“Before you say whatever you’re about to say,” Noah starts. “Don’t.”
I scrub a hand down my face.
“I’m not asking what happened between you two.” His voice is measured. He’s clearly thought about this. “If it did, you’re both adults. That’s your business, not mine.”
I blow out a breath and let the tension go.
“And by the lack of a response,” he says, “I’m guessing it did. Right. Moving on.”
There are voices in the background. I can make out Madison, then Rowan, who is louder and sounds like she has important information.
“Can you put Piper on?” Noah asks.
“She’s—yeah, hold on.”
When I turn, Piper is sitting up in bed with the sheet around her. Her hair is a mess, and she’s watching me with a cautious expression.
I hold the phone out and mouth:Your brother.
She frowns, but we can’t avoid it much longer, so I hold the phone out further. She takes it, switches to speaker, and accepts her fate.
“Hey, Noah,” she says. “I’m alive. I prom—”
“You’re famous!” It’s three voices at once, all of them loud.
Piper jerks the phone away from her face like it’s a small explosion. “What?”
“I’m watching a video right now,” Madison rambles. “It’s you on a stage with a band, playing a fiddle. The bar is going absolutely insane.”
“You’re a badass,” Rowan says from somewhere behind her.
“Wait.” Piper sits up straighter. “What are you talking about?”
“Someone uploaded it last night,” Noah says, cutting through. He’s calm, as usual. “There are about four different angles. It’s been shared—Madison, how many times?”
“The main one has two hundred thousand views,” Madison says. “And that was twenty minutes ago. Piper, it’s still going.”
Piper’s mouth opens. “Two hundred thousand?”
She looks at me with wide eyes. I’m standing at the window, watching her face process a landing that’s too big to handle all at once.
“Who recorded it?” she asks.
“Half the bar, by the looks of it,” Rowan says. “The main one is from the back. You can see the whole room. They are losing it in that video.”
I stay where I am and let them have the moment. Noah has gone quiet on his end. I can picture him sitting somewhere with a coffee, letting Madison and Rowan run their course.
Piper’s hand is over her mouth as she reads something on the screen. It’s a link Madison must have sent.
“Piper,” Rowan says. “Are you crying?”
“No,” she says, in a voice that is definitely crying.
“Oh, she’s crying,” Madison says softly.
“I’m not—it’s just—” She stops and presses her lips together. “Someone in the comments said…” She laughs, and it sounds wet. “Someone said, ‘Where has this woman been?’”
The room settles around that. I feel it, too. There she is, sitting in a hotel bed with messy hair and bright eyes, looking at twohundred thousand people who found something she nearly let go of.
