Read Trusting Gibson (Last Score Book 2) Online
Authors: K. L. Shandwick
Tags: #Contemporary, #Women's Fiction, #Romance
“Hmm, anything I want, eh, darlin’. Well, you have no idea how much trouble that particular statement got the last girl into that said it to me.” It was true the last girl was Chloe when we were on the phone, and the same the other night before she let me back inside her tight little body.
Well, fuck if I hadn’t started a fire with my little show and had trouble putting the damn thing out. Instead of her accepting the flirt and shoving me back and laughing it off, she was ready to climb on me no matter who was spectating.
There was no way I could miss the full pert tits that were practically spilling out of her blouse. I was almost sure if she took a deep breath, that there wouldn’t be one button left on that blouse it was straining so tightly. Adjusting herself, she wiggled her pussy right over my pant clad dick and I’ll admit, it did wake me up a bit.
“So Gibson…just so that you know, I’m not a tease, I meant it, anything you want.” Len was snickering and Simon had a raised eyebrow. Mick was completely disinterested and texting someone, but Syd stared straight at me, his hand skating back and forth over the highly polished mahogany table. Just waiting to see weakness in me.
Placing my hands on her waist, I stared into her pretty brown eyes and smiled. “What I want is for you to get off my dick and go do your job, honey. We’re not running a brothel here and if you want to fuck, I suggest you give up your job here and go find yourself a massage parlor to work in.”
Loud laughter erupted and I pushed the girl off me to her feet. “Sorry honey, I don’t eat take out when I have gourmet at home.” I’d saved face with them, but at the receptionist’s expense. Seeing the way she behaved, I figured if she only worked at a record company to fuck the musicians, then she deserved anything that was thrown at her.
Once she left, we set to work planning for the day when Kace walked back into the frame and getting ourselves ready to cut the next album. When we were done with the business side of our discussions, we all wandered into the recording studio and I played them a few of the songs and some lyrics I had written. Everyone thought they were good enough for the album, but we had to work on the drum beat and guitar riff music to go with the melodies I had down, and the kind of sound we wanted for the ones where I only had lyrics.
Several hours later we were lost in our music, the one thing that brought us all together in the first place. The last six months melted away. I’ll admit it felt great to be back with them and I realized how much I had missed the joy I got out of making music.
Chloe
Waking up without Gibson was much harder than I imagined it would be. For the last two days I’d slept fitfully without his strong warm body wrapped around mine. Instinctively, my hand had slid across to meet the coldness of the sheet in the bed, expecting to make contact with him. When my brain caught up with my hand, I’d remember he was in LA. Each morning that finding always left me with a heavy heart well into the morning.
Tuesday wasn’t too bad because I spoke to him twice during the day and again before he went to dinner, then the girls arrived and as we’d stayed up late into the night, I hadn’t really noticed that he hadn’t called again.
Yesterday was hard because I had a three minute phone call before he was due to record an interview for a TV program, and then he was making a video for their new single. When he told me they had overrun and he would be staying until the weekend, I had wanted to go there, but he was quick to ask me to stay on here because of how bored I’d be. The way he explained it made sense, I’d only be lonely somewhere else because he’d be working all of the time.
Ruby said it was natural for me to miss him, as it was the first time we’d been away from each other. She was wrong about that, because we had lived for weeks without each other, before Gibson insisted and they allowed him to stay at the mental health facility.
When I drew back the drapes, the most idyllic and beautiful snowy mountain range was on display before me. We’d had the first proper snow dump of the season and looking out of the French doors, over the white covered wooden deck railings, the secluded woodland scene was picture postcard perfect. From the amount of snow that was resting against the doors, there must have been at least two feet of snowfall in the night.
Loud knocking preceded Ruby invading my space as she spilled into the room whooping and hollering about the snow. “Oh, Chloe! I love the snow.” Growing up in Florida, I could relate. It made it magical to me. Every time I experienced snow, it felt like the first time.
“I spoke to Emma and she’s going to arrange for the snowmobiles she found in the big barn at the bottom of the hill to be brought up here, so we can have some fun in the snow.”
