Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Cash

Iwake up in Gunner’s bed, cocooned in his blankets.

I smile, remembering last night and how we talked into the early hours. For the first time in a long time, I’m happy.

Sitting up in bed, I take in the space in the morning light. Gunner has good taste. A few photos hang on the walls, mostly of him and his mother over the years. She’s beautiful. It makes sense since Gunner is a stone-cold fox. The man oozes sex appeal, and his face is a chiseled work of art.

My eyes land on his collection of guitars, all Fenders and Gibson’s, but one in particular catches my eye—a famous Gibson played by John Lennon. I’m shocked to see something so expensive sitting in the corner of a bedroom. It must be worth at least two million dollars.

“My mom gave me that when I turned twenty-one. I think it was her way of apologizing for all the fucked-up shit she did in my childhood.” Gunner’s voice breaks me out of my shock.

I turn to see him leaning against the doorway, holding a breakfast tray. A pang of sympathy jolts my heart as I approach him. If anyone understands messed-up mothers, it’s me.

I pluck a raspberry from the tray and put it in my mouth. “Hundred thousand plus records in a bar office and two-million-dollar guitars in the corner of a bedroom, and here I thought you were just a small business owner.”

Moving past me, Gunner places the tray on a side table. His fingers glide over the neck of the guitar lovingly. “It was the only way my mother knew how to apologize. She threw money at anything she wanted to make right, usually with random stuff unsuitable for a kid. In her heyday, she gave me a bottle of fifty-year-old Scotch.” He shrugs. “I was fifteen. I think in her drunken haze, she forgot I was a minor.”

Sadness lives in his eyes as he turns to look at me. It’s the same sadness I see staring back at me in the mirror.

“Why didn’t you sell the guitar? I mean, that would give you enough coin to create a new life, even a new identity, if you wanted.” I move to him, needing to touch him to ease some of his pain.

Our hands collide, and I feel his skin and the rough strings of the guitar at the same time.

“This baby was the only thing she ever got me that meant something. Before my dad died and my mom went on a bender, she sang to me—well, we sang together. We blasted Beatles records and sang at the top of our lungs. When I was small, she sang ‘Beautiful Boy’ to me instead of the usual lullabies. I remember how tall I felt after she was done.”

Gunner pushes the sweet memory away, but not before I glimpse the pain caused by a mother he adored in his eyes.

“She used to replace the word daddy with mommy.” He forces out the words as if they’re stuck and he’s choking on them.

I pick up the guitar and place it on my lap. The familiar chords flow from my hands as I sing the song that brought him so much joy. My connection with the music floods my heart. The little girl who prayed for a parent who would sing to her at night when life got too much to bear. I let the sadness for that little girl pour out of me, along with the longing that my mother cared for me more than my ability to bring in a paycheck.

Gunner’s voice harmonizes with mine in the chorus, and we sing away the pain, getting lost in each other. It’s a connection that transcends anything I thought I would find in my life.

We don’t stop at that one song. Gunner grabs another guitar, and we strum together as we follow it up with other well-loved Beatles songs: “In My Life,” “Help,” “Dear Prudence,” “Blackbird,” and ending with my favorite, “Here Comes the Sun.”

Some songs I pick, and Gunner sings the opening lyrics. When the last chord plays and the final words are sung, Gunner and I look at each other, enjoying the silence and letting the calm of being beside each other comfort us and take away the pain we’ve both suffered.

“Where have you been all my life?” Gunner asks, finally breaking the silence.

“In New York City, being a pop sensation,” I joke.

Gunner cracks a smile, and I swear it’s so bright it could put the sun to shame. He moves over to me, lowering to his knees and leaning forward slowly until his lips are a breath from mine. “Well, I’m grateful you’re here now.”

“You told me you couldn’t sing?”

“I can’t.”

Is he kidding? Gunner’s voice is an instrument, deep and rough. He can hold a note like no other, and his rasps pull emotion from your soul. “Gunner, you’ve got one of the best voices I’ve ever heard.”

He scoffs, waving his hand in the air. “You’ve got to say that because you want into my pants.”

“No, seriously. Why haven’t you tried to pursue a music career? It probably would have been easy for you, being a nepo baby and all.”

“I have. But as much as I love the music, there are things I love more. You know firsthand what the industry does to you, breaks you down. And don’t get me started on the tabloids and the fans. They think just because they love your music, they somehow know you. I don’t want any part of that.”

I drop my gaze to the floor and nod because those were the two things that made me run.