5. Noah
5
NOAH
I put the finishing touches on the notes I’d been making, glanced through the list, and then smiled to myself. This was perfect. Better than perfect. It was exactly what I’d been looking for. The idea I’d had–to put out some sort of press release regarding new music and a new direction–was brilliant, if I did say so myself, and if we did it carefully, I thought we could make sure it looked like something we were bringing out just for this tour. I’d already talked to Taylor, who was working on setting up meetings on the road, and I wanted to have some new music available to debut for the record execs when we saw them.
Even better if we were playing that sort of music on the road.
It meant I needed to get to writing said music, but I already knew how I was going to do that. Lila was incredibly good with lyrics and I’d never met anyone better with music than Rivers. The two of them together...
Well, it was a match made in heaven, and not only because of how hot they were for each other. They’d written a single song on the last tour and it was such a big hit that we played it every time we stopped, these days. If they could replicate that two or three more times, we’d be golden. We’d be playing new music on the tour that the old record label didn’t have the right to, and could hand it to any new label. Like a signing bonus in reverse.
Sign us and give us a chance and we’ll hand you new, more marketable music right off the bat.
It was pretty fucking brilliant. Give the band new direction and the press a chance to talk about Rivers and Lila. Keep us moving together rather than drifting apart, which I was also worried about. And get a new label on board before we lost the old one–which I was starting to worry about, honestly. We still hadn’t heard anything from the record company about a new contract, and though Taylor hadn’t said anything to me about it, that seemed... wrong.
I needed to get this plan in line before anything went sideways on us.
I couldn’t wait to get Molly’s thoughts on it. I hadn’t had her to my room to go over the whole thing, yet, and it was time to remedy that situation. I never put a plan together without her help.
At least not successfully.
I frowned at the thought of her, though, and glanced up toward the window. The light was fading out there, which meant we were heading toward evening. When had I seen her last? Not since this morning, I remembered, when she’d caught me in the hallway with that girl. I couldn’t remember the girl’s name, but I did remember the look on Molly’s face when she rounded the corner and saw us there. She looked like I’d just driven a knife through her heart. Like I’d handed her the biggest betrayal of her life. When her eyes finally focused on me, they’d been so intensely green that I nearly gasped. Glowing, like they were on fire. Hot and wanting and open.
It was like I’d been able to see right into her soul for the first time in my life.
And God, I’d wanted to see more. I’d remembered the smell of her that morning in bed, the feel of her under my hands, and my body had responded in a way I hadn’t understood, leaning toward her in some yearning, hungry way, like I was a man starving for something only she could give me. Then she’d jerked her gaze from mine and severed the tie binding us together, and I’d remembered who and what I was.
Not a man who fell for girls like Molly.
A man who stood alone, and liked it that way.
I hadn’t seen her since then, and that was weird. Molly was always around. She showed up whenever I thought of her, like she somehow knew when I needed something. I’d been downstairs in the lobby and around the hotel all day, and yet she’d been absent.
What the hell?
I stood up and headed for the door, suddenly intent on finding her. After all, I needed her right now. I had a plan I wanted to go over. And, a part of me said, I wanted to make sure she was okay. I hadn’t forgotten the look on her face before she left my room this morning, and I hadn’t checked on her the way I’d meant to.
I opened the door and strode into the hallway, going through the places she might be. When I turned the corner, she was right in front of me.
Like she’d heard that I was calling for her or something.
But she wasn’t looking for me–or at least she wasn’t looking at me. Instead, she was looking at the elevator, waiting for it to arrive. And she had her suitcase with her. The jacket she only ever wore for traveling was thrown over her arm and her favorite camera bag sat on top of her suitcase.
