Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
NOAH
I met up with Brandon down in the city to help him with some early Christmas shopping for his family. Our schedules were always hectic, but things usually picked up even more this time of year. Free time would be hard enough to come by from here through New Year’s Eve.
Time to shop? Practically nonexistent.
Plus, at least we could still move around reasonably freely in Austin. Around here, we were recognized on the street, sure, but there wasn’t nearly as much fervor around us being spotted as there was in other places.
Which meant he could shop while only occasionally signing autographs, stopping to talk to fans, and posing for pictures.
“Have we got everything?” I asked as we left a mall downtown, both of us weighed down with tons of shopping bags. “I feel like we bought everything in there.”
He laughed as he slid his sunglasses from the top of his head to cover his eyes. “Dude, we’re not even halfway there. Have a heart. This is my family we’re talking about. I can afford to spoil them now. Don’t be a Grinch.”
“I’m not,” I objected loudly, drawing a few stares our way. Mercifully though, no one stopped us to chat. Lowering my voice, I glanced at my friend and slid my own sunglasses on. “I’m not being a Grinch. I just don’t know how many more gifts you can get just one family.”
He smirked. “Many. Stick with me, and I’ll show you how the Hills do Christmas.”
“For a bad boy, you’re awfully excited about the holidays,” I joked. “Shouldn’t you be chasing skirts somewhere?”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure the next store will have a salesperson with a skirt I can chase and get into. We wouldn’t want my reputation to be tarnished by some nonsense about Christmas shopping.”
I laughed. “My lips are sealed. Your reputation is safe. Let’s not?—”
A flash of blonde hair caught the corner of my eye and I cut myself off, my heart tripping over itself as I slowed to a stop. Turning toward the window we’d been passing, I squinted past the sunlight reflecting from it and focused on the interior of the cafe the window belonged to.
Almost immediately, I spotted the owner of the blonde hair that had caught my attention, and sure enough, it was Gemma. Sitting at a table right in front of the window, she was eating a sandwich with some dude, her free hand stretched across the glass top to rest on his forearm.
I frowned, blinking hard, and tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Just a few hours ago, she’d told me she had a meeting to get to and, to be fair, this could be that meeting, but as far as I knew, professional gatherings didn’t usually involve touching someone’s arm—or staring at them so intently that it was like you’d forgotten the world around you even existed.
What was more was that I recognized the dude she was with. It was the same guy who’d spent all of Thanksgiving staring at her.
My gut gave a dull throb. My chest grew tighter and tighter as I wondered whether I should go in there and confront her. Let her know that I’d seen what she was doing. Or do I just play it off?
“Noah?” Brandon asked, a furrow on his brow that stretched out from under his large shades. “What’s going on? Why did we stop?”
“It’s, uh, it’s nothing.” Against my better judgment, I turned away from Gemma and her friend, deciding to let it go and see what she said when I asked her about it later. “Let’s go. Sorry. I thought I saw something, but I was wrong.”
Adjusting my grip on the mountains of shopping bags I was carrying, I closed the distance he’d put between us when he’d kept walking after I had stopped. Once I was back with him, I felt his gaze boring into mine from behind the dark glasses.
“Are you sure you’re okay? If your jaw gets any tighter, your teeth are going to start cracking.”
I gave my head a quick shake, actively working on unclenching my jaw. “I’m fine. What’s our next stop?”
Brandon kept staring at me for another beat before he shrugged it off and inclined his chin at a music store just down the block. “Let’s head over there. My dad needs a few vinyls for his collection and my sister wants to start playing the flute.”
“The flute?”
“The flute.” He grimaced. “I tried to get her onto guitar or drums, but she’s adamant.”
I nodded slowly, fighting the urge to glance back at that damn window as he and I waited to cross the street. Once we were in the music store though, I expected to lose myself in its depths. When that didn’t happen, I swiped my tongue across my lips and decided to wait for Brandon by the door.
What the fuck is wrong with me? There’s a whole wall of guitars and thousands of records in here. I waited for the temptation to take over, that burning desire to run my fingers across the covers of old records and vinyls and to try some of the instruments the place had on offer, but that never came either.
Instead, I just stood there by the door, staring out the large windows that made up the storefront and scanning the street, searching for any sign of Gemma and her companion. It was stupid. From the looks of things, they’d only just started eating when I’d seen them.
They probably weren’t going to be done anytime soon, and yet, I couldn’t seem to stop looking for her, hoping that I’d see her striding—alone—away from the cafe with her laptop bag slung over her shoulder.
Brandon finally finished in the music store, adding a few more bags to our rapidly growing collection, and we hit up a couple more places before he declared that we were done for the day. Weighed down by his many purchases, we made our way back to his truck and grabbed some burgers from a drive-thru on our way home.
For the rest of the afternoon, I couldn’t stop thinking about seeing Gemma with that other guy. Brandon asked a few more times what was going on, but I kept playing it off as simply being tired after he’d dragged my ass all over Austin to act as his personal porter.
Back at his house, he went to take a nap and I tried to do the same, but shit. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was her reaching across the table for his arm. Who is he to her?
Obviously, he was a friend. I’d seen the way everyone had interacted with him on Thanksgiving and it had been pretty clear that they knew him well. But is that all he is? A friend? Maybe a client too?
