Because you turn when I reach out
And ask yourself “what’s life all abou—
Noel literally choked. He choked on his own words, the words he’d sung tens of thousands of times before.
He choked because sitting next to Ewan was Autumn Chamberlain. The love of Noel’s life. The one that got away. The woman behind many of his Friday Experience songs.
The woman he’d wrung his heart out for over and over and over in performance and deed, like some doomed soul who was obligated to repeat the same tasks over and over to redeem himself from a life of flames.
Aye, that was Autumn, just as stunning as ever. She had ripened into a gorgeous beauty. Her lips were fuller, more sensuous, her cheekbones higher, if such a thing was possible. Her strawberry-blonde hair clung damply to her shoulders, as though she’d just come from a shower. Then just the idea of Autumn in the shower caused Noel’s prick to swell, and he had to make a bailout even sooner than expected. And, most importantly…What was she doing sitting right next to Ewan?
He told himself it was just a coincidence. His eyes kept darting to the exit door. Globs of textees who had already gotten the message were shoving their way in the main entrance, compressing the existing crowd into a tin of sardines.
Noel launched himself off the stage at the exact same split second that Autumn stood up. Since his forward momentum was already going to intersect with Autumn’s trajectory, he allowed hands to move him forward as he sang the final lines.
Insecurity
It’s there in you and me
But with you it’s gone to your head
And ruled your life instead
Of just being something to overcome
Noel handed a tech the wireless headset just as his two burly cowboys took his arms. They practically had him off the ground, running on air. Noel wheeled pointlessly in the strong grip of the rednecks. But the crowd was respectful and did nothing more than touch Noel’s sleeve, grab his arm, or worse—but he was used to that.
“To the Jeep?” asked the bodyguard.
“No, no,” yelled Noel. “See that woman in the chartreuse sweater?”
“What’s chartreuse?
“Nothing. See the curvy woman with the long blonde—”
“The babelicious hottie?”
“Aye, that one. I need to talk to her.”
“She’s running to that sedan, Mr. Butler.” His position had gone to his head, this bodyguard who insisted on calling him “Mr. Butler.”
“Then run faster, Orlando! Hi. Hey. Hey there. Hi. How’s it going. Hey.” Noel nodded and waved for all the lookie-loos with their cell phone cameras who clogged the parking lot, but he only had eyes for the black sedan that looked like a rental car. No one had told him Autumn was back in town. He’d googled her over the years and knew she’d attained her goal of becoming a lawyer, and seemed to be practicing for the DA’s office in Colorado. She must just be visiting for a short while. She was friends with Lacey and Katrina, and Noel saw them weekly, at least. No one had said a word to him.
Noel wasn’t even sure what he was going to say to Autumn. She had already put the key in the ignition when, to Noel’s mortification, Orlando slapped a hand against her window and loomed ominously. Autumn had such a fright she gasped and leaped in her seat, and Noel had to yank Orlando aside in order to give her a view of himself. Which may have been even more frightening, for Autumn didn’t close her jaw.
Damn, she was still savage gorgeous. She had bloomed, if anything, since the year of their ill-fated, immature affair. Her flawless, youthful skin looked dewy. She was only a few years younger than Noel himself, but she still beat all the younger babes to hell in the looks department. Noel just had to steel himself against her winning personality and abundant charm capturing his heart again.
“It’s me, Autumn. Let me in.”
Autumn actually seemed to think about it before pushing the button that unlocked the passenger door.
“You sure?” Orlando asked him.
“I think she’s safe.”
She locked the doors again once Noel got inside the sedan. Her face was impassive, unreadable. People leaned over the hood to click their photos.
“I’m sorry about this mess. Why don’t you drive down the street a bit?”
Wordlessly, she did. The crowd thinned out within a few blocks, allowing Noel to see there were way more people than could have ever fit into that small nightclub. It was a good thing he’d left when he did. Autumn pulled onto a side street and into someone’s driveway at the top of the hill. It was just a convenient place for her to park, and they could see the town lights from up here. Orlando and the other bodyguard Tom, driving the Jeep, parked a respectful distance downhill and cut the lights.
