Trusting Gibson (Last Score Book 2) (21 page)

“Promise I won’t lay a finger on him, Johnny. When I flush him out I’m thinking more in terms of making him a social leper and publicly humiliating him in a, you’ll-never-get-work-in-this-industry-again type of punishment. I don’t want instant gratification because it would take a lot of effort to get that from someone like him after what he did to Chloe. No, I want that fucker to suffer for the rest of his life for what he did to my girl.”

Johnny turned and grinned at me, his eyes flashing wide in surprise. “Damn, Gib. Remind me never to piss you off, because you know me so well you’d cut my dick off and feed it to me, huh?”

Snickering at Johnny, I shook my head and chuckled because the most important thing to him, apart from looking after me, was getting laid. Maybe that was the reason we’d got on so well. With that thought a flash of a memory came to me. A brief visual flash of Ruby’s face and I’m sure she was being fucked hard. Nothing conclusive, but her head tilted upward, face flushed like she was in ecstasy. Her eyes were filled with lust and they were staring straight at me. I must have stopped laughing abruptly, because Johnny’s head snapped around in my direction and then back at the road.

“What is it? What’s wrong? Gib, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.

“Shaking my head again, there was no way I wanted to say what I had just seen out loud. That would make it real. I’d bagged Ruby and she was so cool about it around Chloe, that I was now questioning the quality of their friendship, because she had been encouraging Chloe’s relationship with me. Did Chloe know already? Had they compared notes? If Chloe didn’t know, did Ruby have ulterior motives for not saying anything to me?

“Fuck!” My heart was thumping with the shock of my revelation. Chloe wasn’t the only one feeling sick. Maybe Toby was right. Maybe when Chloe knew the truth, she’d turn and walk away because at the end of the day, she wanted a normal life—free from drama and she’d never get that with me.  After what happened yesterday with Erica, I had felt certain that Chloe was gone when she left the room, but she came back. Now the percentage had risen on the possibility of her deserting me if I came clean with Chloe about Ruby.

Johnny sighed heavily and swung into the back lot of the concert venue. “Spill.”

Breathing deeply, I held it in. I lifted my hands and swept them nervously through my hair. Exhaling in an agonizingly slow controlled way, I turned to look Johnny square in the eye. Johnny’s face registered a dark, worried response before he spoke, “Oh, boy. This is a biggie Gib, huh?”

Barely nodding, I struggled to find the words that used to fall out of my mouth like I was asking for a glass of water. “I fucked her, J.”

Johnny stared confused by my change of subject because when we had been laughing prior to that we’d been talking about Kace. “Ruby…I knew I’d seen her before. I fucked her back in the day.”

Johnny’s initial response was mute, but his face displayed his dismay. At first I thought he was disappointed in me until he started to appease me. “Okay, that’s a major fuck-up, but Chloe knows what you were like. It’s Ruby she’s going to be more disappointed with, acting all supportive and being her best friend an’ all. She’ll be hurt Gib, but she’ll be more hurt with Ruby than you.”

Something told me that it wouldn’t be that easy. Chloe already had trust issues and I had been doing well on that score, but this was now a huge elephant in the room for me, and I was going to have to shove its ass out sooner or later.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t looking forward to spending time with Toby. The last thing I wanted to do was get involved in one of Gamete and M3rCy’s parties, because they were wild. It was different before I had Chloe. Now though, it felt like I was missing an arm when she wasn’t with me. It was one thing to have private feelings and another to maintain a public image so if people knew we were in the same place at the same time, you could bet your ass the media were on it.

Rehearsals went well, considering my mind was elsewhere and I was itching to ring Chloe, but she’d asked me not to and I almost asked Johnny to ring Emma to check up on her that way, but Chloe was right, I needed to focus on my job and let her rest.

Up on stage I relied on the crowd to lift my mood. Performing never got old. Seeing the pleasure on all of the loyal fans’ faces was always a pick-me-up. I performed a double acoustic session because that kind of moment is the unplugged, intimate moment when I get to truly connect with every single one of those people that have paid their hard earned money to keep me doing what I do.