She looked like she was leaving. But that didn’t make any sense. We were a week from the tour and settled in this hotel until we flew out. Our tour manager liked to have us all in the same place for a week before we left. Team building, he always said. I’d never really seen the point–we had all known each other since we were kids, after all–but also didn’t see the point in arguing about it. I mean we got to stay in a hotel for a week, and I was still the kid who grew up broke and sleeping in a bed hundreds of other boys had slept in before me. Staying in a hotel felt fancy and decadent. I was never going to argue about getting clean, cotton sheets and room service.
But we had another week of that before we packed up. What the hell was Molly doing with a suitcase?
I must have made a sound because she turned at that moment, her green gaze meeting mine without hesitation. This time they were closed and distant. No soul-gazing for me.
“Going somewhere?” I asked, my voice sharper than I intended. “What are you doing with a suitcase?”
I knew I sounded abrupt and confrontational, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t heard about a change to the itinerary and I didn’t like surprises. Particularly when they came from the girl I counted on to be my anchor.
She tipped her chin up, breathed out slowly, and then said one word: “Leaving.”
The word got into my brain and froze something in there. Leaving? What? Leaving to where? And why?
An eternity later, I finally managed to ask the first question that came to mind. “What?”
I know. Shakespeare I was not.
I watched her face crumble, just for a second, but then she got herself back together. “I’m leaving. You know that magazine I applied to? Tempest? Turns out they liked my stuff. A lot. They offered me a position, and I took it. I start on Monday.”
This time my brain froze for real. I felt like she’d started speaking Greek or something, for all the sense that made. The magazine? Sure, I remembered pushing her to submit her stuff, but I hadn’t thought... I mean she was a great photographer. Everyone knew it. Good enough that I bought her the most expensive camera I could find and talked Taylor into letting her be our road photographer. Her eye was unreal, and the way she could pull emotion out of something as simple as a leaf she wanted to photograph...
She was better than anyone I’d ever met.
But I hadn’t thought the magazine would call her back. She didn’t have any real training or a resumé, other than the one she’d cultivated on the road with us. Tempest was a big deal, and I hadn’t thought...
I hadn’t thought they’d take her away from me.
“You start on Monday?” I whispered, knowing I sounded crazy. I should have been jumping up and down with excitement, scooping her up and whirling her around in congratulations. If I was a decent person, I would have been telling her how lucky that magazine was and how I’d never doubted her for a moment. Instead, I felt like my world was crumbling under my feet, the ground falling away and leaving nothing but emptiness underneath me.
Her face quivered for a moment like she’d heard me, but then she nodded quickly. “Monday. I’m flying out tonight so I have some time to find an apartment and get settled in. I already talked to the managers and let them know I’m leaving, and they’re assigning one of the other roadies to your equipment. Don’t worry. They’ve got you covered.”
“Covered. Right.”
They didn’t, and I didn’t want another roadie watching after my equipment. I didn’t want anyone else even touching my stuff. But the words were all stuck in my throat and I couldn’t seem to get any of them out. I also didn’t know how you said you didn’t want someone else’s hands on your things because you were used to having one set of hands at your beck and call.
Molly glanced at the elevator as it dinged, and when she turned back to me her heart was in her eyes. “You’ll do fine, Noah. I bet you’ll barely notice I’m gone. And I’ll fly back and see you as soon as I have a break. The new tour is going to be great. I know it.”
She turned and stepped into the elevator like she was just going downstairs for a coffee, and then the doors were closing and it was leaving, heading down to the lobby.
Taking my Girl Friday with it.
I put a hand to my mouth and fought the urge to run for the stairs and get there before her. Head her off at the pass and ask her what the fuck she thought she was doing, acting like this was no big deal. We hadn’t been apart since we were kids, and I’d never gone on tour without her. Hell, I’d barely even played without her. She was there when I picked up my first drumstick, and on the nights when I wasn’t feeling great about being onstage, she was the one I found in the audience and played to.
She was my rock. The wind in my wings, if I’d been prone to saying things like that.
News flash: I wasn’t.
But if I was, I would have said that about her. And now she was... gone? Walking out of my life like I would be completely fine without her?
Another news flash: I wasn’t.