30. Molly
30
MOLLY
I ’d left my rental car at the last stop, already knowing that I wasn’t going to need it anymore, so I didn’t have a right to Kansas City. Sadie had talked me into riding on one of the tour buses rather than getting a ride with one of the other photographers, and I’d given in for one reason.
I didn’t know which photog had taken photos of me and sold them to the rags. I wasn’t exactly keen on any of them, and didn’t want to be stuck in the car with someone who might turn me in for whatever I said.
I’d been on the road with the band for ages, but I’d never felt this way before. When I was a roadie, no one was interested in me. I was just part of the background machinery. Now I was center stage, and I didn’t like it. I felt like raw meat in front of a bunch of hungry wolves.
And I was going right into their den.
Or… Well, not their den, necessarily, but another pack’s den.
Because Kansas City was in Missouri, and that was where this had all started. The orphanage. The hospital where I was, in theory, born. The family that had left me behind. I’d thought it strange when Rivers threw such a fit about touring in Missouri, but that was before, when I’d been able to write it all off because I was pretending I didn’t care. Now, the prospect of an actual father figure—whether I wanted him or not—had changed that. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t care, or didn’t have a history in this state. It was like I’d been wearing sort of disguise before that hid the truth, even from my own eyes, and someone had stripped that mask off me. Now I had to look clearly.
And I didn’t like what I was seeing. I was dreaming about the orphanage more now, those memories flooding back in a way they never had. And I was wondering again what it would have been like to have a family. A mother who packed my lunches for me and drove me to school. Held me at night when I had a nightmare. Laughed when I did something stupid. And a father who came home at night from a long day in the office. Made stupid dad jokes. Watched football on the weekends.
I couldn’t get that song from Annie out of my head.
“Betcha they’re young, betcha they’re smart, bet they collects things, like ashtrays and art,” I whispered.
“Huh?” Sadie asked from next to me. She’d been my constant companion since the press went after me, and I loved her for it. At one point she’d literally thrown her body between me and a photographer.
But she couldn’t protect me from the thoughts running through my head.
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Just remembering a song.”
I glanced away from her, afraid she’d see something in my eyes, and found Noah on the other side of the bus. I’d been avoiding him since I left his room, afraid someone would take more pictures of us and get us in more trouble. And also because I blamed him, at least a little bit, for what had happened.
He’d been the one kissing me. He was the one I’d been trying to save. Again.
And I was the one paying for it. As usual.
Despite that, though, he was the one I wanted to run to. He was the only one who knew about the man who claimed to be my father, and he was my best friend in the world. I wanted his arms around me, his voice telling me what to do. I wished he could tell me it was going to be okay. I didn’t know how to handle any of this without his hand on my arm, and that was killing me.
He met my eyes and looked so pained that I wondered if he was thinking all the same things I was. And for a minute, I wondered if I could get up and go to him. Fall into his lap and ask him how to handle this. And just lean into it. Tell everyone that we were together now and let the cards fall where they may. I could go back on the road with them. Go back to my old job, and have Noah by my side. Try on a new version of my old life.
And get nowhere, I told myself firmly. No, I couldn’t do that. Because he was still the same guy he’d always been, and I couldn’t count on him. It was only a matter of time until he got tired of me and moved on to someone else, and then I’d be stuck on the road watching him do it. I would have thrown away my own career, and for what?
Better to get back to LA and fix things with Janette. I had the pictures she wanted from the shoot with Noah. Maybe I could use them to bribe her. I hadn’t been able to get an immediate flight this morning, but I had one waiting for me in Kansas City tomorrow at noon. I’d get to LA and go straight to the office with my camera. Show Janette what I had and crawl on hands and knees to get her to forgive me. And I’d forget Missouri and the boys I’d once known.
Forget about the dad I didn’t have.
I’d been getting along on my own for years, and I could keep doing it. Honestly, it would be a relief to stop taking care of Noah and his ego. I could put that energy toward more important things. Things that mattered in my life.
It might have been a lie, but it was a good one. And I was going to keep using it until it stuck.
W e went directly from the bus into the restaurant for food, which we hadn’t had on the bus, and Sadie, Anna, and I made for a table of our own.
“Where’s Lila?” Sadie asked. “Should we wait for her?”
“No,” Anna scoffed. “She’s with Rivers. We won’t see her again until they’ve got their little nest set up.”
The three of us laughed at that, because it was both adorable and annoying. Lila and Rivers had been insuperable since he went running after her to Nashville and promised her the world. They were, these days, the music industry’s It Couple, and the press couldn’t get enough of them. I had trouble being mad about it, no matter how sick it made me. Rivers had been the sweetest kid around, but had some pretty severe baggage from what his mom had done to him, and what happened in the foster homes he went to. I’d watched him grow darker and darker when he went into the music industry, and at one point Noah and I had thought he was a lost cause. I’d wondered if anyone could save him.
It turned out all it took was one sunshine girl from Nashville who was too stubborn to quit on him. Taylor had hired Lila to pretend to date Rivers to rehab his image, and Lila had, as usual, taken things three steps too far and fallen right in love with him, then decided to save him. He’d fought her, of course.
But I didn’t think Lila had ever fought a battle she didn’t win. She was too fucking good at being right.
“They’re lucky to have found each other,” I said. “Rivers never would have survived without her.”
Anna and Sadie, of course, didn’t know that. They hadn’t seen Rivers before Lila came around. That was reserved for the boys and me.
We slid into the booth we’d chosen and started looking at the menu, but were interrupted by a flood of reporters suddenly coming in. The moment they saw me, cameras started flashing and people started shouting questions.
“Molly, what’s going on with Noah? Are you two a couple now?”
“Weren’t you friends when you were young? Is there a conflict of interests here?”
“What about your parents, Molly, did you ever find them?”
Wait, how the fuck did they know about my parents?
Janette, I realized. She’d told them I was an orphan. God, even my boss was selling me out to the press.
I hated this. I didn’t like being the one they were after. I’d never sought the spotlight, and it didn’t fit. That was Noah’s job. Where the fuck was he, and why wasn’t he taking any of this heat?
At that moment, the man in question came crashing through the front doors, one hand holding his phone to his ear and the other holding Whiskey. I didn’t think they would allow the puppy in the restaurant, but no one seemed inclined to stop him. Maybe it was because he was shouting into his phone.
“Well, do something about it! I’m on a tight timeline. I don’t have time for you to fuck around.”
I opened my mouth, shocked at that sort of demand from him. It was so un-Noah-like. He generally had other people doing his dirty work for him. But he looked different now. Like a boss. And for the first time ever, he didn’t have a cigarette tucked behind his ear. He looked like my Noah, but like he’d had some sort of glow-up.
He also walked right past our table without even looking at me.
What the fuck? Why did he look so happy, and why was he ignoring me? I’d heard he was in trouble too, but he looked like everything was great, and like he knew exactly what he was doing. It infuriated me. I was over here trying to figure out how the hell to navigate things and he was, what, already booking his next date or something?
The only good thing about it was that the press immediately turned and followed him, as if they figured he would do something more exciting than me.
Typical. All so typical. I needed him and he was bailing on me again, while the press automatically assumed he was more interesting than me.
I was a sitting duck, trying desperately to get out of here, and he was nowhere to be found.
Had I made the decision to leave him first? Yes. That didn’t stop me from being angry that he was being his usual, flakey self. I needed him and he was too busy with his own life to notice.
Some hero. Some best friend.