Without a doubt, I have the utmost respect for all of them and during the first session it came to my mind that Chloe was correct in her assessment of my responsibility to them in the anonymous partnership we shared, and today was the first time I’d ever attempted to put anything else first.

My reward for the two ten minute injections of raw music was an eruption of rapturous cheers and whistles, along with a deafening roar of appreciation. The connection in the huge dark space filled to capacity was almost palpable.  If nothing else, I hoped that each one of them took that away from our performance. It made my heart so full I could hardly expand my lungs to breathe.

Toby had been playing across town and had biked over to get to the venue for the encore. At the end of the last song, when I walked off the stage he jumped out from nowhere onto my back and practically frightened the shit out of myself and Johnny. “Fuck, Gib, your man here is getting old…I could have stuck a knife in you.”

Jerry stepped forward and commented. “No chance of that Toby, I saw you getting all unnecessary in the pants department when I searched you before. It’s second nature for Johnny and me to do something your guys don’t.
Everyone
gets searched apart from Chloe.

“Gib doesn’t like it but we got his back make no mistake on that score. You only got to do that because I let it happen.”

Smirking at Toby’s surprised face, I started chuckling, “See Toby, it pays to employ sexual deviants. They’ll do anything to cop a feel.” Johnny gave Toby a salacious smirk and tweaked his nipple and Toby yelped and held his nipple snickering before thrusting his chest at him saying, “Fuck that was hot, do it again.” Johnny gave him a dark stare and Jerry, Toby and I cracked up with laughter.

Toby had arranged a visit to a local nightclub where he knew two guys who managed it and although I was reluctant to go, once we got together I knew it had been far too long since we just hung out together and had some fun. Len was on form and already sizing up which lucky women would give his dick an ‘airing’ and Simon picked up a piece of ass before we even reached the VIP area. Drinks flew like an open faucet and it wasn’t long before I was behaving as stupidly as the rest of them. Or they were behaving as stupidly as me. Whatever.

Several drinking games later, and Matt and Jeff from Toby’s band had collected a group of girls who were all out on a bachelorette party. They were also pretty drunk and couldn’t believe their luck to be invited to party with us. Actually, they were really funny girls. I had to kiss the bride- to-be and normally I’d have been all over that, but I was determined that it would be appropriate, but Len more than made up for my deficit and Toby wasn’t holding back either.

Around 2.00am, I started to go downhill. We’d been drinking for a couple of hours and I was ‘well oiled’. Drinking games at a party were always a bad idea if you were on your own. Jerry was there but leaving me to my own judgment, so there was no one giving me the hint that I was reaching my limit for making sensible decisions.

Things went from bad to worse, because I got up and started dancing and the girls were all over me with their hands brushing against my junk every chance they got. I guess I was wired from the gig and not being able to get laid or go to sleep and with the alcohol I’d consumed, I was feeling pretty frisky. So the dancing became a bit raunchier than I’d have liked.

Toby came over and bumped my shoulder grinning and shouted in my ear. “Damn. There’s my buddy! I wondered for a while what the fuck you had done with him.”

Len slapped the back of my shoulder and leaned in to talk to me after Toby had slung his arm over the shoulders of a petite brunette with hair down to her ass and a skirt that almost disappeared under it. Pulling her flush against him, they danced very closely with his hand clasping hers close to both of their chests in a very intimate way.

“Remember Chloe, dude.”

Inside my head, I knew what I was doing and argued with myself that I was not crossing any lines in regards to my love for Chloe. I was just a guy in a band who was letting go with his best buddies after a long week at work.

Dancing made me thirsty and drink made me want to dance. After another couple of hours I was almost blind drunk. I hadn’t eaten much and had used up what was left of my energy on the dancefloor, so I flopped down heavily on the leather padded seating to watch the others for a while.

As soon as I sat down there were three girls all over me. One girl with awful dyed-blonde hair and black roots tried to straddle me, shoving her huge tits at me and grabbing my face in her hands in her effort to kiss me. I was fending her off when Jerry dragged her away from me and told them all that I didn’t want their attention, before he moved them away from me with his body and his hands out at each side, backing them up and out of the three sided area the sofas made.

