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Chapter Fifty-Six

"Can we talk?" Noah asked, as I stood gaping like a fish out of water.

The noise of everyone around had faded into a murmur, deep within my head. All I could hear was his voice. The voice that had always made me laugh one minute, then made my heart race the next. His green eyes were glinting in the way that had always felt like they did so just for me. For that split second, I was looking straight into his soul once again. Not the soul of a moody, mixed-up man who refused to let anyone in, not the professional lover for hire to the highest bidder, just Noah.

Nodding without saying anything in response, I followed him out of the room, down a long corridor with peeling paint and old posters of previous bands that had played at the Empire. At the end of the corridor, he opened the door to a small room containing only a sofa, a dressing table with a mirror, and one beaten-up, green leather chair.

"Not exactly the most glamorous dressing room, really," he smiled awkwardly, gesturing for me to take a seat on the zebra-print sofa.

Taking hold of the green chair opposite, Noah swung it round so that he was sat on it backwards, resting his arms across its back.

"So..." he started, "How have you been?"

The formality of his question forced a small snort of laughter to escape my nose. "I've been okay," I answered. "How about you?"

"Good," he replied.

"Cool."

The atmosphere lingering above us was so thick that I could almost feel the air closing in around me. I'd always enjoyed the tension between the two of us, but not this particular kind of tension. It was awkward. Forced. Not how it had ever been before.

As I racked my brain for something to say, Noah beat me to it.

"I miss you, Abi," he blurted out, scratching behind his ear.

I wanted to respond, but I didn't know what to say. On the one hand I was still so mad at him for keeping secrets, but on the other hand, I felt grateful. Grateful for the incredible opportunity with PCJ that he'd arranged. Grateful to him for teaching me how good my body could feel. Grateful for the way he had filled me with a confidence I'd never known before. But, most of all, I was grateful to him for allowing me to know real love, if only briefly.

"Say something, please," Noah said.

Letting out a deep breath, I looked down at my hands as I picked off the last traces of polish from a manicure at mum's salon. "I miss you too," I whispered.

"I thought you hated me?"

"I don't hate you, Noah," I sighed. "I'm still angry and confused, but I could never hate you."

Shifting to rest his elbows on the back of the chair, he pushed his fingers through his hair to hold his head in his hands. "It really is in the past, now," he began. "I swore to you I've stopped doing what I did, and I have. I'll never be able to change what I've done, but I'm working to be a better person now."

"I know that," I replied, "But if you'd just been honest with me from the start then-"

"Then you would have run a mile," he interrupted. "You were so naive, so innocent, I couldn't have just come out and said it, could I? 'Oh hey, I'm Noah. I'm in a band and I also sell sex to make a living.' That wouldn't exactly have gone down well."

I didn't mean to laugh, but the blunt summary of his life was so dry and to-the-point that I couldn't help it.

Looking up from my hands, I noticed he was now smiling, too.

"You're right," I said, "I would definitely have legged it and never come back."

"I had to get to know you, Abi. There was something from the start that made me want to find out more about you and become part of your world. Maybe, one day, even make you love me."