Page 58 of Love Hollow at Last
Aya gave a wan smile.She hated being the third wheel with couples who were bickering, but when they flirted in front of her, it was even more annoying.
She excused herself then sidled up to Noah.“I need your help.Can I talk to you outside for a minute?”
Aya spoke in Japanese, as that was the only way they were going to get any semblance of privacy.Their Japanese lessons with their grandparents had been fairly ad hoc, though Aya had taken a couple of semesters in college.Plus, she had years of experience speaking with Emi’s parents.Noah clearly did not understand much anymore, especially not when he was drunk.
“Nani?”he asked, grinning at her.
“Outside,” Aya said through gritted teeth.
49
Noah
“Noah, the festival is about to start.Grace told me to talk to you.The museum grounds are crawling with food trucks.”
His stomach fell.“It’s a temporary lease.We cleared it with one of your board members this morning.”
“Did you think to call me?”Aya demanded.
“I did.But I didn’t want you to say no.”
Aya’s voice was stony.“Let me guess.Mrs.Irving thought it would be a great idea for our entire event to smell like cheap tacos.”
“She’s a r-reasonable person, Aya!If you talk to her.She had been calling me nonstop.”
“Okay.”Aya’s voice had dropped in volume and was steady—scarily steady.“So, I take it you were going to tell me sometime?Because this is a pretty big lie of omission.”
He felt compelled to defend himself.“I tried to say something earlier,” he hissed.“Then I forgot, and I had to rush out.What was I supposed to do?”
“I mean, you could have knocked on my door!You never said you had work stuff you wanted to talk about!”
“Oh, okay,” he said, thinking furiously.“So I can talk to you whenever as long as it’s about work stuff?Because when I text about anything else, you don’t get back to me.”
“I thought I was your plus-one for this event!”she cried.“And you’ve been ignoring me all night!”
“People asked me to play guitar,” he said, shocked that she would have a problem with it.“It’s the only thing I can do for Nobu and Justin that’s special, okay?They both prefer Nami to me, and Mom and Dad are already annoyed because I’ve missed so many family things.Just for once, I wanted to have this experience.With my family.”
“Then why did you even ask me?I didn’t need to be here.”
“Justin told me to,” he said.It wasn’t exactly a lie, although it certainly wasn’t the whole truth.He had asked her because he wanted to spend time with her.And because, secretly, he did consider her a part of his family.
But he wasn’t about to say that.
“Ooh, Justin,” Aya said.“So he’s important enough to get me invited, but I don’t qualify on my own merits?”
The academic language threw him.“I’m sorry.What?”
“No.Noah, I should have known.The tabloids were right all along.”
“They’re never right.”he said.
“They got the story right,” she said quietly.“Your story.Sure, some of those women, that was just for show.I get that now.But the gist of what they were saying, that you just use women, that you’re too passionate about your musical reputation to commit to anything?That part was true.”
“You have no idea how lonely it is,” he shot back.
She shook her head, and her voice quavered when she answered.“Ordinary people are lonely too, Noah.And sad and frustrated and suffering.You don’t get a monopoly on that just by living in a shallow, dysfunctional fishbowl.”
They were interrupted by Nobu.He came out with two large glasses of wine, and it finally hit Noah that they could probably be heard from the kitchen.
