Under the Cornerstone

by Sasha Marshall

Anna Belle calls and leaves a message while I’m in Noley’s bed, advising me she’s flying to New York to see me again. Panic almost rips through me, but I resolve myself to dealing with her, and not allowing her to fuck up what I’m feeling right now. I’ve already blocked three numbers to keep her from calling, so I have no idea how else to get rid of the girl.

  I almost tell Noe everything before she shows up tonight at the show and potentially sees the girl, but I’m hoping I’m able to get rid of her and then I can spend the rest of the night with the woman who owns me.

  We find Anna Belle at the back door of Saul’s. Jimmy threatens to slap a restraining order on her, and she in turn threatens to sell her two sexual encounters with me to the press. Jimmy contacts the label and lets them deal with her, and then Jimmy lets her know she isn’t welcome on Saul’s property, per Saul, and if she violates his wishes, we’ll have her arrested for trespassing. She only smiles like a Cheshire cat and walks away out of the alleyway.

  “Noe is here,” Jimmy says as he reads a text on his phone and leaves the back room to bring her back here to me.

  I’m up and pacing the room when the door shuts, anxious to see her. I pull on the ends of my hair as the excitement hits me. She’ll be on the side of the stage again tonight, where she belongs. The thought alone makes my heart lighten. I haven’t felt this good in six fucking months.

  Fuck it. I can’t wait for her anymore.

  I open the door and the blonde hair is all I see in the shadows before she takes me and pushes me against the wall with her hands clawing at my chest. I quickly turn her so her back is against the wall and dive into her mouth. I’m kissing her for the first time in six months. Fuck, I can’t believe she came back her for me like this. A man can hope, but he doesn’t hope for much when he’s fucked it all up.

  Once the shock of the situation wears off, I realize something isn’t right. She doesn’t kiss the same. She doesn’t taste the same.

  I open my eyes and pull back only to discover Anna Belle against me.

  “Fuck!” I scream. “Get off me!”

  I push away from the wall and turn just in time to see Noely, Sabrina, Roxy, and Jimmy. They’re walking away from me instead of towards me. No. No. No. No. Fucking no!

  “Noely!” I shout after her.

  She doesn’t stop, instead she’s walking away faster. She saw me kiss her.

  Fuck, Noe. I thought she was you.

  “Fuck! Noely! Wait!” I beg.

  She finally stops and turns around to face me. She’s smiling at me like she didn’t see a thing, but her lip is slightly quivering through her smile.

  She saw, and no one else sees that quivering lip, but I do, and it slays me in two right where I stand.

  I look down at her big, blue eyes, “Noely.”

  One word. A plea. An apology.

  I look deep into her eyes and beg her to drop the smile and the mask so I can comfort her. I need to explain everything that has happened with Anna Belle.

  “Hey. We were going to get a shot. You want one?” she asks with a chipper tone.

  It’s not a real chipper tone, because that fucking lip is still quivering because of me.

  I look down at her and then my eyes drop down to her hot little body. I take my time getting my fill. I don’t hide it. I forget we’re surrounded by people, no matter which direction we turn in this place.

  I take another step towards her, “Noely, I was going…”

  Jimmy interrupts me, “Shots! Noely wants shots!”

  They drag her away from me. I want to scream at them all to bring her back to me. She’s mine. Don’t take her away when she doesn’t fucking understand.

  Aaron slaps a hand on my back to get my attention, “Phone call from the label. Rich says they want to talk to you.”

  I walk back down the hallway, looking out for Anna Belle the entire walk back. I can’t find her crazy ass anywhere.

  Rich hands me the phone and I talk to a suit who advises that I shouldn’t do anything drastic with Anna Belle. Her father’s some politician in Mississippi and he’ll try to nail us all to a cross if his darling little girl cries one tear. He promises he’s working on getting her away from me, but for now I have to grin and bear through it.

  I hand Rich the phone.

  “Glad we got that settled,” Anna Belle says and I whip around in surprise to find her in the corner of the room.

