Chapter 45
Forty-Five
My phone goes off at seven forty-three.
I hear the vibration against the nightstand before I’m fully awake. My first thought is to throw it out the window. My second is the awareness of exactly where I am and who is asleep against me. That thought is better.
Piper’s skin is soft and warm against mine. Her hair is across my arm. I look at the ceiling. The real world is still there, and apparently, it starts at seven forty-three.
The phone buzzes again, so I reach over carefully and turn the screen toward me.
Noah.
I close my eyes. My best friend for twenty-two years.
The person I should have called more over the last two weeks.
He’s been patient, sending exactly three texts: “You good?” and “Still alive?” and “Piper okay?” I replied “Yes” to all of them and received nothing back because Noah doesn’t push.
He waits until you’re ready. It’s one of his best qualities, even if it’s an inconvenient quality this morning.
I look at Piper. She’s still out. It’s the deep, boneless sleep of someone who played a fiddle set in a festival bar and then spent the rest of the night with me.
I pick up the phone and stare at it. I’m in bed with his little sister. I’ve been with her for the better part of two weeks. I’m going to have to deal with that. Soon, I’ll have to look my best friend in the face and have that conversation.
Fuck.
I press a kiss to Piper’s forehead, light enough not to wake her, and slide out from under her before I take the phone to the window.
“Noah—”
“Before you say whatever you’re about to say,” Noah starts. “Don’t.”
I scrub a hand down my face.
“I’m not asking what happened between you two.” His voice is measured. He’s clearly thought about this. “If it did, you’re both adults. That’s your business, not mine.”
I blow out a breath and let the tension go.
“And by the lack of a response,” he says, “I’m guessing it did. Right. Moving on.”
There are voices in the background. I can make out Madison, then Rowan, who is louder and sounds like she has important information.
“Can you put Piper on?” Noah asks.
“She’s—yeah, hold on.”
When I turn, Piper is sitting up in bed with the sheet around her. Her hair is a mess, and she’s watching me with a cautious expression.
I hold the phone out and mouth: Your brother.
She frowns, but we can’t avoid it much longer, so I hold the phone out further. She takes it, switches to speaker, and accepts her fate.
“Hey, Noah,” she says. “I’m alive. I prom—”
“You’re famous!” It’s three voices at once, all of them loud.
Piper jerks the phone away from her face like it’s a small explosion. “What?”
“I’m watching a video right now,” Madison rambles. “It’s you on a stage with a band, playing a fiddle. The bar is going absolutely insane.”
“You’re a badass,” Rowan says from somewhere behind her.
“Wait.” Piper sits up straighter. “What are you talking about?”
“Someone uploaded it last night,” Noah says, cutting through. He’s calm, as usual. “There are about four different angles. It’s been shared—Madison, how many times?”
“The main one has two hundred thousand views,” Madison says. “And that was twenty minutes ago. Piper, it’s still going.”
Piper’s mouth opens. “Two hundred thousand?”
She looks at me with wide eyes. I’m standing at the window, watching her face process a landing that’s too big to handle all at once.
“Who recorded it?” she asks.
“Half the bar, by the looks of it,” Rowan says. “The main one is from the back. You can see the whole room. They are losing it in that video.”
I stay where I am and let them have the moment. Noah has gone quiet on his end. I can picture him sitting somewhere with a coffee, letting Madison and Rowan run their course.
Piper’s hand is over her mouth as she reads something on the screen. It’s a link Madison must have sent.
“Piper,” Rowan says. “Are you crying?”
“No,” she says, in a voice that is definitely crying.
“Oh, she’s crying,” Madison says softly.
“I’m not—it’s just—” She stops and presses her lips together. “Someone in the comments said…” She laughs, and it sounds wet. “Someone said, ‘Where has this woman been?’”
The room settles around that. I feel it, too. There she is, sitting in a hotel bed with messy hair and bright eyes, looking at two hundred thousand people who found something she nearly let go of.
I feel an immense sense of pride. It’s the kind of pride that feels bittersweet beneath it.
She’s going to go home. She’ll be with her family and face her apartment.
She’ll confront the fallout and the conversation with Ezra.
She’ll pick up her violin and start playing properly, and the world will hear what I’ve been hearing for two weeks.
She’s going to be extraordinary. And I’m going to be across the city, in my new house, working on a bridge and waiting.
She glances at me and gives me a small, wet smile. I give her one back.
“Noah,” she says. “I’ll be home this evening.”
“I know,” he says. “We’ll be here.”
She closes her eyes. “Tell Mom I’ll see her later. Tell her I played.”
“She knows,” Noah says. “She’s seen the video, Piper. She’s been on the phone with me since six this morning.”
Piper makes a small sound.
“She said—” Noah stops to clear his throat. “She said she knew you still had it. That she’s always known.”
Piper is reaching her limit. I can see it.
She coughs to hide a sob. “Okay. I’ll—this evening. I’ll see you all later.”
She hangs up and just sits with the phone in her lap. I stay at the window and let her have it. When she looks at me again, I know it isn’t about the views or the comments anymore. It’s the fact that she almost let go of this amazing talent she has. She almost lost it.
But she didn’t. That’s what she needs to hold onto here.
“My mom saw it,” she breathes.
“I heard.”
“She knew.”
“Of course she did.”
I cross the room and sit beside her. She tips sideways and puts her head on my shoulder. We sit there while she pulls herself back together. It takes forty seconds because she’s Piper, and she doesn’t stay down for long.
“Two hundred thousand people,” she says into my shoulder.
“And counting.”
“That’s insane.” She pulls back and looks at me, but this time, her eyes are dry, and her chin is up. “We have to go home.”
“I know, baby.”
“I’m not ready,” she says. “But I think I’m ready all at once.”
There she is.
“I know you are.”
We sit with the morning and the road ahead. Outside, California doesn’t care that we’re leaving. It gave us two weeks, a road, a beach, a music shop, and a bar called The Anchor. I’m choosing to consider that more than enough.
Piper gets up to find coffee. I can’t help but watch her go.
Yeah, more than enough.