Page 28 of Fractured Trust

His eyes flared with sudden fury, and he used his big body to cage her against the wall. He grasped her chin and forced her to look him in the eye. “Not. Before,” he growled. His face was so close if he moved forward an inch his lips would be on hers. And she hated that her eyes instinctively dropped to his mouth before she shot them back up. Anger, frustration, and what she could almost imagine was pain swirled in his gaze.

“What do you want from me, Summer? Do you want me to lie and tell you I’ve been celibate since you? It’s been eleven fucking years.”

She tried to shake her head, but his hold on her chin was too strong, and he kept going. “Do you want me to tell you that for far too long after you left me, I wished it was you every time I sank my dick into another woman?”

She closed her eyes; she didn’t want to hear this. “Stop it,” she whispered.

“Do you want to hear how I felt goddamn guilty every time because it wasn’t you I was fucking? Do you want to hear how every time I came it was your face I saw—”

She trembled; her eyes still shut. “Stop. It.” Louder this time.

His voice was louder now, too. Rough, jagged. “Or would you feel better if I told you I never thought of you at all? That I forgot all about you as soon as you broke it off? That I indulged my every sordid desire with any woman I could get my hands on? That I screwed—”

“Stop it!” she cried out, her eyes flying open as she wrenched her chin away and hunched into herself. She hung her head and shuddered.It hurt.It hurt hearing about all the women he’d replaced her with.

For a few seconds, all she could hear were Noah’s harsh breaths, sounding loud in the now quiet corridor.

“Summer…” Some of the anger had leached from his voice, replaced by remorse.

“Just go, Noah. This—us trying to be friends—it’s a bad idea.”

When he didn’t move, she slipped out from under his arm, rounded the corner, and walked steadily up the corridor, back to the ballroom. Noah’s footsteps echoed from behind her, but he didn’t try to catch up. Summer headed into the brightly lit room and back to their table, seeing Eden and Lexie exchange a glance as they approached. Even though she wanted to ask to be driven home, she couldn’t. It would raise too many questions. So instead, she plastered the happiest fake smile she could manage on her face, sat between the two women, and did her best to pretend Noah didn’t exist.

Even though she swore she could feel the burn of his eyes on the side of her face throughout the night, she didn’t look at him again. Instead, she applauded when they announced the winners of the items; Connor scoring the signed guitar and Noah missing out on his drum kit—she didn’t know if he hadn’t ended up bidding or if someone had outbid him. She laughed when the winner of the date with Zac was announced, a matronly society lady who winked at him when her name was read out. And at the end of the night, she calmly thanked everyone for a lovely evening, hugged Lexie and Eden, and got back into the car. Then she spent the drive home wiping away the steady flow of tears as they trickled down her cheeks and wondering why the hell she’d ever thought being around Noah again was a good idea.

Chapter 12

“Earth to fucking Noah.” The snap in Zac’s voice shook Noah out of his dark thoughts.

“What?” he asked.

“I asked you to count us in, and you just sat there staring at nothing twirling your sticks around like a fucking majorette.”

Noah closed his fingers over his drumsticks, stopping the movement, and frowned, pissed off at himself for losing track of what he was doing. Too damn busy remembering the train wreck of a night last week when he and Summer had proven once again that they couldn’t be around each other without things going to hell. Even if having her back in his arms for that far too brief period had felt suspiciously like heaven.

Nope, not going there. It’d been a mistake, and that was it. “Sorry, I just got distracted for a second.”

Zac’s eyes pierced into his, but he only nodded slowly. “Okay, well, this is the last song, so try to stay focused. We need to get this wrapped up, so we can start putting the new album together.”

Noah gave him a curt nod in return, sparing a glance at Beau and Devon, who were regarding him with thinly veiled curiosity. They knew how unusual it was for Noah to be off his game when it came to drumming. Normally he was a machine with how exact he was. But when he gave them a casual grin and tapped his sticks together to count them in, they both dropped their stares and concentrated on the music.

Half an hour later, after they’d fiddled with some of the timings, and Noah had thrown in a couple of new fills just to mix it up a bit and prove he had his head in the game, they were done.

The four of them packed up their gear and then cracked open some beers and sat on the couches outside the soundproofed studio to relax before heading home.

Noah was only half listening to the conversation going on around him as he looked down at his bottle and slowly peeled the label off. It took him a moment to realize someone was speaking to him. He glanced up, catching Beau’s gaze on him. One dark brow was raised and his blue eyes—several shades darker than Noah’s own—were looking at him questioningly.

“Are you okay, man? You seem out of it today?”

Noah cleared this throat. “Yeah, sure. Just something on my mind, that’s all. What were you saying?”

“I said that our best friend is coming to visit in a couple of weeks. We haven’t seen her in forever. We’re going to take her out on the town if you guys and the others want to come along. Give her the real L.A. experience.”

“Yeah sure, man,” Noah said. He wasn’t as close to Beau and Devon as he was with Zac, Tex, and Connor, but they were good guys, he enjoyed hanging out with them. They were both hungry for the kind of success Fractured had, but they had good heads on their shoulders. They’d do well.

Noah blinked, realizing he was thinking about their success separate from his own. Where had that come from? His eyes darted to Zac, who was leaning back in his chair, staring at the floor, but with his mouth lifted up at the corners as he listened to Beau and Devon talking excitedly about their friend’s visit.

He didn’t know why he’d started thinking about Crossfire going on without him. Drumming was his life. As much as he had concerns about how to balance his commitments, he didn’t really have the first clue how he’d fill his spare time if he gave up Crossfire now.

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