Page 6 of Noah
Actually, she was the only one whoknew.
This was the Authors’ last official tour with the record company, and they hadn’t given us a new contract yet. Taylor James, our agent, was supposed to be working on it, but I didn’t know how much time or effort she was actually putting into that. Lately, she’d been more concerned with trying to rehab Rivers, my lead singer, from bad-boy-loved-by-no-one into good-boy-practically-married.
I snorted at the thought, the memory of him throwing himself at the feet of one Lila Potter rushing through my head, but then put it away. Lila was good for Rivers, and I was happy for them both. I wasnothappy that Taylor was more concerned with Rivers than the rest of the band. And that was what Molly and I had been working on. I wanted the band to go a different direction and become more marketable, because it would increase our audience. Less gloomy, angsty rock and more of the stuff that had been bringing in the press. Lila had roped Rivers into writing more emotional stuff, and it was a big hit. If the band could do more of that, I thought we’d be able to get bigger audiences. Maybe even some radio time.
And if we could do that, the labels would be lining up for us.
But how about if...
Suddenly something else occurred to me, and I grabbed for my phone. What if we were going about it the wrong way? What if, instead...
I started typing notes so quickly I could barely register where my fingers were going. What if I was thinking of things backward? What if we just needed the intention for change? A plan for what we were going to do, so we could hook the labels and...
Oh my God, I realized. This could be it. Was this what Molly and I had been talking about last night? Had she planted this idea before we fell asleep? Or had she already done all this work, and I was just taking credit for it? I didn’t think so. This felt new and fresh. Like the idea was flowing right out of my soul and onto the paper–er, screen.
That thought held me up for a moment, giving me pause, because it was actually pretty rare for me to think of something without having to bounce it off Molly’s sharper mind first. She was the best sounding board I’d ever met, and my ideas never seemed to make sense until she’d wrapped her fingers around them and massaged them a little.
But this... No, this one felt like mine. This didn’t sound familiar. I’d come up with this on my own, probably without any help from Molly.
I bit my lip as my thoughts caught on her name, and remembered the way her shoulders had drawn up to her ears when I called out to her this morning. She was upset, and I didn’t like that. I’d never liked it when she was upset, and I especially didn’t like it when I didn’t understand the reason. Maybe I should go to her room. See if I could drag her down for an apology breakfast so we could talk about whatever she thought had happened between us.
I thought about it for a good thirty seconds. At least.
And then I decided against it. I needed to get these ideas down before I lost them. I knew my brain well enough to know it wouldn’t hang onto anything for long, and this stuff was too good to forget. Besides, Molly would be around later, when I hadtime to apologize for whatever I’d done. She always was, and I didn’t think today was going to be any different.
Hell, by the time I found her, maybe she’d have forgotten that she was upset, and we could just move forward without having to go through the awkward conversation at all. That would make life a whole lot easier for both of us.
3
MOLLY
Igot to my room so fast it must have been a record, but paused outside the door, trying to calm myself down. Praying that Sadie Fellows, the new girl on the tour and my roommate, was still asleep. The last thing I needed was for the opening act to catch me rushing into the room still dressed in last night’s clothes. Not that she would say anything if she did. Sadie was one of those girls who looked almost too sweet for her own good, with broad cheekbones and an even broader smile. She was a small-town girl and the goodness practically leaked out of her pores. I doubted she’d ever found a situation she couldn’t smile her way out of.
She also had the voice of a freaking angel, which was how she’d wound up on this little tour.
On the surface, she looked like the kind of girl who would have matched better with Lila than with me. I was one part sunshine one part shadow, and got along best with Anna Tatum, Lila’s other half. The two of us both had dark sides and ambition, while Lila was all sunshine and Sadie basically smelled of peaches and cream.
Unfortunately, Lila was spoken for and Anna had managed to land her own room when Lila moved to Rivers’. I was nothing more than a roadie, but management had evidently branded me ‘close enough to the band to deserve a musician for a roommate.’
And it had taken me about ten minutes to figure out that Sadie wasn’t as much a good girl as she looked.
The girl actually had a wild streak and a wicked sense of humor, which was even funnier when you didn’t see it coming. We’d spent the first night of our partnership comparing notes on the best pranks we’d ever played on other people, and had been best friends ever since. She the peaches and cream, me the darker, more driven shadow.
I didn’t think she’d say anything if I came in after missing all night. But I would have preferred to be going back to an empty room. Particularly when I was sneaking back from Noah’s room with a tear-streaked face and the echo of what we’d almost done.
I took a deep breath, prayed she was asleep, and opened the door as quietly as I could, my eyes racing from one end of the room to the other.
Then I frowned.
The room was empty. Sadie’s bed was unmade but also unoccupied.
I tipped my head, confused, and looked toward the bathroom, wondering if she was already up and having a shower. A glance at my watch told me it was only 6 in the morning, and I knew for a fact we didn’t have any big events this morning. She had no reason to be up already. The bathroom was dark, though, and I crept through the door and into the room, wondering if my luck had given me an empty room after all.
A quick search through the place told me that it had. Sadie was nowhere to be found, and her shoes weren’t in their usual place next to her bed.
“That girl must like breakfast more than I realized,” I breathed.
Then I turned and headed for the bathroom myself. I wanted a very hot shower and enough soap to wash Noah’s scent off my skin. I wasn’t stupid enough to think a shower would clean my soul, but it might make me feel a little better.
