Page 22 of Noah
But if I could get her attention and get her by herself, I was betting she’d have a whole lot to tell me. She’d never been shy with her opinions, and if she had something she needed to tell me, I just needed to give her the opportunity. Tell her I valued everything she had to say. The truth was, I could use her opinion right now. I wasn’t sure how to handle this first set of execs. Hell, I didn’t even know for sure that the other guys were going to be on board with my proposals. They weren’t coming to the meeting with me because they weren’t interested.
They didn’t see how important this was, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t even want them involved.
I wanted her. Her advice and thoughts and brain. I needed her support.
I stopped drumming again at that, the thought so big that it almost knocked me down. I’d never thought about how much I actually needed her, because she’d always just been there. I hadn’t had to worry about it. She’d been giving me what I needed for years, and I hadn’t even seen it. And now that she wasn’t giving me her attention, I felt like my world had been flipped upside down.
I hadn’t had a clue.
Holy fuck.
My arms, which had frozen, suddenly started moving again, going through the motions I needed, and I let them. My eyes,though, went back into the audience, looking for the girl I’d been ignoring for far too long.
I found her near the back of the room, her back against the bar and a beer sitting next to her. She was alone, thank God, and staring at me with her lip caught between her teeth. When our eyes met, she gave me a half of a smile, like she wasn’t quite sure what the reception would be.
And I grinned back, unashamed of how happy I was to see it.
Because that was my girl right there. And I was hoping–praying–that when I got off this stage and went to her, she’d be waiting with open arms and a brain that was ready to go to work on the plans I had in mind.
14
MOLLY
Noah stared at me for the rest of the set, his arms and legs drumming without needing his gaze. The show was unreal. They sounded so confident up there, like they knew exactly what they were doing, and the addition of Lila’s voice and Anna’s piano was otherworldly. I’d never thought the Authors were missing anything, honestly. They had two guitars, a bass, and drums, and their sound had always been big. Combine those with Rivers’ husky, smoky voice, and you had a gorgeous avalanche of sound.
I’d actually wondered for years why they didn’t have a better recording contract than they did, with a sound like that and faces like theirs.
But now, hearing them with Anna and Lila in the mix, I thought I knew. They’d been good before, and had thousands of fans. But they were so much better with the girls that I almost couldn’t remember what they’d been like before. Lila’s voice melded perfectly with Rivers’, both of them low on the register but able to reach higher when they needed to. They sang together like they’d been born to do it, and when Anna’skeyboard joined into the background, it added a whole new dimension.
If there had been gaps in the boys’ music before, Lila and Anna filled them in, and the result was a joy to listen to.
Though I wasn’t sure how much I could believe myself on that front. I could only half-hear the music itself over the beating of my own heart in my ears. Or was it the percussion of the drums, pounding right through me while I stared at Noah? Because everything else had ceased to exist. I only saw him, his inked arms flying and chest heaving as he played, his eyes glued to my own. The sound of his drums beat down the tie that was binding us and made its way into my own body, matching my heart as it tried to bust out of my rib cage. I didn’t know what was happening or how it started, but I felt as though neither of us could break eye contact. That link was the thing keeping us both up, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stand it if he looked away.
Part of me was screaming that I was being an idiot, of course. I’d worked so hard to break away from him and find my own life. Hell, I’d gone all the way to LA just to try to figure out who I was without him, hadn’t I? And now I was right back where I’d started: standing in a crowd of admirers, caught in his aura and praying he wouldn’t look away from me again.
Desperate for him to actuallyseeme. And making the same mistake I’d made a million times before. Setting myself up for yet another fall.
But what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if, by some miracle, I’d been gone long enough for him to actually realize how important I was in his life? What if?
The moment the last song ended, Noah stood, threw his drumsticks to the side, and left the stage. The crowd screamed and called for an encore, but he had evidently left the backstage area, too, because he didn’t come back out. Rivers turned andcalled him, then sent Matt backstage to look for him, but moments later, Matt was on stage again, shaking his head.
Rivers sent me a narrowed-eyed glance that didn’t require any words–he wanted me to go find my charge–and then started the encore as an acoustic set.
I didn’t respond to the glance, because that was no longer my job. I wasn’t a roadie anymore, and I didn’t know where Noah had gone or what he was doing.
Only a second later, I did. I heard a commotion to my right and turned to see something moving through the crowd. People were scattering like their lives depended on it, and I nearly drew back in fear. Was their a fire? Someone with a gun?
It was neither. Noah shoved the last person out of his way, not seeming to care that the person was in fact a fan, and got to my side before I could move.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my eyes flashing from him to the guy he’d just shoved. “That guy is here to see the band. You can’t treat your fans like that.”
When I looked back at him, ready to lecture him, he’d gotten even closer. He lowered his face toward me, his eyes glowing with blue flame. “Outside,” he muttered.
His hand found mine, sending a jolt of electricity through me, and he turned and started to tow me toward the door. I wanted to fight him, really I did. Every rebellious instinct in my body was screaming that he had no right to handle me that way, and even less right to order me around. I was here doing my job, and he was acting like I could just drop everything and follow him the way I had when we were young! The idea made me furious.
And yet this was Noah. My mind might not approve, but my body knew exactly what it wanted.
I hurried after him, ignoring the looks from the people around us, and ducked through the door when he held it open.But once we were in the parking lot, the music and lights and crowd behind us, my mind got control of my body again.
