by Becky Wicks
'It will just be us, and close friends,' she says and I find myself pulling her further towards me, resting my hands on her hips just as my mom and the Commander walk in. They both smile for a moment. They know what's going on and neither have said a word to us. I think they're afraid of cursing it, like we cursed it ourselves for so long. They're probably gossiping like crazy people behind closed doors, like everyone else.
'I'll come tomorrow,' I tell Chloe, planting a kiss on her forehead. Right now, I'd do anything this girl asked me to.
49
Chloe
My heart is racing as I work the room on my high heels. The Commander is pouring champagne into tall glasses, handing them out to those who've already arrived. She's wearing her best blue two-piece. Alyssa, dressed in a vintage purple dress and black heels is giving the eyelash flutters to Sebastian again as they half organize the booklets for the raffle and half help themselves to the mini pies and sandwiches. It was so sweet of him and Jeremy to come.
Zayne's not here. I guess I can understand that. I told him I'd email him more from tonight.
I'm lighting candles on the tables when the door opens and Noah walks in with Denzel. The staff close the curtains at the windows behind him as a gaggle of paps try to snap him outside and I don't miss the discomfort he's emitting as he lifts his dark glasses, lowers his hood and everyone turns. I watch his beautiful face searching the crowd for me and my heart screams for him until he's literally staring right into my eyes. He lifts his hand.
I walk through the dimly lit café, past the tinsel-decorated bar towards him. I'm warm in my polka dot, skin-tight dress. My hair is piled on top of my head, as styled by Alyssa, who's watching us now. I can feel her eyes on me.
'He's a fucking legend and you're his muse,' she sighed into her wine glass last night as we sat on the cushions by her fireplace, talking about everything. 'Jack told me once when he was drunk that he regretted introducing you to Cooper.'
My heart rose in my throat. 'When?'
'Years ago. He said if it wasn't for him, you would've been with Noah.'
Looking at Noah now, walking towards me in his dark blue pants and a black shirt that shows off every line and ridge of his body, I know I was right when I told Alyssa that no, it wasn't the right time back then. It could only have happened now. We weren't ready before. We didn't know the severity of what we were really doing to each other when we made love up in the tree house, but we know it now.
Watching him I can feel my skin start to tingle. I'm burning to feel him close to me again already and it was only last night, when I was back from Alyssa's and she was out with Sebastian, that we pressed ourselves together on the carpet swirls in my bedroom. The islands we used to play on so innocently don't quite seem so pure anymore, but when I'm surrendering my soul beneath him now I'm not afraid, or guilty. Not anymore. Because we're all just atoms and rumors and earth in the end. We have to live in the moment.
Before Noah reaches me, his eyes catch the wall and he stops. My heartbeat increases, waiting for his reaction but he turns to me and back to the wall in surprise. 'Chloe...'
I reach his side, look up at him. 'Do you like them?' I ask and he lifts me up in an instant in his solid arms, spins me round and presses his lips to mine. I can feel my cheeks blazing, feel everyone staring. It's the first time he's kissed me in public and my palms are sweating and I'm embarrassed but I block it out, even as Alyssa whoops, loudly.
'Pan, you did all this?' he says, putting me down.
I nod, feeling flustered, smoothing down my dress and catching my mom smiling at us, looking amused. The walls of The Laughing Goat are covered in my photos -- twenty of them in frames. 'Alyssa helped,' I say, pointing over to where Sebastian is literally dangling a carrot in front of her nose, covered in hummus. I took most of them on the tour but I never showed anyone; never put any on the blog.
The exhibition, 'Fame Under Wraps' is a collection of what I call pauses. There's the back of Noah's head looking out at the screaming fans in a stadium. There's Ryder with his head in his hands, deep in thought, Denzel on his BlackBerry looking angry, Zayne's fingers whipping over the bass fret and The Great Catsby prowling like a royal through a crowd of teenagers pointing cell phones. There's Jack, watching Noah singing Peter Pan for the first time in Vail, looking so proud he's almost bursting. I emailed everyone involved, told them what I was doing, except Noah.