  “What the fuck do you want?” I ask her.

  “You,” she answers.

  “You can’t fucking have me. I’m a goddamn person!” I scream at her.

  “Don’t make me cry, Johnny,” she warns.

  Her words slap me in the face as I remember what the label says. I glare at her.

  “I don’t want anything to do with you. Stay the fuck away from me,” I warn her.

  The door opens and Ryan asks, “Where the fuck have you been?”

  “I found these three beautiful women,” Jimmy answers.

  “Noely baby!” Ryan pulls her into a hug, and Rich follows suit.

  Fuck it. I’m telling her everything about this psycho right now.

  I take a step towards her, “I…”

  Noely cuts me off, “You must be Annie Belle.”

  What the fuck?

  Anna Belle beams with a smile and winks at me, “It’s Anna Belle. It’s so nice to finally meet you! The guys talk about you all the time.”

  What?

  “I’ve heard a lot of great things about you as well. It’s nice to finally meet you,” Noely says.

  You didn’t hear anything great about her from this tour. What are you talking about Noe?

  I look over at Jimmy who winks at me.

  What the fuck did he do?

  Anna Belle and Noe continue to talk while I try to figure out what the fuck is going on. Then Noe walks towards the door.

  “Noe…” I try to stop her.

  Jimmy yells over me, “Fuck yeah! Noles is getting fucked tonight!”

  I race behind them and call her name out like a fucking prayer, “Noely.”

  “Noely!” my eyes fill with moisture.

  She stops and turns around with a smile the size of Texas on her beautiful face, but that goddamn lip is still quivering, “Make beautiful music, Johnny Love.”

  I beg her, “Come ‘ere.”

  She hesitates but finally wraps her arms around my neck, “Good luck tonight.”

  She presses a kiss to my cheek, and walks away from me leaving me with a feeling of defeat and hopelessness. I watch her walk away, but my heart speeds up when she turns around to look at me again, like she changed her mind. I deflate when I feel Anna Belle saddle up next to me and do her best to show Noely we’re a couple. I close my eyes and take a deep, cleansing breath before I strangle this bitch.

  I open my eyes and that lip is quivering with no reserve now. Noe’s eyes glisten with unshed tears.

  I open my mouth to tell her everything, but she beats me to the punch, “Good luck. Welcome home.”

  “You’re a fucking cunt!” I yell at Anna Belle. “Stay away from me. I mean it. I don’t give a fuck who your father is. You aren’t welcome back here or on the side of the stage. Do you hear me?!!” I end screaming at her, hoping to get it through her thick skull.

  “As you wish,” she says and saunters off.

  I let out a sigh and get ready to go play, but not before downing two shots to take off the edge.

  We take the stage and I instantly look for Noely on the side. She’s not there. I look at Ryan and Rich. Ryan points to the bar, on the opposite end of the building. I finally find her, but her back is to me.

  Noe, you belong up here, baby.

  I don’t have enough time to fix this shit, not like I want to, so I swallow it all down and play. She’s here in the same building with me while I play for her, and that’s more than I’ve had in six months.

  I watch her throughout the set, hoping to catc
h her eyes, but she never turns around. I want her eyes so I can sing to her. I want her to look inside of me and see what’s really fucking here.

  Some asshole walks up to her and jealousy courses through me, spiking my blood pressure. I sing while I watch her. She doesn’t appear to give him the time of day, but she looks at him long enough for me to see the side of her face, and even from here I can see the sadness etched all over it.

  I’m this close to telling her everything over this fucking mic.

  I watch her body language and then the bartender’s, Donnie. They both seem to be telling him to fuck off. The asshole isn’t getting the message and leans in Noe’s face. I turn around to find help from somebody on this stage or on the side of it. I catch Jimmy staring at the situation unfold at the bar. My eyes find Rich and he’s shaking his head at me.

  Hold it together, man.

