Rock Redemption (Rock Kiss, #3)(20)

“Wow.” The pimply-faced teenage cashier’s mouth fell open. “Are you really you?”

Noah didn’t perform for the fame, but he also didn’t disdain his fans. They were the reason he could be free to live the music inside him; without that music, he’d be dead or huddled in some damn psychiatric ward. “Depends who you think I am.”

The teenager gulped. “I recognize that voice and that tattoo on your wrist.” Hand trembling, he put down the drink he’d been about to scan. “Wow. C-can I…” He just held up his phone in a wordless question.

“Sure.” Taking the phone since he was taller, Noah snapped a photo of himself with his arm around the kid’s shoulders, the teenager giving two thumbs-up and grinning so hard his face was about to crack.

The photo-taking attracted the attention of the night manager and the only other clerk on duty. By the time Noah finally left, traffic had thickened as early commuters tried to beat the chaos of LA traffic, but it was still manageable and he arrived right on time.

Kit came out of the house as he stepped out of the car. Dressed in jeans that hugged her legs, flats, and a kind of floaty tunic top in white with three-quarter-length sleeves, her hair in a ponytail, she looked fresh and pretty and like his Kit. Not Kathleen Devigny, Oscar-nominated actress on the way to superstardom. Just Kit.

“I wasn’t sure what to bring,” she said. “I have my phone and some money. Anything else?”

“No, we’re good.” He didn’t fight the happiness that was sunshine in his blood; Kit alone could make him feel that way, as if he was an ordinary man out with a woman he adored.

“Let me set the alarm. I’ve already alerted security we’re heading out.” A glance over her shoulder. “I told them not to follow today.”

Noah braced his arm against the top of the SUV, shaken by her trust. “I’ll park the SUV in the hangar so no one can get to it while we’re in the air.” Up there, she’d be safe in his hands.

Five minutes later, she was snug in the SUV.

After grabbing coffee from a drive-through, they drove in silence for over twenty minutes. It wasn’t as awkward as dinner had been, but neither was it as comfortable as they’d once been together. Noah had destroyed that. He’d done it deliberately with his eyes wide open. He’d hurt the one person he never wanted to hurt… and he knew without a doubt that it was the best thing he could’ve ever done for Kit.

No matter what happened from now on, she’d never forget or forgive the cruelty of his actions. It would keep her at a safe distance, where he couldn’t hurt her in far more vicious and irrevocable ways. Where he couldn’t stain her with his ugliness.

His hand tightened on the steering wheel. “Do you like the superhero movie?” he asked, needing to hear her voice, to have that much of her at least. “I mean, I know the green gunk and early starts got old, but do you have a good feeling about the final product?”

She shifted in her seat, the movement sending her scent his way, the freshness of soap and water licked with a faint trace of her perfume. It was subtle and elegant but with a hint of the earth, exactly like Kit.

“It’s good fun, has amazing stunts, and the plot makes sense, wonder of wonders,” she said after a thoughtful pause. “There was even some actual emotional acting required.” Her tone was a little too nonchalant.

“The script was phenomenal, wasn’t it?”

“Yep.” She laughed at being caught out. “Great cast too. Even if Cody did keep hitting on me.”

“Maybe you should hit back, make him uncomfortable.”

“Hah, nothing makes Cody uncomfortable.” Sounding more at ease, more like herself, she told him about the stunts she’d done herself. “The best was sliding off a motorcycle. Worth all the time it took me to learn it.”

“Jesus, Kit.” His fingers squeezed the steering wheel. “That’s dangerous.”

“That’s why it’s called a stunt. I ended up with a scraped elbow but no other bruises.”

Fighting his instinctive protective response, he said, “I’ll be first in line to see the movie.”

She didn’t ask him to go with her. No surprise. Kit had never asked him to accompany her to an event. He understood why: at first, there’d been too much chemistry between them, the sparks hot enough to burn. Then… then it had become too important.

Noah would give anything to stand next to her while she shone bright, but he didn’t trust himself to be able to keep his emotions hidden when she glowed in front of him. He was f*cking proud of her, and he wanted to tell the whole world. Especially the *s who turned up their noses and belittled her accomplishments by insinuating that her parents had bankrolled her.

He’d seen her work double shifts at the diner, watched her schlep to audition after audition and come back disappointed but determined to try again. Not once had she fallen back on the Ordaz-Castille name—and since she’d made no attempt to court publicity during her teens, no one had recognized her. She’d simply been another young, hopeful actress.

Kit had earned her place in the limelight, and she’d done it on her own terms.

“Did you like New Zealand?” she said before the lengthening silence became painful, full of all the words they couldn’t say to one another. “I never asked.”