Why was I at the bar? Beau and Rachel didn’t want me there.  I missed Everly. And sitting in a bar surrounded by drunk people while nursing a Coke was getting really old. 

I shouldn’t have come. I needed to leave. I was in the middle of standing up to tell that to Beau when it happened. 

I saw a fucking ghost. 

She floated in with her head held high, but I knew her and I could see the panic underneath her polished facade. She gave the whole place a practiced sweep of her eyes. 

Like she was used to casing the joint. 

Like she’d been at this for a while.

I stood stock still and stared. Had someone spiked my drink? Beau’s dangerous rumble broke into my thoughts. “Oh, what the fuck...”

“So she is here,” I muttered to him under my breath. “I’m not imagining this?”

“She’s here,” my brother said in a voice I’d never heard from him before. “And I think she sees you.”

She did. It was momentarily gratifying to see that she looked just as shocked to find me as I was to be found. 

“Gabe,” she called. 

I cleared my throat. “Noelle.”

It made no sense that she was here. My mind insisted this wasn’t happening even as she leaped into my arms, throwing herself around my neck. I’m not a complete asshole. I caught her so she wouldn’t go slamming to the ground. But I immediately put her back down and stepped back. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I hissed. 

I’d watched her new video and been proud of how I’d felt nothing. But watching her didn’t compare at all to the tornado of emotions that came from seeing her.

And remembering. 

She spoke in that little pouty, breathless voice she’d always use to cajole me. “I heard you were hurt.”

“I’m better now.” I folded my arms across my chest. 

This bothered her. “I see that,” she said softly. “I wanted to come earlier.”

I snorted. “It’s okay, Noelle. You don’t have to lie.”

She pressed her lips together. “Then I should have come earlier.” It sounded like she was trying to apologize.  

This was a surprise. I had never known Noelle to admit fault. Ever. And that made me wary. “Okay.”

“Gabe?”

Fuck. “Noelle, I really don’t know why you’re here, but...”

“I’m here because I’ve missed you,” she interrupted smoothly.

Beau swore under his breath. I shook my head at her. “No,” I said firmly. “This isn’t happening. You need to get the fuck out of my bar. My town. Get the fuck out of my whole state, Noelle. I’m serious.”

The tears and hysterics I braced for never came. She looked the same, but something about her had fundamentally changed. A layer of artifice had been stripped away. There was strength and wariness in those blue eyes that hadn’t been there before, and something wounded cowered under her skin. 

She turned her palms up in a gesture of surrender. “I need to tell you something.”

“I don’t want to hear excuses and I don’t want you to tell me you can explain.” My blood was heating up. “There’s no way you could explain how you said you loved me and then turned around and had Bennett’s cock in your mouth.”

She winced and glanced over at Beau, who stared at her implacably. Rachel had her hand over her mouth. Noelle reddened. “Gabe, can we go somewhere and talk in private?”

I took three big steps to the left and leaned against the bar. “This works for me,” I said. “Go ahead. Talk.”

Keeping her head held high, she turned and looked at my brother. “It’s good to see you again, Beau. I’ve missed you guys.”

Beau stayed silent, but the set of his jaw didn't change He had my back and if I called on him, he’d be there for me in whatever way I needed.

 In a way, I was impressed with Noelle’s guts right now. She’d come to my home turf. She had to know she’d be outnumbered.  She was here anyway. 

“Okay,” she said, sitting down on a barstool. “Thank you for letting me talk.” Then she turned and looked me full in the eye.  “I’m not going to lie to you and tell you you didn’t see what you saw.”

This wasn’t what I was expecting. I was ready for a fight. I itched to make her feel half as shitty as I’d felt the day she betrayed me. Her clear-eyed admission made a lump form in my throat.  “Okay,” I said, consciously unclenching my fist.

Noelle watched my hand. She took a deep breath and looked straight ahead. Not meeting my eyes seemed to make the words come a little easier. “You saw what you saw. I was doing what you saw me doing. But I didn’t want it.”

For the second time this minute I felt like she’d punched me in the gut. “What?” My eyelid twitched. “He was forcing you?” I didn’t love her anymore, but I would kill him for this without hesitating. 

She darted a frightened look at me. “No, not like that. It wasn’t…” She swallowed. “Rape?” The word came out like a question. “Not exactly.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Clearly, I don’t either.” Her laugh was nothing like the high, breathless sound she used to make when we were together. Was I hearing her real laugh now? Was this clear-eyed, frank-talking woman the real Noelle St. Lucia? 

Who was it that I had been in love with? Was she a dream I’d made up in my head? This bitter woman laughing ruefully as she blew out a resigned sigh was nothing like the carefree girl who’d made me feel like I was drunk. “It started out as a ‘I scratch your back you scratch mine’ sort of deal,” she said, darting another glance at me. “Literally. He liked it when I scratched his back.”

