RUSH (City Lights, #3)(89)

Polly shook her head and sipped her drink that was a lot stronger than champagne. “It’s a f*cking shame. It’s almost too hard to see him here like that. Painful. He was one of the best.” She leaned over her arms, her gaze cast down. “This place isn’t for him. Not any more.”

Jonesy looked to me, his dark eyes serious. “We all loved him. We do love him. Management loved him. Hell, people in nowhere villages loved him. But now…”

“The ladies loved him,” Deacon chimed in a bit too late. “Casanova, that guy.”

Polly frowned at Deacon, then raised her pierced brow at me. “Are you and he…?”

“Yes,” I said. “And in fact, I’d better check on him. He needs…”

I let my words trail off, as I realized just then that I didn’t know what Noah needed.





Chapter Twenty-Eight


Charlotte

I searched the dim and crowded ballroom, and found Noah near the bar, leaning heavily on a pillar amidst a group of people, a cocktail in his hand. I slipped up beside him.

“It’s me,” I said. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

I turned him away from the crowds, and steadied him as he was already swaying. “You’re drunk.”

“Can you blame me?”

“They’re serving dinner now,” I said, watching a small army of waiters come out with plates of chicken or steak or vegetarian pasta. “You need to get some food in you, and then I think…I think we should leave.”

“I’m not eating in front of these people,” Noah said darkly.

“These people?” I crossed my arms. “You mean, the ones you were just talking and laughing with? Aren’t they your friends?”

“They are and they aren’t.” He drained his glass. “I need to talk to Yuri.” He forced a pained smile. “And you haven’t had your dance.”

“I don’t see how you’re going to accomplish either of those things if you keep boozing it up.”

“I know,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I feel like I’m on a cruise ship. The floor’s moving and I’m getting seasick.”

I leaned closer to him. “Are you enjoying this? Is this what you want?”

“It’s one night,” Noah said. “One night to prove I’m not a lost cause and then it’s over. Then I’m back.”

I bit my lip.

“Please, Charlotte,” he said, clutching my arm. “It’s like everything I left behind has been here the whole time, going on without me. But I can be here too. It doesn’t have to be over.”

I could hear the longing in his voice, and my heart ached for him. I nodded then caught myself. “Okay,” I said, “but under one condition. You don’t leave me alone with Deacon again.”

“Is he harassing you? He’s obnoxious but I’ve never known him to go too far.”

“Just promise me.”

“Anything, babe. Let’s head back.” He took a step then stopped. “Wait. Could you get me a seltzer with lime? Tell them to put it in a highball glass so it looks like a gin and tonic.”

I did as he asked, and we headed back to our table where the others were already eating. Yuri Koslov had returned as well, and he watched Noah with a peculiar look in his pale blue eyes; a half-sad, half-glad kind of glance. The older man caught me staring and flashed a warm smile. I liked him. Noah was right; he reminded me of Lucien. I just wished he wasn’t so drunk. Everyone was drunk and kept drinking, including Deacon, though his eyes never lost their sharpness. I felt them on me as Noah and I returned to our seats.

Noah’s dinner was steak, mine chicken. He struggled a little with cutting the meat. I didn’t dare offer to help and he gave up after one or two bites. I felt the others watching him, pitying him, not for his blindness—I thought if another blind person were among them, they’d treat him or her like anyone else. But Noah hadn’t been anyone else. He had been one of them, and now he was scarred and disabled—a walking example of the price they could pay the next time they jumped or dove or careened down a mountain. The more we sat among them, the more I felt this acutely. Noah was an outsider, now. Or worse. An exile. He had belonged and now he didn’t, and my heart ached for him. I knew they’d never accept him, not because he was blind, but because at one time, he wasn’t.

I wondered if Noah felt it too, and I guessed he did. Hardly anything slipped past his awareness, and when Polly passed a flask around, Noah abandoned his seltzer and took a long pull.

As the waiters cleared the dinner plates, I excused myself to use the restroom. I didn’t want to leave Noah but I couldn’t stand watching him torture himself another minute.

I stepped out of the ballroom, down a quieter hallway lined with plush couches and paintings in gilded frames. In the bathroom, I checked my reflection as a trio of women came in, each wearing a designer dress, their voices loud and sharp. They clustered around, gossiping as they touched up their makeup.

“Oh, hey, you’re with Noah Lake, right?” one asked, catching my eye in the mirror. “His assistant?”

“I’m Charlotte—”

“He’s completely blind, right? I can’t f*cking believe it,” said another, tucking a stray lock of auburn hair back into her up-do. “You didn’t know him from before but he was a legend around here,” she told me. “A legend.”