Right In Front Of You

Chapter 19 - I Need Distance!

Thursday Night;
Closing time; The Core Lounge;
Suzie's POV;

I still couldn't believe it; Gilby Clarke had been inside my club for a grand total of thirty minutes on Monday when he announced that he wanted to play here. I was still shaking and felt like I hadn't really stopped since he had walked in to my life. Every night he would be in the VIP area, he would hang out until the club closed and then he would hang out with me and we would chat.

"So Suzie Q; were you happy enough with the set tonight?" He asked once I had told my bar staff to just head on out. Gilby had chatted at great length with Shannon over the course of the past three days, and he had picked up on Shannon's nickname for me and started using it.

"Are you kidding me? I loved every last second of it, especially your version of Knockin' on Heaven's Door," I gushed happily as I started cleaning up the stacks of glasses and empty bottles. I glanced at him as he slid in behind the bar and started to help me clean up. "Thank you so much for playing here, it means more than I can say..."

"Are you kidding me?" He exclaimed chuckling as he helped himself to a beer and poured me a straight JD. "Honey, the minute I walked in here I knew that I had to play this place, you have done such a great job with it, you really seem to have hit in on a market that this town was in desperate need of, and the atmosphere in here, the acoustics are just out of this world, you couldn't pay for the kind of sound that you can get in here,"

"Well thank you anyway," I smiled taking the glass that he handed out to me and downed it in one.

"You know...I really don't know many women who can drink straight JD,"

"What can I say? I'm one of a kind!" I laughed as I started wiping down the bar once I had switched on the dishwasher that was placed under the bar.

"That you are kiddo," He chuckled as he started to pile all the empty beer bottles in to the bin and move out of the bar area. This wasn't anything new; every night he did the same thing, he would help me clean up and then we'd sit and chat until it was so late that it was starting to turn light again.

I watched as he disappeared out the back of the club and I went back to cleaning up. Moving out to the tables that were scattered around the down stairs area of the bar, collecting up the ashtrays and moving back to the other bin behind the bar and dumping all the contents in to the bin before wiping them down too and going back out to collect the glasses for the second load of the dishwasher.

"Hey Suzie Q; can I ask a favour?" Gilby asked marching back in to the bar carrying the now empty bin and starting to refill if with the bottles from the tables.

"Of course you can babe; hit me?" I replied stopping and watching him.

"Well I need a place to crash; would it be ok if I stayed in the office for the night?" He asked.

"You need a place to crash? What happened to the hotel?" I asked hands on my hips as I watched him a little closer.

"Stupid assholes; they double booked my room," He informed me. "And they are fully booked, of course they waited until the last minute to tell me and every other hotel in town is booked up too,"

"You can't stay in the club Gilby..."

"Right! Ok well I thought I would just ask to see,"

"You can stay at my place, I mean you will have to share with three women and a guy, and you will have to sleep on the sofa but..."

"You're sure they wouldn't mind?" He asked striding across the floor towards me.

"Of course not! They all think you're awesome," I smiled as he hugged me up off the ground. "Ok I can tell you're happy about this,"