The doubts and uncertainty ate me up inside as I lay on my bed, staring at the wooden beams above and the white ceiling beyond them. If only I could find the answers there.
But no magical ink suddenly appeared spelling out the nature of Gemma’s relationship with the guy. No banner dropped from the roof pronouncing him as just a friend—or otherwise.
In the end, the only thing I could do was to ask her directly. Right then, all I really knew was that I didn’t like the feeling of possibly being played, and that was definitely how I was feeling. There was no mistaking that it had been her in the sandwich shop.
Her having lunch with another man—and touching him while she was at it.
Unease churned in my stomach. Obviously, I’d become way more invested in this girl than I’d realized. I wasn’t used to this kind of thing at all and I would’ve preferred not to have already been so attached to her.
Gemma wasn’t mine. Shit, I barely even knew her. I’d told her stuff I hadn’t told anyone and I’d been completely honest with her, but as I thought about these last couple weeks we’d spent together, I realized that she hadn’t been nearly as forthcoming.
Why the hell did I let a girl I hardly even know drop my defenses like this?
There was a reason I’d been so guarded all these years, and it was because I knew better than to trust anyone. I’d learned early on that people disappointed other people. There were precious few souls in this world worth the faith others put in them.
Usually, I was a lot more selective about who I chose to trust. The list was really pretty short. Brandon. Lewis. Jack.
And a few people from our management team, but I trusted them only on a professional level.
Scowling at the ceiling, I mentally berated myself for opening up to a woman I’d known for just over a month. For the first time in a long time, I’d made myself truly vulnerable and I was paying for it, which pissed me right the hell off.
Anger bled into my veins. My muscles tensed as I shook my head on my pillow. Fucking idiot, you are.
The sun started sinking low in the sky outside, my bedroom glowing with the warm orange light shining in through the expansive windows. My phone finally chimed. I reached for it, not really hopeful that it was going to be her, but when I checked the screen, I found her name staring back at me.
Gemma: Hey, you! I’m finally done for the day. Just came home to grab a quick shower and change. Want to meet me for a picnic at Fairy Park? I’ll send you a pin location.
A shower, huh? Why? You just showered at noon, or did you need to wash his scent ? —
I deliberately didn’t finish the thought. It was right there, the obvious question sitting at the very fore of my mind, but I didn’t want to go all the way there. Not yet.
While I’d learned the hard way not to trust people after my own mother had failed me so many times, I refused to be an asshole who saw absolutely everything as a betrayal. I couldn’t go through life like that, so while I was guarded, I wasn’t completely closed off.
Me: Yep. Send location.
It was curt and to the point—and it was also the best I could do right then. If I sent her any more than that, I would probably end up asking her things I would rather get the answers to in person. Or I would come across as snarky and petty.
Almost immediately, her reply came through, a heart-eyes emoji, a party emoji, and the location pin. I ground my teeth as I stared at the heart-eyes, so fucking tempted to ask her if she was sure she’d sent that to the right guy.
Quickly tossing my phone down, I got up and changed into a clean shirt. Then I grabbed my stuff and got an Uber to the park, wishing that I didn’t have a huge knot in my stomach about what I was about to find out.
As I strode to the picnic area where she’d told me to meet her, I shoved my hands deep into my pockets and tried to swallow the jealousy threatening to turn my blood into acid. Despite it all though, my heart skipped a bunch of beats when I saw her sitting on a little bench next to a pond.
Shit. Shit. Shit. I’m in too deep. I’m in way, way too deep.
The sun was almost completely gone by now, but the last of its rays were lighting up the fall foliage around her, making the dry leaves on the branches above and on the ground below glow with a golden hue. Gemma sat alone in the picnic area, staring at the pond with a soft smile on her face. Honestly, the whole scene made her look ethereal. Angelic, especially considering the light.
My fingers rolled into fists in my pockets, a searing rage shooting through my veins. It wasn’t fucking fair that she could look so innocent and beautiful when just hours ago, she’d been with another guy. I mean, what’s up with that?
Leaves crunched beneath my boots as I approached her. She looked up, a gorgeous smile on her lips when she saw me. “There you are. I was starting to wonder if you’d stood me up.”
“Brandon’s place isn’t as close as yours.” I sat down on the other side of the bench, knowing how cold I’d sounded just then, but it was what it was.
I wasn’t exactly feeling warm and fuzzy right then.
As I turned to stare out at the water, I felt her gaze boring into the side of my head. “What’s got your panties in a wad?”
I scoffed. “I saw you today. Brandon and I went out and we walked past the restaurant where you were. Having lunch with another man, Gemma? Really? The same man who couldn’t stop staring at you at Thanksgiving? So there’s that. Who the hell is he? And why wouldn’t you tell me you were going out with him today?”
In my periphery, I saw her features drop before her eyes closed and she took a deep breath. In response, my chin lowered and my knee started bouncing, my very being bracing for impact. I was about to be let down in a major way, and once that happened, I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t allow it to happen again.
I’d been lured in by the connection I’d felt to her from the get-go, but obviously, that had been a mistake. I just had to hear it, and then I could move on—and never get myself into a position like this again.