Noel faced her. They hadn’t spoken once since the last nasty breakup fight. Autumn had called him every name in the book as well as an ossified snake, and he’d called her a slag. “It’s so, so incredibly good to see you again,” he finally said all in a rush. He just wanted to reach out and touch her luminous face with his fingertips, but he didn’t dare. She was the one who’d dumped him. He never would have, despite his barbaric behavior. He was young. Everyone was young. Playing around was just what everyone did—back then. “I was shocked as hell to see you in the audience.”
Her face finally moved, and it was to quirk a smile. “Why? I live here.”
“Really? I mean—I thought you lived in Colorado.”
“And I thought you lived in Ireland. Or was that Provence, Central Park West, or the French Riviera?”
Of course she was bitter. His partying music lifestyle, the one she’d abhorred, had gained him nothing but fame and fortune. Noel was sincerely mortified about this almost all of the time, part of the reason he gave so much money away. “That’s true. It’s not like you went down to the Pit to see me perform. I’m sure you were there to watch Devin and talk to Lacey.”
Perhaps recalling old times, Autumn softened. “Yes. I was completely surprised to see you onstage. Just tonight Lacey told me you’re in town. It’s not like we sit around talking about you.”
“And why should you?” Noel demanded heatedly. He knew he was on the verge of getting carried away with how big of a nobody he was, such a tiny mouse in the greater kingdom of life blah blah blah. He needed to cut to the chase here. “You look purely stunning, Autumn. I heard you’re a lawyer now. That’s what you always wanted. That was your dream. I’m glad you fulfilled it.”
Autumn rolled her eyes. “Oh, cut the crap, Noel. We’re not stiff remote acquaintances—we never will be. You don’t need to be so formal with me. I know you don’t give a good goddamn whether or not I became a lawyer.” Her eyes seemed to brim with emotion as she reached out and—Noel didn’t dare hope for it—took his hands in hers. He eagerly grasped her hands, instantly making a note that she didn’t wear a wedding ring. She, too, turned to face him, squirming comfortably in her seat. “We had a lot of good times. The bad, too, of course. But I think the bad times tend to grow dimmer while the good…”
“Become sharper,” Noel agreed. He squeezed her hands again. “Autumn, I’ve thought so much about you the past fourteen years. I’m not one of those muppets who forgets everyone who helped them get where they are. I probably wouldn’t be in my position if it weren’t for you. Always encouraging me, giving me ideas, being my muse.”
Autumn removed one hand from his to hold it to her chest. “Me? Your muse? Oh, maybe by inspiring you to party more hearty all night long. You were never in a hurry to get home to me.”
“Don’t talk like that. I meant you inspired me to write certain lyrics.”
“Did I? Get out.”
“Seriously, Autumn. In fact, the song I just sang. That was you.”
She grasped her shirtfront and gaped. “That was me? No. Get out!”
“Well, listen to the lyrics. ‘I’ve given you things I’ve given no one else and helped you set your future up’—”
“My law career?
You almost ruined it, Noel!”
“—‘and waited for you to come back. Gave you hope to live upon and you threw it all away.’”
She wasn’t laughing now. “‘I cry for you every day.’”
Noel paused. He wasn’t about to sing that last part. He’d rather die than let her know he had done anything other than cry figuratively or poetically over her. It was embarrassing enough she knew he’d written the bad poetry about her, and had waited for her to come back from Berkeley to Lars’s garage. He rushed on, “See? Can’t you tell it’s about you? Okay, here’s the clincher. Look at the copyright on the back of that CD case. Two thousand. The year you moved to Berkeley. Who else would I have been writing about?”
Then Noel realized this could be an opening for her to introduce all sorts of lousy memories. She could easily say, “That stupid song could’ve been about any of those hundreds of bimbos you partied all night long with.” So he quickly changed the subject.
