“I’ll have you know, this derriere was in high demand.” Gabriel grins as he slaps his ass. “But alas, I was saved from becoming the darling of the prison. They let me go.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” He doesn’t look as happy as I expect. “They don’t think Dylan killed himself, but they don’t have enough evidence to charge me. The British police are here. They’re supposed to be running a joint investigation, although they kind of steamrolled in and took over. They made Cleo hand over her laptop and they found the unedited video. She may even get charged with obstruction of justice, since she’s the one who alerted the police to it in the first place.”
I can’t help the grin spreading across my face. At least two things have gone right today. “So you’re cleared of all charges?”
“For now.” Gabe frowns. The storms swirl around his eyes. “They want me to stay close by in case they need to ask me more questions. It doesn’t matter, anyway. This isn’t about Dylan’s death anymore. It’s about thestory.”
“I don’t understand.”
Gabriel digs his phone from his pocket and pulls up an email. He tosses the phone to me. I scroll through the email. It’s from his record label. I’m too incensed to read past the first sentence, but random phrases leap out at me. “…long history of unreliable behavior…”, “…becoming a liability…”, “…several warnings…”
“They dropped me,” Gabriel says. “With all the stuff that’s coming out online and the murder investigation, I’ll never find another label. Hell, I won’t even be able to find musicians to play with me. Octavia’s Ruin is over. And that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is it’s my own fucking fault. I should have shown you this earlier. Instead, I dealt with it the way I deal with everything – by diving headfirst into oblivion so I could forget. But if I’d said something, maybe none of this would have happened.”
He taps on another email and hands the phone to me. I’m shocked to see the sender’s name. At first, I think it’s a spam email, because who will call themselves ‘The Duke of Blackwich.’ But then I realize it’s Gabriel’s father.
Gabriel’s father, who he hasn’t spoken to since his very public estrangement two years ago.
My hand shakes as I stare at the screen. The email is four words, chilling in their brevity. It reads simply, “Return to England immediately.”
31
Claudia
Gabriel mopes around the manor all week. I watch him like a hawk – he doesn’t drink or touch any drugs other than weed, thank the gods, but I almost wish he would because sulky Gabriel is, in his own words, ‘a miserable git.’ I miss his smiling, flirting, and general annoyingness.
He doesn’t book a plane ticket back to Old Blighty, and he doesn’t email or call his parents. He also barely attends classes and refuses to help us try to ambush Eli, who’s doing a deft job of avoiding us and slamming doors in our faces.
One day I arrived home after cheerleading practice to find Gabe lying on the sofa, in the same position I left him that morning. He wore the shorts he slept in, and he tried to balance a hookah pipe on his chest while Queen Boudica made a sleeping nest out of his hair.
Something inside me snaps. I’mdonewith this version of Gabriel. I need him to sing the stars to me once more.
I go into his room, grab his acoustic guitar, take it back to the ballroom, and toss it onto his lap.
“Bloody hell.” He leaps up, earning a filthy look from Queen Boudica as she slides off the end of the sofa. The hookah pipe rolls across the room. “You scared me.”
“Good.” I fold my arms and glare at him. “You know what would make you feel better? Writing a song about it.”
“Meow,” Queen Boudica agrees.
“What’s the point?” Gabriel lets the guitar slide off the sofa, joining a litter of candy bar wrappers and random sketches and doodles at his feet. “Without a label, I’m never going to be able to release music again. I’m done.”
This is ridiculous.I plant my hands on his knees, leaning in close so he has no option but to face me. “Gabriel, I love you, but pull your head out of your ass.”
“I’m British. We sayarse.” Gabriel gives me a sad smile. “Would you say that again?”
“You know what I mean. So you don’t have a label? Big fucking deal. There’s this new-fangled invention calledthe internet. Musicians have been using it to get their work in front of their fans for decades now. I know you might not have it in your freakingcastleback in England, but it’s a thing here in America, and it’s pretty powerful.”
“Not that part.” Gabriel’s cheeky grin plays across his face, and too late I realize my mistake – when I’m this close to him, he draws me under his spell. “The part about you loving me.”
My cheeks heat up. “I didn’t mean—”
“Say it again.” He brushes my cheek with his finger. His words are tight, teasing, but there’s a need in them that makes my heart stutter.
“I love you,” I growl out, my chest constricting as the words hang in the air between us. “I fucking love you and you’re driving meinsane.”
Gabriel throws himself at me, capturing my lips in his. Like our kiss in the hallway at school, this kiss carries so much weight and hope and promise. He dances music on my tongue, and for the first time in a long time, I see the stars flicker to life in his eyes again.
