RUSH (City Lights, #3)(66)
Deacon waved his hand in front of Noah’s face and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks.
“How’ve you been, Deacon?” Noah said, sounding strangely subdued. “It’s good to hear your voice, man.”
“I’ve been good. Really f*cking good, as a matter of fact.”
Deacon asked to steal a chair from the next table. The couple hardly had a chance to reply before he took it and slid its back up against our table. He straddled his long legs on either side and rested his arms on the back, like he was settling in to stay awhile. Under the table, my hands strangled the napkin in my lap.
Deacon stared at Noah, still shaking his head. “Unreal. It’s been…what? Six months?”
“Just about,” Noah said. “Deacon McCormick, this is Charlotte Conroy—”
“Fuck me, where are my manners?” Deacon laughed. He turned to me, his eyes raking me up and down. I felt the trail of his gaze like slime on my skin. “Sweet Charlotte, pleasure to meet you.”
He offered his hand. I reluctantly took it.
“You know Noah from the magazine?” I asked.
“Yes, indeed, and can I just tell you, in a business chock-full of crazy motherf*ckers, this guy right here was the bat-shit craziest of us all!”
Deacon reached out and clapped his hand on Noah’s shoulder. I flinched and so did Noah, and I thought for sure he would toss Deacon on his ass—I sure hoped he would. But Noah only listened as his friend unspooled a story about scuba diving in Australia and an encounter with a great white shark. A faint, pained smile ghosted over Noah’s lips as Deacon spoke.
“We were all shitting our suits, and Lake, here, looked like he was about to put a leash on the damn thing and take it home.”
“It wasn’t that big of a shark,” Noah said to me, as if sensing I wasn’t impressed.
Deacon laughed. “Liar. This man was a legend,” he told me.
Noah winced again at the was. Deacon didn’t notice. His eyes suddenly widened and he yanked dramatically on the curls of his hair as a thought occurred to him.
“Goddamn, Yuri is going to blow a gasket to know you’re here! Are you going to stop by PXHQ? You have to! The whole gang will flip to see you walk through the door!”
“Aren’t they out on assignment?” Noah asked. “Our gang, I mean? Billy and Logan and all those guys?”
“Billy’s in Russia, Logan’s in…New Zealand, I think? And Polly’s gearing up for the X Games in August. They’re the last to trickle in to the city.”
“Everyone’s coming here?”
“Dude! The Global Ball is in two weeks, and this year it’s going to be here,” Deacon cried. “Grand Empire Ballroom, in the grand f*cking Empire State Building. Hell, I almost guessed you were here for the party.”
“I don’t work at Planet X, anymore,” Noah said, and I heard the longing in his voice, faint but there. “You know that.”
“Hey, you took a nasty fall, bro,” Deacon said, instantly solemn. “The fact that you’re still alive is a goddamn miracle, and I know it wasn’t easy on you, the whole recovery. I also know you didn’t mean any of that shit you said to me back in the hospital. You had some issues to work out and I respect that.”
Deacon looked at me and winked, all solemnity flying out the window. “But you got this luscious little gal taking care of you, and you’re better, right? You gotta come! It is going to be one crazy rager. And who knows what might happen on the job front? I’m telling you, Yuri will cry to see you. He can’t stop talking about how great your articles were, and he won’t stop bitching at the rest of us to step up our game.”
“It’d be good to talk to Yuri again,” Noah said, and for some reason, my stomach felt leaden with dread. I couldn’t say why exactly, but I didn’t want Noah having anything more to do with Planet X.
It’s not the magazine, it’s only because Deacon’s a scumbag, I told myself, but it didn’t do a thing to dispel my unease. I looked uncertainly to Noah, wishing I could get a look from him—some hint about how he was absorbing all of this, but his eyes were hidden behind the sunglasses, and I wasn’t sure they’d be able to tell me anything anyway.
“Yuri wants to see you,” Deacon was saying, ticking off names on his thick fingers, “Jonesy says you’re the only reason he survived Cabo that one year…remember? He drank himself stupid on the roof of the hacienda? Would’ve croaked if you hadn’t talked him down.”
Deacon turned to me. “We always gave Noah shit because he never drank, but that night Jonesy was lucky one of us was sober enough to help the poor bastard out. None of the rest of us knew what to say.”
“You mean you talked him down? From…jumping?” I asked Noah, but Deacon answered.
“Oh, who the f*ck knows? Jonesy’s always so dramatic, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was just doing it for the attention.”
Now I wished Noah could read my eyes, but Deacon was still going.
“Who else? A shit-ton of the usual hotties…Oooh la la! Valentina will be there. I’m sure she can’t wait to see you again, good buddy. But hold up, are you off the market?” He looked between Noah and me and wagged his eyebrows.
Noah started to reply when Deacon jokingly elbowed him. “That just means more for me. Hell, poor Lake! Can’t even look-but-don’t touch!”