That was when I realized I wasn’t focusing particularly well and the room began to swim. Lying back, I closed my eyes and I must have passed out, but when I came to I was aware of a warm body snuggled up next to me. For a moment I thought it was Chloe, and pulled her closely into my side. Jerry tugged at me and when I opened my eyes he was shaking the girl to move her away from me and I sat up with a start.

“Enough, Gib. You’re digging a hole here, let’s get you home before you do something you’ll be sorry for tomorrow.” I stared at him confused and trying to cobble my thoughts together; as drunk as I was,  I’d been here many times in the past and when Jerry interjected at these times, there was a warning that I was about to fuck up in some way. He always registered with me more than Johnny in these circumstances. So even inebriated, I knew that I had to do whatever he said.

All the guys in the band were annoyed that I was going home, but Jerry reminded them that Chloe was sick and that I should have been home with her already. That seemed to appease them all. Toby and I hugged tightly and he was a bit emotional, but that could have been because he had drunk too much, but we never knew when we’d see each other again.

Stupid of me to drink so much when my body wasn’t used to it anymore, but Jerry was a star, getting me safely into the car. Sliding behind the wheel he pressed the automatic ignition to start the car just as buzzing sounds came from his phone in his pocket. Jerry quickly pulled it out and stared at it.  When I saw the dark angry look on his face I became worried. “What?”

Jerry’s jaw ticked and he turned the screen to me saying, “Trouble boss. Of course I’ll back you, but with Chloe’s issues, I think you might have some trouble convincing her about this one.” The picture was of me and the random girl cuddling cozily on the sofa in the nightclub. She was smiling sexily and looking up at me, and in the picture I seemed to be looking down at her, except for the actual fact that I was asleep.

Nothing like shock for sobering up. Pushing my legs into the foot well of the car, I sat up straight in the seat feeling sick to my stomach and dropped Jerry’s phone down the side of the seat and it rolled under so that I couldn’t reach it.

“Fuck, Jerry. Get me home. I have some explaining to do, but I also have the fact that it is an innocent picture on my side. Where the fuck where you? Jesus, this is a real cluster fuck, and just when everything was falling into place with Chloe.”

“Don’t start that, Gib. I was there, I only went to the bathroom for less than two minutes and I’d asked Lennox and Mick to watch out for you while I was gone. If you had controlled your drinking you wouldn’t have passed out.”

Under normal circumstances anyone working in security that let something like this happen would never have worked again, but this was Jerry and apart from Johnny there was no one more loyal or diligent at taking care of me, I banged the dashboard in frustration but I didn’t say anything else, because that would have just made a bad situation worse and I needed him to get me home as quickly as possible.

By the time we arrived back at the hotel I’d drunk a liter of water from the cooler we always kept in the car, and was dying to pee but feeling a lot more with it than when I first left the club. My heart was beating wildly against my chest wall with the worry of telling Chloe about my night and the possible hurt she’d feel when I showed her the pictures. But I knew I had to do it before someone else showed her.

Jerry swiped the key card to the suite and bid me goodnight after I stopped him from taking me inside. Swaying a little, I tried to get my bearings in the dark before staggering toward the bathroom.  Turning on the light, my head automatically looked over my shoulder to see Chloe in the bed, but she wasn’t there.

Fumbling around on the wall, my hand swiping back and forth, I finally found the main switch and the room was bathed in light.
Chloe wasn’t there
. Panic rose in my chest. Had Chloe already seen the pictures and fled? Knowing how fragile Chloe’s trust of me was, if she had seen what Jerry showed me it would be easy for her to think the worst of me and run before I had the chance to explain. I was fearful if that was the case, I may never find her again.

CHAPTER 19 - COMMUNICATION

Gibson

Where is she? Did she go to Emma’s?
Taking out my phone to check, I saw there was a voice message from Emma.

“Gibson—I was sick as I was about to leave earlier and tried to call Chloe again. As soon as I could I went to your suite, but there was no answer. I called Johnny and got his voicemail. Jerry was at the gig with you and I knew he’d never hear me ring so I texted him, then rang the front desk and asked the concierge to come and let me into the penthouse.