by Gia Riley
I’m so desperate for him to give me some clues about how he’s feeling, but he’s as honest as ever when he tells me, “You and cereal.”
Laughing, I ask him, “What?”
“Dom ate the last of my Cocoa Pebbles again. I punched him in the junk.”
Like a bunch of guys in a frat house, life on a bus isn’t much different. “You’re so normal it’s weird sometimes.”
“I am normal, Noelle. Just because I’m in a band doesn’t mean I don’t like the same things as everyone else.”
“I guess it’s easy to forget that sometimes because I have you on this pedestal. Plus, when I go to the grocery store, sometimes your face is on the cover of a magazine. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”
“That makes two of us. But baby, we’re on the same level. It doesn’t matter how much money I have in the bank or what I own. All that matters to me is that you’re with me to enjoy it all.”
“I wish I was with you now,” I tell him as I yawn, regretting it as soon as it escapes me. Like always, he’ll feel bad for keeping me awake because I have to go to work in a couple hours. I always remind him I’m my own boss and can show up whenever I want most days, but he always apologizes anyway.
I may have barely slept the past couple weeks, but I’d go without sleep every single day if it meant I could have Lane all to myself for a little while.
“Get some sleep, baby. I’m crawling in my bunk, too. We have an early meet and greet tomorrow.”
“By early do you mean noon?”
“Right? It’s crazy fuckin’ early, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know how you’ll manage.”
“You should probably text me something good around eleven to make sure I’m up.”
I smile because this is him asking me for naked pics. “Boobs or butt?”
He laughs before saying, “I love that I don’t have to beg you for hot shit.”
“Just remember how good you have it.”
“I don’t want anyone else, Noelle. And I’d never ask another woman for pictures—only the one I care about and who should already be in my bed.”
I didn’t mean anything by what I said, but his reassurance still makes me feel good. With complete confidence and zero doubt, I respond as honestly as I can, so he hears me loud and clear. “I trust you, Lane.”
Trust means everything to me. It always has and it always will, because if I don’t have your trust, and you don’t have mine, then we have nothing.
Our two-way street is congested with doubts, and considering the way tonight ended, I stopped trusting Lane the second he walked out Lola’s door with another woman.
He and I are done.
“This is where you live?” Lemon asks as I unlock the door to my condo and open it for her.
“This is it.” I took a risk bringing her here, especially since I have no idea how Noelle’s going to react once she meets Lemon. It can go one of two ways—she’ll either act like her usual accepting self, understanding the position I was in at Lola’s, or she’ll react with her heart and break into a jealous rage she would absolutely be entitled to.
Noelle’s visit may not be going at all how I planned, and this will undoubtedly be another challenge to add to our long list of things we’ve had to overcome, but I believe in her.
“How long have you lived here?”
“A couple years.”
Lemon’s instantly drawn to the fireplace, and with each tentative step she takes toward the mantle, she pulls the blanket that’s wrapped around her a little tighter.
I don’t know why I’m nervous as she looks around, but for some reason, I want her to like it here. Probably because this is the first real home she’s ever been inside—a place that isn’t littered with negative memories, doesn’t have chipped paint falling off the walls, or a screen door with a hole in it so big you wouldn’t even have to open the door to walk inside the house.
Still, no matter how many nice things she’s surrounded by, and how hard I’ve worked for every one of them, I’m not expecting her to relax enough to say, “This is beautiful. You must be really happy here. She’s lucky.”
Happy isn’t something either of us grew up with. It’s something I’ve had to work toward, and until Noelle I didn’t even understand what complete happiness meant. Considering Lemon’s still living in a house that has no shot at becoming anything other than the dump it is, I want her to experience this forever, too.
“I’m the lucky one,” I whisper, wishing this didn’t have to be so one-sided. I want her to tell me about her successes and see them with my own two eyes. I want to walk into her apartment and see her memories scattered all over the walls, framed in silver and gold.
“I can’t believe you still have this,” she says, her eyes transfixed on a picture of the two of us from years ago. “We were so young.”
“It’s one of my favorite memories.”
“You always were the sentimental one,” she jokes with a longing in her eyes for those days we had before the insanity began. The days when she became afraid of her own shadow.
When she finally sets the frame back down, she turns to face me with a curious expression. It’s the most emotion I’ve seen her show toward me in as long as I can remember. “You really have a girlfriend?”
“Yeah. Shocker, right?”
She sits on the edge of the couch like she’s afraid she’ll mess it up if she relaxes. She’s tense when she says, “Relationships are a head trip for me.”
“Maybe it’s the person you’re with who’s the problem.”
“Who else is there?”
“Anyone, Lemon. You could have so much more than you think.”
“And what would I tell them? Trey’s the only guy who knows my story. Anyone else would run as far as they could just to get away from me. He accepts it.”
“He uses it against you, traps you with your past.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she mutters under her breath. “Are things serious with Noelle?”
“Yeah, I love her. And when she gets here, I don’t want you to screw with her head or fuck things up. I know what you’re capable of.”
