Under the Cornerstone (34 page)

“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
.”

After all these years, she finally admits she hated seeing me with all the women. Most I tried to hide from her, but she heard the stories anyway. I was never with a woman in front of Noles, but women tell their stories to whoever will listen.

I make Noely come, and then I spill inside of the condom.

“You’ve always had me. Take me. Take me as I am and make me yours,” I beg.

Before she can answer me, Jimmy knocks on the door and upends my entire fucking world… again. He pulls Noely to the alleyway with Sabrina and Roxy in tow, while I head to the front of the bar.

“She’s outside,” Rich says.

“Is she the reason why?” Anna Belle asks as I step out into the Brooklyn night.

“Who?” I play dumb.

“Your friend Noely.”

“I’m in love with her,” I admit to this crazy bitch, hoping she’ll finally get the memo.

She leans in and kisses me, taking me by complete surprise.

I push her away immediately, “I didn’t want you here. I didn’t ask you to come. We aren’t together, Anna!”

“You said you loved me!” She screams.

“I never told you I loved you!”

“You did… when we were making love!” She screams loud enough for every fucking Borough to hear her.

“Make love to you?” I chuckle at this crazy cunt. “Bitch, I came in your mouth and I was thinking about Noely the entire time. If I said anything, it wasn’t to you. I don’t fucking want you, and I don’t know how much more clear I can be about it!”

She starts to cry, and I almost feel bad. Really, almost, but I can’t. She’s psycho. I walk away from her and head back into the bar. I need a few minutes to calm down before I go to Noe, so I help pack up the equipment. I apologize to Saul for all the bullshit tonight, and then give Jimmy a call.

“She’s not with me,” he answers the phone.

“Where’s she at?” I ask quickly.

“Wanted to be alone,” he answers with sadness in his voice.

“Why? What happened? She was fine when she left with you,” I start freaking out in the alleyway behind Saul’s.

“I tried to stop her from hearing or seeing, but she saw you and Anna Belle kissing. She heard the girl tell you that you said you loved her. It fucked her up, man.”

“No. That’s not what happened, Jim,” I defend myself.

“I know that. She doesn’t. I tried to hang around. I followed her for a while, but she lost me around the crowd of that new club down the block from her house. I’m looking up at her place now, but there’s no lights on,” he says.

“Fuck!” I scream. “Okay. I’ll be there in a few. If you see her, keep her there.”

“Will do.”

I hang up and run out into the street at full speed. I run towards her apartment, praying like hell she’ll be there. I call her phone ten times on the way over.

Nothing.

I find Jimmy on the sidewalk across from her apartment.

“Anything?” I ask him.

He shakes his head.

“I’ve gotta find her, man,” I almost sob.

“I know,” he says with so much sorrow, something I’ve never heard from him.

I’ll have to sort him out later.

We climb the stairs to her apartment and knock like hell on the door. I call her phone, but no sounds come from inside. We both text her, and then Jimmy calls Rich and Ryan to help find her. I leave a note on the door.

Noe,

It’s not what you think. Please call me back. I love you.

Johnny

“Johnny, wake up,” a sweet voice calls out to me.

I open my eyes to find Sabrina’s sweet face smiling down at me sadly.

“Where’s Noe?” I ask.

“She’s gone, Johnny,” she answers.

“Gone? Where? Why? Where is Noles?” I ask and sit up from Rich’s couch.

They’re all sitting there looking at me with pity… Jimmy, Rich, Ryan, Aaron, Saul, Roxy, and Sabrina.

“She went to California,” Sabrina finally answers.

“Why in the fuck would she go to California?!!” I scream.

She jumps.

“Easy,” Rich attempts to calm me.

I wave him off, pull my phone out of my pocket and dial Noely.

“You’ve reached Noely, leave a message,” she announces after only one ring.

I call again.

“She’s still in the air,” Roxy says softly.

“No!” I yell and get into Roxy’s face. “Why is she going to California?”

“Back off, Johnny,” Jimmy warns.

“She took a job out there,” Roxy tells me.

“She’s fucking moving? She’s leaving Brooklyn? She left me?!!” I throw my phone across the room in a rage.

“Sit down!” Roxy says to me in a stern voice.

And because I don’t have shit else to do right now, I fucking sit down.

“You’re going to listen to me. I swear to all that’s fucking sacred in this world, if you interrupt me, I’ll deck you myself,” Roxy warns.

I nod my compliance.

“She took a short-term job in Los Angeles. After what she saw outside the bar with that skank, she was running. We didn’t stop her. She has the fucking right to run, but she’s not running from the damn truth. Your boy Jimmy over here led her to believe you were dating Annie Belle. Noely was fucking heartbroken, but she stayed to listen to you play. We begged her to stand on the side of the stage with us, but finally gave up. I wish to hell I didn’t walk away from her, because that little dicked motherfucker put his hands on her, but maybe it was all supposed to happen. When she walked out of that back room with you, I thought you finally fixed this shit. But standing outside of a bar and being forced to listen to another woman tell your man that he told her he loved her and that she loves him, isn’t easy for anyone to hear or watch. I know the whole story now, but Noe doesn’t. Can you fucking blame her for running?” Roxy ends her speech with her hand on her hip.

I look over at Jimmy, who is looking at the ground to avoid looking me in the eye, “What the fuck did you say to her?”

He looks up, swallows hard, and answers, “I told her you and Anna Belle had been dating for two months. It was a lie. I told Roxy and Sabrina the truth. I’ve called Noely a thousand times already to tell her the truth myself. I was trying to figure out how she really felt, so she’d fight for you. I fucked it up again. I’m so fucking sorry. I was honestly just trying to help.”

I stand up and then run across the room at him. I hit him square in the jaw and then we both tumble to the ground. Jimmy blocks his head, so I land my fist in his ribs as many times as I can before I’m pulled off.