“Yeah.” Noah had enjoyed that restaurant too. It was run by a family of six who all seemed genuinely happy to be part of a family business. No hidden surliness or frustrated ambitions.
The eldest son, Luca, worked the door and took care of the guests. The father was the head chef, with the only daughter in the family his apprentice. The mother was a pastry chef in charge of desserts, and the two younger sons waited tables. One was studying management, the other human relations, both in preparation for opening a second family-run place.
Noah knew all that because Luca had sat down with him, Esteban, and the guys during their first visit. They’d ended up being the last people in the place that night, but rather than hurrying them out, the kitchen had sent out extra platters full of delicious bites, and the younger sons had kept topping up their drinks.
Needless to say, the five of them had left a gigantic tip.
“Here.” He passed Abe his phone. “Give them a call while I drive. They might be full up—it was a popular place the last time we were there. Number’s under Meluchi.”
Abe made the call, and from what Noah heard, it appeared the person on the other end well remembered their table. “We in?” he asked Abe after the other man hung up with a laugh.
“Yeah.” Abe put the phone in the cup holder. “They’re setting up an extra table for us on the patio. Apparently it won’t have a view, but fuck the view, I want the food.”
Noah grinned. “Yeah.” He glanced reflexively at his phone when it vibrated, but it wasn’t Kit’s face that filled the screen, the shot one he’d taken back before he’d destroyed them. She was laughing in that photo, her eyes crinkled at the corners and her hair coming loose from the careless bun in which she’d knotted it.
“I’ll grab it.” Abe picked up the phone. “David, what do you want?” he asked with the casual rudeness that was only acceptable among men who’d been friends for so long that politeness would be considered a sign of trouble. “When? Yeah, I’ll tell Noah. We’re going to that Italian place.”
A pause.
“Fuck you, man.” Abe laughed and hung up. “He’s bragging about not needing to date us now he has Thea.”
“If ever a man deserved to win his woman,” Noah said, “it’s David.” The drummer had been crazy in love with the band’s tough-as-nails publicist since forever. One look and boom, he’d been a goner. Noah, Abe, and Fox had all watched that love grow deeper and more indelible day by day and had winced silently when Thea appeared oblivious.
Turned out she wasn’t. The way she looked at David… Noah would’ve never believed Molly’s sister had such tenderness in her. It was obvious she thought David hung the moon. “What did he want?”
“To invite us over on Sunday afternoon for a barbeque. He and Thea are talking wedding stuff and they want to torture us.” Abe folded his arms across his chest, his muscles bulging. “Me, I’m running off to Vegas if I’m ever stupid enough to walk down the aisle again.”
Noah snorted. “Your mom would scalp you, and you’d whimper like a baby.”
Abe was silent for a while. “Actually, I think she’d be fine with it. Sarah and I had the big wedding, and you know what my mom asked me the day of my wedding?” The keyboard player stared through the windshield. “If Sarah was a woman I’d run off with if given the chance.” He shook his head. “I laughed back then, but she was serious. She wanted to know if I loved Sarah enough that I’d do that, just take off with her.”
Noah didn’t know how to react. Abe’s marriage and divorce were treacherous waters. The divorce had led him back into the cocaine habit he’d managed to quit six months earlier, then later into alcohol. The marriage, on the other hand, had seemed happy enough. Sarah had never quite meshed with the band, but they’d all accepted her because she was Abe’s.
“Would you? Have run off with her?” he finally asked, knowing he’d be no kind of friend if he didn’t step through this unexpectedly open door.
Even as he asked the question, Noah knew his own answer when it came to Kit. If he’d been normal, if he hadn’t been so ugly inside, he’d have sweet-talked her to Vegas in a heartbeat. He’d have lied and cheated and charmed just so she’d be his. And he’d have woken every morning feeling like the king of the fucking world.
Chapter 11
Abe’s own answer took a long time in coming. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “No secret that I wasn’t in a good headspace when I married Sarah.” Grief thickened his voice. “Not that it matters. She didn’t exactly hang around when I wasn’t the perfect rock-star trophy husband anymore.”
Noah knew Abe was referring to his problems with drug addiction. “You know I have your back, man, but living with a cocaine addict can’t have been easy.” Abe had once punched Noah while in the fog of drugs; Noah had no idea what had gone on behind closed doors between Abe and Sarah, but he did know that she’d changed from a hopeful, somewhat shy twenty-one-year-old to a brittle, angry twenty-four-year-old by the time of their divorce.
“Yeah well, she landed on her feet.” The furious undertone to Abe’s voice made Noah’s instincts prickle. Until right then, he hadn’t believed Abe was hung up on Sarah; they’d parted in too much anger, their divorce a battleground of lawyers and bitter demands.
Sarah had asked for Abe’s keyboard collection even though she didn’t play. Abe¸ in turn, had accused her of cheating when Sarah just wasn’t the cheating kind. In the end, he’d kept his keyboards and Sarah had suddenly caved and accepted a settlement after months of refusing to sign the divorce papers.
At the time, David had wondered if the two were drawing things out because they didn’t actually want to be divorced. Noah had disagreed, especially since Sarah had been pregnant with another man’s baby by then, but now…
“I don’t know,” he said. “Her fiancé’s a bit of an asshole who keeps her on a short leash from what I’ve heard.”
Abe went very, very still. “He hurting her?”
“No signs of that—all I heard is that the guy’s a control freak,” Noah said evenly, suddenly dead certain Abe’s feelings for Sarah ran far deeper than the other man had ever admitted. Maybe his marriage had simply become collateral damage in the devastating loss that had scarred Abe the same year he married.
“He’s a smug fuck too.” Abe’s words were dark. “You should grab that parking spot up ahead. We’re not likely to get anything closer.”
Noah parked, and the two of them got out to walk the rest of the way. They hadn’t bothered to disguise themselves since the worst that would likely happen in this low-key neighborhood would be a teenager or two asking for an autograph. A minute later, they passed a lanky boy strumming his guitar as he sat on the stoop in front of a small, neatly kept apartment building.
The kid’s double take was funny enough that Noah walked up to him and, taking the guitar, strummed a few bars. “Here’s where you’re faltering.” He’d heard it as they walked. “This is what you do to fix it.” Putting his fingers on the strings, he showed the kid how to compensate for the fact he had a pinky that was missing its top half.
The kid’s eyes locked on his fingers, deep grooves between his eyebrows. Taking the guitar from Noah when he held it out, the boy did exactly what Noah had demonstrated. The smile that bloomed on his face was worth all the shit that came with fame. “I didn’t think I could do that,” he said, repeating the riff before he looked up, hope incandescent in his deep brown eyes. “You think I could be like you? Go all the way to the top?”
Noah wasn’t sure he should be encouraging a sweet, normal kid to join his world, but dreams were dreams. “Don’t see why not.” He tapped a finger against the boy’s temple. “Trick is not to try to do what everyone else says you should do—you have to figure out your own unique style. That’s what I did.”