“Why’d you bring me here if you don’t want me in your house?” Gone is her sweet voice I’ve missed so much. In its place is the usual bite she weaves in and out of her words.
“You’re here because I wasn’t going to let you get on that stage in front of my friends.”
“So you’re all about appearances now. Since when do you care what anyone thinks?”
“Since I decided to get the hell out of Sea Port and do something with my life.”
Before this conversation goes any farther, and before Noelle gets home, I walk into my bedroom and grab a pair of my sweatpants and a T-shirt for her to wear. She’ll drown in them both, but I don’t want my girlfriend to see Lemon like this. Not when I know that, deep down in her heart, she’s a better person than she gives herself credit for.
“Thanks,” she says as she drops the blanket and takes the clothing out of my hands. I look away, wishing she’d get out of Lola’s so nobody would ever see her in that light again. But how do you convince someone they can have a life full of dreams if they’ve never had any role models of their own to know more exists?
Once she’s changed, I walk into the kitchen, making coffee for the two of us. She follows me to the island where she slides onto a stool and rests her chin on hands. Never in a million years did I think she’d be sitting in my house tonight, let alone wearing my clothes and drinking from one of my mugs.
When hers is ready, I leave it black and put in a scoop of sugar. If she’s anything like me, she likes it strong and dark—mostly because I used to drink coffee so I could stay awake all night in case my dad came home. If I fell asleep early, he might come inside and do his worst, and being beaten out of a sound sleep is the worst kind of pain there is.
“We never have milk,” she tells me when she takes her first sip, black like I gave it to her
.
“Do you want some?”
She shakes her head, holding the black mug in her hands like it’s her most prized possession. “No, it’ll only make me want it when I leave here.”
Hearing how deprived she is of life’s most basic things kills me. “I can’t give you money, Lemon, not when you’ll use it on drugs and shit. But if I get you a place in this building, you can stay here if you promise you’ll get out of Sea Port and never go back.”
“I can’t do that, Lane. You left, but not everyone gets to leave.”
She’s going to hold leaving against me for the rest of my life. I’m positive of it. It doesn’t change what I want for her though—not even the slightest bit. “We were both so young the last time we saw each other, Lemon. You wanted your freedom, to come and go as you please with people you didn’t realize were a bad influence until it was too late. Each day you came home, you were changing more and more. All I wanted to do was protect you, like I did every day of my life up until then, but I was still trying to figure out my own direction. I had to make choices, too.”
“You chose Midnight Fate.”
“I didn’t choose the band over you. I wanted to take you with me. What else did I have going for me other than my music? The shipyard wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. If I had passed up the opportunity to make the demo, I’d still be there hating my life as much as you do.”
“Do you know what it was like to come home and see your stuff missing? At first, I thought we were robbed, but when the hours came and went and you never came home, I cried for days, Lane. For the first time in my life, I prayed to God. Even after I was convinced there wasn’t one, I still tried to get you back any way I could.”
My throat tightens with each word she says. Maybe she’s right; maybe I am responsible for how her life ended up. As much as I want to believe I tried everything I could to get her out of that house and that pain, I failed—or maybe I gave up.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, even though the words are meaningless after all this time.
She stares out the window in the kitchen, her eyes sadder than I’ve ever seen them. She’s gone through more in her twenty-eight years of life than most people go through in eighty. The pain, terror, and horror she lives with would be enough to kill most people—and a damn good reason for her to do what it takes to numb the voices in her head to be able to make it through the day.
“You have to leave Trey, Lemon. You have to.”
“I can’t. Even if I were to take you up on your offer, I didn’t go to college. I barely finished high school. What the hell would I do that would pay me the kind of money I can make on the stage?”
“You can work for the band. Go on the road with us and experience the world.”
“Do you even know how long it’s been since I woke up in the morning like a normal human being? All I have to hold on to is the comfort of the darkness every night and my dancing. You may think I’m nothing more than a stripper, but when I’m up there, I’m someone to all those people watching me. I’m not being yelled at or told how worthless I am. I’m an angel people want to come back and see.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that. You can find that kind of validation doing something that will make you feel even better about yourself. Something less degrading.”
“Maybe I see it as something beautiful.”
“You’d be lying. I saw the look in your eyes on the stage, Lemon. You didn’t want to be up there anymore than I wanted to be inside Lola’s. I’ve seen happiness, and that wasn’t it.”
Nervously, she runs her fingers through her long blond hair then picks at her nail polish. “Trey’s going to flip when he finds out I left the club with you.”
“And do what? There’s only so much he can do behind bars.”
“He has guys working for him, Lane. He may be in jail, but he’s still calling the shots.”
“Well, he’s already hurt me, and he’s destroyed you. There’s not much left.”
“Why’s it always a pissing match with you two? Maybe he’d be easier on me if he hated you less.”
“I’ll never like the guy, Lemon. There’s not a chance in hell of it. The only way I see it getting better is if you leave.”