“We had good times,” he reminded her. “Remember all those great River Cats games?” He referred to the Sacramento minor league baseball team that played at Raley Field. They had both been big fans. Well, maybe Noel had been the only fan, he saw now in retrospect.
“Yes, those were fun. And all of those parties at Sam and Mia’s house.”
“Remember when we put a time capsule behind the wall at Sam and Mia’s? They were remodeling their kitchen, so we put a CD of some band—was it Matchbox Twenty, or was it Blink-182?”
“Noel! I think it was a CD you’d burned of your own music!”
“Oh, God!” Noel mourned how awful that seminal CD must have been. “Is Sam and Mia’s house still standing? I’m surprised the god of bad music didn’t smite it down.”
“Yes! I had dinner with Mia just last week. They’re divorced, of course, but she got the house. I’ll bet the CD is still behind her cupboard inside the wall. I’ll bet that CD is worth big bucks.”
Noel didn’t want to draw attention to his own fame. “What else did we put in there? I think we put a copy of Star magazine.”
“You were always reading that. It probably talked about Y2K and Pokémon.”
“Kid Rock and Eminem.” Noel was genuinely laughing now. “Didn’t we put a copy of The Blair Witch Project behind there?”
“That, or a copy of The Sixth Sense.”
She still had that slight overbite that caused them to call her “duckbill.” She was even more adorably enticing than ever, and Noel had to restrain himself from gathering her close to him. But he was carried away, and finally asked the question that had been foremost on his mind. “So did you never marry?”
She stopped laughing and looked out the window. “No, never. I’m surprised you didn’t either. But then I guess you don’t have to when you can have any woman you want.”
Noel didn’t know if this was a compliment or an insult. “Well, that’s pretty normal for my line of work.” He really didn’t want to bring up what had caused their demise—other women.
And that wasn’t the reason keeping them apart now. It had been exciting for a few minutes talking with Autumn and reminiscing, but he had to let her go again. He couldn’t even begin to entertain any notion of getting back together with her again. He was a far different man than the one she remembered. He doubted she wanted him back, anyway. Being a big rock star didn’t entitle one to every spoil on the planet. She was a successful lawyer. She probably had plenty of lawyer types to date.
So he said, honestly, “I never met anyone I wanted to marry. And there’s not all that much time or energy for that sort of thing on tour, not when you’re older than twenty-two. I can’t party anymore until six in the morning and then wring a decent day’s work out of myself.” It was true. He was the worst of the four band members about getting to bed early. Even the square, married Lars called him a little old lady.
She looked back to him. “It’s nice to see you’re growing up. I suppose I was a bit too grown up for you, and you weren’t grown up enough for me. Now it seems like we’ve met in the middle.”
Noel was surprised how eagerly he rushed to embrace this. “I think so, too. I know I was a dumb fucking gobshite back then, all full of myself, crusading to change the world.”
“Well. You did wind up changing the world. I read about all your causes. You talked a good talk back then about starving children or whatnot, but I never knew you’d walk the walk.”
Noel’s heart soared. Yes, he definitely had walked the walk the past ten years, what with his attending the G-20 summit and all of his charity work. But why was his heart soaring? I shouldn’t even be sitting here with Autumn. I’m giving her false hope. Or does she want hope, anyway? She was done with me a long time ago. “Aye, I’m sincere in my efforts to eradicate hunger. It’s a doable task.”
Noel fairly glowed with satisfaction, and Autumn smiled with an inner light, too. It would have been the perfect romcom moment to kiss her, but the bodyguard Orlando had different plans.
“Jefe.” Orlando smacked his big hands right up against Noel’s window. The guy liked to call him “boss,” too. “Hate to interrupt, but Ewan’s wondering when you’re coming back to Hardscrabble. Some assholes got out of hand at the Pit after we left, broke up a few tables because you didn’t play another song.”
“You’re fucking kidding.” Noel craned his neck, and saw that the silhouette in the Jeep he’d thought was Tom was really Ewan. Fucking hell. What the hell am I doing? I’m sitting alone in the dark with another woman. I have to get out of here. “Okay, Orlando. Tell him I’ll be right there.”
