2. Noah
2
NOAH
S he was out of bed and hustling for the door the moment I stopped talking, and I sat up, frowning. Where the fuck did she think she was going? We literally just woke up.
“Where the fuck are you going?” I asked, the words jumping out of my mouth before I could rethink them.
Molly didn’t answer.
“Molly!” I said sharply. Still nothing. “Bug!”
Her back stiffened at that, and I felt a thrill of victory run through me. She’d never been able to ignore the nickname. Not since she was six and I was a whopping ten years old, basically ancient in kid years. She’d been small enough to fit under my armpit at the time, practically a pixie, and the name had suited her so well I’d used it for an entire year.
She’d hated it. Even tried to bite me once when I said it. But she’d never stopped answering when I called.
Instead of turning and making her way back to me the way I expected, though, she reached down, yanked her coat off the chair, and then strode through the door like she hadn’t even heard me.
I opened my mouth to shout at her again, ask her what the fuck she was doing, but the door slammed behind her before I could get any words out.
And then I was alone.
I closed my mouth slowly, trying to figure out what that had been about. Then I glanced down at my lap and noticed that I was fucking hard and ready. Aching with a deep need to have someone underneath me.
Someone with brown hair and wide green eyes that flashed when she was mad.
At that point, memories of the morning started to come rushing back.
Shit.
I didn’t remember how we’d gotten into bed or when we fell asleep, but I did remember waking up in that slow, hazy way you do when you’re warm and comfortable and safe. I’d realized there was light coming through the windows, a shaft of it glancing across my face and waking me, and I’d had a split second of wondering where the fuck I was and how I’d gotten there. Then I’d felt movement next to me, and the wondering had turned to panic, because I couldn’t for the life of me remember who I’d been in bed with. Had I gone out last night? Gone to a bar? Picked up a woman I couldn’t even remember meeting?
God, was I in trouble?
Look, it wasn’t that outlandish. That sort of thing happened a lot. More than you might expect. But that had never changed the sliding-sideways-without-brakes feeling I got when I woke up with a stranger in my bed. I’d spent most of my childhood not knowing where I was going to wake up or who was going to be there, and waking up with a girl I didn’t know next to me never got easier.
The fear of what I’d done to get her there never went away.
Of course, that didn’t stop me from bringing them back to my room. It never had. I liked having a warm body in bed with me. I didn’t like sleeping alone. It gave me too much time with myself, and that wasn’t a good thing.
Yes, I see the contradiction. No, I’d never bothered trying to explain it to myself.
When I slanted my eyes open this morning, though, worried about what I might see, I’d found a familiar back in front of me. A t-shirt I knew, because I’d bought it for her, and a mass of chocolate brown hair that I recognized as if it was my own.
And I’d been so happy to see her that I’d pulled her right into me, burying my nose in her hair and inhaling the scent that could only ever be Molly Rush. Something like chocolate and pastries, with a hint of something spicier, like she’d been up baking all night. She’d always smelled the same, ever since we were little, and it had never made any sense. When we were kids, we hadn’t had access to things like chocolate or pastries. And now that we were older...
I wasn’t completely positive, but I didn’t think Molly had ever set foot inside a kitchen. And she certainly didn’t bake.
That smell had always felt like home to me, though, and getting a face full of it first thing in the morning, her body warm and molding to mine like she’d been waiting for me...
I jerked my thoughts to a stop and opened my eyes again, trying to figure out when I’d closed them. What the fuck was I doing, thinking about things like that? What had I been doing, pressing up against her like she was some conquest from the night before; just a girl to be used for her body?
It was the furthest thing from the truth. Molly was my best friend and little sister. She had been since she was six, when I saved her from some kid chasing her. I’d seen them running into the fog and it had taken me about three seconds to realize that he meant to do something no kid should ever do. I hadn’t known her well, at that point–just as one of the younger kids from the girls’ side of the orphanage–but I’d known I couldn’t let it happen.
She’d needed a hero. And I’d charged into the fog, intent on being the best hero I could be.
When I caught him, I beat the crap out of him, not caring that she was watching. I’d been furious at the thought that he was going to hurt a girl so much smaller than him, and even angrier that no one had stopped him. He hadn’t hesitated, which made me think this wasn’t the first time he’d done something like this, and the more I hit him, the angrier I got.
