RUSH (City Lights, #3)(63)

“So do I,” I said, thinking of my blown audition. “But I feel…hopeful.”

“Yeah,” Noah said. “Hope. Gradations of darkness.”

I could hardly keep my eyes open. “Hmmm?”

“Something someone told me once.”

He held me tighter and I burrowed into him, inhaling, letting his clean scent carry me to sleep where I dreamt, and in my dreams I was soaring.





ACT II: Allegro





Chapter Twenty-One


Noah

She’d gone downstairs, but I could still smell her on my pillows, on the sheets, on my skin. I lay, cocooned in the blankets, in the scent of her, my body remembering the feel of her and wanting more. Wanting everything, wanting her completely, in every way, now and into some unknown stretch of time.

My future with Charlotte, I realized, was the last undiscovered country I would ever travel. But I had amends to make before I could take a single step.

I found my phone on the bedside table and told it to call Lucien. I spoke with the old guy for twenty minutes. A good twenty minutes. I didn’t say everything I needed to say; I’d save that for when I was with him in person, but I said enough.

Plans made, we hung up and I threw off the covers. I made my way across the room, to the very back of my walk-in closet. I smelled the remnants of my favorite cologne hanging in the air, felt the pants and suit jackets hanging all around me. All designer threads, usually worn for some fancy Planet X event. A pang of regret slammed into my chest. I wondered what they were doing over at the magazine. The HQ was here in the city. My former co-workers were there. My former friends too; I’d steadfastly ignored every single message from anyone since rehab. They were nearby, going about their business, planning trips, working on articles.

I should be there. Or better, out on assignment somewhere, feeling wind tear at me while I jump or ski or glide over some vast horizon bursting with color.

The anger started to burn and I almost let it catch. But then I thought of Charlotte and I swallowed it down. Keep going, I thought, the same way I used to mentally boost myself during PT. Just keep going.

I felt my way to the back corner of the closet and found what I’d come for.

I hefted the cane in my right hand and unfolded it. Forty-six inches of aluminum, with two large sections covered in white reflector tape—or so the counselors told me. The handle was black—more hearsay—and it had a loop of nylon at the top to go around the wrist. The cane—or white stick, they called it—was retractable and lightweight and I f*cking hated it.

I nearly threw it back in the corner. Instead I used it to find my way to the dresser. I told myself it didn’t make anything easier; the closet was small. Only an idiot would get lost in it. But I had to admit, I felt kind of good holding the cane. Safer, somehow.

On top of the dresser I found an old baseball cap. Under my fingers, the raised stitching on the front resolved itself into an N superimposed on a Y. Blue cap, white thread. I put it on and turned it backwards. My hair hid the scars on the back of my head—also raised and distinct—but one can’t be too careful.

I opened the top dresser drawer and felt around amid the cufflinks, the expensive watches I would never wear again, and the money clips. I found the pair of sunglasses my sister, Ava, had bought for me when I’d gotten out of rehab. She said they were Tom Fords, Leo style, in black. That meant jack shit to me, but they felt expensive. I’d nearly smashed them under my heel when she gave them to me, to show her I wasn’t going to play the part of the considerate blind guy who doesn’t want to freak anyone out with his blank stare. As if I went anywhere. No, I was just being a pain in the ass. Now that I was going to go out into the world for real, the thought of my aimless stare drawing attention made my skin itch.

I slipped the glasses on. They felt light but sturdy. I wondered what I looked like in them.

I wondered if I could forget what I looked like.

Charlotte called up to me. “Ready?”

No. But I’m trying, baby. I really am.

“On my way,” I called back and went out.





Chapter Twenty-Two


Charlotte

I nearly fainted to see Noah come downstairs in a baseball cap, sunglasses, and holding a cane. He wore a pair of stylishly worn-out blue jeans, and a long-sleeve black cotton shirt that fit tightly over his torso, accentuating everything. I stood in the second floor living room, slack-jawed as he approached.

“You’re staring at me, aren’t you?” he asked. An echo of the first time I’d met him, but this time there was no bitterness in his voice, and a small smile graced his lips.

“As if I can help it,” I said. “I’m going to need to borrow that cane to beat away the women. They’re going to come flocking to this whole adorable, backwards-baseball-cap-wearing-blind-guy thing you got going on here.”

He smirked. “Right. The cliff dive was just an elaborate ploy to pick up chicks.”

That was the first time he’d spoken of the accident so lightly. My heart swelled.

“I’m not a big fan of covering up those amazing eyes of yours,” I told him, “but you look…sexy.”

“Mmm,” he said, running hands down my bare arms. “What are you wearing?”

“Blue blouse, sleeveless. Billowy cotton pants, beige. Sandals.”