“Fucking gross.”

“I know.” She heaved a sigh. “But I told myself it was fine. A little weird, but what was it compared with what he could do for me?” She shook her head and shot a grateful glance to the bartender for setting a wineglass in front of her. She gulped it like a frat boy doing a funnel and went on. “He was this paunchy, middle-aged loser, you know? He was always telling me how beautiful I was, how I was this goddess who was gracing him with my presence.” She laughed, a bitter, acid sound. “He let me think that I was the one who was using him.”

As if fortified by the wine, she looked at me full on. “You remember how he set us up?”

I nodded tightly, not trusting my voice to say anything aloud. 

She drained her glass. “Before I met you, he coached me. Told me all the wonderful things you could do for my career. Being with you was the shot in the arm I needed, for visibility,” she confessed. 

“Fuck,” I hissed. Jonah had always accused her of that very thing. Using me. Lost in love, I’d refused to believe him.

Her hand brushed my arm. “No, Gabe,” she said, as if she could read my thoughts. “It wasn’t like that. I did love you. Oh my god, I loved you so much. But the more in love I fell, the more jealous Bennett got. He held it over me, threatening my career, all the work I’d done, the contacts he’d made for me, the deals he’d cut. He’d pull them all if I didn’t keep him happy. So I had to...keep him happy.” She glanced at her wine glass again, but it was empty. “First it was the back scratching, then it was...kisses. Then...” She looked disgusted. “I showed him my breasts once after a particularly nasty blowout. And the first time I...I...” She took a shuddering breath. “The first time I gave him oral was when we got back from the island.” She shook her head. “He was jealous, I think. Mad that I got away from him. He told me that my album had stalled.” The bartender brought her another glass of wine and she clutched it gratefully. “You remember how hard I was pushing you for the duet?”

“Yes,” I said. Regret turned somersaults in my belly. I was torn between disgust at her and disgust at myself for being so far up my own ass that I didn’t see how she’d been wrenched around like this. 

“It was the only thing I could think of to get free of him. I thought that if I was on your album, I’d make my name. And...and I thought maybe if we were able to spend more time together, stuck in a studio and everything, you’d be able to keep me safe from him.”

“Fucking hell, Noelle.” The world slanted sideways, and I gripped the bar tightly to keep from sliding with it. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She threw up her hands in helpless surrender. “What was I going to say? That I’d been cheating on you since the moment we met? I thought I could control it when it started. Bennett—you know how he was, acting like he was your friend, wanting to fit in. He’d get these puppy-dog eyes when he thought we were ignoring him. He was always saying he should get more credit for getting us together, asking for hugs. Telling me how nice he was being. He made me feel like it was always my choice. Saying we had to work together, look out for each other. The more attention I gave him, the harder he worked for me. The first time he kissed me he tried to play it off for laughs, like it was an accident. I felt like maybe I’d misinterpreted, and you didn’t say or do anything so I thought I’d imagined it. I used my body. It was part of what I did. I got the results I wanted, right? The first time he put my hand on his dick, I wanted to go to you right then and there. But he reminded me that I was in a bind. I was touring with you. If I told, I’d lose my allowance. And I’d already put my career on hold for you.”

“I never asked you to.” Guilt made me sound sullen.

“You wanted me there, Gabe. You always said how I was the only thing that made you feel alive during the touring. The only thing that made sense. What else was I supposed to think other than you needed me?”

I knew I would sound like a prick but I said it anyway. “You needed me more.”

“Of course I did.” She admitted it readily. “I was using you and I’ll never forgive myself for not loving you the way I should have. I know that now. But I have always loved you.”

I tried to look back and see her loving me. “All I remember is ‘Gabe get me on the record, Gabe buy this for me, Gabe talk to Bennett for me.’ Seems like you could have done some talking to Bennett yourself.”

“I felt like I started out as a lion tamer, but the lion turned around and ate me alive. I didn’t want to have sex with him.”

“Did he force you?”

“I never said no. But I never said yes, either. I thought I had to. To have a career. To stay close to you. I thought I was doing something that would get me something in return, and all I got was losing you.”

Tears streamed down her face. I had loved her. I’d wake up next to her and think she was the prettiest thing in the world. I’d loved her like a drowning man loves a life preserver, but I couldn’t remember a single thing I loved about her other than how she made me feel.

I loved Everly for who she was, not what she did for me. I loved her fierce scowls and her amazing strength. I loved how fucking smart she was and how she forced me to be smart, too. I loved how she never complained, how she took everything in stride. I loved what a fucking wildcat she was in bed, and I wanted to be with her right now. 