  I manage to hold my shit together for a minute, until he grabs her arm. Donnie jumps into the mix before my mind can even comprehend that a man put his fucking hand on what’s mine. Donnie and the prick are talking shit and then that motherfucker slaps Noe in the face.

  “What the fuck?” Rich asks over the mic.

  I miss the next note, my guitar screeches through the speakers. I sit it down on the stage and then jump that motherfucker. The crowd attempts to pull me back as my desperation to get to her increases by the fucking second. Rich, Ryan, Jimmy, Roxy, and Sabrina join me with some security members and we’re finally able to get to the bar.

  We brawl like the motherfuckers we are when all this asshole’s friends show up. I throw punch after punch at anyone who gets in my way. I’m trying to get to my girl, but I can’t find her through all these big ass cats fighting, so I keep fighting back.

  I’m pulled back and look over my shoulder to find Rich, Ryan, and three security guards hauling Jimmy towards the back. Two security guards are pulling on me, but I continue to fight towards Noely. I’m not leaving here without her.

  “Fuck, come on, Johnny,” one of the guards pleads.

  “I’m not leaving here without her!” I scream at him. “He fucking hit her!”

  “I’ll get Noles!” Donnie pops up and offers with a busted lip.

  The guards continue to drag me off, but I hold my ground the best I can waiting to see her face and that she’s okay.

  “You’re going to start a fucking riot out here, son,” Saul stands in front of me.

  “I’m not going any-fucking-where until I see she’s okay,” I tell him.

  “Donnie went to get her. Get your ass in the back!” Saul demands.

  I let the guards walk me to the back hallways that leads to the band room. I pace the hallway, just waiting for her.

  “What’s taking so fucking long?” I ask and throw a punch at the wall. “Where’s Jimmy?”

  “He’s out back. Can’t come back in until he gets his head straight, or he’ll have to buy Saul a new bar,” a guard named Larry says.

  That’s the fucking truth.

  I keep pacing. I pull out a cigarette and light it, and shoot glares at the two bouncers who are in between me and Noely. The panic rises up. What if someone knocked her out and took off with her? Fuck! What if she left and didn’t give me a chance to explain all the shit she thinks she saw tonight?

  “Fuck!” I pull on the ends of my hair and flick the cigarette at the wall. “Go fucking find her!” I scream at Larry and the other guy.

  They’re sitting back here worried about me when they need to be out there finding her.

  “Calm down!” Larry shouts at me.

  “Go find her!” I scream back and start towards the end of the hallway to find her my damn self.

  They fight to keep me back, but I’ve had enough. I’ve waited too fucking long for someone to find her.

  Larry yells over his shoulder, “Would somebody please go get Noely so he’ll calm the fuck down?”

  I fight against both of these big guys, fight to find my girl.

  “Johnny,” she says and I instantly stop fighting.

  I find her face and see a red mark on her jaw, “Noely?”

  It takes everything I have not to break down right here and cry like a bitch.

  “I’m right here,” she says, but she’s still behind Larry and his guy.

  “If I let you go, you better take your ass to that back room and stay there until I come to get you,” Larry tells me.

  They let go of me, but won’t let me take one step in Noe’s direction.

  “You okay?” I ask her as my voice cracks with emotion.

  She lies, “I’m fine.”

  She’s not fine.

  Jimmy sticks his head in with a big ass grin on his face, and two guards pulling him back out of the building. He looks at Noe, “Can you get pretty boy cleaned up?”

  “Yeah,” she tells him.

  She finally, fucking finally, steps between the two guards that flank me, and as soon as I can reach her I grab her by the waist. I pull her against my body and then walk us to the nearest wall. I look down at her and almost kiss her when she turns her head away from me.

  I lean down until my nose brushes against her cheek, “What hurts, Noely baby?”

  She sounds completely devoid of any emotion, “Nothing. He barely touched me.”

  I squeeze her hips, “I saw him grab you and disrespect you.”

  “He was just being an asshole because I told him to fuck off.”

  Larry interrupts us, “Get him in the back room.”

  She slips underneath one of my arms and heads towards the back room.

