Chapter 10
Ten
NOAH
The pub was already loud when we walked in, but not the bad kind. The good kind—glasses clinking, a rumble of conversations, and somebody laughing too hard in the corner. The fire was going, the tree lights were on, and Harper and Reed were manning the bar.
“They’re here,” Shannon sang from her table, holding up her phone. “Have you seen?”
“Seen what?” Skye stiffened next to me, and I tugged her into the warm pub, the crowd parting for us like we were a hot knife slicing through butter.
“Let them in first,” Esther said, shouldering through with a tray of sausage rolls and meat pies. “Phones down until you’ve eaten. That’s a rule.”
“Since when?” Meredith asked, already breaking it. “Oh my God. Look at this.”
Everyone looked as Meredith held up her phone.
On Meredith’s screen, a video played of the song Skye and I sang at the hall.
“It already has five hundred thousand views,” Meredith said, turning the phone back to her, her voice hushed in awe. “Skye and Noah reunite. Is there a reunion tour around the corner?”
“Absolutely not.” Skye laughed, but the stubborn lift of her chin set off warning bells in my gut.
Rosie, in a bright red sweater and a purple corduroy skirt, looked up from her phone. “You’re trending,” she said, sounding both delighted and deeply apologetic. “And before you ask, I did not post it. I don’t have a death wish. The mums’ WhatsApp group did. And then TikTok ate it.”
“What’s TikTok?” Gregory asked.
“A lifestyle,” Rosie said. “And a trap.”
Rosie scrolled the comments. People were being nice.
I had not seen that on the internet in a long time.
Things like … the harmonies?! and who is she and I didn’t know I needed this, but I did and come to my wedding and sing this, please, please, please.
A blog had already posted a clip calling it “a quiet sledgehammer.”
“Look at this one,” Rosie said, breathless. “‘The song feels like when you get home and your love has a cup of tea waiting for you already.’”
“That’s … nice,” Skye said, accepting the glass of wine Esther gave her and gulping half of it. Her hand shook.
Esther clapped her hands. “Phones down,” she said. She didn’t shout, but everyone heard her anyway. “First, we clap for Wallace. He was magnificent, wasn’t he?”
Wallace prowled across the bar, still sporting a snazzy tartan bow tie. He accepted a small avalanche of applause with a slow blink and a rude yawn. Meredith, who had sewn his little waistcoat out of an old velvet skirt, wiped her eyes with a napkin.
“Second,” Esther continued, “we clap for Skye. Noah’s used to performing, but it was Skye who brought that song home.”
Skye’s cheeks flushed a bright red, and I clapped the loudest of all. She had been magnificent, and singing with her felt like coming home.
My phone kept buzzing in my pocket, and I noticed several texts from my agent. Ignoring them, because I just wanted to live in the moment, I switched the phone off and accepted a wee dram of whisky from Daniel, who winked at me.
“I know this might be unwanted advice from a newlywed,” Daniel began and I grinned.
He was in his late seventies and had married Esther in a whirlwind courtship just months prior.
“But it’s rare for love to come around twice.
I’d think long and hard about what you’re walking away from when you leave.
” He said it as if me leaving was an already understood fact.
And he wasn’t wrong. The plan had never been to stay.
I’d just needed a moment of respite.
A calm from the storm.
But my band needed me.
I had responsibilities.
A record contract.
Actually, that might be in the bin with the news about the record company. Which meant, for the first time in years, I might actually not be beholden to anyone.
But myself.
That was a new and interesting thought. Turning it over in my head, I watched as everyone gushed over Skye, and how she fumbled with accepting praise.
“Look at this comment.” Rosie held up her phone. “She sings like she’s telling a story to friends in her kitchen.”
Skye’s eyes softened. “I like that.”
I did too. I liked everything about Skye. The girl she’d been and the woman she’d grown into.
Esther banged a spoon on the edge of a pint glass. “Toast!” she yelled. “Quiet, you lot.”
The room settled.
Skye stood, smiling over at me.
“This will be quick,” she said. “Because Esther is terrifying.”
“I am,” Esther confirmed.
“I know how to tame her,” Daniel whispered in my ear, and bloody hell, but the man made my cheeks warm. That was not an image I needed in my head.
Skye looked around the room. “Thank you,” she said. “For buying tickets when you didn’t have to. For blocking the lane. For singing too loud on purpose. For letting me be me tonight.” She swallowed. “And to Noah, for sharing his gift.”
I stepped forward.
“It’s you who shared your gift, Skye. You’ve always been the best of us.”
The room took a collective sigh and then all said, “Awwww.”
We all laughed and then Skye lifted her glass.
“To the Book Bitches,” she said.
“To the Book Bitches,” everyone answered, raising whatever they had. Even Wallace got a tiny shot glass of cream.
Skye looked for me. Found me. Held my gaze.
“And to second chances,” she said.
We drank. I kept my eyes on her over the rim of the glass. She flushed, then laughed, then turned back to Shannon who was telling her a story.
