Page 10 of Noah
“Rivers says you’re due downstairs for a meeting with Taylor in ten,” I said sharply. “He says to lose the girl. Brush your teeth and make yourself presentable.”
I turned and left without bothering to do any more than pass on the message. Because in that moment, I’d realized something. I was wasting my life taking care of someone else rather than myself. Selling my own soul for someone else’s well-being.
And I wasn’t going to do it anymore.
I’d already known I was going to take the job with Tempest. I’d known it the moment I got that email. But I’d been planning to stick around long enough to ease the guys into the idea. Now I knew I didn’t have time for that. I didn’t want to stay that long.
I wanted out of here.
And for once in my life, I was going to listen to my own instincts and act on them rather than putting the guys before myself. I was leaving tonight.
Hell, I didn’t even know if I was going to bother saying goodbye to any of them.
5
NOAH
Iput the finishing touches on the notes I’d been making, glanced through the list, and then smiled to myself. This was perfect. Better than perfect. It was exactly what I’d been looking for. The idea I’d had–to put out some sort of press release regarding new music and a new direction–was brilliant, if I did say so myself, and if we did it carefully, I thought we could make sure it looked like something we were bringing out just for this tour. I’d already talked to Taylor, who was working on setting up meetings on the road, and I wanted to have some new music available to debut for the record execs when we saw them.
Even better if we were playing that sort of music on the road.
It meant I needed to get to writing said music, but I already knew how I was going to do that. Lila was incredibly good with lyrics and I’d never met anyone better with music than Rivers. The two of them together...
Well, it was a match made in heaven, and not only because of how hot they were for each other. They’d written a single song on the last tour and it was such a big hit that we played it every time we stopped, these days. If they could replicate that two or threemore times, we’d be golden. We’d be playing new music on the tour that the old record label didn’t have the right to, and could hand it to any new label. Like a signing bonus in reverse.
Sign us and give us a chance and we’ll hand you new, more marketable music right off the bat.
It was pretty fucking brilliant. Give the band new direction and the press a chance to talk about Rivers and Lila. Keep us moving together rather than drifting apart, which I was also worried about. And get a new label on board before we lost the old one–which I was starting to worry about, honestly. We still hadn’t heard anything from the record company about a new contract, and though Taylor hadn’t said anything to me about it, that seemed... wrong.
I needed to get this plan in line before anything went sideways on us.
I couldn’t wait to get Molly’s thoughts on it. I hadn’t had her to my room to go over the whole thing, yet, and it was time to remedy that situation. I never put a plan together without her help.
At least not successfully.
I frowned at the thought of her, though, and glanced up toward the window. The light was fading out there, which meant we were heading toward evening. When had I seen her last? Not since this morning, I remembered, when she’d caught me in the hallway with that girl. I couldn’t remember the girl’s name, but I did remember the look on Molly’s face when she rounded the corner and saw us there. She looked like I’d just driven a knife through her heart. Like I’d handed her the biggest betrayal of her life. When her eyes finally focused on me, they’d been so intensely green that I nearly gasped. Glowing, like they were on fire. Hot and wanting and open.
It was like I’d been able to see right into her soul for the first time in my life.
And God, I’d wanted to see more. I’d remembered the smell of her that morning in bed, the feel of her under my hands, and my body had responded in a way I hadn’t understood, leaning toward her in some yearning, hungry way, like I was a man starving for something only she could give me. Then she’d jerked her gaze from mine and severed the tie binding us together, and I’d remembered who and what I was.
Not a man who fell for girls like Molly.
A man who stood alone, and liked it that way.
I hadn’t seen her since then, and that was weird. Molly was always around. She showed up whenever I thought of her, like she somehow knew when I needed something. I’d been downstairs in the lobby and around the hotel all day, and yet she’d been absent.
What the hell?
I stood up and headed for the door, suddenly intent on finding her. After all, I needed her right now. I had a plan I wanted to go over. And, a part of me said, I wanted to make sure she was okay. I hadn’t forgotten the look on her face before she left my room this morning, and I hadn’t checked on her the way I’d meant to.
I opened the door and strode into the hallway, going through the places she might be. When I turned the corner, she was right in front of me.
Like she’d heard that I was calling for her or something.
But she wasn’t looking for me–or at least she wasn’t lookingatme. Instead, she was looking at the elevator, waiting for it to arrive. And she had her suitcase with her. The jacket she only ever wore for traveling was thrown over her arm and her favorite camera bag sat on top of her suitcase.
She looked like she was leaving. But that didn’t make any sense. We were a week from the tour and settled in this hotel until we flew out. Our tour manager liked to have us all in thesame place for a week before we left. Team building, he always said. I’d never really seen the point–we had all known each other since we were kids, after all–but also didn’t see the point in arguing about it. I mean we got to stay in a hotel for a week, and I was still the kid who grew up broke and sleeping in a bed hundreds of other boys had slept in before me. Staying in a hotel felt fancy and decadent. I was never going to argue about getting clean, cotton sheets and room service.