'It's the truth,' I explain. 'What no one else gets to see.'
'They're amazing,' he tells me, taking them all in before running a finger lightly across my lips. There's wonder in his eyes. 'You're so talented!'
'Even these?' I say nervously, pointing to one of my mom watching the TV, next to another of Jack's hospital room and a crowd of reporters outside.
'It's the truth,' he agrees, and I can't help smiling under his next kiss as I realize there's mistletoe above us and he hasn't even seen it.
I'll tell him later how Alyssa also sent photos of the exhibition, plus copies of the shots themselves to the editor of We Are Living -- only the biggest frickin' lifestyle magazine in New York. She didn't tell me till today, when he wrote back to see if I would meet him when I'm back in the city. He also said a gallery owner he knows in Manhattan is excited to move the exhibition there, if I want.
I'm kind of looking forward to finally quitting Shimmer.
Cooper's walking up to us in a gray designer suit. I feel myself tense, but I know he's friends with Jack and he was good to us that day when he helped us to the hotel, so I invited him. I hold Noah's hand, tight.
'Seeing as it's the night for photos, I thought I'd give this back to you,' Cooper says. I frown as I take the print he's holding out. It's Noah, eight-years-old, kissing my cheek as I clutch his giant guitar across my tiny body. My eyes are shining and my heart soars at the memory. But then I realize where he got it.
'You took this,' I say, 'from the box, with the other one?'
He shrugs sheepishly. 'I was planning to sell it when you got together.'
'What?' Noah and I say at the same time.
'Well, we all knew you would, eventually, right?' He locks his blue eyes into mine for a second and I swallow, but they soften and I know our secret is safe. 'Look, Chloe, I wanted you to know I've gone back to college, the drugs are...' he pauses, looks around him, 'the drugs are gone. I don't wanna be that person anymore; you were right, I was a fucking loser, I risked your life, your reputation. I'm so sorry. I would have killed anyone who treated you like I did.'
He rubs his tired-looking eyes. 'And I'm so sorry about what happened to Jack. I always liked him more than you, Lockton,' he admits with a wry smile.
'It's OK, man,' Noah says, surprising me. I note how he's holding my heart at the same time as he's holding my hand and for a split second I feel guilty all over again that Cooper never made me feel this way; but he's looking at us like he gets it. Like he always got it. Like he knows he never quite had me back, after he realized I'd slept with Noah. And guilt never got me anywhere, anyway.
He reaches for his vapo pen, remembers it's not there and sighs in frustration. I really hope he lasts at college.
Noah pulls me into a corner. He takes an envelope out of his pocket and hands it to me. 'Open it,' he says.
I lift the fold, pull out a piece of paper. It's a print out of an airline ticket. 'Bali?' I gasp, feeling my eyebrows shoot up as I read the details. 'Leaving the day after Christmas? Noah, are you sure?' My pulse quickens. Already I can see it. Already I can feel us, naked, laughing, crying, losing ourselves in one another, barely coming up for air. I can hardly speak.
He takes my hand, laces his fingers through mine, looks down into my eyes. 'I'm sending mom and dad to the Maldives for a break with Jack and Dani. I want us to be alone, where no one will bother us,' he tells me. 'Not that the tree house isn't romantic, but there's a small resort in the jungle that will give us more room to play.' He brushes my bangs aside as I flush, and smile. 'I booked ten days. No one will follow us
, no one will get to us. Just you and me, Pan. We'll have shitty horror night, every night. How does that sound? Will you come with me?'
I'm half laughing, half crying now, searching his face, shaking my head. But instead of saying anything I throw my arms around him. My heart expands till there isn't enough space in this cafe, in this town, in this state to love him, or to want him any more than I do right now.
As he kisses me again, locked tight in his protective arms I can feel the firecrackers start to sizzle. But I feel it slowly, too, filling me out and making me whole - the love that's now creeping into all my corners. The more time I'm with Noah, the more it courses through me, faster and faster and faster, till it's all there is. With every second that passes I'm falling harder than I ever thought it possible to fall.