Her eyes lock with mine for the briefest of seconds, like she finally realizes I might have the power to end her nightmare. She won’t have to go to bed being someone she can’t even stand. She won’t have to wake up hating the fact that she woke up to live another day. For once, she can feel the warm sunshine on her face and stop fearing the morning.
“Do you remember when you made me try out for that TV show? I had to sing and dance in front of those judges?”
“Yeah, you were amazing. That’s the thing, Lemon—you can do anything you want. Whether it’s with Midnight Fate or something else, it’s your call. I got you out of the club, now you decide how far you take this—or if you give up on yourself and go back to the life you hate.”
“You really think I still have a shot?”
“If you mean Broadway, hell yeah, I do. You can start going to auditions and get onto a real stage here in the city.”
“It’s such a long shot.”
“That’s what life is, Lemon. You can’t succeed at the chances you don’t take.”
She smiles the first genuine smile I’ve seen since she got here. “Are you turning into Yoda or something?”
I grin, missing the way we used to bounce ideas off one another and argue about stupid shit that had nothing to do with abusive boyfriends, stripping, or drugs. “No, I’m just someone who cares.”
“I can’t figure out why, but thank you for not giving up on me.”
“Never,” I whisper, just as the door to my condo opens.
When I turn around, I expect it to be Noelle, and I’m anxious to introduce her to Lemon. Mostly because if I can get them on the same page, I think Noelle could be exactly what Lemon needs to get her on the right path. But when Dom, Easton, and Lark barge into the kitchen, stopping dead in their tracks once they spot Lemon dressed in my clothes, I’m pretty sure I’m about to get my ass kicked.
Easton steps forward, leaving Lark behind him like he has to protect her from me. “Start talking, Lane, because if you don’t, I’m pretty sure you’re going to lose it all.”
Lark covers her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking as she cries into them. “Ohmigod,” she mumbles over and over. “This isn’t happening. It can’t be happening.”
I ignore his threats because they mean shit to me. Right now, all I care about is finding my girlfriend. “Where the fuck is Noelle?”
Without batting a lash, and with no warning, Gina stands in front of me and punches me right in the face. “That’s for Noelle, asshole.”
I can smell the whiskey on Gina’s breath, her go-to drink when she’s trying to forget or get sloshed. She’s tiny, but the chick can pack a punch. After I check to see if my nose is bleeding, I stare at her half in shock that she really hit me. “Get out of my house.”
She recoils like I’m the one who punched her. With her words slightly slurred, she goes toe-to-toe with me. “I thought you were one of the good ones, Lane. But now I see you’re just an asshole. Fuck. You.” The way she punctuates each word only adds to the drama I’m pretty she won’t even remember in the morning.
As soon as she’s gone, Dom has no choice but to turn away from me and follow her. His loyalties lie solely with Gina, even though he’s been my friend a hell of a lot longer than he’s known her.
Lemon watches it all unfold, moving to stand next to me for support even though I can tell she wants to run away from it all. She reaches for my hand, linking our fingers, taking a risk even though it won’t do anything to help her cause. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “This is all my fault.”
The pain in her eyes only fuels my fire. I give my friends one more chance, begging them to tell me the truth. “Where is she?”
This time, Lark stands tall in front o
f her husband. “She heard you left with a damn stripper and took off. Smartest move she’s ever made.” I should have known she’d go to war for her best friend, pregnant and all.
Her sober words should hurt more than Gina’s drunken ones, but Lark cares too much about the two of us to say anything too vicious. That’s how I know that, even though Noelle left, she doesn’t believe in her heart that we’re over, no matter how bad it looks right now.
But Lark isn’t finished—she still has words for Lemon who she turns toward, growling as she says, “I hope you have a magical vagina, because you ruined two lives tonight. Two people who were perfectly matched and had a beautiful future together.”
“Lark,” I warn, just as Lemon runs into my bedroom, desperate to escape. It only pisses me off more. I don’t want her to be harassed in the one place she’s safe.
With an eerie calmness I can feel’s about to explode, I open the door to my condo, not uttering a single word as I wait for them to leave.
Lark backs into Easton’s chest, her tears returning when she thinks I’m choosing Lemon over everything else. Maybe a part of me is, but there’s too much she doesn’t know about, too many details that would be a game changer if she did, for me to stand here and waste any more time than I already have.
“I’m sorry,” Lark mouths. She says it twice more before she tries a softer approach. “She’s gone, Lane. Don’t you care?”
“If you knew me at all, Lark, you’d see this is me caring. Now, if you guys are done shitting all over my life, I need to try to find my girlfriend.”
“What about her?” Easton asks with a flick of his head toward my bedroom.
In an even tone, I decide to give it to them as straight as I can—not that I owe them anything. “There’ve only ever been two women in my life: the one I’m in love with, and the other I’ll always love.” My words aren’t going to make much sense to them, but time isn’t on my side tonight. If I haven’t already lost Noelle for good, I’ll have to work hard to get her back.