I slowly tore my eyes away from the view and turned to meet her gaze grinning excitedly. “Let’s get breakfast, I can’t wait.” Playing around on the snow would keep me occupied for a few hours at least and I thought it may lift the heavy feeling I had about missing Gibson. My one worry was that we didn’t come equipped for the snow. Gibson talked about getting some snowsuits and ski jackets, but we hadn’t got that far before this snow.
At breakfast, I voiced my concern that we wouldn’t have enough warm clothing for the weather conditions. Lois grinned and shook her head. “Don’t worry about that Chloe, we found a pile of really thick snow suits and snow boots. Even if they are a bit big, you’re only going to be sitting on the snowmobiles in them.”
Jill came in with her hair in a messy bun, wearing short pajamas, her ass cheeks barely covered by the bottoms. “Count me out. I’m a beach babe. You won’t get my skinny ass on one of those death traps. Thanks for making that racket and waking me up, by the way.” Gesturing her head at the window, she was referring to Emma and Lois bringing the machines up to the house.
Ruby looked incredulously at Jill, unable to understand how anyone could not like the snow. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Jill?”
Jill poured some coffee and blew into the steamy cup she was cradling in both hands. Glancing up, she gave Ruby a look of disdain before smirking. “Ruby, I’m Toby Francis’ girl, I have all the adventure I can manage.”
Emma and I smirked at each other and looked over at Ruby who seemed to be mulling Jill’s comment over. “True. Toby looks like he’s so hard to handle so— point taken.”
After eating breakfast, I didn’t shower because I knew I’d get sweaty in the snow suit and I couldn’t wait to be out there. So I pulled on some yoga pants, a bra and a t-shirt and a beautiful mohair sweater Gibson had somehow produced for me.
Someone must have checked my attire at some point prior to arriving here, because there were several new sweaters and lots of sweat pants in my size in the closet when I arrived. Gibson only said he didn’t want me to be cold in the mountain air.
By the time I was ready to go out, I had so many layers on I could hardly bend my arms. Ruby was a bit of a tomboy and I was girlie-girl, so I gave up my Ski Doo for the back of hers, after five minutes of stop-starting because the clutch on the handle bar was freaking me out.
I swear we bounced off the ground more than once and I could hear Ruby’s muffled “Yeehaw” coming from the inside of her snood, scarf and helmet shielded face. I was shivering with the cold by the time we stopped. Ruby took the scarf away from her face, pulled the snood down and took her hat off.
As soon as I saw her face, I snorted with laughter because it was the first time I’d ever seen her look less than perfect. Wild frizzy hair with the damp air became static from the woolen hat she’d been wearing and her mascara had run down her cheeks where her tears from the cold had streamed down her face. Crazy as it seems, I actually think it’s the prettiest she’d ever looked.
When we came back inside, the warmth of the underfloor heating and the smell of the log fire felt like heaven to me. Emma had put two bath robes in the utility room, so we changed from all the wet gear in there. One luxury that felt like an essential in the cabin was the hot tub. It was hot and ready on the deck and there was a Swedish sauna in the master suite, but I wanted to experience being in the tub with the snow on the ground and the massive mountains as the backdrop. Dressed in the robe, I padded through to the great room to see if Jill wanted to join us in the tub.
The atmosphere in the cabin was very calm. I guessed this was what drew Gibson to it in the first place. Emma was busy using a laptop and Lois was sleeping because apparently, one stayed awake all night.
Once settled in the tub, Jill filled us in on how she met Toby when she was working in a hotel as a beautician and his PA had called to arrange a massage for him. Instead of dealing with Toby in the treatment room, she went to his hotel room and they just clicked. How she described it was pretty wild, she’d covered him in thick massage oil and after a few minutes of deep muscle massage, he’d got off her massage table and insisted he return the favor. She then elaborated that Toby’s was an internal deep muscle massage.
An hour into our soak, I was feeling the most relaxed I had since college. Everything was just sublime. Sitting chatting with girlfriends was something I hadn’t done much of in the past couple of years, until Jill made a comment that made my heart stop.