I would have killed him, and probably spent the rest of my life paying the consequences. But a tiny hand on my shoulder stopped me.
I’d turned and seen Molly, big eyes and too much hair, and it had brought me out of my rage. Instead of killing the cretin, I’d gathered her up and taken her back to the orphanage, where we took what breakfast the place had to offer–stale cold cereal and nearly spoiled milk--and sat together at one of the tables.
She’d never left my side that morning, and from then on, I was her guardian angel. The avenging demon standing between her and everyone else. The place she turned when she was scared. And in exchange, she became my home. My pet. The place I went when the world became too much.
You can see, I’m sure, why I was so happy to find her in my bed this morning. Molly was the first and only girl I’d ever met who followed through on her promises and made me feel safe. Loved. Needed. So I had exactly zero space for feeling her up and nearly fucking her when I found her next to me the morning after a business session.
I groaned and threw myself back on the pillows. This was just fucking perfect. I couldn’t remember what we’d done last night or whether it was anything serious, and the first thing I’d done this morning was upset Molly and send her rushing from the room. Fucking terrific. We were due to start the next tour in a week–maybe two; I couldn’t really remember–and here I was messing with my best roadie. She was the only one who knew how I liked to be managed, and definitely the best at finding me the equipment I liked when it came down to it. She was also the only one who believed in what I was doing on the business end of the tour.
Actually, she was the only one who knew .
This was the Authors’ last official tour with the record company, and they hadn’t given us a new contract yet. Taylor James, our agent, was supposed to be working on it, but I didn’t know how much time or effort she was actually putting into that. Lately, she’d been more concerned with trying to rehab Rivers, my lead singer, from bad-boy-loved-by-no-one into good-boy-practically-married.
I snorted at the thought, the memory of him throwing himself at the feet of one Lila Potter rushing through my head, but then put it away. Lila was good for Rivers, and I was happy for them both. I was not happy that Taylor was more concerned with Rivers than the rest of the band. And that was what Molly and I had been working on. I wanted the band to go a different direction and become more marketable, because it would increase our audience. Less gloomy, angsty rock and more of the stuff that had been bringing in the press. Lila had roped Rivers into writing more emotional stuff, and it was a big hit. If the band could do more of that, I thought we’d be able to get bigger audiences. Maybe even some radio time.
And if we could do that, the labels would be lining up for us.
But how about if...
Suddenly something else occurred to me, and I grabbed for my phone. What if we were going about it the wrong way? What if, instead...
I started typing notes so quickly I could barely register where my fingers were going. What if I was thinking of things backward? What if we just needed the intention for change? A plan for what we were going to do, so we could hook the labels and...
Oh my God, I realized. This could be it. Was this what Molly and I had been talking about last night? Had she planted this idea before we fell asleep? Or had she already done all this work, and I was just taking credit for it? I didn’t think so. This felt new and fresh. Like the idea was flowing right out of my soul and onto the paper–er, screen.
That thought held me up for a moment, giving me pause, because it was actually pretty rare for me to think of something without having to bounce it off Molly’s sharper mind first. She was the best sounding board I’d ever met, and my ideas never seemed to make sense until she’d wrapped her fingers around them and massaged them a little.
But this... No, this one felt like mine. This didn’t sound familiar. I’d come up with this on my own, probably without any help from Molly.
I bit my lip as my thoughts caught on her name, and remembered the way her shoulders had drawn up to her ears when I called out to her this morning. She was upset, and I didn’t like that. I’d never liked it when she was upset, and I especially didn’t like it when I didn’t understand the reason. Maybe I should go to her room. See if I could drag her down for an apology breakfast so we could talk about whatever she thought had happened between us.
I thought about it for a good thirty seconds. At least.
And then I decided against it. I needed to get these ideas down before I lost them. I knew my brain well enough to know it wouldn’t hang onto anything for long, and this stuff was too good to forget. Besides, Molly would be around later, when I had time to apologize for whatever I’d done. She always was, and I didn’t think today was going to be any different.
Hell, by the time I found her, maybe she’d have forgotten that she was upset, and we could just move forward without having to go through the awkward conversation at all. That would make life a whole lot easier for both of us.