I stood up. Painfully and slowly, but I stood up. “Noelle.”

She shook her head, trying to head me off before I could say anything more. “I want you to know that I’m free of him.” She turned to me. “He trapped us both, in a way. You got free of the pills he hooked you on.” She grabbed my hand before I could snatch it away. “I heard you went to rehab. I followed the news about you and I’m so proud of you. You’re free of him and now so am I.”

I was numb. Shell-shocked. “You are?” I asked dully. 

She sipped her wine, her composure returning. “I don’t care anymore,” she declared. “I released the song without his backing. The money is mine and I’m using it to sue to get out of all my contracts.” She took a deep breath. “And that’s why I came back.”

“That’s why?”

“I’m free.” She leaned forward, so close I could tell that she still used her same shampoo. “For the first time since you’ve known me, I am not beholden to anyone but myself.” She brushed her hand along her side. “This is me. The real me. And I miss you, Gabe.” A bright, fierce light danced in her eyes. “I miss us, and more than that, I miss what we could have been.” She slipped her palm into mine. “I want to start over again. The two of us. I want to have something real with you.”

“Noelle.” My tongue was thick.

“Please don’t say no, Gabe.” Her voice caught. Noelle had cried plenty of times when we were together, but for the first time I understood that these were her real tears. “Please don’t leave again. When you walked away without letting me explain, I wanted to die. I knew how badly I’d hurt you, and I am so sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, standing up. She shook her head, a mute no no no, and my heart wanted to leap from my chest. “Noelle, I want you to know I’m sorry too. For not keeping you safe when I should have.”

“Gabe. Gabe, please.”

I swallowed. The hurt from seeing her like that burned like fire, even years later. But her words hadn’t extinguished the blaze. Everly had.

I touched her hand, wondering if there was anything there at all, and when I had her little wrist closed in my fingers I felt it.

Nothing.

“Noelle, I am sorry—”

Her shoulders slumped.

“—but I don’t love you.”

“Gabe.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Thank you for giving me closure. Thank you for coming all this way to check on me.” I felt the corner of my mouth tug a little. “I always did wonder how you’d look in Crown Creek.”

She was crying freely, but she had a proud lift to her chin when she spoke. “How do I look?”

“Out of place,” I said. “This isn’t the place for you. I’m not the guy for you, either.”

“You always wanted me to come to Crown Creek. I came.”

“You came. I’m sorry, Noelle.”

“Where am I going to go, Gabe?”

“You’re smarter and stronger than you realize. You can go anywhere and you’ll be a huge success. You don’t need to ride my coattails, and you don’t need to listen to Bennett’s lies. You can do it yourself, okay?”

She sobbed and sagged into my arms. Her tears soaked my shirt as I held her stiffly but gently. As she cried, I made a list in my head of how I could help her, how we could take down Bennett together…but that would only give her false hope. 

The only way she’d be free of Bennett was to be free of me as well. “You’re okay,” I told her, patting her gently. “You’re going to be just fine.”

She pulled back and smiled at me, wiping away her tears. I gave her an encouraging nod and then, out of habit, out of friendship, I reached up and brushed away a piece of hair that was sticking to her face.

That’s when I caught sight of Everly, standing behind Noelle, face white.

How long had she been there? Did she see us fighting?

Or had she only walked in during the embrace? Did she only see the moment I reached out and tenderly touched my ex’s face?

“Everly.” I stepped around Noelle and went to her. “You’re here. I thought you had your rotation tonight.” Fuck, why did I say it like that? It only made me sound guilty. 

“Gabe?” Noelle spoke up at the worst fucking time.

“We’re done now,” I snapped at her over my shoulder.

Her face, which had looked calm and peaceful, crumpled. Fuck. I was fucking this all up. “Beau!” I called. “Can you take Noelle...”

My brother moved, but it was too late. Everly had heard me. “So that’s Noelle,” she said. Her lips were completely bloodless and her hands shook. She looked on the verge of an attack. 

“Baby, no. It was nothing,” I soothed. “I mean, yes. That was Noelle, but she just showed up tonight. I had no idea—” Everything I said made me sound more like a cheating fucker. “Everly, baby, I love you.”

Her eyes glazed over. She hadn’t heard me. She was looking over at Noelle, staring, even, and as she did I watched my girl shut down. “I’m such a fucking idiot. You’ve been acting so weird, but I—” Her hands went to her mouth. “You guys were together when you were using, right?”

“Right, but that has nothing to do with—”

“It makes sense,” she said faintly. Her eyes flicked back up to me. Then she lifted a proud chin. “Liar,” she hissed, and made for the door.