“I have to say, Chloe— you are handling this stuff with Gibson amazingly well. You’ve really surprised me…you are much more controlled than I was the first time.” Jill’s hand was flat and moving in and out of the water– almost absentmindedly, except it wasn’t, because she was watching it drip through her fingers, like she was being measured in her delivery of what she was saying.
Ruby’s brow creased as we swapped confused glances and then Ruby frowned at Jill.
“Sorry Jill, you’ve lost me, what is she handling better than you?”
Exhaling a tired sigh, Jill looked sympathetically at me and then glanced quickly at Ruby before looking back at me. “Gibson. The record company function…the fly-on-the-wall pictures, Toby’s sister sent them to me. She thinks I’m too good for Toby.”
My heart stopped with the jolt of electricity in shock.
What pictures? What was Gibson doing?
“Strange that neither of them mentioned it. Gibson took Morgan with him and I have no idea who the leggy whore was that was with Toby.”
My mind just wouldn’t go where she was trying to lead it. It was clear that Jill was distressed about Toby, and I could see that she had no clue I hadn’t seen the pictures or that I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“All I’m saying is—well, I know how it feels. It stings and you don’t have to put a brave face on it, Chloe. I’ve been where you’re sitting now and I still remember the first time Toby cheated on me.”
Gibson cheated on me?
I sat silently, trying to absorb exactly what she was telling me. None of it made sense. However, Gibson was a rock star. And what rock stars did in their daily lives and the scrapes they got themselves into was nonsensical to the rest of us living in the real world.
“Guys that write love songs can play on your heartstrings Chloe, and they have the ability to say exactly what you need to hear, when you need to hear it. I was determined to leave Toby the first time he did it to me, but he talked me around with amazing words that he strung together, and I think he believed what he was saying at the time… and I loved him…”
Jill stood up abruptly in the hot tub, fighting back tears, the water slopping noisily around her thighs.
“Sorry Chloe, I really am. You have no idea how much I wanted to think that Gibson could give up that sordid part of a band’s lifestyle for you. For a while there I really believed he’d changed, because he’d found someone so special in you. It gave me hope that one day Toby would realize what I was to him, and do the same.”
Stepping out of the water, Jill reached over to where she had discarded her robe and shrugged it over her shoulders, rapidly blinking back tears and angrily tying the belt tightly around her waist. She walked quickly away with her head bowed and a loud sob escaped her throat. Turning to look at Ruby, I stared numbly at her.
Gibson really cheated on me? Three days away? He went to a party and never told me? Was that because he was taking Morgan?
Gibson hadn’t called me again and I’d thought it was because he was recording. And from conversations we’d had about that, I knew that they could be there twenty-four-seven when they were working on something.
What was strange was that Morgan was back on the scene after how Gibson responded to her at the cabin. I knew I needed to see for myself what was so damning. With Gibson I had learned not to have knee jerk reactions. Besides, there may well have been pictures, but were they current ones?
I grabbed my robe and began treading carefully through the freezing cold snow to get back inside. It was crunching under my feet and stinging my skin as it stuck and melted on my wet skin. I felt sad for Jill when I saw her curled up in the fetal position on the sofa, staring up at the snow covered peaks of the mountains. Pushing her over with my butt, I sat perched on the edge of her sofa and stroked her hair.
“Are you okay, honey?” Jill chewed the side of her mouth, and I knew that I couldn’t tell her that I hadn’t seen the pictures or she would have known she’d screwed up and spilled about them.
“Jill, would you mind sending me the pictures, I want to see them again? I deleted them when I was in a temper this morning.” Jill looked nervously back at me, then she began to sit up on her elbows and leaned over to get her laptop.
“Sure, although why you would want to look at them again is beyond me.”
Tapping some buttons on her keyboard, Jill’s eyes scanned down her email, then selected and clicked the email she was looking for. “Email address?” After I shared that with her, she clicked again.
“All done. Enjoy.”
Jill’s tone was sarcastic but she was hurting badly. Leaning over, I slid my hands around her and pulled her close to me. I could feel the resistance in her because she was trying to protect her feelings. After a moment her body went limp and she began to cry softly.