Music started up in the corner—a fiddle, a bodhrán, someone with a guitar that managed to be mostly in tune. A band that wasn’t a band. A proper session made up of whoever brought an instrument and knew when to join. The floor cleared a little.
I didn’t join. I leaned on the bar and let it roll over me. It felt like … being allowed to stand still. I hadn’t had a lot of that lately.
“Hungry?” Skye asked, coming over with a plate of sausage rolls.
“Starving,” I said, and meant more than food.
We ate in companionable silence while Esther argued with Cherise about what jumper to wear on Christmas Day. Harper snapped a photo of Wallace wearing his bow tie and posted it with the caption: Leading man energy.
“Do you miss it?” Skye asked, eyes flicking to my guitar case by the door.
“Tonight? No.” I didn’t dodge the question. “I miss the bit where the music belongs to the room instead of the label. This feels like that. I’ve missed this without knowing what to call it.”
“Home,” she said, not romantic. Just stating facts.
“Yeah.” I took a breath. “I thought the road was home. I liked the moving. No one expects you to fix a boiler when you’re in a hotel. No one calls at six a.m. about the bins.”
“Bins are a big part of adulthood,” she said, her mouth quirking up at the corners. “Nobody tells you that.”
“The road stopped being fun when the rooms all looked the same,” I said. “I kept trying to write my way out of it. Turns out I might have needed to sit still for a while.”
“That’s my business model,” Skye said dryly. “So still moss can grow on me.”
“Your business model works.”
“Does it? Tell that to my guests. Oh wait, I still don’t have any.” Skye looked away.
I wished she would let me help, let me look at the books or make a list of needed repairs. But the stubborn lift of her chin told me everything I needed to know.
“Noah!” The chants went up and I finally put my hands in the air in defeat and went to join the band. We launched into a merry rendition of Amy Macdonald’s This is the Life, and everyone clapped along.
An hour later, I was smiling so hard my face hurt.
I’d sold out stadiums, had tea with the late Queen, and traveled around the world.
But I couldn’t quite remember the last time I’d had so much fun.
My soul had been craving this.
Impromptu and unhurried jam sessions with an audience that was more than willing to interrupt you if they didn’t like what you played.
It was fun. It was easy. It was exactly what I’d needed.
Esther banged her hand on the table. “One more toast and then I’m making Harper turn off the lights so you all go home,” she said. “We’re getting near closing.”
Groans. Fake outrage. Everyone lifted their glasses anyway.
“To The Royal Unicorn,” Esther said.
“To the Unicorn,” the room answered.
She pointed a finger. “To John Smith.”
“Boo,” I said, smiling.
“No booing. He paid his parking,” Meredith scolded.
“And to Skye,” Esther said, “and the Kingsbarns Inn, which has brought so many fun and interesting people into our wee town for years now. We’re blessed to have had you take up the helm when your gran passed, lass.”
“To Skye,” the room said, easy and true.
She went pink and laughed, thanking everyone. I let the sound land on me. I didn’t know I needed that, but I did. Not the cheers. The belonging.
I picked up Skye’s coat from the peg and held it out. She slid into it with a small sigh that got me right in the ribs.
“Walk?” I asked.
“Please,” she said, which did a different thing to me. A good thing.
We spilled onto the street in a tumble of goodbyes and split off from the group. The night hit us clean and cold. Turning down the lane that led to the inn, the voices drifted away on the winter wind and our shoulders bumped companionably.
We didn’t talk. We didn’t need to. Our breath fogged the air, and somewhere a dog barked as their owner returned home. I put my hand out. Skye looked at it for a beat, like she was measuring something important. Then she took it.
My palm knew her. It sounded dramatic, like a lyric I would write, but it wasn’t. It was simple. Warm. Right. We walked like that to the inn. No speech. No big declarations. Just … us.
I used to think happiness came loud. Stadiums. Shouting.
Hands in the air. Tonight it came quiet.
Well, quiet-ish. A pub that smelled like woodsmoke and whisky.
A village that knew your name and your business and looked after both.
A woman who would tell you when you’re being an idiot and feed you anyway.
A cat in a bow tie. A song that felt like you built it with your hands.
At the inn, I opened the door and let her go in first. We stood in the foyer in the dim like teenagers who’d snuck in past curfew. The tree in the lounge threw balls of light across the ceiling.
Skye walked to the bottom of the stairs.
Turning, she held out her hand, and warmth spread through me.
Walking over, I took it, but before she could turn and pull me up the stairs, I bent my head and captured her lips in a searing kiss.
I’d been aching to kiss her all night but hadn’t been sure how she’d respond to public displays of affection.
But for now? I didn’t care what the future held.
I just wanted her.
I hadn’t felt this calm in years. Not after a number-one hit. Not after a sold-out tour. Not after a single applause that went on so long it felt like it could carry me. This was different. This—Skye and me?—was all mine.