Page 18 of Noah
Which meant I had a very good view of the girl who’d just walked through the front door and stopped to gaze about.
“Molly,” I whispered.
I didn’t remember telling my feet to move, or my body to get off the bar stool. Something happened and I was already walking toward her, my heart soaring up out of my chest and toward the ceiling above, the people in front of me parting like the Red Sea, like they knew I had important business to take care of. I was like a moth to a Molly-flavored flame, all my focus on that familiarface and the concentration I could see on her brow. The anger I’d felt for the last week had melted away, like butter in a hot skillet, and all I could think about was her. I didn’t know if I was going to take her in my arms and twirl her around in excitement... or lecture her about having left in the first place.
It didn’t matter.
My Bug was back.
Then my brain turned back on and started feeding me actual facts. That was my Molly, yes. I could have painted her face from memory alone, I knew it so well. But she was different. Her hair was curlier. Bigger and messier, but somehow intentionally so. And she had on makeup. Nothing complicated. A brush of eyeliner and red lipstick that made her look more sophisticated than the girl I’d spent most of my life with. She was wearing skinny jeans and a crop top, and the clothes accentuated curves I’d never even known she had. The bags in her hand weren’t the battered old suitcase she’d left with.
She looked like an adult.
This wasn’t the twenty-five-year-old girl who’d gotten on that elevator. This wasn’t my little sister. This was a woman. And a quick glance at the guy next to her told me this was a woman other men were looking at.
A thrill of jealousy went through me, clearing out all the joy I’d felt at seeing her. What the fuck was that guy looking at? What was he thinking, looking her up and down like she was there for his viewing pleasure? This wasn’t some groupie, hanging out and hoping to catch someone’s attention. This was Molly Rush, best friend of the band and head roadie.
I pulled to a stop, trying to get a handle on the things I was feeling, and watched as she glanced at the paper in her hand, then looked around the reception area again. She looked like she was trying to figure out whether she was in the right place or not, and who she was supposed to talk to about whatever she wasdoing. She tipped her head at the reception desk, then looked at the paper again.
And I finally had the bandwidth to wonder what the hell she was doing here. She’d told me she was going to catch up with us on the road if she could, but we weren’t even officially on the road yet. And even if we were, this didn’t make sense. She’d left before we got the itinerary, and she sure as shit hadn’t known what hotel we were starting from. Hell, we hadn’t even known where we were going until we got here. She shouldn’t have known about Portland. Or the hotel . And though she might have called anyone else to find out where we were, they would have told me if she had.
She wasn’t here for us. She wasn’t here forme. The thought was a crushing blow that nearly knocked me down. She hadn’t come to find me. She was here for someone else.
At that moment, she glanced up from the paper, and looked right at me. Our gazes crashed together like two freight trains, and the world around us went blurry and colorless. She looked...
She looked just as shocked to see me as I was to see her.
And then she jerked to the side. I glanced over, wondering what had happened, and saw a guy standing next to her, his hand on her arm and his mouth moving as he said something. He waited for her to answer, then seemed to notice that she was looking at something–me–and turned his own eyes in my direction. I waited long enough to see that his eyes were gray and that he was at least a little bit handsome.
Then I took my gaze back to her. Praying she’d come running to me and jump at me the way she always had.
She didn’t. She held my gaze for a long, intense moment, and then turned and walked toward the reception desk, her shoulders high and stiff and her steps faltering like the ground was shaking underneath her.
11
NOAH
Iwas going to fucking kill that guy. Jerk his head back by those blond curls, look right into his eyes, and kill him for touching her. I watched him tuck her hand under his arm, joking the whole time, and tow her after him like he had every right to her. Like it didn’t matter that she still had her suitcase and obviously wanted a shower and a snack before she went out and did anything.
Like she didn’t still have my gaze all over her.
Not that she was reminding him. She didn’t even fucking look at me as she walked away. Just went with him like he was allowed to move her around like some sort of pawn.
I jerked myself around and went back to the bar and my drink, my mood getting blacker every second. I hadn’t been able to believe what I was seeing, at first. I’d been missing her so bad I could hardly function, dreaming about her at night and looking for her every time I walked into a room. I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under my feet, the world turn on its side, and I didn’t know how to fix anything.
I didn’t even understand why I missed her so much.
Sure, she’d always been there, and had been the first person I turned to whenever something was wrong. She’d been my Little Bug when we were younger and then my confidante when I realized I needed one. And she’d always had time for me. She’d been the one person who would take my calls even if she was in the middle of ten other things. She’d laughed with me when something was funny and held me when I needed support. When we were kids, I’d run to her bed any time the weather was stormy, because something about thunder made me panic.
She’d always been awake when I arrived, like she knew I’d be coming. A quick twitch of her blankets and I’d be in bed with her, pulling her against me to protect me from all the noise. I’d gone to her bed for weeks at a time if there was a particularly bad storm. And she’d stayed up with me until I fell asleep. She’d never stopped welcoming me back, either, even when it was no longer appropriate. Hell, just last year I’d been in her room during one of our tours, pretending I didn’t need the warmth of her body while the rain crashed down outside.
So yeah, it had hurt that she left. But it had also made me realize I’d become too dependent on her. She’d been in my life so long that I’d somehow imprinted on her and forgotten how to stand up on my own, and that was incredibly dangerous.
That was how people got hurt.
And then I saw her and forgot all that, jumping out of my skin with excitement to see her, the shock of it melting right into an embarrassing sort of glee when her green eyes turned to me. Molly, in our hotel. Molly, right there in front of me. For five glorious minutes, I thought she’d come back to me. I thought she’d realized how much she missed me–or us–and come back to go on the tour with us.
And then that guy came out of nowhere and pulled her away.