  I turn to Larry, “Nobody gets through.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I’m on her heels by the time we reach the door, so I grab her wrist and try to pull her back to me. She snatches her wrist from me, and that shit cuts deep.

  She points to a table on the wall and says, “Sit down over there while I find the shit to clean you up.”

  She’s pissed at me. I have to tell her everything.

  “Noely, listen…”

  “NO!” she screams at me so loud, I startle. “You listen! Sit your ass down so I can clean you up! End of story!”

  I swallow hard and watch her search for first aid supplies.

  I can’t take the silence, “You weren’t on the side of the stage.”

  Nothing.

  “Noely,” I beg.

  “Stop. Just stop it,” her voice cracks.

  She stands in front of me with the supplies and out of instinct, I reach for her face. She steps away, and I swear you can hear my heart fucking breaking. She cleans me up while I stare at her. I don’t give a fuck that she knows I’m staring. How can someone stand so close to you, yet be so far away. I can’t stand the distance a second longer, so I place my hands on her hips and pull her to me. I kiss the center of her chest and feel how fast her heart beats.

  Does her heart beat that fast for me?

  “Your lip is busted,” she says.

  Doesn’t she get it? All I need is her in my arms like she was this morning. I want her there willingly and at peace. I’d do anything.

  “I don’t fucking care.”

  “It’ll get infected,” she counters.

  “I. Don’t. Fucking. Care.” I reply as my body trembles. “You weren’t on the side of the fucking stage. I waited six months to see you there again.”

  I taste her a little each time I speak and my lips move against her chest. She continues to stop the bleeding above my eye, and then checks the rest of me over, but I’m too busy looking at her to pay attention to what she’s doing.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful. The tattoos, the piercing, the clothes… fuck, I though you couldn’t be more beautiful before I left,” I say without thinking.

  I realize, someone else will one day see her the way I see her. One day a good man will find her, and I’ll lose her forever.

  She ignores my compliments and backs away from
me. Then she changes the subject by telling me to take my shirt off. I have to remind myself she asked me to take it off so she can look at a wound, but that isn’t where my mind first went.

  “Take off the fucking shirt or I’m out of here,” she says and looks down at her feet.

  She can’t leave.

  I shove off the table, capturing her attention, and then I rip the shirt off my head and toss it behind me. I stalk towards her, so she takes the coward’s way out and looks back down at her shoes.

  “Look at me, Noely,” I growl.

  “Your shoulder or I’m out,” she says.

  I’ll play her way.

  I pick her up and place her on the table I just left, and then lean down with my hands on either side of her, “Clean my shoulder, Noely.”

  “Lean back,” she says with anger in her voice. “Somebody got you with a beer bottle.”

  “Clean it,” I clip out, as I try to hold my shit together so I don’t maul her.

  “Butterfly stitches should hold it,” she says a few minutes later.

  She cleans the blood from my hands and arms and then she walks towards the door without a fucking word. I jump from the table and close her in to prevent her from leaving.

  My lips touch her ear as I beg, “Don’t leave me again.”

  “Let me go, Johnny,” she softly demands, but I can hear the tears in her voice.

  “You’re running from me. You’re scared. I was going to let you live your life… find a better man. But you let me inside of you. Then you let me inside of you again, and I can’t go back from that. We can’t go back, Noe.”

  I’m dying every day without you.

  “We have to go back,” she whispers.

  She tries to fight the shit I know she feel inside. God, she fights, she’s a goddamn soldier, but I break her down. Then she lets me slide inside of her for the third time in my life.

  “You were with her,” she lashes out at me.

  “I was chasing away your demons. Twice, I tried to chase you away, but I pretended it was you the entire time. I had to ask her to be quiet because I couldn’t do it when she didn’t sound like you. It’s fucked up, Noely. You got me all fucked up. You let me inside of you. I begged you to tell me to stop that first night. I wanted to wash away what he did to you. I wanted to show you what it was supposed to be like… with me.”