The bodyguard moved off soundlessly. Noel could see the hurt and confusion in Autumn’s face, or was he just flattering himself? He squeezed the hand that he still held in his.
“Autumn. It’s been great seeing you.”
“But you have to go. I understand. I just met a Ewan earlier tonight. Is he the one from Devin’s ranch?”
“Aye.” At this awkward point, the less said the better, so Noel regretfully gave Autumn’s hand one last squeeze. “We should keep in touch.”
She yanked her hand back. “And Facebook each other, right. Okay, Noel. Nice seeing you.” She turned the key in the ignition, and Noel had no choice but to get out of the car.
Already a huge loneliness and sense of loss overcame Noel as he trudged down the hill. A thousand emotions swept through him. Why was he feeling such loss when he’d lost Autumn fourteen years ago? He was probably still feeling a residual sorrow since she’d ripped that bandage off anew with her appearance in Hell’s Delight. What the fuck is she doing here, anyway? If she’s such a successful attorney, why is she hanging around Hell’s Delight? I give of myself and I get nothing back.
He realized he was raging against Autumn in order to shove her away from him again. If he belittled her, she wouldn’t be able to affect him any longer. That’s what he’d done after she’d dumped him. He’d raged against her, and wallowed in his friends’ rage against her. They’d called Autumn every name in the book as a way of saying they didn’t want her around, anyway.
Why do I care so much? I can’t have Autumn anyway. I’m spoken for. And I can’t even tell anyone about it.
Ewan apparently couldn’t wait for Noel to get into the Jeep. The rear door nearly kneecapped Noel as Ewan leaped out eagerly, and Noel agilely sidestepped it. Ewan grabbed him by the upper arms and smashed him back against the Jeep, pinning him fast with the pressure of his hips.
Ewan wove his fingers through Noel’s spiky hair and spoke against his mouth. “I got jealous when I saw you running after that woman. I know who she is.”
Noel twined his fingers around the back of Ewan’s skull. The tall, sinewy cowboy was usually submissive to him, but once in a while he switched it up. Like now. “Don’t pay any attention to her.” Noel licked Ewan’s luscious lips. “She’s from the past.”
“Good. I just got insecure for a second. I know you were together for a long time.”
“Only a year,” said N
oel, and plunged his tongue down Ewan’s throat.
He was swept up and lost in the kiss. Ewan had been his life, his everything for almost a year now. It was a serious love affair—that was the only way Noel could ever justify sinking his mouth down around another man’s cock, for instance—but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to quite come out of the closet with it. That was the big decision he’d been sitting on top of for a long time now. Ewan was getting pretty antsy for him to come clean, too.
Maybe this was the incentive he needed. As Noel deepened the kiss, opening his mouth over Ewan’s and sucking on his lover’s tongue, a car’s headlights swept over them. Noel almost froze as Ewan began gyrating his hips, massaging his erection over Noel’s.
Autumn. The erotic spell was broken. Noel had been so lost in his own little world he hadn’t realized that Autumn hadn’t driven downhill yet.
Now, as she did, she had a good eyeful of the back of Ewan’s shapely, jeans-clad ass as he ground into Noel.
Chapter Three
The men were hungrily kissing before Noel even unlocked the front door.
At first, it seemed that this might be one of the few times Noel allowed Ewan to dominate him. The whole way back home in the Jeep, Ewan had straddled Noel on the bench seat. He had swiveled his cock against Noel’s, mashing the two erections together so hard that a few times, Ewan had felt about to come. They had kissed deeply, soulfully, with the passion of two new lovers. Which they pretty much were, because Noel hadn’t quite surrendered to the reality that he was caught smack in the middle of an intense and homosexual love affair. Noel didn’t allow Ewan to spend the night at his house often. He was still too afraid of paparazzi lurking in the bushes.
Three Times a Lady [Hell's Delight 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 3