It's terrifying, the thought of losing this and more, the thought of more people following us, throwing me into the lights when all I want to do is stay a shadow. But at the same time I know I have to do whatever it takes to be Noah's best friend... and everything else in between.
'I'm so in love with you,' he whispers into my ear.
'I'm stitched and tied and stuck like glue,' I sing softly, and he smiles, rolling his eyes at his own song.
'I told Denzel I'm quitting Twitter,' he says. 'He acted like I told him I was chopping off my hands. But I'm done with all that shit, I just want to make music, Chloe, and I want to make love to you, I really do. All night, forever, for the rest of my life. Is that crazy?' He's tracing a finger down my cheek, my neck, over Tinker-Bell and I shiver as a wild desire courses through me.
'It's crazy,' I agree. 'The Twitter thing, more than anything else.'
He grins, tilts my chin, kisses my lips, then my fingers. 'I'll never do anything to hurt you on purpose, you know that right?'
'I know, Noah, it's OK.'
He sighs against my forehead. 'Things are still crazy. I can't promise it won't be hard.'
I squeeze his fingers. 'We'll figure it out,' I tell him. And I know we will. Ever since my dad died I've been picturing the end of my own life in a multitude of stupid ways, feeling more scared of death, of loss, than I've ever let on, even to Noah. The scariest things in life always surprise us. But so do incredible moments, moments that shake us to our core, change us, challenge us, shape us, make us feel alive! We should never block those moments out, or push them away because, well... all we are is faith and trust and pixie dust, right? All we have is now.
I can't wait to see Mads again -- to tell her he fought for me. Noah Lockton came back like the ocean waves on the beach. And this time, I'm letting him carry me away.
The End
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Before She Was Deserted (HotFlush #2)
COMING SOON
When her rock star boyfriend leaves her in the lurch, Alyssa applies to hit reality TV show Deserted to escape the pain and media frenzy. To her shock she gets through. Abandoned on a remote island with a bunch of strangers and none of the luxuries she’s become accustomed to, it’s not long before the real world is kicking her ass.
The quiet and mysterious Joshua has her head spinning from day one, not least because he doesn't seem to like her, but as a series of challenges test their wits and weaknesses in the wilderness, thing heat up fast and the two find themselves falling for each other, hard. But it seems Joshua is hiding a painful secret… one he can’t risk anyone finding out.
When her newfound fan-base and survival skills bring Sebastian to his senses, Alyssa will have to choose - a life in the spotlight with her celebrity boyfriend, or a life of true meaning that heartbreakingly, may just have its limits.
Book Two of the HotFlush Series will be out in August 2014. Like my Facebook page for updates!
The Extraordinary Life of Lara Craft (not Croft) by Lola Salt
Lola Salt is the pen name for two authors; Becky Wicks and Sarah Alderson.
After losing her job and her boyfriend on the same day, Lara's beginning to wonder if her life can possibly get any worse. Then along comes Jamie, a childhood friend, offering her a job delivering mysterious packages to random destinations around the world and suddenly things are looking up.
Lara packs her bags and sets off on an epic adventure, meeting billionaire Arabic Princes, rugged cowboys, a sparkling wannabe vampire, a love guru with sex on the brain, and Angelina Jolie's bodyguards along the way. But though trouble always seems to find Lara, it seems love is rather more elusive.
Pack your bags. And your whip. The adventure's about to begin.
Get The Extraordinary Life of Lara Craft (not Croft) now from Amazon.com
or read on for the first two chapters.
Chapter One
‘I can’t believe he fired me!’ Lara cried, flinging herself onto the sofa.
Lucy nodded sympathetically, pouring half a bottle of cheap Chardonnay into a chipped IKEA glass and shoving it hastily in Lara’s direction.
‘I know I shouldn’t care,’ Lara huffed. ‘I mean, do you know how many lame jokes I used to get every time I told people about my job? Everyone used to think I was a clown. Or that I rode an elephant, like Reese Witherspoon in that movie with Edward Cullen.’
