try and write lyrics, set the pen down, pace and growl to himself that all he wanted was just a little rest. Just a couple of hours where he didn't feel his mistakes so potently. Why couldn't he have that? Why couldn't he have a little bit of mercy, when he was trying so very hard to be good and move on?

When would this ache fade away?

Gabriel instinctively turned towards Jonny, whose voice had penetrated his mental fog. He’d been tuning everything out again.

“What was that?”

"I said how come you don't invite her to come out with us?" Jonny asked when Gabe had peeled himself off the wall and come back into the studio. Jonny didn't even look up from the notations he was making before he went back to tapping his fingers against the piano keys. He shook his blond hair out of his eyes and then played the haunting melody he'd been working on, effortlessly making chills run over Gabriel's skin.

Seeing Jonny hard at work was always a slightly comical sight. Usually he was a bundle of energy you could hardly classify as serious. But when he sat in front of the instrument he'd been playing since he was eight, coaxing out the melodies and lyrics that swirled through his head, it was a revelation. Gabriel's fingers itched to lace his own musical contribution over Jonny's, subtle flashes of Nicole's smile and eyes already making him think of lyrics.

When Gabriel didn't answer and instead went to pick up his guitar, Jonny turned to look at him, fingers still caressing the keys while he lifted an eyebrow and waited for an answer.

"Seriously, you guys are friends now, right?" Q asked from where he was leaning against the piano on the other side of Jonny, his bass already tuned.

"Yeah," Gabriel nodded, sliding the guitar strap over his shoulder, "but she's resting and then there's her boyfriend, you know?"

"You mean, The Warden?" Chase said around a cigarette while he tuned his guitar. "Shit, I can't believe you guys aren't best friends already."

Chase had taken to calling Travis "The Warden" ever since they met at Gabriel's birthday party. He, like Gabriel, was not a fan of Nicole's new man, if only because Trish hated having to choose between hanging out with her best friend and her boyfriend, and took that out on him on occasion. And though he would die before he said it out loud, he was unflinching in his loyalty to Gabriel. No one spoke about it directly anymore, but they'd all been there to see Gabriel try to recover from a broken heart. They were all still waiting for a real sign that he had.

Nuke chuckled while twirling one of his drumsticks. "He's just... a little tense around Gabriel, that's all," he mused, playing Devil's advocate. "I talked to him though and he seemed cool."

"'Cause you're a traitor," Jonny said absentmindedly, making another notation before rubbing his nose and playing the new phrase all the way through.

Gabriel's jaw clenched a bit and he looked up to meet Nuke's eyes. He knew what he was trying to say, even if the others didn't.

She's found a decent guy. She's gonna be okay, even if she's not with you.

That's what you want, right?

And perhaps that was what he wanted. If he couldn't have her, shouldn't he want her to be happy with someone who would treat her right?

Nuke shrugged, and gave him a sympathetic look before they got to work. Nuke nodded along as Jonny gave him the count off then started a drumbeat that set the pulsing rhythm. Q gave them a killer groove that would become the intro and Gabe jumped in, his aggressive guitar licks pumping some grit into the mix. Chase locked his rhythm guitar in with Nuke’s beat and Q’s bass, and they were off to the races. They’d pause, play it back, tweak the sound, add the lyrics here, and take them out there. Jonny’s voice rose and fell, faltered and belted, testing out the where to let the beat take center stage, when to let the words ride the air.

Numbers, sounds, stops and starts. Progress. This was his element, the place where he could take all that doubt and fear and own it. The guys and the music helped him forget for a while. They did such a good job he didn't even realize Nicole had called him back until hours later.

***

Nicole stared up at the familiar building and a pang of doubt hit her. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. Perhaps going out to lunch with the guys wasn’t a bad thing, but she was supposed to be working. That all went out the window the minute she got Gabriel's message. Now here she was, the day after, rubbing the scar just below her hairline, and smoothing out her clothes in the large entrance windows that served as her mirror.

It had been a long time since she stood outside the studio where Fool the World made its magic. She had the strange feeling she was in an alternate universe, body snatched into another reality. How else to explain feeling like a stranger in a place that was once a part of her past? How else to explain the way it felt to look at a man she used to eat, sleep and breathe, and feel like all of that was a mistake?

Taking a deep breath, she entered Phantom Records. Far in the distance, down the hall and leaning against the wall, talking to some badass male equivalent of herself, was Meredith Rowe. The catalyst that set in motion the chain of events that had turned her world upside down.

She looked every bit the rock goddess who’d beat Nicole’s innocence to a bloody pulp and left it for dead in that hotel room over a year ago. Her hair was black now, matching wonderfully with her loose-fitting green t-shirt and black jeans, her pale skin luminous against the dark palette. And like always, her eyes didn't miss a thing. They must have seen Nicole's disdain shift the very air around them.

Meredith turned away from her conversation with the guy — which seemed heated — and looked down the hall just as Nicole decided taking the stairs would be a good idea. Meredith stilled, her spine elongated and she came out of her slouch against the wall. Even from this distance her ice-blue eyes were penetrating. But Nicole had learned a thing or two from this girl. She knew how to look through a person, see deep down and make them feel it. She paused at the door, her eyes penetrating Meredith's, and she let all of her anger and hatred coat her gaze. She let it seep in until she saw the almost imperceptible shrink in Meredith's stature, the slight aversion of her eyes. Then she turned and took the stairs.

Her legs were shaking and so was her hand on the banister, but she didn't slow down. She didn't dare in case that blast from the past decided to follow her. She didn't dare stop lest she come face to face with her own homicidal urges. But some of that anger was at herself, because if she could do over again... if she could have him and that night back in order to fix what she helped break...

Cutting off that train of thought with deep breaths, she murmured to herself as she made her way upstairs to the hall where Fool the World were recording. “Stay calm, girl. No crazy thoughts.” She was beyond looking back. And thankfully, she could still hate Meredith and not want to change the way things were now.

Finally, she reached her destination, and was let into the studio by Otto, one of the band’s favorite producers to collaborate with. She didn't know him well, but she saw him at the occasional party and he always seemed nice, was always good for a little idle chitchat or rousing debate on music in the circle of their friends and acquaintances. He was an interesting guy, a wiry redhead with hawk–sharp gray eyes and a gravelly laugh. He looked ridiculously young but he'd already worked with some of the best names in the current music scene, a perfect match for a new band that was already making historic waves with their first album.

Q was doodling on a sketch pad, Chase was playing his guitar while a computer played back a synth beat for him, at which Otto promptly set up shop again. Before she could say “hi” to all of them, Jonny was grinning from ear to ear and wrapping her up in a big hug. She smiled and laughed at the way he sang "Darling Nikki!" and choked back the lump in her throat. Nostalgia was a bitter pill and she was going to have to get used to it. She wasn't like Trish — who was also meeting her at the studio to have lunch with the guys — she wasn't a part of the band by proxy anymore. The reason why was in the booth Nuke was just leaving, finishing up the end of the new song.