Halfway through her third glass of wine, Lara’s mind was skidding and sliding as fast as a teacup ride. She was finding it hard to pinpoint her feelings. Alongside the raging humiliation of being dumped, flared the red-hot indignation of being given the boot, as though some cruel God had decided to visit on her every possible ounce of bad luck in the universe, all on the same day. She was amazed she hadn’t been run over by a bus on the way home.
Though Lara really should have been too heartbroken over Carlos breaking up with her to care about her job, she was starting to feel pangs of nostalgia for the troupe of exotic burlesque dancers and aerial artists she’d left behind. And just as they were about to begin their tour of Paris and Barcelona, too. The timing was unbelievably crap.
She’d worked for the Cirque du Feteesh-Folie since leaving Uni, which made her feel quite old when she came to think of it. But then again, she was still only twenty-seven, and according to Lucy there was plenty of time to fix up her life.
‘It just sucks. My life sucks balls,’ Lara whined, the doubt setting in once again as she held the well-used glass to her chest and stared into the Chardonnay abyss. While admittedly, she’d once shuddered at the thought of moving to zone four and spending her days hanging out with an NCT group, discussing pelvic floors and baby vomit and how the bin men never came when they were supposed to, now that she found herself unemployed, in the middle of a recession, with no reference, no boyfriend and precisely one pound thirty eight in her bank account, the odd NCT coffee morning suddenly didn’t seem like such a bad option. She’d even take an accountant for a husband, if one came along.
Lara sighed deeply. All her friends were now starting to get married and pop the babies out, like robots on a reproduction program setting. This, she supposed, was inevitable as they approached thirty, but it made Lara feel a bit like they were all crossing some sort of finishing line and collecting medals for a race she hadn’t even started to run yet.
Her share of the rent was due soon and she had absolutely no idea how she was going to pay it. Truth be told, she didn’t even like her boxy bedroom in this South London flat, what with its faint odour of mothballs and her ex-boyfriend’s sweaty old Lycra onesies, but she couldn’t admit that because Lucy was her best friend and she owned the place.
Lara finished her wine in three giant swallows, knowing she was going to regret it. The headache was already starting to hammer against her skull with relentless determination. ‘It was a stupid job. It didn’t even pay that m
uch… and Derek was a total arsehole,’ she mumbled, more to herself than to her friend.
Derek was the circus boss; the man who’d fired her when she’d refused to put on a tutu and shag him over his desk. She knew she should sue him for sexual harassment, but the thought alone made her head pound harder. She didn’t want to have to think about him, his roving hands, or his hideous, stale Marlboro breath ever again; let alone face him.
Lara wasn’t lying to Lucy though. It was a stupid job. She’d spent her time organising hotels and travel, booking physios and massages, ensuring sixty performers were all suitably sober enough each evening to apply their nipple tassels, jock straps and feather tails, and of course, that they chalked their hands before taking hold of the trapeze bars.
Although it hadn’t been written in her job description, she'd also had to oil muscles, stuff tights and pants with socks, soothe tired wrists with Reiki, glue sequins to butt cheeks, bandage sprains and, on occasion, fire people when Derek realised that whoever he’d hired solely out of a desire to shag, just wasn’t interested in him. He was after all, a bald, pot-bellied excuse of a man with permanent food stains on his shirt and a questionable fondness for spending time alone with the circus donkeys.
‘You were way over-qualified anyway, babe,’ Lucy murmured kindly. ‘You really only stayed there that long because of Carlos, right?’
Lara bit her lip at the thought of Carlos, her ex-boyfriend and one of the aerial artists in the circus. He was world famous (well, in the British Isles) for his swinging pendulum act. She’d been twenty-two when she’d met him on a university research trip to the circus. They’d been gathering information for a project on Coulrophobia, which was, as she usually had to point out to people, a very interesting study on why exactly clowns continue to scare the shit out of everybody the whole world over. She never did find out.